In view of last week’s announcement with the tight integration of SharePoint Online team site and Office 365 Groups, there is a long thread of discussion by Mark Kashman with some great questions at Office 365 Network forum.

I thought I’d write a quick post as one of the questions raised there was interesting or in my opinion nothing was covered in the announcement with regards to mobile apps experience and so the question was:

“What will the Office 365 Groups app (or Outlook Group app) give us over the SharePoint app or the OneDrive For Business app and why do I have to have 3 different apps for the same things?”

Below was my response as I currently see the scope of these apps for iOS as an example.

Not everything is created from SharePoint and more often OneDrive tends to be a starting point for a document lifecycle and eventually will end up in a SharePoint team site or even in Groups! Overall for me they are the endpoints to get to the information relevant to me.

Key differentiators between each of the apps are:

OneDrive App (Microsoft OneDrive – Cloud storage for files & photos)
– lets you work with your personal (OneDrive) and work files (OneDrive For Business)
– access all your OneDrive files and files shared with you

SharePoint App
– access to intranet
– quick access to your team sites and the people you work with
– to see the site activity, sites you frequently visit and the sites you follow
– share a site (subject to permissions)
– access to recent and popular files spreasd across multiple document libraries

Outlook Groups (Office 365 Groups) App
– Easily participate in group email conversations
– Work together using the shared team OneNote’s notebook
– Discover and join Office 365 Groups relevant to you

Hope this clarifies the scope and usage of these apps. Looking ahead I think it ought to end up as ONE app but on the other hand it could become a heavy duty app. Hopefully at the end of this month at Microsoft’s Ignite conference may cover new updates

You can access full list of Microsoft apps covering other productivity tools as well.

I’d value your thoughts or comments on this or alternatively you can access the discussion thread at Office 365 Network.

Published by Chirag Patel @techChirag

Chirag is a highly experienced Chartered IT Professional consultant and Microsoft Certified Trainer (MCT) at Patel Consulting delivering business collaboration & productivity, data & information management solution implementation, migration and divestment projects with Microsoft Teams, SharePoint, Microsoft Viva, Power Platform, Security & Compliance and Microsoft 365 related technologies. Having worked with SharePoint since 2001 and Office 365 since 2012, Chirag has covered many roles, such as Delivery Lead, Technology Specialist, Solution Architect and Trainer working with clients in Energy, Financials, IT & Communications, Professional Services, Retail, Education, Public & Third sector, which has lead him to be an exceptional consultant & trainer as quoted by clients "established himself as a leader on the project, not only delivering on the separation and migration of M365 services, but also guiding and challenging colleagues to ensure the broader set of Cloud transition activities". Chirag is highly qualified with an MSc in Business Systems Analysis & Design and holds many certifications including Microsoft 365 Enterprise Administrator Expert and TOGAF Certified Architect. As a volunteer, Chirag enjoys running Microsoft 365 UK (M365UK) user group and is a frequent speaker at local & international events. For his technical community contributions, Chirag has been awarded as a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) every year since 2020. He is also an Approved Chartered Membership Assessor for BCS (British Computer Society). According to sessionize.com, he was among the top 3% of most active speakers in 2022! View all posts by Chirag Patel @techChirag