Who should attend Microsoft Teams and SharePoint training?

Microsoft Teams and SharePoint training is most appropriate for people whose roles involve workplace collaboration, shared information, document management or the administration of Microsoft 365 services. Attendance should be based on how a person uses or manages these platforms, rather than on job title alone.

Department and operational users should attend when they need to work in shared channels, access controlled documents, contribute to team sites or follow agreed information-management processes. This can include staff in finance, human resources, sales, operations, professional services, manufacturing and logistics. Training is particularly relevant where employees currently store files in different locations, duplicate documents, rely heavily on email attachments or are unsure where information should be kept.

Users do not all need the same course. A person who mainly joins conversations and accesses documents needs a different level of instruction from someone who organises a project workspace or maintains a SharePoint library. A role-based approach helps prevent introductory material from being irrelevant to experienced users, while ensuring that less confident attendees are not expected to understand governance or configuration concepts too early.

Project and process owners are suitable attendees when they are responsible for coordinating work across departments, managing project information or establishing a consistent way for colleagues to collaborate. They may need to understand how Teams conversations, meetings, files and SharePoint content relate to one another. Their training should cover practical decisions such as where working documents belong, how information should be structured, who requires access and how content is kept usable after a project changes phase.

Team and site owners should attend if they are expected to manage membership, permissions, channels, libraries or the day-to-day organisation of a workspace. They need more than user-level knowledge because their choices can affect access, findability and the quality of shared information. Suitable training can help them distinguish between routine ownership tasks and issues that should be referred to an administrator or technical support team.

Administrators and technical support staff are another important audience. They may require deeper coverage of configuration, permissions, lifecycle management, governance, user support and the relationship between Teams and SharePoint. This group benefits from training that uses realistic administration scenarios, including how to investigate access problems, identify ownership responsibilities and apply organisational standards consistently.

Business leaders and decision-makers can also benefit, even if they will not configure the platforms themselves. Their focus is usually on how Teams and SharePoint support communication, information control, remote collaboration and operational consistency. They should understand the responsibilities created by adopting shared workspaces, including the need for ownership, appropriate permissions, sensible retention practices and clear user guidance.

Training is also suitable for organisations introducing Microsoft 365 to staff who have used informal collaboration methods or a mixture of legacy systems. In that situation, attendees need to understand not only which buttons to select, but also the working practices being introduced. Examples include when to use a channel rather than a private message, how to collaborate on a shared document without creating conflicting copies, and how to locate the authoritative version of information.

New starters, internal champions and colleagues who support adoption may need separate emphasis. New starters require a clear foundation in the organisation’s approved way of working. Champions may need broader knowledge so they can reinforce good practice within their departments. Internal support contacts need to recognise common user errors and understand when a problem relates to permissions, configuration, training or an underlying service issue.

Before attending, an organisation should consider:

• which tasks each attendee performs in Teams or SharePoint;
• whether the person is an end user, workspace owner, content manager or administrator;
• which collaboration or information-management problems the training should address;
• what existing Microsoft 365 knowledge attendees already have;
• which internal policies, naming conventions and access rules must be reflected in examples; and
• whether different roles should attend separate sessions or receive different levels of instruction.

A mixed group can work when attendees share similar responsibilities, but a single course may be less effective where everyday users and administrators have substantially different learning requirements. Role-based sessions, supported by examples from the organisation’s own workflows, usually provide a clearer basis for applying the training afterwards. S2 Technology Group can help organisations identify the relevant attendee groups and align training with the way their people need to use Teams and SharePoint.