Question about MS Teams and Sharepoint sites [confusion]

Copper Contributor

I read your below article but I have confusions still.
https://sharepointmaven.com/microsoft-teams-vs-sharepoint/
So if we create a channel and that is linked ultimately Sharepoint folders.
So using MS Teams also we can manage Sharepoint site then my question is why do we need to create separate Sharepoint pages? Lets say for each department of organization? rather we create MS Teams group for each department and assign users to that Teams of each department and make channels and ultimately that's storing files to sharepoint (in folder wise). 

Then why do we need need separate sharepoint sites for each dept. of an organization/company, if we can do inside MS Teams? In that sense its basically sharepoint (But i understand in sharepoint site you can create menus for pages but that menus can be created as channel in MS teams inside? Appreciate your reply for clarification of my understanding.

7 Replies

Well, there's a lot more to SharePoint that storing/sharing files. If that's the only thing you're gonna use it for, you can just stick to creating Team/Group-based sites.

That is the engine that is used to store the files for Teams. You don't have to use SharePoint, it's optional and as Vasil said, you can do much more than just files on SharePoint. The pages and menu yous peak of is just part of it, they have nothing to do with Channels in Teams. The only relation the SharePoint site has to the Team (Besides the group membership) is the documents library and the folders per channel. Everything else is optional and can be brought into Teams tabs if that is what you meant instead of channels.

I'd say

MS Teams 
- is good for "managerial" people, who need to keep everything under control in a single place
- is good for "active-collaboration-style" activities, i.e. Projects, PoC, brainstorming
Default retention period is 180 days (can be prolonged)

Permissions are simplified (you have owners and members only)

 

SharePoint Team site (standalone)
- is good for document-oriented people
- is good for large long-term document store, metadata enriched libraries etc.
- is good for large site collections, highly customized sites etc.
Can be connected to Office 365 group or MS team any time

Thanks for your inputs. May I know what are the limit of ms teams in details. im planning to build SharePoint sites but confused whether ms teams with SharePoint or only SharePoint would be good (definitely few years back i wouldn't ask this question bcoz ms teams was not there) and not sure ms teams based SharePoint how far it will go...who knows within few years SharePoint will gone and ms teams based SharePoint will be main stream.???
I wouldn't treat them much different. It's really a question of is it a group connected SharePoint site or a comm site. Teams can be added at anytime to a group connected site. I always just create Group connected sites / Teams for private collab groups. If it's going to be open and or public, you can make the group public as well.

Only time I use SharePoint only sites is for Comm sites, when using them as public(org) facing sites used for News and finding content, HR portal for example. Or training sites etc. If it's a Team / collab area then it's a group site / Team.

Hi @towfiqi

 

Generalising a bit but....

 

If you are creating an Intranet for consuming published content then create a SharePoint Comms site with no Microsoft Team. 

 

If you are creating departmental sites with locked down content where users do their day to day work and need to collaborate then create a Microsoft Team per department. 

 

Andy

@towfiqi Like so many of our new tools, it is quite confusing because you can use almost any of them for anything.  It depends upon your use case.  But, here are just a few comments and things I've found...

 

We have a corporate intranet so our organization sites, which in most cases are information sites, so we use SharePoint sites. The navigation helps us present  and navigate through our organizational structure that is available to everyone in our company.   It allows us to present a unified and  organizational theme. 

 

Teams are generally used for smaller and short term projects; though they can be used for large and longer term projects.  

Teams is very limited as far as permissions go.  A standalone SharePoint site offers more options. 

 

You can spin up a team almost instantly, while building a site may take more time. 

 

It may be a silly correlation, but I sometimes think of them as the difference between dress clothes and work clothes -- if presentation doesn't matter all that much and you just want to get the work done; use teams.  If you want something more professional and longer standing -- go with a stand alone SharePoint site.   

 

I'm sure there are more, but those come immediately to mind. 

Again and seriously -- lots of gray area.  Good luck.  In time you'll figure out how the differences apply to your and/or your organization.