The reason this blog post came about was that I was working with an internal Sales Team to help realise the potential of the collaboration tools they had at their disposal with their Office 365 Licensing. If we think about a true digital workplace, we need to re imagine not only the way we work but where we work.
But I’m not ready to share – it’s mine and it’s a draft
An all to common scenario is that users are directed to store ALL their files working and final in a SharePoint Team Site…good and bad. But what is also common in that scenario is that a file may be started by a user and let’s say in the case of a sales presentation has 2 slides in a PowerPoint deck, clearly not finished. A sales manager and other sales team members who also have access to the Sales Team Site see this newly created presentation and provide some feedback, along the lines of “not sure about the direction here John?”, “Slide 2 needs some work”. What is also common in this scenario is files with the names ending with “Draft” or “Working Version”.
I would argue still better than the file share but still not using the power of connected Office 365 services and tools. So how can we improved this and really change the way the Sales Team work?
OneDrive for Business is the place to start
There is still a lot of confusion with end users about where documents should be started, shared and ultimately stored, this is not specific to a Sales user or team but for all users. If a document is in “Draft” form and you have just started it then it should start in your OneDrive. Obviously not ready for others to view or provide feedback. Remember OneDrive for Business content is yours unless you share it.
As you progress the document, you may want some input from a colleague, the document is still in draft form though and not ready for the rest of the Teams eyes.
Unified sharing experience
With the Office 365 unified sharing experience it makes it super easy for users, no matter what endpoint they are accessing the file from it just looks the same and works the same.
So you can share the file easily now with your colleague for feedback and review. Obviously with the added benefit of the file staying in your OneDrive and not being sent as a copy as an attachment in an email.
Move it to the Sales Team Site
Ok, so now the presentation is ready for the consumption of the rest of the Sales Team…..What now? Well using the “Move to” option in OneDrive for Business, you can easily…and I do mean easily MOVE the file to the Sales Team Site.
After you select the file and click the Move button in the ribbon you are presented with a list of sites that you have access to. Simply choose the site and then choose the library and folder (yes folder….keep reading). How easy and productive is that…..
Now the Sales Team has access to the presentation and can provide some additional input if required.
How do you let the team know it is there?
Just by moving the presentation to the library does not mean that everyone will know that it is there. A great way to do that is open Microsoft Teams and navigate to the Conference channel that you have created (wink wink), start a new conversation and use the @ mentioning feature to alert the entire team or just the channel, and because Microsoft Teams sits on top of the SharePoint site that you just moved the presentation to you have easy access to the Conference folder where the presentation resides (every channel gets a folder in the Document library).
It’s just practical advice
This is another example of how simple practical advice and scenario walk throughs can really help individuals in a business change the way they work at the micro level. Give these users this advice and they will become your champions and greatly improve the adoption of the platform.
Photo by Ambreen Hasan on Unsplash
