SharePoint sites as a 'Unit of Work': Pros & Cons
Like what you see??
"Ask Sympraxis" is a bi-weekly webinar series, where we discuss an array of topics and answer your submitted questions. Join us by downloading our recurring calendar event. You can also join us directly in the meeting without downloading the event.
Do you have a challenge similar to this episode and want to learn more? Are you interested in learning more about Sympraxis Consulting and the work we do? Fill in our or Work With Us form and we will get back to you.
See a listing of Ask Sympraxis episodes by topic covered: Topic List, Series List, or a full listing Archive
SharePoint Sites as a Unit of Work: Pros, Cons, and Best Practices
In this episode of Ask Sympraxis, the Sympraxis team tackled one of the most critical (and often debated) topics in modern Microsoft 365 architecture: using SharePoint sites as a “unit of work.” The session explored how organizations can structure projects, cases, campaigns, and other bodies of work using SharePoint and Microsoft Teams—while balancing governance, security, lifecycle management, and user experience.
What Is a “Unit of Work” in Microsoft 365?
The discussion began by defining a unit of work as a discrete container of content with a clear beginning, middle, and end—such as a project, client engagement, case, grant, or campaign. Unlike ongoing operational processes (for example, HR onboarding or performance reviews), units of work are designed to move through a lifecycle and be managed independently.
The SharePoint Maturity Model
The panel walked through a practical maturity model that shows how organizations evolve in their approach to structuring work:
- Lower maturity organizations often spread content across departmental sites and folders, making discovery and governance difficult.
- More mature organizations standardize on one SharePoint site (often group-connected and surfaced in Teams) per unit of work, creating a single, authoritative location for files, conversations, and collaboration.
- Advanced maturity introduces lifecycle automation, retention, archiving, and governance tooling to manage sites from creation through closure and archive.
Team Sites vs. Communication Sites
A key clarification addressed a common question: Do we mean Team Sites or Communication Sites?
The answer: it depends on the unit of work and how people collaborate. In organizations actively using Microsoft Teams, Team Sites are typically the best fit because they surface SharePoint content directly in the Teams experience. In other scenarios—such as intranets or publishing-focused work—Communication Sites may play a supporting role.
Core Pros and Cons of Scaling by Site
The panel explored the tradeoffs of using SharePoint sites as the primary unit of work, focusing on four major areas:
Lifecycle Management
Sites provide a natural boundary for managing content from creation to archive. With the right strategy (and automation tools), organizations can label sites as active, inactive, or archived, apply retention policies, and reduce storage sprawl over time.
File Access & User Experience
Modern features like Add Shortcut to OneDrive dramatically improve usability by giving users fast, familiar access to files across multiple projects—without relying on deep folder structures. Programmatic automation can even add or remove shortcuts based on a user’s current work.
Security & Governance
Security is one of the strongest arguments for scaling by site. SharePoint sites are the platform’s primary security boundary, enabling:
- Consistent external sharing controls
- Guest access expiration
- Sensitivity labels and conditional access
- Cleaner separation between confidential and public-facing content
This approach also prevents overuse of unique permissions, which can introduce performance and manageability issues.
Platform Limits & Administration
The team addressed real-world SharePoint limits—such as library counts, URL length, unique permissions, and item thresholds—and explained why site-based architectures reduce the risk of hitting those limits. From an admin perspective, managing many sites is often easier, not harder, thanks to modern admin tools, reporting, and automation options.
Key Takeaway
The overarching message was clear: design your Microsoft 365 environment around units of work, not folders. When implemented thoughtfully, SharePoint sites aligned to projects or cases improve security, governance, discoverability, automation, and long-term sustainability—while still supporting a great end-user experience.
All Resources
- “Maturity Model for Microsoft 365 – Introduction” (Microsoft Learn)
- SharePoint limits and boundaries (Microsoft Learn)
- “Add shortcuts to shared folders in OneDrive” (Microsoft Support)
- Sync to OneDrive (Hans Brender)
- “Sync in SharePoint and OneDrive” (Microsoft Learn)
- Security | “SharePoint authentication” (Microsoft Learn)
Do you have any questions for us? Continue the conversation on BlueSky with the hashtag #AskSympraxis and mention @sympraxisconsulting.com.