News

SharePoint Team Sites Now Integrated with Office 365 Groups

• By Kurt Mackie
• January 10, 2017

SharePoint Online subscribers should see a new capability that integrates SharePoint Team Sites with Office 365 Groups by the end of January, Microsoft said this week.

According to a blog post on Monday by Mark Kashman, a senior product manager on Microsoft's SharePoint team, the integrated feature will start rolling out to SharePoint Online subscribers as early as Jan. 12, 2017. Distribution will be completed worldwide by month's end, he added. Previously, the integrated Team Sites and Groups feature was just available to "first-release" testers.

The addition represents a milestone in Microsoft's efforts, kicked off in April, to make SharePoint Online more accessible and user friendly for end users. When available, the feature will automatically create a new Office 365 Group when a SharePoint Team Site is created. In addition, users will get a shared inbox and calendar. They also will have a common OneNote notebook application, plus access to the Planner app for task management activities.

Microsoft's rollout of the feature also will affect organizations that have already created SharePoint Team Sites. They'll get Groups integration and shared applications, too.

"Once the rollout is complete for your tenant, all existing and newly created groups will get a team site by default," Kashman explained, adding that no actions are required of SharePoint Online users to get the feature.

The update also will bring a so-called "modern home page" experience for end users. Back in August, Microsoft had suggested there would be a way for organizations to continue to use the "classic home page," if wanted. If so, the point wasn't highlighted by Kashman.

Microsoft plans to deliver other SharePoint improvements this year as well, which Kashman described in October. He said back then that Microsoft would be bringing its modern interface improvements to SharePoint Publishing Sites, as well as Pages. Development tools such as PowerApps and Flow, aimed at business users, were being integrated, as well.

Those improvements are targeted for arrival in the first half of 2017. Other improvements expected to arrive at that time include SharePoint Add-in improvements, Team Site "extensibility" and content delivery network integration with Publishing Sites.