Using Hubs and Modern Communication Sites while maintaining a Hierarchical Teams and OneDrive Layout

[KlumM]

Dear Tech Community,

I am currently setting up a small-business Microsoft 365 infrastructure with the main focus of using Teams, OneDrive and SharePoint. My goal is to tightly integrate those three components, being able to granually set access rights, provide an intranet experience, while maintaining a hierarical file- and communication structure.

As an example: Let us assume that I have two departments, Human Resources (HR) and Data Science (DS) with sub-categories as follows, partially borrowed from [1]:

HR:

- Professional development (company wide internal access, all employee have access)

- Talent Acquisition (internal and external access, for instance for headhunters)

- Team Site (HR team only access)

- Manager Portal (restricted HR access, only to a sub-set of the HR team)

DS:

- Algorithm Development (restricted DS access, only to a sub-set of the DS team)

- Data (DS team only access)

I was then starting to set up a HR and DS hub site, created sites for the sub-categories mentioned above and linked them to the hub, and had a somewhat neat intranet infrastructure. Good so far. But before I even arrived at the permissions and access configuration, I realized a possibly fundamental flaw in my approach:

Aside from the intranet experience, the main expectation I have is that the hirarchical structure as given above is reflected in Teams and synchronized OneDrive/SharePoint Folders. Meaning, when I open Teams, I want to see a HR Team with the Channels  Professional development, Talent Acquisition, Team Site, and Manager Portal as a Manager, but when I am an emplyee only the Professional development and maybe the Talent Acqusition. Instead, I now have a site and thus a team for every one of those, which makes navigation in teams extremely messy.

Same is true for the OneDrive Synchronization. I want to have all of those Hubs (HR, DS) to be one folder, with sub-folders as given in the lists above, depending on my access rights. However, I now have to sync every single site in each hub, which gives me an impossible to meaningful navigate structure.

Since a clean, hierachical Teams and OneDrive Experience is the main focus, the only "solution" I found  thus far is to abandon Hubs and the modern experience alltogether, create a Team for DS and HR, and then create standard channels for each of the mentioned sub-categories. However, this greatly limits the flexibility on the intranet side of things and don't get me started on permission levels.

In additon, a related problem then arises if I want to create other channel type than standard. Those again create sites with seperate storing locations which then again break the hieracical structure in OneDrive.

In a nutshell: is there a way to get the cake and eating it too, in the sense that I get my modern experience with Hubs and connected sites PLUS a well-to-navigate, hierarchical Teams and OneDrive Structure?

And if not, can I get the hierarchical setpup at least when I abandon the modern experience alltogether and instead creat a Team for every department wich channels for all the sub-categories? Maybe even with private and shared channels and not only standard ones?

Thank you very much for your input. I hope I made myself clear enough to follow along. If not I am willing to create example figures as well, if that helps.

Best

[1] https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/planning-hub-sites

[#2]

@KlumM 

Hi!

As your scenario goes, it's kind of not possible to do all those features.

Reason for this is that private Channels become their own site collections and won't be part of the onedrive sync.

I would have built it this way:

• HR Hub (Communication Site)
  • Professional development (Team Site ? Communication site ? )
  • Talent Acquisition (Communication Site?  Usually just information )
  • HR Team Site - Private Team
    • Talent Acquisition | Internal - Channel
    • Manager Portal - Private Channel 
• DS Hub:
  • Algorithm Development (Private Team)
  • Data (Public team (?))

[#3]

@NicolasKheirallah 

Hi,

thank you very much for your response.

I was going to build it very similar to what you have laid out there. However, it leads to a pretty messy Teams and OneDrive experience. As Hubs are not a hirarchical element in both of theese tools, I end up with loads of individual teams/channels which are, however, part of a very well defined group (the hub HR, for instance). However, this relation is not reflected in Teams, nor in OneDrive.

Maybe I am old-fashioned in the sense that I like to keep theese relations intact in my communication and storage tools, but the concept of having 30+ individual teams in Teams as well as folders in OneDrive which could be grouped in 5 convenient categories, but just can't, gives me shivers.

Then, asked the other way round: how am I able to keep my information structure intact in Teams, OneDrive, and SharePoint, if all data is scattered in un-related folders on different pages? I currently struggle to understand the concept and still have the feeling that I am missing an important detail here.

Thank you so much for your help!

[#4 · Accepted solution]

@KlumM 

Q:
I was going to build it very similar to what you have laid out there. However, it leads to a pretty messy Teams and OneDrive experience. As Hubs are not a hirarchical element in both of theese tools, I end up with loads of individual teams/channels which are, however, part of a very well defined group (the hub HR, for instance). However, this relation is not reflected in Teams, nor in OneDrive.

A:

Hub are Hierarchical but not in the way you are thinking of as with lets say a folder structure. What hubs give you is a way to search content based on the hub context  (HR and everything under that), a shared navigation etc etc. To build structure that is easily managed and reflected you need to be using name standard.  So for Example: HR | Professional development, This will show the relationship in both teams and OneDrive.

I completely understand your frustration, been in the exact same spot! 

Q:

Maybe I am old-fashioned in the sense that I like to keep these relations intact in my communication and storage tools, but the concept of having 30+ individual teams in Teams as well as folders in OneDrive which could be grouped in 5 convenient categories, but just can't, gives me shivers.

A:

This should explain why you have those teams and channels. I recommend checking out best practice for Teams Structure ,

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/best-practices-organizing

Bc having more teams might feel like it's gonna create a mess but if you implement it right then  it's gonna be easier for users to find as they will know what context. One recommendation is also teach users to search!

Q:

Then, asked the other way round: how am I able to keep my information structure intact in Teams, OneDrive, and SharePoint, if all data is scattered in un-related folders on different pages? I currently struggle to understand the concept and still have the feeling that I am missing an important detail here:

A:

Having a good structure based on the context but most of all using search! You want to teach the users to utilize search to find items as most cases they will just drop documents into a team.

Something to look into is Viva topics, as it's solved this problem :)  

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/information-architecture-models-examples

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/viva/topics/topic-experiences-overview

[#5]

Thank you again for your detailed response. I think I can work with that set of information.