There’s an app for that… but which one?

TL;DR

Outlook is where work arrives, not where it gets done
Teams is where we talk, meet, and collaborate
Word / Excel / PowerPoint / Loop are where we create the work
Planner assigns team ownership; To Do tracks your personal work
OneDrive is my work; Teams / SharePoint is our work

If you’ve ever stared at the Microsoft 365 app launcher and thought “where am I supposed to put this?”, you’re not alone. This guide is for anyone who uses Microsoft 365 and wonders where their work should live.

We have a powerful set of tools available to us, but without a clear map, it’s easy to end up with files scattered across email, conversations buried in Teams chats, and nobody quite sure who’s doing what.

So, I’ve put together a simple mental model (with some AI assistance). Think of it as a guide for the whole team, not a rigid rulebook, just a shared language for how we work.

The Big Picture: From “What Came In” to “How We Share It”

Think of our Microsoft 365 tools as stages in the life of your work:

What came in → Where we work together → What we create → Who owns the work → Where our shared work lives → How we share it

Each app has a clear job in that flow and can be split into two groups: the ones you live in every day, and the ones you create and publish with.

Daily Flow – Apps you live in every day

Outlook → What came in

Outlook is your front door.

Email, calendar, invites and many external requests arrive here first.

Use Outlook for:

Messages from constituents, partners, and people outside your organization
Meeting invites and scheduling
Quick one-to-one replies and triage

Key idea: Outlook is where work shows up, not necessarily where it gets done (big change in thinking for this one).

Teams → Where we work together

Teams is where day-to-day collaboration happens Use Teams for:

Ongoing conversations with your team (Channels)
Ad-hoc questions and quick decisions (Chat)
Meetings and screen sharing/li>
Working together on files in real time (no more adding version numbers)

A good habit: when an email turns into a back-and-forth discussion, move it to a Teams channel so the whole team can see the context and contribute.

Common mistakes we’re trying to avoid

Keeping team decisions buried in email threads
Storing final team documents in personal OneDrive
Tracking shared work only in personal to-do lists

Work Product – Apps you create and publish with

Word / Excel / PowerPoint / Loop → What we create

These are our content engines: they’re how ideas and data turn into something usable. Use:

Word for docs, proposals, policies, how-tos
Excel for tracking, analysis, and structured data
PowerPoint for storytelling and presentations
Loop (new kid on the block) for flexible pages and components you can use across Outlook and Teams

All these tools are built to save into OneDrive or SharePoint, which is where the “Where the work lives” part comes in.

Planner and To Do → Who owns the work

Work doesn’t move forward unless someone owns it.

Planner: Use this for teamwork: shared boards, checklists, and buckets that everyone can see with deadlines and owners. Great for projects, campaigns and recurring workflows.
Microsoft To Do: Use this for your personal list: it pulls in tasks assigned to you from Planner as well as flagged from Outlook.

A helpful workflow:

A request comes in via Outlook
The team discusses it in Teams
A task is created in Planner and assigned to a specific owner with a due date.
That task also appears in the owner’s To Do as part of their personal queue.

OneDrive → My working files

Use OneDrive for:

Drafts and personal working files
Notes and scratch work that only you need (for now)
Files that haven’t yet moved into a team space

Rule of thumb:

If it’s just for you, keep it in OneDrive
If it’s for your team or the organization, move it to Teams

Teams Shared tab → Where our shared work lives

When you go into a Team and look at the Shared or Files/Shared area, that is where your team’s shared documents live.

Use the Shared tab in Teams for:

Files the whole team needs to access
Shared folders that organize work by project, client, or topic
Content that should stay with the team, even if someone leaves

You can think of it this way:

Posts/Chat in Teams = the conversation
Shared tab in Teams = the shared content and structure

Behind the scenes, this shared content is powered by SharePoint, but you do not need to remember that name to use it. The important part is: if it is for the team, it belongs in the Shared area in Teams, not in someone’s personal OneDrive.

SharePoint Communication Sites → How we share the work

Once something is polished and ready for a broader audience, it needs a different home than a Team. That’s where SharePoint Communication sites come in. Use communication sites for:

Company-wide announcements and news
Policies, how-to guides, training materials and standard operating procedures
“Here’s how we work” pages and resource hubs
Content that many people need to read, but only a few need to edit

You can think of it this way:

Posts/Chat in Teams = the conversation
Shared tab in Teams = the shared content and structure

Think of a communication site as your digital bulletin board and staff portal.

Putting It All Together: A Simple Story

Here’s what a typical flow might look like:

A donor request comes into Outlook
You share it in a Teams channel to discuss with your group
You create a Planner task to track who’s doing what and by when
Your team works on the response in Word/Excel/PowerPoint/Loop, saving the file in the Shared tab of the team’s channel
Once it’s turned into a reusable process or FAQ, you publish the final, polished version on a SharePoint Communication site so everyone can find and follow it.

Why does this matter?

When everyone uses the same mental model, less time is wasted hunting for files, duplicating work, or wondering where things belong. But there’s an even bigger reason this matters: AI.

Microsoft 365 Copilot works by finding, connecting, and summarizing information across your apps. When files live in OneDrive or Teams, tasks are tracked in Planner, and shared knowledge is published in SharePoint, Copilot can surface the right information at the right time. When work is scattered across inboxes and personal folders, it can’t.

Using the right app isn’t just about organization, it’s how we lay the foundation for effective, trustworthy AI assistance.

Got any questions about any of these? Email the helpdesk and we can setup a time to talk.

Jonathan Meester, VP & Chief Technologist, Computers in Ministry