That's it..I'm Out!

[Charles Haber]

So we have been using sharepoint as our cloud file storage for years.  Never really loved it

• The only way to open file explorer is still via Internet Explorer
• Onedrive for Business only does sync (like dropbox).
• Trying to reliably map drive for users doesn't really stick and requires constant reauthentication with IE

But we used it.

When Teams came out, I was excited that we'd have the functionality of slack with the document repository.  This of course led me to Office 365 Groups (aka Outlook Groups).

At this point, I can't see Groups as anymore then a Kludge of hacked together parts

• You get a sharepoint document library but can't get to it via sharepoint...unless
  • you use IE and open the library with File Explorer (still can only do this via IE...are you kidding me)
  • When you do this, the "real" sharepoint page opens in the background (which can be dangerous)
• You get a public folder calendar...ok but O365 really doesn't like PF's
• You get an email address.  With Teams, this is kinda useless
• You get yammer....oh boy!

To migrate my old sharepoint data in, I exposed both libraries with File explorer and copied.  Great except I could never really get permissions correct for other members of the team.

So now on top of this, somehow inside of Teams, the "Files" tab has lost it's connection to my Group's storage.  I've given Microsoft a week to figure this out, but nada.

I've decided to move on to other solutions.  I won't name names, but it starts with an E and is a similar name to Microsoft's partner conference.  I wish Microsoft would just buy them.  They do cloud file so much better.  

I know that there are a ton of sharepoint legacy people out there, but Microsoft needs to replace the sharepoint engine behind groups and teams.  

Thank you for letting me rant.

Charlie...

[#2]

Good luck with the new platform, but let me disagree with many of the comments you have written in your post. I believe your bad experience with Groups, Teams and SharePoint are all related to the same conclusion: you have not had the chance of having someone explianing well how to use these services and platforms. Believe me when I say that there is not in the market a document management platform as SharePoint

[#3]

It takes indeed a bit of effort to implement SharePoint properly. It's unfortunately not a Next -> Next -> Finish  kind of application. 

In the last 10 years I've seen many SharePoint sites that should have had experts involved before they were wrongly implemented. Unfortunately this has given a very poor experience to many end users.

You find the same with developers. Many .Net developers doing the odd SharePoint project complain about SharePoint. Is that the fault of SharePoint?

Also, are you on first release? Disabling first release helps quite lot as well.

[#4]

Bye. Perhaps if you tried the preview of the OneDrive sync tool that syncs sharepoint/groups you would have a better experience.

Teams is a preview, some rough edges that are being worked on ready for release in the next few months.

[#5]

Sad to hear this. But for the school community, Office 365 has brought tremendous collaboration, communication and productivity options for schools. The Groups themselves, with built in OneNote are a phenomenal tool. Within a month of introduction we had 100% uptake in all grade levels and departments. Last week we hosted an international conference with 125 educators and OneNote, built in to Groups, Microsoft Classroom, Sway, Forms and other components are beautiful products which our faculty and students are using increasingly every day. 

We had locally hosted Sharepoint and our users didn't engage with it. But the Office 365 iteration has been a game changer for us. We had so little uptake of locally hosted Sharepoint that our community really only knows the cloud solution.

[#6]

Agreed, Office 365 Groups is one of the best features of Office 365 in general. There are many rough edges to it true. 

Any FirstRelease / Preview feature is worth it in my opinion as that stuff is really expected of the product to be feasable. It's getting there for everyone in General Release.

Also I do not agree with many points of the original poster. Glancing at the mentioned issues, most are the result of either improper or not ideal use of the product. Also blaming a preview application isn't fair either. I agree, I wouldn't use teams at the moment either, but not for the same reason.

[#7]

We tried many services before testing Office 365 and, the fact is that the price of different combined services providers will cost you and your company more than only using Microsoft's services.

Now, many of the today applications are in Preview and being in development... I'd recommend, hire an expert and wait for GA of those services!

[#8]

I always love reading these kind of posts. I don't work in the education sector myself but I do get slightly jealous as you always seem to get massive uptake and adoption in the sector.