Background:
- At work we use MS Office, because who doesn’t. We used to have a central file server with lots of well sorted directories.
- Then Corporate decided to ditch that, everything must move into OneDrive so there’s always a Data Owner.
- The local boss had to move everything from the network share into his own OneDrive, and then share, with each of us, the folders that were relevant to each of us.
- This sounds like distributed storage, which is probably smart in some way.
In reality, it’s shit. Everything is now a link to “corporateName.sharepoint.com” in the browser, and it’s a hassle to find that in the file explorer. SOmeone just shared a folder with me. I see it in my browser. How do I get it from the browser into a normal folder view? Should I forget about on-disk storage; is everything today just a browser bookmark?
Worse, I have no idea what’s where. Some people share some stuff and somehow it ends up in my OneDrive, but what’s the context of it?
This seems so wrong to me. Am I just not “getting” it??
Your boss did this not the best way*. They should have created a SharePoint site, maybe a few extra document libraries within that site, and have the files in there. Then added people as members to the site, maybe lock down a few of the document libraries/folders as required to specific people.
Then for ease of use people can open the libraries and click the sync button. Although if you have too many it’ll slow down/break.
OneDrive/SharePoint is not a drop in replacement for a file server, and those honestly still find their use, but a lot of places with a bit of re-structuring can work just as well if not better through SharePoint . Especially if they put in the effort to start using other SharePoint features.
Exactly! If it’s a small company, it may be an option to make a Teams everyone has access to and adapting the SharePoint behind it as the home page for the company, with different libraries depending on who needs access. At my company there is constant confusion between the SharePointsites the IT team set up for them and the SharePointsite behind their Teams, makes me think it is probably better to just use the SharePoint that’s forced on you by creating a Teams.
Can I view sharepoint in the file explorer, or is that only in the browser?
Once the SharePoint site is set up, your team should then sync the directory
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/sync-sharepoint-files-and-folders-87a96948-4dd7-43e4-aca1-53f3e18bea9b
This allows for ‘local’ file browsing. Works very well and keeps my entire team in sync. I’ve never had any major issues with this setup. I also make sure to set important files that I work on regularly to "always keep on this device’ (https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/save-disk-space-with-onedrive-files-on-demand-for-windows-0e6860d3-d9f3-4971-b321-7092438fb38e)
The sharepoint itself - browser only
The document libraries (the sections of a sharepoint site that store files)* - there is a “sync” button you can press to get them into the OneDrive client on your PC, and therefore into file explorer. (It’s also possible for admins to automate this)
You could with the old SharePoint, but they took that feature away. The way around it is to open the SharePoint link in Edge, then bottom left “Return to classic SharePoint”, then Edge settings > Launch in Internet Explorer mode. After that you should now have a SP tab called library (you may need to click around the SP ribbon for it to appear) and in that tab should be “Open in File Explorer”.
I tried this and failed: I don’t see any controls in the bottom left, also no “Return to classic SharePoint” elsewhere. I guess the admins have turned that off.
I did find an option “Add lnk to OneDrive” which I clicked. Nothing happened in the browser, but I now do see that folder in Windows Explorer > OneDrive. So, yay, that works.
Now I just have this rando folder at the top level of my OneDrive. I have moved into a subfolder that makes sense to me, and I hope that doesn’t break anything. Edit: well, it breaks my harddrive :-( because it fucking downloads the entire folder contents onto my disk. I didn’t ask for that; that’s what network storage is for! Oh right, they killed that.
SharePoint and OneDrive folders can be synced locally. You get a local copy of the folder in online mode, so files are only downloaded if you specify, or if you open them.
Once you get that sorted out, you can stop worrying about where the file lives.
yea, right…have tried that and the next day all the coworkers complained why am I creating hundreds of duplicate files.
After this has happened the second time (and ofc all the M$ experts had no clue, no, this can never happen…), I just won’t touch this Onedrive anymore. Ever.