Collaboration Tools Comparison

ITS provides collaboration tools to enable University faculty, staff, and students to work together and communicate efficiently with anyone, anywhere, anytime.

Microsoft Teams

Use Microsoft Teams to share files, edit and collaborate on documents, take notes, host & join virtual meetings, chat with individuals or groups from any device, and create a SharePoint Team Site.
UAlbany faculty, staff and students can create a Team in Microsoft Teams that provides 1TB of storage for files for your team.

Microsoft Teams is great for:

Collaborating with people/groups outside the University
Storing large files (up to 250GB)
Files your group or team need to work on together
Files you need to share with multiple people
Files multiple people need to be able to access any time from anywhere
Files for clubs, interest groups, committees, project teams, departments
Being able to have access to your group's files directly on your device with syncing, even while offline
Group files that you need to access or edit from a mobile device

SharePoint Team Sites

SharePoint team sites connect you and your team to shared content and resources.

SharePoint Sites are great for:

A private website and storage space to collaborate with your team to organize and co-author shared content
An intranet/internal website for an office or working group to document procedures, specifications, troubleshooting steps, and store important files
Internal websites for clubs, interest groups, committees, project teams, departments
Extranet site to collaborate with an external partner (including specific external users; not the general public)
Knowledgebase for policies, procedures, or troubleshooting information

SharePoint Communication Sites

SharePoint communication sites are websites designed to inform and engage.

SharePoint Sites are great for:

An intranet/internal website for an office or working group to document procedures, specifications, troubleshooting steps, and store important files
Internal websites for clubs, interest groups, committees, project teams, departments
Extranet site to collaborate with an external partner (including specific external users; not the general public)
A website to share information that engages and informs broad audiences within the University
Internal University-facing department/news site
Knowledgebase for policies, procedures, or troubleshooting information

Smartsheet

Smartsheet is an application often used for project management and collaboration. It is used to create, manage, and share projects, assign tasks, track project progress, manage calendars, share documents, and manage other work.

A Smartsheet is great for:

Project Management with automated workflows and dashboards

Other Collaboration Options

ITS recommends the collaboration tools listed above. There are other options for specific uses available.

Microsoft 365 Groups

Microsoft 365 Groups (a.k.a. M365 Groups, formerly known as Office 365 Groups) let you choose a set of people that you wish to collaborate with and easily set up a collection of resources for those people to share, such as a shared Outlook inbox, shared calendar, a 1TB document library (similar to OneDrive for Business) for collaborating on files, or a SharePoint Team Site.

Department Folders (V: Drive)

Each division of the University has a divisional file space. For members of each division, this file space is typically mapped as their V: drive on a University computer running Windows. It is a collection of shared departmental folders.

If you are working with data subject to federal, state, or local regulations, or declared sensitive and personally identifiable (Category 1 data) by the University, please refer to Category 1 Storage Standards for guidance on appropriate storage locations.

Need more help? Contact the ITS Service Desk.

askIT