OneDrive for Business Probs

[Michael]

Hello all,

 

I've been tasked with getting OneDrive for Business up and running. Currently said school have been using O365 for a number of years, so this would seem a natural progression.

 

I've adjusted the relevant license, so all Faculty users can see OneDrive and the Office Apps.

 

Uploading data seems relatively straight forward and sharing specific files/folders with users also seems straight forward.

 

Now I'm trying to figure out how to create an equivalent of "Staff Common", which is currently hosted on a server on site. I've tried this two ways - creating a sub folder under the Administrator account, then sharing it to another test account, but then also Site Folders, which for a simple idea seems very complicated.

 

Both of these solutions are absolutely useless. If I share a folder from under the Administrator account with a test user; the test user cannot move/copy files or folders, via the web interface, despite being given the rights to do so. The only solution (it appears) is to do it via Explorer, which defeats the objective.

 

Looking at Site Folders, it's far too complicated - too much clicking required to get to the required level (where the files are actually located), it doesn't always appear for my test user (despite sharing it several times), and then as above, you can't move/copy files into it via the web interface.

 

I've also discovered that OneDrive for Business has a file limitation of 20,000 per account, despite a generous 1TB user space.

 

Am I doing something wrong, or is it really useless?

[snagrat]

Problem with sharing it from an account is that the file belong to the owners account.

 

What you are trying to do is what Sites is for, but it can be a bit long winded to get those files.

 

Sorry not much help, just confirming what you already know really.

[gshaw]

This blog post sums it up pretty well I think:

 

No you shouldn't be migrating to OneDrive for Business | Sharegate

 

Migrating a shared area sounds like SharePoint functionality more than OneDrive, which is really a Documents folder replacement rather than mapped drives.

[sted]

yeas you can do it ive got a trial setup such that members of a group can have a shared onedrive space they can even sync that and their own to their laptop. I think youre trying to do it a different way to me by the sounds i did try messing round with sharepoint then i found a better easier way

[Michael]

This blog post sums it up pretty well I think:

 

No you shouldn't be migrating to OneDrive for Business | Sharegate

 

Migrating a shared area sounds like SharePoint functionality more than OneDrive, which is really a Documents folder replacement rather than mapped drives.

 

I agree, this is the conclusion I've come to.

[sted]

I agree, this is the conclusion I've come to.

 

i think it depends what you want to achieve. Im not going to dump my r or x (resources/exercises) drives to onedrive but a shared resource for new stuff(that i can directly control access to) isnt a bad idea as otherwise users might just randomly share personal onedrive folders out also not ideal

[Patman]

 

... which was to ... ?

[sted]

 

... which was to ... ?

 

in a nutshell on the left of outlook web mail create a group and give people access it creates all sorts of sharepoint stuff and creates a group onedrive. Ive emailed my work in progress "how to" to Michael but its still got stuff that needs editing before im willing to make it public (as its still got my full name and one of my schools full names visible in the pictures

[gshaw]

Interesting solution @sted - does the Group allow you to use a dynamic security group from Office 365 in the list of members?

[sted]

Interesting solution @sted - does the Group allow you to use a dynamic security group from Office 365 in the list of members?

 

unfortunately no you have to add users one by one as far as i can see

[Michael]

Sted's guide is awesome and definitely pointed me in the right direction, but from my observations I've noticed -

 

- Your own/personal OneDrive area allows you to move/organise files in a somewhat clunky way (using the browser)

- The Group OneDrive area unfortunately is even worse - you can't move files into folders very easily. Even worse, move a file into a folder and you can't move it back out (using the browser)!

- Both of the above are resolved by downloading/installing the OneDrive client, so you can move/organise files/folders like Explorer. You can also move/copy files like Explorer via the client, which you cannot do via the browser between Personal and Group OneDrives

 

- Unfortunately you have to create 'SharePoint' groups manually, however there may/may not be ways you can do this via PowerShell. Not very friendly if you have hundreds of Staff to add via the browser.

 

So it is workable ish - how can you deploy the client to a group of users? I get the feeling A LOT of manual intervention is needed.

[MrFrostmaul]

I've just set this up. Using a sharepoint site and then having a document library in there just on the page and then you can link directly to the document library and assign permissions to the page and document library. (But uses your SharePoint Quota.) - Should be over 600GB available to you.

[Michael]

Just had a thought...

 

StaffCommon is currently hosted on a locally hosted 2008 R2 Server. If I installed OneDrive for Business on 2008 R2, then configured StaffCommon to be the source directory to sync with Group OneDrive, this would work, wouldn't it?

[Ashm]

If you have a relatively sizeable number of users to roll this out to, my recommendation would be to avoid using the OneDrive for Business sync client. It's certainly improved significantly over the last few months with the latest updates for it but we still find it quite hit and miss with syncing, conflicts and needing to repair it quite often etc.

 

If you're users are using Internet Explorer to browse the web version of SharePoint sites and/or their OneDrive for Business areas they can open the document libraries in Windows Explorer via the Library tab which we've found to be more reliable but is obviously more sensitive to the Internet connection.

 

I believe MS are due to update the OneDrive for Business sync client at some point this year to use the consumer OneDrive sync engine which will supposedly make it more reliable/consistent to use and I think enable features such as selective sync.

[Arthur]

I've also discovered that OneDrive for Business has a file limitation of 20,000 per account, despite a generous 1TB user space.

That's not actually true.

 

https://sharepointv15.wordpress.com/2015/04/30/onedrive-for-business-does-not-have-a-file-limit-of-20000/

 

The sync limit will also be removed soon once they switch to the new client.

 

http://www.cloudbusiness.com/the-company/blog-and-news/onedrive-for-business-news-released-at-microsoft-ignite/

[Michael]

Interesting, thanks for that Arthur!

[Michael]

If you have a relatively sizeable number of users to roll this out to, my recommendation would be to avoid using the OneDrive for Business sync client. It's certainly improved significantly over the last few months with the latest updates for it but we still find it quite hit and miss with syncing, conflicts and needing to repair it quite often etc.

 

If you're users are using Internet Explorer to browse the web version of SharePoint sites and/or their OneDrive for Business areas they can open the document libraries in Windows Explorer via the Library tab which we've found to be more reliable but is obviously more sensitive to the Internet connection.

 

I believe MS are due to update the OneDrive for Business sync client at some point this year to use the consumer OneDrive sync engine which will supposedly make it more reliable/consistent to use and I think enable features such as selective sync.

 

So can you map to a SharePoint location without the OneDrive client? I thought that's why we need the client as it wasn't possible.

[sted]

 

So it is workable ish - how can you deploy the client to a group of users? I get the feeling A LOT of manual intervention is needed.

 

if you use office 2013 you have the client already installed but its a manual copy n paste job to get their and the shared library's in and the client is installed on a per pc basis so if users are constantly shifting pcs its also a no go really. It is a shame you cant just past the address into map network drive and have it show up as drive z say

[Michael]

if you use office 2013 you have the client already installed but its a manual copy n paste job to get their and the shared library's in and the client is installed on a per pc basis so if users are constantly shifting pcs its also a no go really. It is a shame you cant just past the address into map network drive and have it show up as drive z say

 

I agree that is a real shame - mapping as a network drive using GPP and Item Level Targeting would be the way to go! All my sites are using Office 2010 at the moment, but I'm somewhat baffled if it's aimed for Business why there's no MSI.

 

My 'idea' was to create a OneDrive area in StaffCommon, so Staff can selectively move/copy data that they want in the cloud - with the client running on the file server. But also to do something similar for Staff - creating a OneDrive area in their own mapped Documents - again allowing them to selectively move/copy data they want in the cloud. I think I'll have to restrict this to just their Teacher Notebooks, rather than classroom workstations.

[sted]

I agree that is a real shame - mapping as a network drive using GPP and Item Level Targeting would be the way to go! All my sites are using Office 2010 at the moment, but I'm somewhat baffled if it's aimed for Business why there's no MSI.

 

My 'idea' was to create a OneDrive area in StaffCommon, so Staff can selectively move/copy data that they want in the cloud - with the client running on the file server. But also to do something similar for Staff - creating a OneDrive area in their own mapped Documents - again allowing them to selectively move/copy data they want in the cloud. I think I'll have to restrict this to just their Teacher Notebooks, rather than classroom workstations.

 

at least for users own onedrive for business it wont work as the url needed is seemingly fairly random the shared one should be the same might have to see if windows 10/office 16 makes it any less dumb.

 

The basics are there it just needs polishing to the point that the client is built into windows and the urls have some sort of sense to them so you could fire out a standard link with just a whats your email address/password box appearing at first logon and im less bothered about sync than it just showing up as a std mapped/local drive in my computer

[DavidYoung]

I agree that is a real shame - mapping as a network drive using GPP and Item Level Targeting would be the way to go! All my sites are using Office 2010 at the moment, but I'm somewhat baffled if it's aimed for Business why there's no MSI.

 

We are about to purchase this service: Cloud Drive Mapper - Enterprise Cloud Storage | IAM Cloud which maps the OneDrive and Sharepoint Drives as network drives. I've just done a 14 day trial and it seems to be quite good but time will tell.

[Michael]

at least for users own onedrive for business it wont work as the url needed is seemingly fairly random the shared one should be the same might have to see if windows 10/office 16 makes it any less dumb.

 

The basics are there it just needs polishing to the point that the client is built into windows and the urls have some sort of sense to them so you could fire out a standard link with just a whats your email address/password box appearing at first logon and im less bothered about sync than it just showing up as a std mapped/local drive in my computer

 

I believe it's already included in Windows 8.1, but I'm not going to deploy that, but more likely Windows 10, providing it's not another turd of an operating system!

[Michael]

We are about to purchase this service: Cloud Drive Mapper - Enterprise Cloud Storage | IAM Cloud which maps the OneDrive and Sharepoint Drives as network drives. I've just done a 14 day trial and it seems to be quite good but time will tell.

 

It looks attractive, but then it would costs hundreds every year - it's a shame, as that's one of the selling points for O365 - it's free on E1 licensing, which is ideal for Primary schools.

 

Please let us know how the trial goes

[sted]

I believe it's already included in Windows 8.1, but I'm not going to deploy that, but more likely Windows 10, providing it's not another turd of an operating system!

 

is it again ive not really deployed apart to for the odd person who requested it but I can give it a try on a vm I suppose fairly easily

[Michael]

is it again ive not really deployed apart to for the odd person who requested it but I can give it a try on a vm I suppose fairly easily

 

I guess the problem is you're then stuck with a whole new load of issues Windows 8.1 introduces. I think you're just as well to install the client on a new Windows 7 image, then configure the relevant URLs manually or by instructions for the relevant Staff.