FAQ about Microsoft Teams for users

It seems we need to move from Skype for Business Online to Teams. What’s the time frame? 

 Microsoft has made the roadmap for Teams available, so customers can assess the capabilities for Teams relative to their needs and plan their move from Skype Online to Teams. Per their current roadmap, customers have 18-24 months to determine the timing for moving to Teams. While Microsoft will continue to support Skype for Business in Office 365, their vision for communications is focused on Teams. Future enhancements and ways of working we’re not yet familiar with will be delivered via Teams, so we encourage everyone to consider transitioning at some point. Is Teams a project-tracking tool?   Teams is not a project tracking tool. Continuing to use purpose-built tracking tools for large-scale projects would be preferable. Smaller or ad-hoc projects with multiple stakeholders can easily utilize Teams for communications. Is Teams an enterprise social network platform like Facebook Workplace?   Teams is not an enterprise social network platform, though there are many elements of social interactions built in to Teams. Microsoft recognizes that different groups have different needs. You can use all Office 365 collaboration solutions or just one or two of these apps to collaborate. For example, Teams is fully integrated with Yammer enterprise social network and SharePoint file libraries. What are the differences and overlap between Teams and SharePoint?   Let’s think of how you store file folders at your office. You likely have large file cabinets for older files you want to refer back to once in a while. You know you need to keep them for reference, but you don’t put your hands on them multiple times each week. Now think about the information you need and access each week. You don’t have time to go chase down a file that often – it’s likely you put that information on a sticky note at your workstation or tack it on a cubicle wall. In this analogy, and the way most of use it, the file cabinet is SharePoint. It’s great for large audiences and serves as a largely static repository of documents we need access to every once in a while. Microsoft Teams is that sticky note we make sure is in our eyesight, a hands-on real-time knowledge base that’s accessible anytime. The best part, however, is that Microsoft Teams information is built on and shared with your SharePoint document library. Files shared within a Teams conversation are automatically added to the SharePoint document library, and permissions set in SharePoint are automatically reflected within Teams. In short, Teams makes SharePoint user friendly and enjoyable. What is the user experience if our organization doesn’t have SharePoint in Office 365?   An important user benefit of Teams is Office 365 integration, which includes file sharing through SharePoint in Office 365. This makes it possible to find files in one place for teamwork, including chats, team members, and everyday tools.  If you don’t have SharePoint enabled in your tenant, Teams users are not always able to share files in Teams. Users in private chat also cannot share files, because OneDrive in Office 365 (which is tied to the SharePoint license) is required for that functionality. But, if your tenant has SharePoint enabled and a single SharePoint site has been provisioned at any point in time, then users will be able to share files in a team.

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