At the 2020 Microsoft Ignite conference, Jeff Teper presented a diagram titled ‘Microsoft 365’. The diagram showed only four icons: Teams, Outlook, Office and Edge.
The implication of this diagram was that, for most end-users, Teams is now (or will become) their primary portal into Microsoft 365. As stated by Jeff Teper, SharePoint is a foundation platform, the out of sight content engine. Edge’s ability to serve up search results from Microsoft 365 further reduces the need to go to SharePoint.
So, what are the implications for managing records?
SharePoint as a recordkeeping system
For a long time, records have been created, captured and stored in recordkeeping systems.
In the paper world, the recordkeeping system consisted of paper records stored in files and boxes and detailed in registers. With the introduction of computers in the 1980s, registers were transferred to databases, making it a bit easier to find records. In the late 1990s, recordkeeping databases were linked with (separate) file stores and became electronic document and records management (EDRM) systems that continued to manage paper records (the so-called ‘hybrid’ systems).
For almost a decade (since SharePoint 2010 was introduced), SharePoint has contended with files shares and EDRM systems as an alternative recordkeeping system, providing almost all the same core functionality.
The ability to create a record in a single location, then share and co-author it from that location, has completely removed the requirement to copy a record to a separate recordkeeping system.
And then came Teams
Someone at Microsoft had incredible foresight to see the potential for a new user interface that would replace products like Lync and Skype for chat and conferencing, and would also provide access to files stored in SharePoint.
SharePoint has been a core part of the Microsoft productivity offerings for a very long time and people have built careers around developing functionality on the SharePoint platform to appeal to end-users, the intranet being the most common case in point, with customised team sites close behind.
The arrival of Microsoft 365 Groups and then Teams in 2017 was perhaps not widely noticed. One could argue that end by the beginning of 2020, it was still largely unnoticed.
And then came a pandemic and working from home. Teams – which may have been largely ignored or overlooked until then – was already ready to take its place next to Outlook, Office and Edge as a primary end-user interface.
New Teams were created, sometimes with abandon (and were sometimes just as quickly abandoned).
Both 1:1 (or 1:many) chats and channel chats took off. Files were created and shared via OneDrive for Business (‘Files’ in the 1:1 chat area), or via the back-end SharePoint sites (‘Files’ in the channel chat area).
There was (and maybe still is) a belief that files were being saved to Teams but not SharePoint. ‘We are storing everything in Teams’ was not an uncommon expression, sometimes followed by ‘but we’re not using SharePoint or OneDrive’.
The year 2020 saw a huge increase in the volume of records stored in SharePoint sites linked with Teams, as well as a completely new set of records – chats (‘compliance’ copies of which are stored in Exchange mailboxes).
The diagram below provides an overview of the relationship between Teams, Microsoft 365 Groups, Exchange mailboxes, SharePoint and OneDrive for Business.
What about SharePoint?
As the diagram above shows, SharePoint has not disappeared. Many organisations will continue to use, and ask end-users to access, SharePoint sites directly to store and manage records.
But accessing SharePoint from SharePoint may become less necessary over time. At Ignite 2020, the ability to pin a ‘home site’ (such as an intranet) to Teams was demonstrated. Even the intranet may end up in Teams.
As Jeff Teper said, SharePoint is a foundation platform, one that does not get in the way of collaboration and productivity but powers it.
Implications for records managers
Records managers, who were likely already on a steep learning curve regarding SharePoint, need to continue to improve their knowledge of the SharePoint platform. On a positive note, SharePoint Online is a much easier application to learn and manage, compared with its earlier on-premise predecessors.
In organisations that have been using SharePoint for a while and/or have allowed the free-creation of Teams in MS Teams, there will some requirement for retrospective analysis, review, and cleaning up.
In all organisations, there will be a requirement to establish some form of governance and oversight of records (files and chats) that have been created, including for the purpose of retention and disposal/disposition.
Retrospective implications
Where MS Teams has been implemented with little thought given to naming conventions, SharePoint site provisioning, or access controls, records managers should been given access to and review the list of all SharePoint sites that have been created, including from MS Teams. This will provide an initial idea of the volume of content and activity on each site, and what action needs to be taken on things like inactive Teams.
Ideally, records managers should be added to the Site Collection Administrators (SCA) group of every SharePoint site, including MS Teams-based sites. This action will give records managers access to the content on every site and to help advise on the management of records in those sites (including Team-based sites).
- The best way to do this is to add records managers to a Security Group and then add that Group to the SCA group of every site. This access could be deferred for sites that contain very sensitive information, although typically records managers would have access to all records, including if they had an EDRMS. And, access is always recorded in audit logs or the local site ‘viewers’ (where enabled) and ‘last modified by’ information.
Access to the chat content of Teams (including 1:1 chats) will not normally be required; some understanding of the content could be inferred from the name of the Team or the SharePoint content. If necessary, Global Admins or a Compliance Admin can run a Content Search across Teams to find chat content, and/or export that content by an individual person or subject.
Records managers will also need to advise on the appropriate retention policy or policies that need to be created and then applied to:
- The chat content in 1:1 chats.
- The chat content in the various Teams.
- SharePoint sites linked with Teams.
- Exchange mailboxes.
- OneDrive for Business accounts. An additional consideration is how long the content of inactive ODfB acccounts should be retained via the ‘Storage’ policy (default is 30 days then permanent deletion).
- SharePoint sites not linked with MS Teams. This includes whole sites as well as library-based retention policies.
- Office 365 Groups (mailbox/SharePoint site). If linked with a Team, a second retention policy is required for the Team chat content retention (second dot point above). For example, one policy ‘GroupABC’ and a second policy ‘GroupABCTeamChat’.
As many of the above retention policies replace the need for backups, records managers need to discuss the options with their IT colleagues.
Forward looking implications
Ideally, there should be some form of governance around the creation of new Teams in MS Teams. These governance arrangements might include:
- The necessary access for records managers. For example, Site Collection Administrator on every site, and/or a customised Compliance Admin role to create and access retention policies.
- Controls around the creation of new Teams, including naming conventions. If not controlled, what processes will ensure that records are properly managed.
- Retention implications. For example, can the new site and/or the channel chat content be covered by another retention policy – e.g., ‘All Teams with assessed low-level working content should be kept for 5 years’.
- Simple best practice guidance for all new users, including on how to share and co-author.
- Retention policies for all Microsoft 365 content, not just SharePoint.
- Reviews of the content of OneDrive for Business accounts of departed end-users, especially for people in senior or decision making positions. It is relatively common practice for end-users to delete (and download) this content before they leave their jobs.
- Monitoring and oversight of content, including access to reporting dashboards.
So, is Microsoft 365 just Teams, Outlook and Office (in Edge)?
Perhaps, yes.
For many, or not most information based end-users, MS Teams is likely to become the primary interface to Microsoft 365 collaboration team spaces including SharePoint and OneDrive. Just like Outlook, Teams will probably be left open all day.
In theory, the volume of low-value emails, and emails with attachments, should reduce over time.
The developing role of records managers
In this new world, the role of records managers will change from being the curators of records copied to and stored in a separate ‘records and document management’ system, to being records compliance analysts or perhaps, corporate knowledge and information managers and content analysts.
They will learn what the Graph can do, and help to guide AI tools including machine learning and machine teaching, Project Cortex and SharePoint Syntex. They will be responsible for monitoring content across the Microsoft 365 platform, creating and applying retention policies and managing the outcome of those policies, working more interactively with the Graph, and with a range of data.
In organisations that have a requirement to transfer records to archival institutions, the new knowledge and information managers will have a key role in ensuring that this data is suitable for transfer.
They might even have oversight of old paper records gathering dust until they can be destroyed.
Records about the world 
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