What is a Group?

A group in Microsoft Stream is an Office 365 group that comes with an email address, calendar, site, etc. Groups can serve as a way to organize videos and to control access to videos. They both have owners and members.

• Each group gets its own mini video portal, with a highlights page showing trending and new content within the group.
• Further organize your group’s videos by creating channels within the group.
• Put a video into one or several groups to help viewers find it more easily.

How do I find my group?

To locate your group simply click on the search button and start typing your group name.

If you don’t remember your group name you can:

1. Select the Discover tab
2. Select Groups
3. Scroll through the groups to find yours
   Note: Use the sort by drop down to arrange the group list by name!

Should I create a group in Stream?

We do not recommend creating or managing a group from Microsoft Stream but instead through OneDrive, or Microsoft Teams.

What many users don’t know is that “when you make a group in Microsoft Stream, it creates a new Office 365 Group that can be used across Office 365, giving the group an email address, calendar, site, etc. If you already use Office 365 Groups in your organization, you can start using those groups in Microsoft Stream right away.”

Warning

Additionally, Microsoft warns that “Deleting a group in Stream will delete the Office 365 group and remove connections to any videos in the group, but the videos will remain on Microsoft Stream. Since a group in Stream is also an Office 365 group, it will also delete all information and data related to the group from Microsoft Teams, Sharepoint, Outlook and other applications, including group files, messages and tasks, etc.

Adapted from Microsoft’s, Groups and channel settings in Microsoft Stream page.

What is a Channel?

Channels are an organization method for videos, but not a permission method. Channels don’t have any permissions on their own. If viewers follow your channel, they can get updates on new videos added to it. You can put a video into one or several channels to help viewers find it more easily.

When you create a channel, you decide whether it’s a companywide channel that anyone in your organization can add and remove videos from, or if it’s a group channel where you can limit contributors.

Companywide channels are great for organizing videos by topics and providing a way for community-driven content curation.

Characteristics of companywide channels:

• Can be seen by everyone within your company.
• Everyone within your company can add videos or remove videos from them.
• Only the creator of the channel (and Stream admin) can edit the channel itself.
• Only videos that have Allow everyone in your company to view this video checked can be added to companywide channels.

Group Channels

Groups channels are great for adding further organization of videos within a group and when you want to determine who can see and who can upload videos to a channel.

Characteristics of group channels:

• Inherits the permissions from the group they are contained in.
• All contributors to a group can create channels, add videos to them, remove videos from them, and edit settings about the channel.

How can I create a channel?

Refer to Create channels in Microsoft Stream documentation to learn how to create a channel.

Adapted from Microsoft’s, Groups and channel settings in Microsoft Stream page.