Migration from network shares to SharePoint storage

[Phildw]

We’re using IAmCloud. It’s usually works fine as long as the client is up to date, their latest client is really lightweight. We’ve enabled auto debug logging so can easily send user logs to their support team if we have any issues. We’re trying to get users to use the web portal for SharePoint as much as possible, with mapped drives more of a legacy option.

Thanks for the info. Do you use their tool to sync authenticating for O365?

[thimon]

Thanks for the info. Do you use their tool to sync authenticating for O365?

We had to set something up in IAMCloud in Azure to allow user syncing, that may be it? Sorry that side of things was handled by our Trust head office.

[KK20]

we did the following:

 

1) used the MS tool to migrate the WHOLE share from site to sharepoint library. This was after a cleanup phase locally. Dont migrate cruft.

2) set the onsite to "read only" (actually zero quota), that way we could up the quota on portions that didnt work (i.e. we found multimedia was rubbish)

3) used IAMCloud to map drives for staff "as before" so that everything was in the cloud but there are drive letters.

4) used IAMCloud on the old fileserver to reverse sync sharepoint to onsite, this way we have a local backup. The backup is not meant to be spooled up locally but could be in an emergency. We are small enough to get away with veeam community so we dont have fancy cloud backup solutions. This reverse sync works well enough for us.

5) map home drive via IAMcloud to onedrive and set quotas to zero on local documents. Advise staff to start saving and moving to "home drive".

 

We use IAMcloud as it was more reliable than the built in sync client. It also meant we didnt have to pull the trigger on redirecting "documents" to onedrive, we could maintain an onsite "read only" and offsite simultaneously. IAMCloud SSOs on our domain machine, I ahve not issued the client to non domain machines but it simply uses o365 principal to logon. It was childs play to set up.

 

Issues we have found:

 

FILE LOCKING! This is the most annoying portion of sharepoint. There is no way for an admin to release a lock, if a user opens an online library item in desktop client then a file lock is issued. If that user hibernates their machine then technically the file lock should expire in 10 mins - this doesnt always happen and you end up with file locks that you cannot work around - best you can do is copy/rename/delete. But this is very manual.

 

Multimedia does not play well, we left a huge bulk on our local share with quota enabled.

 

latency. There is definitely a lag between opening and closing. Especially those powerpoints that have never had their images compressed. My god there were some monsters.

 

Best of the rest:

 

We have created a lot of scripts to sort out little foibles. Permissions mainly, updates to team members, SDS updates etc. You will become proficient in powershell and scheduled tasks and a master with System.Management.Automation.PSCredential credential files... Training was needed, people are used to using drive letters, no so much using links to files in emails, sharing access with people, REMOVING ACCESS from shares etc.

Edited January 25, 2021 by KK20

[Jcx500]

What Internet speeds do you have ?

[KK20]

250/250 for 600 users. We rarely hit the peaks looking at logs. Burst when logging on but rarely sustained. There is still a lag though, if you want speed then you need to use the web version not the drive version. The drive version does not play well with collaboration, think "old school excel workbook sharing". File locking is a pain if someone opens a file and hibernates - you cannot force unlock a file via sharepoint, not like the old days of looking at open file shares on the file server. Edited January 26, 2021 by KK20

[thimon]

Definitely push for the web version to be used, rather than mapped drives. Much faster speeds!

[mavhc]

250/250 for 600 users. We rarely hit the peaks looking at logs. Burst when logging on but rarely sustained. There is still a lag though, if you want speed then you need to use the web version not the drive version. The drive version does not play well with collaboration, think "old school excel workbook sharing". File locking is a pain if someone opens a file and hibernates - you cannot force unlock a file via sharepoint, not like the old days of looking at open file shares on the file server.

 

Doesn't real time co-authoring work? Isn't that half the point of storing things online?

 

What tech is it using compared to OneDrive's version?

[LewRichAIM]

We use OneDrive with known folder move turned on so staff have local profiles on their laptops with their desktop, documents and pictures syncing to OneDrive, this works well.

 

My next step is to look at the staff shared drive. I am a little concerned around the file limits with SharePoint per document library, which I understand is 5000 I know this isn't the actual file limit more the amount you can view at once. I wondered how people are laying out their SharePoint files, we have around 1.5TB in our staff shared drive and I am nervous about putting that into one library. So thought about one site with separate libraries?

 

I have a trial of Cloud Drive mapper running at the moment, seems ok, we can't use the converged drives as our SLT are members of all teams so means they see 700 folders which is a bit of a mess! I have also played with syncing SharePoint libraries by GPO it's again a bit messy.

[smithson83]

We migrated the majority of our shared drivss to SharePoint last year.

 

We use Curriculum Resources SharePoint site with a few libraries (about 2TB)

Staff Resources

Pupil Resources

Media files

 

Etc

 

Then have a few different Sites, IT Resources, Backups, Archives... And a plan for a few more.

 

 

In terms of access, for each dept, there is a Staff Team, and we pinned the SP to the top. Pupil Resources are shared by staff as needed.

 

All staff and pupils use OneDrive for their documents with "Known Folders" and "Files on Demand" etc.

 

Works well for us. Al going well I will remove the last of the mapped drives before summer.

[Manny-Tech]

Hi, we currently use OneDrive FoD for all staff laptops to get them used to how it works. That's around a year now so they are fairly familiar with it, I'd now like to set the GPOs for desktops within school. Is it possible to allow only staff to use the OneDrive client? At this point I don't want to move onto students, though all GPOs related to setting up syncing appear to be computer based. Fine for the teachers computer but I'm thinking for rooms with lots of computers that both staff and students use I'm going to end up with students using the OneDrive client too.

[KK20]

Doesn't real time co-authoring work? Isn't that half the point of storing things online?

 

What tech is it using compared to OneDrive's version?

 

If someone opens a file in the desktop app from SharePoint online (this is using teams app, SharePoint online web page, IamCloudMapper - its irrelevant), you can no longer co author. That file is "locked". There are no tools in SharePoint online to force unlock. Pupils soon work this out in teams, they can simply open a file in desktop app and the teacher can no longer edit it - give it a try.

 

If the machine is hibernated (or force powered off) when a desktop app has opened a file, that file is locked for between 10 mins and an hour (SharePoint online will decide when it wants to unlock it, it is listed as 10 minutes in Microsoft docs but I've had files that have stayed locked for an hour) . Remember that this can be done inside school on a controlled machine or on a phone, or a desktop at home. I'm not talking about "check out", im talking about "edit this in desktop app" facility.

 

Teams is Ok though, once you get staff into a teams "thinking" rather than "everything on a shared drive" then it does release a few headaches.

• Access requests are easier for one- you have an entire section for the search, it doesn't make redactions any easier of course!
  
• Ownership of items is substantially easier to track.
  
• Data cleaning will be easier - we archived previous year teams in sept, I will delete those archive sets "this" September (archiving the current sets - if that all makes sense!)
  
• The behemoth SharePoint file libraries still exist but teachers are putting more in the "class team" rather than the SharePoint file library
  
• we have disabled external link sharing for SharePoint and teams. This forces any "external links to parents" to come from OneDrive - this puts a large brake on "accidentally sharing the root with parents" - this still needs training though!
  
• slowly weaning people off zoom (im talking "free zoom" - I cannot comment on the policies available to paid zoom). For example, we can set a policy to stop pupils using webcams and set some constraints. Zoom still does a few things easier - sharing of desktops, whiteboards, ease of "personal rooms" (there are pro's and con's to this of course) etc
  

 

Recently we have a fairly large breakthrough on backups. I was retiring an old QNAP 12 bay NAS that was used as an offline "we have malware onsite and need an offline backup to restore from" box (we use a faster SAN for this now as we dont store as much onsite any longer!). This QNAP has an app called boxafe on it, boxafe connects to your tenant and can backup sharepoint in its entirety! User level onedrive backups, office 365 the lot! So we now have an onsite backup for our office 365. It is a little clumsy to setup, you cant set a schedule other than midnight (which is a bit silly) and the first backup is torturous but it works for us and is a last line of recovery if your versioning and recycle bin lets you down. Ive run a couple of restores for giggles and it seemed to restore just fine. Best of all, its free!

Edited February 26, 2021 by KK20

[mavhc]

If someone opens a file in the desktop app from SharePoint online (this is using teams app, SharePoint online web page, IamCloudMapper - its irrelevant), you can no longer co author. That file is "locked". There are no tools in SharePoint online to force unlock. Pupils soon work this out in teams, they can simply open a file in desktop app and the teacher can no longer edit it - give it a try.

 

Weird, https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/document-collaboration-and-co-authoring-ee1509b4-1f6e-401e-b04a-782d26f564a4 suggests you can, unless it's not a .###x file.

[KK20]

I can only comment on what we have observed. Like I say, this occurs when someone isnt actively using the document, only when a person who is using it goes into hibernation/reboots/loses connectivity. Once that "locked for shared us" pops up then you can no longer co author the document or spreadsheet. Google "locked for shared use", its not a new phenomenon. The closest to a "fix" I could find was https://dev.to/okms/office-online-the-file-is-locked-for-shared-use-error-15mh however, this is only useful for internal machines rather than external ones where you have no control. Edited February 26, 2021 by KK20

[thimon]

We’ve had the same experience as KK20 when using the Excel desktop App with SharePoint files and multiple users editing at the same time, using the web browser version of Excel allows multiple users to work on it at the same time fine. If users use the desktop App at the same time it can cause overwrites and multiple files. Weirdly the Word desktop App seems to work fine with co authoring.