Did you read my previous article about the basic questions you should ask when you plan to launch a collaboration platform? Now, we should take a closer look at the services offered by Microsoft in Office 365. We will check the offered services from a technical point of view and then we will change our perspective and consider the main use cases for each service.
Use cases
If we evaluate the services offered in Office 365 from a business perspective, you will see that several tools can be considered for certain requirements. In these cases, you should evaluate which tool you and your colleagues would prefer. My personal recommendation can be found in the order of the tools listed. I would personally choose the first tool for a collaboration platform.
| Use case | Which tool should you use? |
| Support Teamwork | Teams SharePoint |
| Work together on documents | SharePoint Teams (includes SharePoint supplemented by a chat functionality) |
| Exchange information ad hoc | Teams (private chats) Skype for Business (deprecated but still in use in many companies) Yammer (private chats) |
| Spread company-wide information | SharePoint Yammer (public groups or corporate channel) Teams (public or org-wide teams) |
| Build a corporate network or external networks | Yammer Teams |
| Manage tasks | Planner / To-Do Project SharePoint |
| Support business processes | Dynamics 365 Flow and PowerApps (AI Builder) |
| Knowledge Management | Stream (with recordings) Teams (wiki feature) OneNote SharePoint Online Sway |
I would start with Microsoft Teams to support teamwork in many different variations. SharePoint would be used for document management and could be used as a central information share (e. g. an intranet) while Yammer could connect the people in open communities.
Main purpose of the Office 365 services
Each tool has a dedicated purpose and related strengths and weaknesses. I share a list of the main services in Office 365 which you may extend with future services or some services I don’t consider at the moment.
| Tool | How does this tool support collaboration? |
| Exchange Online | e-mail communication shared inbox and group calendar |
| Skype for Business | instant messaging video conferencing / meetings |
| Teams | instant messaging video conferencing / meetings workspaces for teamwork integration of additional tools into a workspace |
| Yammer | corporate network and open communities external networks |
| OneDrive for Business | manage and share personal documents offline functionality for documents |
| SharePoint | document management workspaces for teamwork social intranet |
| Stream | knowledge management (recordings, videos) |
| OneNote | notes and documentation knowledge management |
| Planner | manage tasks project management light |
| To-Do | manage personal tasks |
| Project | project management resource planning |
| Sway | information management (especially presenting information) |
| Dynamics 365 | support business processes |
| Power Automate | support business processes integration of external systems/applications |
| Power Apps (with AI Builder) | support business processes with custom forms and mobile applications and forms processing |
| Security and Compliance Center | corporate policies (retention, compliance, governance) handle GDPR requests permission management |
I use the basic questions and the standard checklist for most of my projects and workshops but every company has some different needs and use cases. Use this material as a blueprint and create your own checklist with your use cases and your first tool selection and then follow these steps:
- Step 1: Define the purpose of your collaboration platform
- Step 2: Identify the main use cases you want to support
- Step 3: Check which tools/services fit best for your use cases and choose as few as possible
- Step 4: Think big, but start small!
Nicole's Microsoft 365 & Azure Playground 
Leave a Reply