Best practices in document storage when using Teams

Hi shawn_fielding ,

The file experience does not have a direct correlation to that of working directly within a Document Library granted but it is getting better all of the time and the conversational element and the co authoring all under one roof can make for a valuable proposition.

However if one is looking for true records management then Teams may not be the destination and it is OK to say no sometimes and maybe just look directly to SharePoint Online or elsewhere. And with Teams being Teams you would know doubt be able to surface any effort spent elsewhere within Teams.

I would like to point out as one example however as shown below:

You can add in additional metadata columns and have them visible in Teams. I could also directly within Excel in this example, update the metadata text column, so I pretty much did not leave Teams, other than going into the respective Office Application and I would now have that bit of metadata to sort, filter and search on.

You can also just go directly into SharePoint and use it in all of its glory by clicking on Open in SharePoint, although depending on the experience of your users this may open up a whole can of worms or not.

As for Lifecycle, retention and deletion etc. You can look to things like Group Lifecycle Policies. Or use Security and Compliance features such as Retention/Disposition Policies. You could also set labels.

You can as you have said reference another document library that could be configured as desired and have it appear as a folder in situ alongside other Channel content.

Thanks

Henry