The Rise of Microsoft OneNote

The whys and hows of provisioning OneNote into your Microsoft Team

Microsoft OneNote. It is one of those applications which people either love to use or simply cannot get on with. 

For some, Microsoft OneNote is an essential tool for their everyday work, using it to capture valuable notes for meetings into an organised structure of sections and pages. OneNote enables notes to be captured in a variety of ways, including by typing, by using a tablet or even by taking pictures using the OneNote app.

Of course, OneNote is not for everyone, based on personal preferences, lack of knowledge or a past bad experience. Some people like to use alternative apps for note taking, others prefer to make hand written notes or are just simply not note takers. There is however, a growing trend thanks to Microsoft Teams, that is seeing more users once again considering OneNote.

OneNote in Teams

The personal nature of note taking can naturally make it very difficult to share notes with others, particularly when collaborating on projects. 

Many organisations have adopted Microsoft Teams as the ideal hub for project collaboration, with its ability to brings together information from several sources, including notes, related to a common area of work.

Microsoft Teams offers a significant level of flexibility in capturing and sharing notes. Each Channel within a Team can include a OneNote notebook for taking notes, although more typically there will be just a single Channel where notes are managed. The benefit is that this notebook can be shared with all members of the Team, where they can collaboratively capture notes.  Members of the Team will be able to access the notes through a variety of OneNote apps, including directly in Teams, via the OneNote desktop app or on numerous mobile devices.

There are of course alternatives to using OneNote in Teams.  There is the out-of-the-box Wiki, but it lacks the structure and flexibility of OneNote. Other alternatives include the Whiteboard app, Word documents or third party apps such as Evernote.

Provisioning OneNote

With respect to note taking, there are lots of options. There is no right or wrong way to do it – Teams in different organisations will work differently. Organisations, however, could set a standard and educate users about the possibilities and value add. OneNote represents an obvious choice for organisations already invested in the Microsoft 365 platform and who are concerned about data being stored in other services and the potential of Shadow IT.

The good news is ProvisionPoint Workspaces supports the provisioning of a OneNote notebook into one or more Channels by default with new Teams. There is the flexibility of using workspace templates to define how different Teams will be pre-configured with Channels, Tabs and Apps. For example, some Teams could be created with Wiki Tabs included in Channels, while other Teams may include OneNote Tabs within Channels.

If you would like to find out more about provisioning OneNote, simply contact us.