Integrating Microsoft Teams Into Your Documentation Strategy

Utilize the power of Microsoft Teams along with SharePoint and OneDrive in your documentation framework strategy.

One of the great myths when it comes to documentation management is that there is an optimum way with which to have a single data silo of information for your organization.

I am here to tell you it is a pipe dream that the documentation application vendors tell you is possible in the hope you will sign up for the application they are trying to sell you.

Thankfully there are a few applications included with Office 365 with which you can give yourself the greatest chance of success when putting a documentation strategy in place.

Best Documentation Strategy?

My completely impartial and benevolent advice is to use Optimized Documentation and the documentation services we provide as we have been through all of the pain and frustration involved in doing things wrong over the years so that you do not have to.

Failing that, I will give a few tips that have worked for us over the years and that give consistent and reliable results.

Microsoft Teams With Sharepoint And OneDrive

The datastore for MS Teams, Sharepoint and OneDrive is the same place. What I mean by that is that if you change a file in Onedrive then that will also be modified in both Teams And Sharepoint.

The idea is to duplicate the folder structure that is in your documentation application with the folder structure in the above 3 Microsoft applications. This is where some planning is required as to how the folder structure should work and the folder structure should be identical both in your own company as well as your clients.

Documentation Structure In ITGlue

I have seen so many convoluted setups where there are up to four different organizations with which the MSP is represented within IT Glue. Some will have a separate organization just for their knowledgebase, another for their Standard Operating Procedures and then split their data center up so it is a separate entity and finally their MSP organization.

There is no need for these complex structures, they just introduce massive amounts of confusion and are unnecessary. Treat your MSP as if it is no different from any other client within IT Glue and there should be only a single organization representing it. If you have a separate organization for documentation then that extra complexity needs to be eliminated.

Documentation Folder Structure

One great benefit regarding creating document folders in IT Glue is unlike the password folder structures they can be easily imported via the import feature on the right hand side. From memory, you just paste the folder structure in each folder and select import.

This saves significant time as you need to do this for each client. Yes it will take a little time if you have several hundred clients but it is worth it. I have had techs go rogue on me in the past and start deleting folders from each client which are not used for that client.

Do not allow them to do this. You will hear seemingly rational reasons such as “but this client does not use AD so why have the folder?”

The reason is that you always want to produce a documentation framework that is consistent across the board as it instills trust amongst those with less experience. 

If an Active Directory folder is located in the same place in the KB for every single client then your staff will come to expect it there, they will take comfort that every single client is the same. If your senior tech goes on a deletion spree and you end up with 200 different variations of the folder structure then not only has that taken time to do, it also introduces inconsistency and lack of trust amongst your junior staff.

It causes both the client onboarding and offboarding tasks to take longer as new staff have to double check items they are not sure of such as “did they forget to add that folder or do they not need that folder” or “How come this client does not have any folders, I will have to put the ticket on hold and follow it up”

If you teach your staff to accept that if the folder is empty then it means we do not have the documentation or process then they are less likely to second guess themselves and ask questions which end up interrupting their effectiveness as well as others.

ITG Folder Contents Organization

So you now have imported the suite of folders you want to use for every single client across your organization and they are now identical across every single client in ITG.

Now is the time to organize any existing ITGlue documents into the relevant document folder for each one of your clients as well as the MSP (which should be treated like any other client) Brace yourself as this could take some time to complete as you may have hundreds or even thousands of ITG documents to sort through. 

Create Microsoft Teams For Client Data Structure

Once the ITG document folder structure is completed, I have found the best way depending on the number of clients is to segregate clients into MS Teams using a Team. I have found the best way of doing that especially if you have a large number of clients (more than 100) is to create a team called A-F followed by H-L etc so that they are easily manageable from within Teams.

The team names can be variable and it would depend on the amount of clients you currently have and your expectation of growth. Once the teams are in place then create channels within the relevant team so for example a client named Alfalfa Holdings would go into the team called A-F and you would create a channel within the team called Alfalfa Holdings (identical to the client name in ITG)

Sync Sharepoint To OneDrive Local

Because the team and channel folders and their contents are the same information as what is in both Sharepoint and Onedrive, the exact structure will appear in Sharepoint. Now if you enjoy pain you could certainly create one folder at a time in Teams or Sharepoint under each client and you may even complete that by 2045.

Alternatively get on a desktop or notebook and set up onedrive for business. Now within Sharepoint navigate to within the Team folder and at the top there is a sync button. It will ask you if you want to sync the Sharepoint folder with Onedrive and the team folders will be synced to your desktop under Onedrive.

Copy Folder Structure Into Local OneDrive

You can either copy a master copy of your folder structure in ITGlue or there are heaps of utilities out there that will take the flat import file you used in ITG to create a folder structure in windows.

Assuming you have an empty set of folders that make up your knowledge base folder structure and it is identical to the ITG document folder structure, you can copy and then paste into each one of the created channels.

Remember the channels are just showing as subfolders under the Teams folders in OneDrive and each folder will be named after one of your clients. Now it may take a bit of time however even with 200+ clients, it should not take more than an hour to copy into each channel an identical folder structure. Again there are plenty of utilities that can automate this step.

The syncing with OneDrive is 2 way so the document folder structure will be available for viewing under both Teams and Sharepoint within a short amount of time.

Populating Client Knowledge Base Folders

Once the diagram folder structure is in place for all of your clients then the tedious step of collecting documents from every place they are currently kept should be searched. This includes but is not limited to portable hard disks, peoples desktops, shared server drives, network server shares and existing Sharepoint repositories to name a few.

This is not a small task especially if you have a decade or so of documents strewn across the entire organization. Part of the effort invested here should be spent on eliminating as much outdated or duplicated content that you can.

I used to have an unsorted folder where any documents that needed review would be placed in that folder for that particular client. There should also be extensive and ongoing communication with all levels in the company. The last thing you need is for the top sales guy losing the plot because a potentially huge contract is at risk because they cannot find the information they need in the new folder system.

Always have a backup of the system as it was prior to any work undertaken and along with that have a plan to restore the information and the expected time frames for restoration widely advertised across the organization.

I strongly recommend sorting all documentation from a desktop or notebook using Onedrive as it allows for the fastest way to undertake this task. Any other method is impractical.

Folder Structure Now Identical Across Organization

Having completed the integration with Teams/Sharepoint/OneDrive with IT Glue it now means that there is no requirement to figure out where information is located in one place and attempt to translate where it should be in the other location.

So I advise to only store ITGlue created documentation in ITGlue because it does a dreadful job as a storage location for things like word documents or PDFs and that sort of thing. Trust me it will never work out if you attempt to shoehorn everything into your documentation platform.

The beauty of identical folder structures is knowing where everything lives. So say you have a client summary flexible asset and one of the sections is to allow you to upload the signed PDF contract for each client.

Instead of spending half an hour searching in 3 different locations before giving up, you now know that each client will have their signed contracts located in the /Signed Contracts folder. It now means you browse to that folder and upload the cyber security insurance policy or other contract document to the client summary asset.

If you navigate to the /signed contracts folder and there is no signed contract in there then you have a problem because it means it does not exist. It cuts down on uncertainty when the folder structure is consistent across clients and platforms and increases trust significantly.

Completing Microsoft Teams Integration

I know what you are thinking. “That is way too much work and I do not have time” That is where we come in, we are experienced in this type of integration and can help you implement in a more time effective manner than undertaking it internally.

The final step with this strategy is to implement a regimen of ongoing staff training to ensure that the high standards implemented are continued into the future.

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