When to Choose OneDrive, Teams, or SharePoint Online for Faculty & Staff

BCIT offers multiple ways to store documents and collaborate. Microsoft Teams, SharePoint, and OneDrive are connected cloud-based tools available to staff and faculty to facilitate and support collaborative work and allow for safe information storage management. But when should you use one versus another?

Tool	Primary user	Great for…	Sharing and access control	Conversation and communication
OneDrive	Individual and team	Storing and syncing files in the cloud and accessing them from anywhere on any device; ideal for work in progress and temporary sharing with specific individuals.	Documents are private until you share them. Share files individually and work on Office documents with others at the same time. Caution: Documents in your individual OneDrive – whether private or shared with others – disappear when you leave BCIT.	Comment on documents and @-mention someone. The person you @-mention receives an email with a link to your comment. Files in OneDrive can be linked and shared in emails in Outlook (rather than attached as separate files), facilitating collaboration on a single copy and helping to prevent confusion about multiple versions.
Teams	Team	Departmental and ad hoc teams having conversations and working together; calling and meeting right where the work is happening. Team building and meeting team objectives.	Teams can be public (open to all BCIT employees) or private (managed membership). Each Team also has its own OneDrive storage and SharePoint site. Files stored in a Teams’s OneDrive or SharePoint persists for as long as the Team and don’t disappear when a team member leaves, unlike individual OneDrive storage.	Communicate in real time with BCIT colleagues using chat, with teammates in dedicated topical Team channels, and with anyone in the world in online meetings or phone calls.
SharePoint	Team, group, or organization	Storing files in the cloud and sharing them with your team or organization; using robust permission management, and creating feature-rich sites.	SharePoint sites, like Teams, can be public or private. Share files with your team, organization, and external users. Control access on team sites or set up more robust permissions for sites and documents and allows for more advanced document structure. It also allows for a more layered permissions structure.	Communicate using SharePoint News. News can be added to your Teams channel, too. And you can add comments and likes to SharePoint pages. Typically covers files that need long-term retention and relate to policies, procedures and knowledge sharing.
BCIT Intranet	Organization	Build cohesion and increase employee engagement. Create and share announcements.	Unite BCIT with a central location for news and announcements anchored by strong controls. Provide all employees with a starting point for departmental information and service offerings.	Build and sustain community and culture. Enable users to discover content, find experts and leverage collective knowledge.
H, S and Dev Drives	Individual or team	These directories will become obsolete over time. Staff are encouraged to discontinue using these drives and leverage cloud-based solutions listed above. When off campus can only be accessed using myVPN.

You may choose to have files and conversations move through different tools at different points in their lifecycle. For example:

Presentation from work related conference: Individual or Team OneDrive
Meeting agenda for meetings: Working draft in OneDrive and blank template moved to Teams
Policy document covering ITS retention requirements: Initiated in OneDrive, moved to internal Team for collaboration, and final approved version published to public SharePoint site
Corporate policies edited and worked on in Teams and published to public website
Draft project scope document worked on in individual OneDrive and published to Teams (and a team’s associated OneDrive) to allow for project team review and amendments
News item worked on in individual or Teams OneDrive and published to Intranet