Modus (Scotland) Ltd.

This guide focuses on the capabilities of Teams, SharePoint, and OneDrive, including document storage, collaboration, sharing, and conversations. You don't have to use just one tool to get your work done — each one works together.

Teams provides a user-friendly front end to view your SharePoint files as well as many other collaborative tools.

SharePoint sits in the middle. It is the place where files are stored within the Microsoft Cloud network.

OneDrive allows you to keep a synchronised copy of SharePoint folders on your computer. This is often a prefered way to access frequently used files

Each application has its place and by understanding the capabilities of each you can choose which tool is most suitable for each task you do.

Teams

Teams aims to be the Front End to help organise all your communications relevant to a project or department. The Files tab within a Teams channel provides a way to view all the files within that folder in SharePoint.

 When you create a new Team inside Microsoft Teams it will create a SharePoint site of the same name. Initially the Team will have one channel called General. You can create other channels as required. For each channel that is created SharePoint will create a matching folder within the SharePoint site. 

Important Note: If you rename a Team or channel, the linked SharePoint site is not automatically renamed. This renaming a channel will lose access to the linked SharePoint folder. If you must rename a channel in Teams you need to then open SharePoint and rename the folder to exactly match the new channel name.

Clicking the Files tab within Teams shows you the SharePoint files for the Team or channel.

However accessing files and holding meetings is only part of the functionality of Teams. There are a large number of tabs that can be added to any Teams channel. Pressing the + button on the tab bar will list all the standard tabs that can be added.

Ones of particular interest are; 

• Excel – you can link an important spreadsheet to its own tab to make it easily accessible
• Word – similarly you can link an important Word document for easy access
• Wiki – you can easily build your own knowledgebase to save people having to search multiple files for answers
• Lists – build simple ToDo lists
• Forms – design and share forms easily.

By adding tabs you can customise each channel as appropriate.

SharePoint

SharePoint is your window to the actual file storage on the Microsoft cloud network. It facilitates the secure storage and allows robust access permissions to be configured. It also facilitates the sharing of files both internally and externally of your organisation.

Generally, you don’t have to access SharePoint directly very often. Teams will be your normal view of the SharePoint files and folders you regularly use may be synchronized to your PC with OneDrive. These are the common reasons you may need to user SharePoint directly:

• Recover a deleted file. If a file has been accidentally deleted (from Teams, SharePoint or OneDrive) it will be retained for 30 days in the SharePoint Deleted Files area for each site. It can be restored from here.
• Bulk move files. A group of files or folders can be moved to another location by 

• Rename a top level folder to match a Teams channel (usually after you have renamed a channel in Teams)
• Set advanced access permissions for files and folders.
• Initiate first syncing of a folder to OneDrive.

Additional SharePoint options, such as Move and Rename, are visible by clicking on the three dots beside a folder or file

 OneDrive

For some activities it is more convenient to have direct access to files via Windows File Explorer than having to download and upload via Teams or SharePoint. This is where OneDrive helps.

Once a Team or Channel within a Teams has been synchronized using OneDrive your computer will hold a copy of the files on its own local disk. You can then open, edit, create and delete within your OneDrive folder and the changes will be copied to SharePoint.

OneDrive will show you all the files within a synchronised SharePoint folder, but only downloads the files as required. In the example below you will see that some files and folders have a small cloud symbol and some have a green tick.

The cloud symbol indicates a file that is in SharePoint but not yet downloads. The action of clicking on a “cloud” file will download it to your computer.

Green tick is a file that exists on your PC and is synchronised back to SharePoint. 

If you see any files with Red Crosses it indicates a problem synchronising back to SharePoint. Please contact Modus if you get this.

To synchronise a new folder or entire SharePoint site open SharePoint (there is a shortcut in Teams to open SharePoint by clicking the three dots in the top right) 

Within SharePoint select the level you want to sync and press the Sync button on the tab. This will start OneDrive syncing with this folder

To manage your synchronised folders right click on the OneDrive icon in the notifications area beside the clock on your desktop. Click on Manage Storage.

In Manage Storage you will see a list of all your synchronised folders. If you want to stop synchronising a folder remove it from this menu. 

Important Note: If you no longer want to have a synchronised folder on your computer you must unlink it using the procedure above. If you delete the files without unlinking it will delete these files from the SharePoint site for everyone!

This table provides a high-level summary of how you can utilise Teams, SharePoint, and OneDrive in different situations.