Microsoft 365 cloud technology tools have emerged as one of the best platforms for organizations and enterprises to work in collaboration effectively.
Microsoft Groups, Teams, and SharePoint are some of the Microsoft 365 collaboration tools which are used by organizations worldwide while performing different group projects.
These three platforms are independent entities and are developed for different uses. These platforms can be used together to achieve the maximum results and make your group project workflow easy and speedy.
You should be familiar with the SharePoint comparison between Groups and Teams to use these platforms effectively in your group projects.
Microsoft Groups is a membership platform of Microsoft 365 that can be integrated with platforms like Outlook and Planner to create an effective interface for group projects.
The 365 Groups lay down a foundation of productivity and Microsoft Teams is built on the top of this foundation to provide you with additional features for a collaborative group project interface.
What is Microsoft 365 Groups?
Microsoft Group is an object in Azure Active Dictionary that can be integrated with other platforms like OneNote, SharePoint site, planner, etc.
It is a platform provided by Microsoft 365 for creating a group project interface on other platforms.
The team leader can create a group and become a group admin. The group admin can add members to the group and allow them to use the resources of the group.
Unlike some major group platforms, it assigns permission to users automatically.
The groups can be set to private or public as per your requirements. The group can be created on major Microsoft platforms like Outlook, SharePoint, planner, and Outlook on the Web for effective communication in group projects.
On SharePoint comparison, it provides you with the facility of integration with platforms.
Pros and Cons of Groups
For an effective comparison, we need to have a glimpse at the advantages and disadvantages of the Microsoft 365 group:
Pros:
- Efficient for working on small projects.
- It provides a user-friendly interface.
- It is an essential option for departments that require fast replies for day-to-day tasks.
Cons:
- It provides inefficient data related to tracking and reporting.
- You need to install local desktop software for a better experience.
What is Microsoft Teams?
Microsoft Teams are also known as the “teamwork hub” within Microsoft’s productivity suite.
It is a chat-based collaborative platform that can be used for the smooth workflow of group projects.
Microsoft Teams is built upon Microsoft 365 groups and inherits its various features.
Whenever you create a team using Microsoft teams, a group is created by default in the back-end. Moreover, you can also create a team from your existing group.
But the permissions will be inherited from your group to the newly created team. On SharePoint comparison, the files shared in a team are stored using the features provided by SharePoint and not on the cloud.
Pros and Cons of Teams
For an effective comparison, we need to have a glimpse at the advantages and disadvantages of the Microsoft 365 team:
Pros:
- The team members can focus more on work rather than problems prevailing due to miscommunication.
- The productivity of the team has increased.
- The implementation of the Microsoft 365 team is easy.
Cons:
- The file structures are confusing.
- The online meeting experience is different.
- Flexibility is limited.
What is SharePoint?
SharePoint is a web-based platform that uses pages, workflows, lists, and other web resources to provide an efficient collaboration platform for group projects.
It also empowers the companies to control their workflow and file sharing. It provides many intranet-based features for an effective group discussion.
It also consists of many security features that, on SharePoint, comparison with teams and groups is missing.
SharePoint can be used by small and large businesses to enhance their efficiency and productivity.
It is a user-friendly web-based collaborative platform that provides intranet features like secure sharing, content sharing, and workflow collaboration.
The various intranet features provided by SharePoint are as follows:
- The documents are visible only after approval (publishing) by the admin.
- Notification can be provided to the users when files are uploaded or updated.
- You can prevent authoring or editing of documents by applying “checkout” on the documents or, alternatively, “co-author” documents concurrently.
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Pros and Cons of SharePoint
For SharePoint comparison against teams and groups, we need to have a glimpse of the advantages and disadvantages of SharePoint:
Pros:
- It is a part of Microsoft Office and thus easily integrates with Microsoft PowerPoint, Excel, and Word.
- You can utilize automation and integration features in Microsoft applications and other platforms.
- It is highly customizable.
- It stores the files in an organized and structured fashion which makes searching for files easy.
- Enterprise Search allows sophisticated document and content search.
- It provides sophisticated document management.
- It allows you to track the version history of documents.
- You can manage document security and permissions.
- It is easily extensible for document metadata for filing and search and can be managed centrally across the enterprise.
- SharePoint is suitable for both small and large organizations.
Cons:
- SharePoint can be costly to host and license, although for many organizations, it comes free with existing licensing.
- Best results are achieved with the support of employee training.
Additional Read:
Conclusion
SharePoint, Groups, and Teams are Microsoft 365 platforms that consist of various features for creating collaborative group projects efficiently and easily.
SharePoint provides you with extra features when compared to Groups and Teams alone.
These platforms have their advantages and disadvantages, and you can use any of these platforms based on your requirements and availability of resources.
SharePoint can work as a perfect group project collaboration tool for your small and large-scale projects.
