[WIP][Overview] Teams roadmap

[marcoambrosini]

Vision

Teams becomes Nextcloud's unified team workspace: the place where a group of people gets all the resources they need to collaborate (files, chat, knowledge base, tasks, data) provisioned together, governed together, and surfaced together.

The problem

Today a team is just a list of people that other apps can share to. It can't own most types of resources, and it comes with none by default. The main issues are:

• Ownership. Almost every resource belongs to a single user; the team only gets access via share. Team admins have no power over resources owned by members, and storage counts against one person's quota instead of the team's (unless a team folder is configured). Team folders and Collectives already do this right: they belong to the team, have their own quota, and survive any member leaving.
• Membership. Sharing a resource with one person is much easier than adding them to the team, so who can access a resource slowly stops matching who is on the team.
• Provisioning. Creating a team gives you an empty group. We need to provide the space (a team-folder) and required resources to get started.

Target experience

• Creating a team also creates a space for the team: a team-folder where all it's resources will find a new home.
• Creating a team also creates some core default resources: a calendar, a talk conversation and a collective. Users could then add optional ones to the team page.
• The team page shows everything in one place: members, description, and all the team's resources.
• People and access are managed once, on the team, and through the use of roles. Every resource follows.
• Team members can be managed from any app that shows the team.
• Teams are never nested. Grouping teams should be possible, but only for navigation and search; it never grants access to content. This is inspired by SharePoint's new architecture.
• Existing teams can be upgraded to a full "team space".

Work items (Nextcloud 35 MVP)

Teams app (circles)

• Move the team page front-end from contacts to the circles feat(teams): in-app Teams page #2561
• Create team-folder when creating a team #2661
• Show team-folder contents on the TeamPage #2663
• Fix NoUserException groupfolders#2669
• Teams admin settings page Allow restricting team-creation to certain groups #2717

Team folders (groupfolders)

• Team-bound flag: folders created for a team are marked as such; ACLs are off by default and hidden from the team UI → Make team-folders actually assignable to a single team #2734, Allow a single team-folder to be assignet to a team as it's main storage #2643
• Teams section in admin settings: let everyone, or only a chosen group, create team folders, with a maximum size →
• Impossible to share group folders with circles you are not member of groupfolders#2665
• Team folders do not show up as part of team resources server#61385

Nextcloud 36 and future

• Team ownership of all Nextcloud resource types → Team-owned resources across Nextcloud #2644
• Store all team-related app-data in a team-folder #2637
• Visitor role: a team role that can only view; the first step towards a general role system
• Custom roles: define a role once (for example "Talk moderator"), set what it may do, and assign it to members; a member's rights are the sum of their roles → Team member permissions: read/write/resharing #2646
• Shared team-management component: one frontend component plus API to view, add and remove members, usable from any app; permissions checked server-side → Manage team from Files UI #2432
• Sharing defaults on team resources: make adding people to the team easier than adding new shares, warn before sharing with an individual, and list such shares on the team
• Sharing lockdown per team: chosen at team creation; access comes only from membership, no re-sharing at all → Team setting: allow re-sharing #2645
• Ability to organize teams in collections that provide nested navigation and search, but not access rights inheritance, modeled after sharepoint hubs
• widget page for Teams Add "widget" like functionality for the TeamPage #2552
• Show activity of teams Show activity of team in Teams app #2692
• Track activities on Teams in the Audit log. Earlier PR for this: Sharing breaks after some time - oc_filecache at fault groupfolders#226

[Aveyron-RetD]

Could we add also as a milestone creating a team/editing a team => creates a contact group back in contacts and managing the team modify the contact group. As the teams Roadmap is getting away from contacts creating a contact group would make sense and would allow communicating to the teams with emails. Mail already support contact group
nextcloud/mail#1850
#1465

Maybe it should be an address book. You can share an address book, you cannot share group contact🫤 and you cannot share an address book with another team nextcloud/contacts#3993

[jospoortvliet]

Could we add also as a milestone creating a team/editing a team => creates a contact group back in contacts and managing the team modify the contact group. As the teams Roadmap is getting away from contacts creating a contact group would make sense and would allow communicating to the teams with emails. Mail already support contact group nextcloud/mail#1850 #1465

Maybe it should be an address book. You can share an address book, you cannot share group contact🫤 and you cannot share an address book with another team nextcloud/contacts#3993

Interesting idea. Could just be virtual, don't you think? So that in mail you could simply email a team, just like you can assign a deck card to a team or share a calendar to a team? Then showing it as a contact group could be a virtual thing - read-only...

[Aveyron-RetD]

Well you might want to decide who to share this "virtual mailing list" in your organisation or to other people.
I am ok with virtual as long as you can decide whom to share it with.

People are "used" to mailing list why not create one to be able to share to external people. This seems to be such a low hanging fruit but contact groups and address book both have downside.

[jospoortvliet]

Below some background on how Nextcloud and Microsoft handle resources differently and why we would make these changes to Teams. Mostly written from the perspective of someone familiar with Nextcloud. Let me know if there are mistakes ;-)

Introduction

Most organizations working with the Microsoft platform make use of Sites in SharePoint as well as Teams in Microsoft Teams. Out of the box, these offer a fundamentally different view on resources compared to Nextcloud, by grouping most resources according to a Microsoft Group (visible as Team in Teams and Site in SharePoint). Nextcloud, by contrast, offers a more 'flat' model. Both models have strengths and weaknesses, but customers are fundamentally used to the Microsoft way and thus a way to provide this to Nextcloud is needed.

The models compared

Resources in Nextcloud are split between applications, with relations between them visible typically through sharing. For example, a document can be shared in a Talk room or attached to a Deck card. As user, you can organize the resources however you like.

In contrast, Microsoft tends to group different types of resources in relation to a Microsoft Group. A Group always automatically spawns a SharePoint site (files), a shared calendar and Mailbox (! hidden by default in Outlook, but there), a Planner plan, and a OneNote notebook. A Group (Team or Site) can have multiple channels (chat rooms). It is possible to create more notebooks and plans.

There are some issues with the Microsoft model - in particular, private channels (chats) spawn their own SharePoint site, can't have a plan, and are not associated with groups. Pulling in external people can be nightmarish and ownership is complicated so it gets messy quickly, also from a governance point of view. Companies tend to restrict a lot of features here, complicating collaboration. Moreover, there is no single "here's your day" overview from Microsoft, like we have at Nextcloud. Users tend to have Teams' Activity feed open, plus Outlook, plus Planner with My Tasks/My Day.

The Nextcloud model is, in many ways, much cleaner. A single overview across all tasks/groups/teams is default, even though Dashboard is much more limited than what SharePoint and Teams offer. But there are a few shortcomings compared to Microsoft.

• The obvious and most visual one is the lack of a single 'view' on all resources by Team. For users that prefer to work that way, this is a big loss.
• Few apps support resources being owned by a Team - something which is default in Microsoft. This is critical to ensure data is retained when people leave the team or organization, and for governance.
• Control and transparency over existing teams, membership and who can create and manage teams is far more fine-grained at Microsoft. In Nextcloud, we have Groups, but they (currently) lack some of the UI elements associated with Teams. Teams are not admin-managed and can typically not even be SEEN by admins. Meanwhile Nextcloud Teamfolders are associated with storage quota and can only be admin-created and managed, even though they can't see or manage teams...
• Provisioning resources is, right now, a manual step. Would be nice to allow some default resource creation.

Table

Dimension	Microsoft (container-first)	Nextcloud (resource-first)
Organizing unit	M365 Group; a Team + SharePoint site are two faces of it	Per-app resources, linked by sharing; no bundling unit
File storage	Channels (standard, private, shared) all belong to a team, but storage differs: standard = folder in the team's site; private & shared = each its own separate SharePoint site; plus team-less group/1:1 chats where files land in each uploader's OneDrive	Files app / group folders; each Talk chat can get its own folder
Storage quota	pooled + optional per-site caps, so most orgs limit user creation of SharePoint Sites to control storage.	Admin-controlled Teamfolders, no self-service option.
Personal files	OneDrive for Business (a personal SharePoint site)	Your Files space
Personal → shared	Move to (keeps version history/metadata) or share a link (stays personal, vanishes if you leave). Drag-drop = copy, loses history	Share to a user/Team, or move into a group folder (moving across storages can drop versions)
Chat	Channels (standard, private, shared) all related to a team (shared data go on team storage) + fully separate ad-hoc group chats and 1:1 chats (share data in each private storage)	Talk rooms with a shared folder and fully flexible membership
Tasks	Planner; plan belongs to the group. Can have more than one plan.	Deck; boards shared like any resource
Notes	One OneNote notebook per team; channels = sections in it	Notes / Collectives / Whiteboards, shared individually resource (Collectives always owned by Teams)
Mail & calendar	Group mailbox + calendar exist but hidden by default (HiddenFromExchangeClientsEnabled); rarely used in practice	Mail & Calendar are standalone apps, but Calendars can be shared to a Team
Daily overview	No single "your day" pane. Split across Teams Activity feed (@mentions), Outlook, and Planner My Tasks. Glue = notifications	Activity feed and Dashboard; context (team relations) can typically be found in the share sidebar in each app or resource.
Who creates a workspace	Any user by default, but usually locked to IT/admins to fight sprawl	Any user creates a Team (group) instantly, incl. privately. Little admin control.
Speed / weight	Heavy: each Team spawns site + mailbox + calendar + notebook + plan	Light: a Team is just membership; add resources as needed
Ad-hoc small group	Private channel = own separate SharePoint site; members must already be in the parent team;	Create a Team, share the few resources you need
Cross-department pull-in	Painful: add to whole parent team, use a Shared channel (often policy-restricted), or fall back to a group chat (files scatter to personal OneDrive)	Add the person to the share/Team directly
Access control	One membership object drives access to everything in the group	Per-resource, per-app; can drift or become inconsistent. Exception: Team folders
**Ownership / Lifecycle	Org-owned; channel/site content survives departure. Archive/delete Group → everything goes together. Group-chat files live in personal OneDrive → at risk when someone leaves	Depends on where it lives but most resources can't be team-owned; owner-held shares can break when owner leaves. No single "delete the project" action. Exception: Team folders
Project view	Strong within a team, with configurable and flexible team overview; view is weak across teams; broken by private channels (separate sites)	Little out of the box. Resources and members can be seen in Contacts, little configurable about the view
Flexibility	Low: resources bound to their container	High: any resource relates to any other
Main failure mode	Sprawl + private-channel/site fragmentation; over-structuring	No team ownership for most resources; limited per-team overview; no or little administrator control

[Aveyron-RetD]

Just for info https://apps.nextcloud.com/apps/teamhub
and nextcloud/server#53125

I go quiet now. Keep up the good work and make Nextcloud Rock 👍