This service is for faculty, staff, and students.
ITS provides a variety of collaboration tools. Learn about our most popular platforms below and see which features may be the best fit for your needs.
Available Collaboration Tools
- OneDrive: OneDrive is your go-to-place for storing and accessing your own files. All files on your OneDrive are associated with your account. If a St. Thomas account is deleted, so are all of its associated OneDrive files.
- SharePoint: For departmental document storage and file sharing. This content is not associated with a single account, so it's preferred over OneDrive for institutional or departmental content.
- Teams: Chatting / instant messaging. Great for group projects, project management, and teams that communicate a lot. Files storage in associated SharePoint sites.
- Zoom: Audio/video calls, online meetings, web conferencing.
- Canvas: Learning Management System for the University. Canvas sites work best for courses or classroom-like scenarios.
- OneStThomas: If you need to share information or content with the whole University, or a large part of it, you should use the Intranet. OneStThomas is the University's preferred location for internal news and information.
Compare Collaboration Tool Features
Comparison matrix for collaboration tools by feature
| |
OneDrive |
SharePoint |
Teams |
Zoom |
Canvas |
OneStThomas |
| File storage |
X |
X |
X |
|
X |
X*** |
| File sharing |
X |
X |
X |
X |
X |
X |
| Document editing |
X |
X |
X |
|
|
|
| Document co-authoring (multiple people editing together at the same time in the same file) |
X |
X |
X |
|
|
|
| Chatting and instant messaging |
|
|
X |
X** |
|
|
| Audio and video conferencing |
|
|
X |
X |
|
|
| Dial in phone numbers |
|
|
|
X |
|
|
| Screen sharing |
|
|
X |
X |
|
|
| Moderated Q&A |
|
|
X |
X |
X |
|
| Assignments and coursework |
|
|
|
|
X |
|
| Discussion and conversation |
|
|
X |
|
X |
X |
| University news and information |
|
|
|
|
|
X |
| Emergency alerts and outage notifications |
|
|
|
|
X |
X |
| Potential to share content with large audience (i.e. all students, all staff) |
|
X |
|
|
|
X |
| Potential to share content only with a small/limited group of people |
X |
X |
X |
X |
X |
|
| One-to-many communication and content sharing |
|
X |
|
X |
X |
X |
| One-on-one communication and content sharing |
X |
|
X |
X |
|
|
| Many-to-many communication and content sharing |
|
X |
X |
X |
|
|
Notes:
- Zoom** - chatting and instant messaging usually only takes place during a meeting.
- OneStThomas*** - files stored on OneStThomas are technically stored on SharePoint and surfaced via OneStThomas.
Key Features of File Sharing and Collaboration Tools
To report a problem or receive additional troubleshooting, please contact the
Tech Desk.
| OneDrive |
Microsoft Teams |
SharePoint Sites |
OneStThomas |
| OneDrive is your go-to-place for storing and accessing your own files. |
Ideal for collaborative groups. Connect other apps (like Planner) into one workspace with Microsoft Teams. |
For departmental document storage and info sharing. |
If you need to share information or content with all of St. Thomas, or a large part of it, you should use the Intranet. |
- All files on your OneDrive are associated with your account. If a St. Thomas account is deleted, so are all of its associated OneDrive files.
- Store your own files and access them from anywhere.
- Share a few files or folders with a few individuals. You can decide if they should have view or edit access. You are responsible for managing access.
|
- Teams provides a chat-based, collaborative workspace.
- Store your workgroup's files and access them from anywhere. Each Team comes with a connected SharePoint site for secure file storage.
- Manage access to files yourself, and share content with colleagues and peers both inside and outside the University.
- Every group member can add/edit files and start conversations.
- Organize your files and conversations using channels. Pull in other apps (Planner, OneNote, PowerPoint, Word, Excel etc.) by adding tabs to channels.
- You can also use Teams for one-on-one or Group chat, as well as online meetings.
|
- Store your workgroup's files and access them from anywhere.
- SharePoint sites are the underlying technology that support all document storage in O365.
- Benefits of file storage in SharePoint include: folders, version control, sharing, the option to edit in Office 365 or desktop apps, and more.
- Anyone at St. Thomas can set up a SharePoint site.
- Departments should consider leveraging a SharePoint Hub Site to connect content and rollup from across many SharePoint sites and Teams. Submit a ticket to the Tech Desk to learn more about this option.
- SharePoint site can also contain web pages, lists, calendars, notification processes and more.
- SharePoint sites support the same sharing via link settings available in OneDrive.
|
- OneStThomas is the University's preferred location for internal news and information.
- If you have to reach a large audience within the University, then OneStThomas is the best place to do that.
- You can post news and events in your department's OneStThomas page, and they will aggregate up to the Intranet homepage.
- OneStThomas aggregates content from across O365, so it's a great jumping off place to find content.
|
To report a problem or receive additional troubleshooting, please contact the
Tech Desk.