Decide Wisely: Private Channel vs. Team #microsoftteams

Introduction should you have a private team or a private  Channel this is a question I get asked a lot so I   want to share the answers with you now my example  here shows a private team that's called health and   safety that has a number of channels included and  I also have an option of well maybe I should have   a private Channel that's called health and safety  that's part of the main team let's look into this   further so when you create a team you are asked  what kind of team will this be and so you have the   Type of Teams available to you options of private public or or wide so we're just  talking about the private team in this example   here now when you create a channel you're asked  the same kind of question the details about the   Type of Channels available to you channel That We're looking for is whether you want  to make a private channel so I have a big list of   Comparison of Team vs Channel comparisons to cover with you and I'm going to  demo this to you in teams as you'll notice from   my chart here you'll see that teams does have  a lot more flexibility for you so if there's a   need for that flexibility then the team is the  best answer if you're just like ah just need a   little bit of stuff in that channel then maybe the  channel is a way to go but you are restricted on   what you can do in a channel so let's show you  this so I'm in teams now and I'm in the health   Demo of Teams Channel that is private and safety channel of the mission Office Team now  making a channel tends to be easier than making   a team sometimes and I only say easier because  sometimes restrictions are on an organization at   the top level more so than this level so meaning  that some times your it Department may not allow   you to make teams but they allow you to make  channels so just because that's happening you   might still want to consider well should I ask  the IT department to make the team for me since   I can't make it they have that permission locked  up so um but we'll we'll look at the differences   just so you're well aware of what they are because  they might say to you just make the channel and   and that'll be private enough the trouble is that  a private channel has a lot less options for you   now before I go into the differences one other  thing I should mention is that if you choose to   make a private Channel you cannot undo that like  you can't change it later on to make it public so   everybody else can see it uh you have to make  a new channel in that case uh similarly if you   make a team and you decide okay I made it private  but now I want it to be org wide you can't change   that permission level in a team either so let's go  into the the differences that were on my chart So   within the health and safety Channel I have the  ability to to add a new post I can add have a   conversation with somebody uh within this channel  I can of course restrict the membership to this   channel so it's not everybody in the office team  and I can certainly put files in this channel as   well so I do have room for information don't I  now let's look at the difference with regards to   the actual team though if I go to the health and  safety team I have many channels that I can have   Demo of what a private Team has available conversations in so I have posts in the general  area I have post posts that are possible for me   in the compliance area and I have posts within the  training area so the nice thing here is I've got   three different places to have three different  kinds of conversations so that gives me a bit   more flexibility and similarly I've also got the  ability to file in three different places so if   it's about training I can file in the training  Channel if it's about compliance I can file in   the compliance Channel and if it's just general  information I can file in the general Channel   What a Private Channel does not give you within the health and safety Channel I only  have one place to file stuff you could bring   in files from a document Library if you want to  and if you want to know more about how to do that   check out my other video on document libraries  I I'll provide the link in the description below   by default you're only allowed one filing area  now another major restriction uh about a private   channel that that I'm not a fan of is the fact  that if I want to schedule a meeting with people   from this channel I don't have the option of  scheduling I only had the option of meeting now   so that's that's not so great is it if I want to  have the meetings with my health and safety group   but only them I can't schedule anything ahead of  time at least not having it appear in the channel   obviously I can schedule it in my Outlook and then  have a teams meeting but that won't save it in the   channel so that's a big limitation as far as I'm  concerned if I go to my health and safety team and   I go to my general Channel and actually go to any  channel there is the meeting but but at the top   and I can schedule a meeting in any one of these  channels so if I want to look for a past meeting   that I've had I can just easily go to the Post  area of that channel and find the meeting find   the notes and find the recording if we recorded  stuff now another difference that is a limitation   with the private channels is the fact that you  can only add certain apps and what that means   is we're limited to what applications we can add  so I'm going to hit the plus sign here just so   you can see it for yourself popular application  to add into a team so you can keep track of your   tasks and keep track of what everybody's doing is  tasks by planner so if I type in planner there it   doesn't find planner it will never find well  I shouldn't say never it won't find planner   because planner is not something you can add  into a private Channel at least at the moment   that's the way Microsoft's got it set up so I'm  going to close out of here and just show you the   exact same example with the team so if I go to  the general channel of my health and safety team   I hit the plus sign and I type in planner you  see how task by planner comes up there so I can   definitely add it to this team in fact there's  another app that is popular within teams or at   least I recommend uh a lot of my clients to use  within their teams that's forms so if I want my   staff to fill in particular forms then why not put  the form right in the team itself so if I type in   forms here at the top it'll come up with forms  which is the Microsoft form forms application   so that's the first app I can I can choose from  and that's the one I want so in a team and in a   channel that's not private no problem I can add in  the form and have people fill in the form easily   so I'm going to close out it there and let's go  back to the private Channel and if I hit the plus   sign again and I type in forms you'll see that  that Microsoft forms does not come up at the top   there's all kinds of third party forms that I'm  seeing here but the Microsoft forms is not an   option here here so again I don't get to have a  form that people within this channel can fill in   easily and then the last example of a difference  that I found that isn't serving my clients well   in some cases is that if I'm in a channel and I  start a post I have the standard ability to you   know type in the posts as I need to and I got  a few little extra buttons at the bottom but I   don't have any plus sign that lets me get to more  applications so kind of like the plus sign up up   here is restricting us there is a restriction  down here because I can't even there isn't even   a plus sign and so the application I'm looking  for in particular is the approvals application so   if I want to get approvals on something with the  members of this channel I don't have the approvals   app available to me here so let me just show you  what that means I'm going to go to the health and   safety team and the general Channel and I'm going  to start a new post and hit the plus sign and see   how well first of all there is a plus sign uh  and there's a few more little buttons as well   or icons as well and then uh I have a choice of  applications now how many applications you have   a choice of all depends on the permissions that  you have and the IT department or company that   you work with and what they're allowing you to  see but let's just say you have the option for   approvals so we search for that and this is the  app that I'm talking about so if I click on this   approvals app then I can do a basic request uh  within this particular team within this channel   Channel but I can't do this in a private channel  so if you want more information about approvals   please check out my video on this topic as  well I'll put that link in the description   below as well so these are the differences that  I wanted to make you aware of so making a private   Differences between Private Channel and Team listed Channel might seem like it's an easy task to do  because you have the option to do that but please   consider whether that is really what you want  long term because you will not be able to add   a lot of extra depth to that Channel or a lot  of extra organization to that channel whereas a   team when you make a team and you make that team  private you're handpicking the members of that   team just like you would handpick the members of  a private channel so you've got that restriction   in place and now you have the ability to use  whatever apps you want in that team and really   use a collaboration effectively all right so just  wanted you to know hope this helps let me know   what your thoughts are on private channels and  teams love to hear your comments below thanks bye