TEAMs Team - without Sharepoint Teamsite?

Question

Hi there,

is it possible to create a MS TEAMS - Team without automatically creating a Sharepoint Teamsite?
If not, can I adjust the Teamsite? - e.g. Library function only?

Thank you!

Answer 1

Hi @jaWa

I am afraid there is no way to complete your requirements.

Each team in Microsoft Teams has its own SharePoint site that serves as a document library for that team. Depending on where exactly you store or share a file in Microsoft Teams, it may end up in a different location within this site. The following picture shows file location instruction for your reference:

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Answer 2

Well I mainly agree to the above answer. Although I have seen and configured Teams to be a chat tool only. In turn this means that you disable all other services like SharePoint and OneDrive for the users and block anything that goes beyond chatting via policies etc. The experience is very poor then. Some customers do that, because they want to gradually rollout M365 services one by one and have as much control over it as possible. I don't want to judge if these approaches make sense or not. I've just seen these environements at insurances or banks or other more regulated organizations.

Answer 3

How then to manage duplication in SharePoint Teamsites for Teams and Outlook Groups?

When creating an Outlook Contact Group, a SharePoint Teamsite will by default be created for that Contact Group. When creating a MSTeams team from that Contact Group, another (different) SharePoint Teamsite is created for that team. Now the same working group has two SharePoint Teamsites.

Also, when an unused MSTeams team is deleted, the SharePoint Teamsite associated with that team, cannot be deleted by the owner of the team. To me, this means that there are potentially thousands of unused SharePoint Teamsites (created either from MSOutlook or MSTeams) floating around our organisation, and many duplications.

I am not a SharePoint or Azure Admin, or even IT person. I am simply responsible to keep our knowledge management environment neat & tidy and to capacitate others to do so as well.

Can someone please clear up my confusion and explain how to avoid duplication in SharePoint Teamsite environment when creating a team in MSTeams or a Contact Group in MSOutlook? Best practice examples will be appreciated. Kind regards.