SharePoint Online: Connect Existing Team Sites to New Office 365 Group

Requirement:  A SharePoint Online team site (Classic / Modern Experience) user wants to transform their existing site to an Office 365 group to take advantage of Office 365 Group offerings such as a Shared mailbox, Planner, Teams, etc.

How to Connect to New Office 365 Group in SharePoint Online?

SharePoint Online and Office 365 groups are two powerful tools for collaboration and communication within an organization. By connecting a SharePoint Online site to an Office 365 group, you can take advantage of the benefits of both platforms and improve the efficiency of your team. With this integration, you can store and share files, collaborate on projects, and communicate with your team all in one place.

When you create a new Office 365 group, an associated SharePoint Team site will be created automatically. In this case, we need a new Group with an existing team site. To start with, make sure connect to Office Group is enabled at the tenant level.

1. Login to SharePoint Online Admin Center >> Click on Settings from the left navigation.
2. On the settings page, under “Connections from sites to Office 365 groups”, Set “Allow site collection administrators to connect sites to new Office 365 groups”.

   

Now, you can connect your SharePoint Online sites to Office 365 groups. To connect an existing SharePoint Online site to a new Office 365 group, follow these steps:

1. Login to SharePoint Online site collection with Site collection administrator rights >> Click on the Settings gear icon >> Select “Connect to new Office 365 group”. You are now presented with an overview page with a quick explanation of what will be created by Office 365 for your site collection, and what’s going to happen by connecting your site to an O365 group. Click on “Let’s get
   started”
2. Provide the information for your Office 365 group such as Group name, Group email address, Privacy settings, etc., and then click on “Connect group”

   

3. Next, add any additional owners and members if you wish to do so, and click on “Finish”.

   

The result: Your SharePoint Online site will be updated with a modern Home page! The site retains its URL, content, hierarchy, and Settings remain the same. No permissions are altered – All existing permissions, site owners, members, and visitors work without any interruption.

SharePoint Online: Connect to New Office 365 group using PowerShell

We can also use the PowerShell cmdlet https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/sharepoint-online/set-spositeoffice365group?view=sharepoint-ps in SharePoint Online to connect to the group:

#Set Parameters
$AdminCenterURL="https://crescent-admin.sharepoint.com"
$SiteUrl = "https://crescent.sharepoint.com/sites/operations"
$GroupName = "operationsGroup"
$GroupAlias = "operationsGroup"

#Connect to SharePoint Online
Connect-SPOService -Url $AdminCenterURL -credential (Get-Credential)

#Connect Team Site to Group
Set-SPOSiteOffice365Group -Site $SiteURL -DisplayName $GroupName -Alias $GroupAlias

Once the new Office 365 Group is created, It migrates the home page from the classic experience to the Modern team site and then provisions all related artifacts such as Exchange mailbox, Planner plan, etc., in Office 365.

PnP PowerShell to Connect a SharePoint Online site to Microsoft 365 Group

To connect a Non-Group SharePoint Online site (classic or modern) with a new Office 365 group, use this PnP PowerShell cmdlet Add-PnPMicrosoft365GroupToSite. Please note, it takes a while for the SharePoint Admin center to reflect the changes.

#Parameters
$AdminSiteURL = "https://crescent-admin.sharepoint.com"
$SiteURL = "https://crescent.sharepoint.com/sites/Legal"
$GroupName = "Legal Team Group"
$GroupAlias = "LegalTeam"

Try {
    #Connect to PnP Online
    Connect-PnPOnline -Url $AdminSiteURL -Interactive

    #Groupify the Team site to a new Microsoft 365 group
    Add-PnPMicrosoft365GroupToSite -Url $SiteURL -Alias $GroupAlias -DisplayName $GroupName
}
Catch {
    write-host -f Red "Error:" $_.Exception.Message
}

Now we have the Microsoft 365 group connected with our SharePoint Online site. How about creating a Microsoft Team for that group? Well, You can Teamify your SharePoint Online site as in How to Integrate Microsoft Teams with a SharePoint Online Site?

In summary, connecting a SharePoint Online site to an Office 365 group is a straightforward process that can provide significant benefits for your organization. By combining the features of both platforms, you can improve the efficiency of your team and make it easier for them to collaborate, store and share files, and communicate with each other.