Friday, June 23, 2017

When should we use "Office 365 Groups"?

[updated regarding "Group Identity", 2017-07-04]

There are quite a lot of posts (such as here, here, and here) trying to explain what "Office 365 Groups" is. But, after reading them, I am still confused.

"Office 365 Groups" covers many areas: Azure AD, permission management, document depository (SharePoint sites), email (Exchange Online), group chat (Microsoft Teams), Yammer, etc. But,
  • When should Group be used?
  • Should we convert existing Email Distribution List into Group automatically, during the migration to Office 365?
  • Should we allow users to create new Group when they believe it is necessary?
  • Should we use Group Site to replace normal "Team Site"?
  • Should we create a Group for a new project?
  • Can one user belong to more than one Group?
After months of investigation, finally, I got my own conclusion. However, it is so faraway from the mainstream opinion, it even shocked myself!

There is only one principle: Office 365 Group should be based on basic "Group Identity Job Role".

Why? Because Group is designed to conquer the challenge of communication around group. Let me explain it through an use two cases here.

1. Communication between a person and a team

A user, let's say, Tom, needs help from DBA team to fix a database issue.

Obviously Tom doesn't care which member of the DBA team can help, and he just want the problem get resolved. The procedure may take months, existing DBA member may takes annual leave or even resign, new DBA may join the team at anytime. The communication between Tom and DBA team should not be affected by the those events, and it happens in many apps, such as SharePoint, Yammer, Outlook, Microsoft Teams, etc.

In other words, Tom wants to talk to DBA team, instead of any specific DBA, without the obstacles of permission management, information sharing, action history tracking.

That's why we need Group. Group should only be created for the bottom level, most basic organisation unit, just above individual user.

We should create a Group for DBA team (if there is more than one DBA in the team, and they all look after all databases), but not for IT department (because there is no such job role called "IT staff").

2. Communication in a team which needs to be shared across the whole team

For small projects, if it needs a lot of communication and those communication need to be shared across the whole team, then, it's better to create a group for it.

So, group members can use different tools to talk to each other, and don't need to worry about permission management or missing relevant project information.

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Now, it's easy to answer the previous questions.
  • When should it be used?
For each job role, if there are more than one person share the same responsibility, we should create a Group for them.

Normally it's just a few users, but, in some special case, for a role like "help desk", there could be more than 30 people.
  • Should we convert existing Email Distribution List into Group automatically, during the migration to Office 365?
No.

Unless the DL is created exactly for a job role.
  • Should we allow users to create new Group when they believe it is necessary?
No.
Users should contact Office 365 administrators to create it.
  • Should we use Group Site to replace normal "Team Site" during migration (from On-Premise to Office 365)?
No.

Unless the existing team site is created exactly for a job role.
  • Should we create a Group for a new project?
It depends.

Normally it's needed for small projects.
  • Can one user belong to more than one Group?
Normally, no.
Unless he/she happens to take two roles in two teams.

I know many people have different thoughts about "Office 365 Groups". Any comments are welcome!

PS 1: Microsoft Teams are perfect Application for Office 365 Group. We can create a new team/channel for each topic/task.

PS 2: Microsoft Teams really should be part of "Skype for Business".

PS 3: Documents should not be copied from SharePoint Sites to "Teams Files". It's much better to just create a file link in Microsoft Teams.

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