What is SharePoint and how do I best utilise it?

SharePoint gives anyone in your organisation the capabilities to store, manage, and share files and information across your business internally as part of your Microsoft 365 subscription. Its main use is for document management but it can also be customised as an employee intranet system to store and share information e.g Department Info, Reports, Events, News, Company Policies, etc. How you customise your SharePoint site depends on the needs of your business to effectively stay connected and informed internally.

What's the difference between Microsoft Teams and SharePoint?

Microsoft Teams gives you everything you need in one. It is an employee collaboration tool that is best used as a central place for online teamwork. Its purpose is to keep your employees connected with enhanced collaboration, productivity, and communication features including chat, calls, video, file sharing, calendars, meetings, and team channels that are designed to create a productive online workspace for any size organisation.

Why should I be moving to Teams files?

Teams is fully integrated with your Microsoft 365 subscription so that you have everything you need to work productively with colleagues/clients within one application. This includes access to edit, share, and store files that are synced seamlessly on desktop, mobile app, and Windows file explorer. So why Teams instead of SharePoint document Libraries?

Easier to Use Interface

If you are have used both Teams and SharePoint document libraries you will have noticed the difference in the look and usability of the interface. Microsoft Teams is so much more straightforward, and if you are using Microsoft Teams as your central place for collaboration, then it makes more sense to manage your Teams channel files with the Teams interface as it will be a much easier process.

Teams is built on SharePoint

Let's say you open a new team in Microsoft Teams to start a new project. This creates your Team Channel, where you can converse with your team members and share content related to your project. So if you decide to share/upload a file (using the Files tab) with your team members, these files will be automatically stored in SharePoint but can be managed within your Team channel. The two are effectively working alongside each other.