Workflow for sharing documents in MS Teams + group library?

A little background: I'm getting re-acquainted with Zotero (I used it years ago) and trying to figure out a good system for a volunteer group I'm part of. We are doing research for a project, but most volunteers don't have an academic background so I'm trying to teach everyone how to use a reference manager, when and how to do citations, etc. So far I have set up a group in Zotero but I'm the only one using it. I need to teach everyone how to use it and come up with a system that works for people with a range of skills and access to technology.

I've got two initial problems/questions. One is that we are using MS Teams to store documents, including various papers and books that people have already collected. It would be nice to use Zotero to organize these instead of the current system, but I don't think we can get any funding to pay for additional storage in Zotero since we already have Teams storage. Is there a way to store the actual files in Teams but still be able to access the document through Zotero?

The second question is how people can use Zotero to insert citations in a shared document when they are using different versions of Office and different devices to access the documents. I know that there isn't currently a plug-in for Office Online, and not all of our members have Office 365 in any case. I don't, for example -- I use LibreOffice. Some volunteers are using mobile devices. Is there a way for everyone to add to a document and keep the citations in sync if they are mostly using Office Online?
  • Not ignoring you here, but groups depend on Zotero file syncing, and Office Online isn't supported. There is a Google Docs plugin, or you could designate one person to insert citations from a shared library into a document.
  • Thanks for replying. I suspect that in reality I will be the person doing most of the citing. So I might just edit the document locally and upload a new version each time. The organisation is trying to get rid of its Google drive.

    The bigger question really though is whether I can use Teams (or SharePoint I suppose) to store all the PDF documents we've collected but still access that through the Groups.
  • The bigger question really though is whether I can use Teams (or SharePoint I suppose) to store all the PDF documents we've collected but still access that through the Groups.
    Unfortunately not, no. As dstillman says above, Zotero groups rely on Zotero file storage
Sign In or Register to comment.