Microsoft recently refreshed its Microsoft 365 Groups governance content on docs.microsoft.com – something that was very timely as the amount of confusion that still exists around Groups.

I was engaged to review a bunch of the content and make suggestions/recommendations on where it might need to be corrected or updated, but additionally I authored a couple of docs that are now available.

End of lifecycle options for Microsoft 365 Groups

The first one is around a topic that is not fully understood by many, especially end users: your options when it’s time for the Group to be put to rest.

There are a number of services associated with Groups – not just a Team with its channels or SharePoint site with its document library. I often hear horror stories from users and IT pros who deleted a Team or Group and too late realised that there was something in the Planner that they wanted to refer to, a results in a Form that needed to be shared. Depending when the Group was deleted, options at this point are limited.

Writing this doc was quite cathartic, as it allowed me to really explain a topic as well as research some of the areas I wasn’t as familiar with (such as Project). Initially it was supposed to be 1,500 words but ended up being about 3,000 because there was just so much to cover.

You can view it online here.

The interaction between Microsoft 365 workloads and Groups

Building on the previous section, how various Microsoft 365 workloads interact with Microsoft 365 Groups is mind-boggling. This too was a cathartic process as it allowed me to explain an even more misunderstood topic.

Matt Wade has a fantastic guide to Groups that I refer to (with attribution) on a regular basis, however there’s still some gaps and products that aren’t referred to.

Similarly to the previous doc, this too was supposed to be 1,500 words but ended up being 4,000 words!

You can view it online here.

Authors note: a product feature changed a week after this was accepted and put into the publishing machine, so needs to be updated.

Also published on Medium.