Office 365: How Microsoft Teams and SharePoint Work Together

This article explains how Microsoft Teams works with SharePoint Online.

SharePoint Sites provide document storage for the vast majority of team and department files at St. Thomas. You can have SharePoint sites that are not associated with Microsoft Teams. But every time you create a Team, you also get a SharePoint site with the same name.

Here is a diagram demonstrating how the Microsoft Teams and Channels structure is translated into the SharePoint folders:

Image source: Microsoft's tech community forum

Key Features

Relationship Between a Team, Channels, and SharePoint

• Each team in Microsoft Teams has a team site in SharePoint Online.
• Each channel in a Team gets a folder within the SharePoint site's default document library.
• Teams come with a General channel, which is associated with the General folder in the SharePoint site's default document library.
• If you create a channel in Teams, a folder in the SharePoint site's default document library is created.
• If you create a private channel in your Team, those files are stored on a separate SharePoint site created specifically for that channel. Private channels should be used sparingly.

Adding and Viewing Files

• If you add a file or folder in SharePoint outside of the folders associated with your Team's channels, then those files and folders will not automatically surface in Teams. If you want that content to show in Teams, you should add it to a channel folder.
• Files shared within a conversation are automatically added to the document library in the folder associated with the Teams channel where it was shared.
• Not all file and file storage options are displayed in Teams. To access certain options, you may have to open the Team's SharePoint site.

Additional Resources

When to use Teams, OneDrive, and SharePoint