Microsoft Teams versus SharePoint – what’s the difference?

Microsoft Teams has been around for a while now. While there is growing interest in it, there is also some confusion about when to use Microsoft Teams and when to use SharePoint. Let’s break it down.

Microsoft SharePoint

SharePoint is a platform for content and document management. SharePoint is traditionally used for intranet portals, project sites, and as an organisational document storage and collaboration solution.

Microsoft Teams

Microsoft Teams is a digital hub that brings all your team conversations, files, meetings and apps together in a shared work space. It combines SharePoint’s document management capabilities with chat and online meeting solutions, enabling users to co-author and share files with popular Office 365 apps like Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote.

When you create a new team in Microsoft Teams you’re actually creating a SharePoint site too. Documents added in Microsoft Teams are stored in a SharePoint library but you can see them through the Microsoft Teams interface.

Here is a document accessed through the Microsoft Teams interface:

Here is the same document accessed from the SharePoint interface:

At a high level, Microsoft Teams not only provides SharePoint document functionality but enables you to collaborate using chat and online meetings.

Despite these benefits, Microsoft Teams is not for all organisations – some people still feel a little uncomfortable with its seemingly informal nature. Many of our clients choose to offer their users a choice between SharePoint and Microsoft Teams.

If you are thinking about introducing Microsoft Teams in your organisation or need some help training users or creating a governance plan, contact us today. Our friendly Brisbane-based team can answer all of your questions.