Experiences "migrating" to an O365 Group
So, I am starting to "migrate" the particular team that I work for over to Groups (that means from our existing SharePoint site, existing Yammer group, existing mailboxes, etc). Wanted to share the general experience and reception so far, with PLUS / MINUS perception notes: PLUS - We are looking to use Group Conversations and shut down use of Yammer for our team discussions. So far users seem more apt to use the conversations because it is more like email, so probably a ding for use of Yammer In general we are going to guide Groups users away from using Yammer PLUS - We are using an automatic group membership (everyone that reports to my Manager) - which works perfectly! We have a revolving door of interns/temps as part of the team, and access to resources is no-brainer. MINUS - This will be our first Modern SharePoint site, and big negative is critical links removed from the UI. Menu - using "/_layouts/15/AreaNavigationSettings.aspx" to recreate our horizontal navigation. This accomplishes what we need, but I fear that it may eventually go away... Permissions - I understand group permission limitations, but our connected SP sites have to have additional viewers and contributors. Right now from the UI, can only apply permissions to Group Owners and Group Members. Using "/_layouts/15/user.aspx" to get around this for now, but again will future updates restrict this? MINUS - Document Migration - we have our own PowerShell scripts that we use to migrate content between sites. The scripts appear to only work run by a Group owner if the person running the script is a Group owner. We typically use a service account and set it as Site Collection Admin, run the move, then remove the service account. Here the service account still doenst have rights even after being made the SCA for a Group. We will definitely be doing most of this for our users since we don't want to put the tedious actions on them MINUS - Calendar - we use a SharePoint Team Site calendar - was able to easily open the SP Calendar in Outlook "Agenda View", copy entries, and paste them into the Group Calendar (in Outlook Agenda View), but they never synced back up, never appeared in the Group calendar, though I see them in my physical Outlook calendar Dont seem to be able to create just an entry (without actually inviting all attendees) MINUS - Group Navigation - switching between the different Groups workloads is still pitiful I've manually entered direct links to the different workloads in the Groups SharePoint Site, but users continually get "lost". They'll end up on the calendar which has no links whatsover (sometimes), the options are in different places in each workload. I know this has been brought up over and over, but its been months and months, if not over a year at this point, and doesnt seem this is getting any better at all. MINUS - Groups files - this is maybe just our opinion, but do not like the Groups Files automatically including email attachments in the default view. Often confusing, especially if things have been moved to the SharePoint files, you see duplicates, etc. PLUS - Groups app - easy access to everything, general consensus is much easier to find stuff from the app then from the web itself MINUS - Groups app notifications - marking conversation messages as read seems to be wonky, users are complaining because they have to physically leave the group a couple times before it tells them they have read all the messages. MINUS - Planner - Though there is excitement about what Planner can be, some negatives emerging - no Planner app, unsure of a way right now to move items from a SharePoint Action Items list to Planner (other than just manually reentering stuff). PLUS - OneNote, this has always been my favorite thing Microsoft has built, so glad to see it easier integrated into our group activities. We are migrating our running Staff Meeting Agenda (from Yammer note) to OneNote MINUS - UI - we have always used a custom enterprise mega menu throughout our SharePoint environment, for easy navigation, with no customization options, we lose this and will have to start teach our users to keep going to our Intranet homepage, then navigate where you want to go with the menu NEUTRAL - Dont care for the single column of the websites, we have traditionally used a custom responsive layout that has at least 2 columns of content. Everything just feels to big / too much whitespace. MINUS - SharePoint App, we have multiple document libraries, the Groups/SharePoint apps really only focus on the primay Shared Documents one. Overall, it seems like it will be a positive adoption, but there are several things that just miss the mark, at least for how our organization works.
Office 365 Groups What to Use When Framework and Inforgraphic
There's been plenty of buzz about which new Office 365 tools to use and in turn it's generated a lot of great content. We struggled with the same problem at AvePoint and decided to create a simple framework to help those in charge of collaboration pick the right combination of tools for their business processes. We've now converted that into a simple infographic and post as well and hope others can benefit from it too :) https://www.avepoint.com/blog/strategy-blog/how-to-use-office-365-groups/ What are some of the deciding factors your organizations are using to pick the right tool today? Would love to learn more from the community as well.How I would "fix" O365 Groups
Been chewing on this stuff for a while, and I know Groups is not technically broken, but mentally it is, given all of the posts and confusion. If I were Microsoft, here is my list of things that I would do to "fix" and simplify the entire Groups concept in O365. Caveat: These are just my opinions and taking into account nothing "technical" that could go into making any of this a reality. When I say Group, I mean any Group created regardless of where When I say Service, I mean any potential Group workflow, like SharePoint, Planner, PowerBI, Outlook, Yammer, and I am including Teams as a Service (1) Consider and start selling Groups as an actual product offering, and not merely an underlying service. While I can agree Groups itself is not a tool, what Groups gives you and how it is perceived by business users is a collaboration unified set of tools. It is easier to think of the different Group services as an outcome of the Group than the Group being an outcome of the service. Too much time is spent explaining Groups away... This would be helped by doing what is in bullet #2 (2) Create a SharePoint-home-esque equivalent Groups home page Would be web based, but use the same concepts for what it shown in the Groups app, or Outlook for joining other groups Show all Groups the current user is a part of Make recommendations of Groups for a user to join Allow users to filter Yammer Groups, versus Outlook Groups, versus Team groups, keywords, members, etc Once you found a group, the entry should have quick links to each Group service that is enabled. (3) All Groups should technically have the all of the same services available to them, regardless where they are created. Meaning if I create a Group, I could technically have a Yammer, Outlook Inbox/Calendar, and Team if I wanted, in addition to Planner, SharePoint, Files, Notebook, PowerBI, etc. At the end of the day, a Group is a Group is a Group More details on what this ultimately means in bullets 4 and 5 (4) Give Group Admins the ability to "turn on" and "turn off" Group services as they want. I would envision this as a list of checkboxes underneath the Group settings Maybe technically everything gets provisioned, but at least hidden from the interfaces as to not clutter things up all the time. If I go to Planner, I see tons of unused Plans because they are being provisioning for tons of Groups that have no need to use Planner Maybe I started out with a Yammer group, but I want to shut off Yammer and start using the Outlook Inbox/Calendar instead later. At the end of the day, make the products available, but don't force them to be present and used if the team doesnt want to use them. Even more details on what this ultimately means in bullet 5 (5) In line with Points 2 and 3, give O365 Admins the ability to create Group service creation policies based on where a Group is created from A group can now technically be provisioned from Outlook, SharePoint, Yammer, Dynamics, Stream, Teams, and probably a few more that I am leaving off A group admin could configure for example: A group created in Stream will receive only Stream and no other services. A group created in Yammer will by default receive Yammer, SharePoint, Notebook, Files, but no Planner, Outlook, PowerBI, and Teams A group created in Dynamics will by default receive SharePoint, Files, Notebook, but nothing else (6) Make Yammer not necessarily tied to the Group membership, but a tool of the Group Group could use it for internal Group-based conversations Or Group could extend it out to other non-Group members without granted access to the other Group services. E.g. a Learning and Performance Group could use the Yammer as a company-facing discussion interface without allow members to access their own Group tools (7) Revert back to the old Groups Mobile App Icon, or at least something a little less visually pointless. I'm also including don't do away with the Groups Mobile App, many have danced around this subject, but it is better to have the one app for all of the services then eventually make you go to a Service, then find a Group that you want to access for that Service. e.g. incorporating Groups Conv/Calendar into Outlook, incorporating Groups Files into OneDrive, incorporating Groups Notebook into OneNote Those are nice to have, but don't make that the only entry point to get to the services. (8) The Group should be able to be used anywhere in O365 as a Security container This is mostly true today, but some services dont let you share to O365 Groups e.g. O365 Video, PowerBI, Stream Group Writeback to AD should create elements as email-enabled security groups so that they could be re-used on-premO365 Groups Management Concerns
I have been getting quite a bit of flack for not releasing O365 Groups on my campus. While I would love to release Groups and its other apps, I have some concerns. 1. Naming policy still not in Azure AD. We are trying to avoid namespace issues. This is the number one reason why we have not implemented Groups. This is necessary for our environment. 2. Naming prefixes for apps like StaffHub(doesn't seem to work), Teams(can't find one), Exchange(Only applies in Outlook, not in admin console.) etc, all provide a different experience. 3. When deleting a Group, things still seem to hang around(SharePoint space). From what I have read other users have experienced this issue as well. 4. For existing Groups that maybe want to use StaffHub, where is the option to add it,? Tt would be awesome if it was like how you would add an existing group in Teams. 5. There doesn't seem to be any cmdlets for the group creation for StaffHub , Team, or Yammer. The cmdlets are only for licensing. 6. Retention policies. From what I have read groups are not a permanent space like SharePoint. With that being said, I could see many students using this. If this cuts in to our tenant space, it would be nice to set expirations on Group spaces. I would be interested in hearing what other folks are doing with O365 Group management and how they are addressing the above. I can see how many of these apps could benefit our users but I also want to be prepared.Good graphic of the near future state of Groups?
As I understand it a Group's communication channel depends on WHERE the group is created from. I don't necessarily like this but understand MSFT is working within some existing constraints. Does anyone have a good graphic showing what is in ALL Groups (File library, Site Page, Planner, OneNote) and that you get one among three alternatives for communication (Yammer, Email, or Teams Chat). I think this is a critical concept to convey. If I am not understanding the near future state, please let me know. Rob.O365 Groups-based Places - Yammer + Teams + Outlook Groups
We are working on several artifacts as we make sense of how to use the emerging 'O365 Groups as a Service'-based Places. 1) our enterprise's take on the O365 apps broken down into Places, Tools and Infrastructure 2) a table comparing Yammer, Outlook Groups and Teams 3) a colloquial description of why one might create a groups-based Place in Yammer vs Teams vs Outlook Would love thoughts and feedbackOffice 365 Groups Deletion Needs Fixing
The experience deleting Office 365 Groups varies widely depending on each tool/end-point. Some thoughts on this disconnected experience and samples for how each tool does it. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/office-365-groups-deletion-needs-fixing-kevin-crossman/
