Sharepoint for Staff drive and Iamcloud Drive mapper

[maxrebo]

Hoping to move our Staff shared drive to O365 Sharepoint in the Easter break and use Iamcloud to map the drive (Cloud mapper) - but nervous on how the drive mapping will go (consistency) - Is anyone currently using Iamcloud for this? and can provide any feedback?

 

Cheers

[Scifigirl]

We have ours set up for Admin staff specifically as a converged drive-- a lot more sites and data spread around.

 

98% of the time works fine, obvious glitches when docking/undocking. Most issues are fixed with the new version if not just tripping out.

[supportman]

We tested it but ended up just recomending the web version, its much easier and safer to use once staff become familiar with it.

[Scifigirl]

our issue was specifically with long names and issues syncing. The mapped drive works much better for them - especially when they are using the installed office apps not the online ones.

[jmak]

Anything paid was not an option for us so I used the sync function from teams/SharePoint. It does require the user to set it up, but it's a single click.

 

Open Teams, Files, click sync

Same from SharePoint: Open the SharePoint library, Documents, click sync

 

The user will then see a new entry in File Explorer with the name of the organisation and (what I think it's supposed to be) an office building icon with the folders underneath.

[NicholasEsping]

Hoping to move our Staff shared drive to O365 Sharepoint in the Easter break and use Iamcloud to map the drive (Cloud mapper) - but nervous on how the drive mapping will go (consistency) - Is anyone currently using Iamcloud for this? and can provide any feedback?

 

Cheers

 

We use Intune to set up the OneDrive sync built into windows. The policy automatically logs the user in and sets the files as On-Demand. Missed the part about shared drives there is a way to map site libraries as well but I have not tested.

Edited March 9, 2022 by NicholasEsping

[EssentialRug]

We use Intune to set up the OneDrive sync built into windows. The policy automatically logs the user in and sets the files as On-Demand. Missed the part about shared drives there is a way to map site libraries as well but I have not tested.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]64899[/ATTACH]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]64898[/ATTACH]

 

https://alwaysbeupdating.com/how-to-configure-team-site-libraries-to-sync-automatically-in-endpoint-manager

[sippo]

We use Cloudmapper and it has enhanced staff morale. They wanted old skool mapped drives. No issues and easy to deploy.

 

We are looking at Azure files now though.

[Planehazza]

Some good info here. We've got the OneDrive client set to Files on Demand etc via GPO and I'm trying to get the SharePoint libraries to sync via the same tool using a login PS script. I'm struggling to get the script to launch for the end user, but I'm not convinced I want to go any further with automating this anyway, looking at the size of some departmental doc libraries. I might just tell HoDs how to use the Sync button and leave it to the end user to set up if they wish too.

[georgeescott]

Got CloudDriveMapper across most of our schools. Most of the time it works great and definitely helped us transition from local file servers to SharePoint/OneDrive.

 

It obviously requires a constant internet connection to SharePoint so the moment the wifi/network drops out even for a second then the drives disconnect and have to be mapped again which typically takes 30-60s.

 

This mainly happens when students roam or are in areas of poorer wifi coverage though. It’s unusable if staff take their laptop home and have a slow internet connection though.

 

If you use folder redirection then it can cause a few start menu/taskbar issues sometimes before it’s finished mapping but this isn’t frequent.

 

Not sure what the native OneDrive client is like these days as we had loads of issues with syncing a few years back which you don’t have to deal with with CloudDriveMapper. Overall it’s a good product though and their support are usually pretty responsive.

[ivantalboys]

We use OneDrive for Business client to map user OneDrives as files on demand and that works well, the staff got used to their files being in the explorer tree on the left. We were going to start moving curriculum file storage from the shared drive to SharePoint but then covid hit and the focus shifted very quickly to Teams for classes and remote learning. Now that our staff are familiar with Teams we have started to move curriculum areas in to their own Teams. Science and PE have moved over so far and no longer have a shared drive presence. They currently all know that they have to manually sync the Team/SharePoint files for it to appear in explorer and they are happy doing that. There is a setting in the OneDrive GPO that will auto sync SharePoint files but I've not explored it fully. You need the SharePoint files GUID and it might be a bit of an administrative overhead but the ODfB client have been vastly improved over the last couple of years.

 

We use it in the network team, although the settings initially force files on demand, we mark all important network files as keep on device so in event of internet issues we can access them .If you don't have software that expects to see a mapped drive then its something to look into.

[DrCheese]

We use Cloud Drive mapper here as I found the normal sync agent completely unreliable on shared devices - We'd image a suite with an identical image & Sync agent in per machine mode but you'd get 2/3 computers (At random) decide either to not load the agent, or just not sign in.

 

The risks of students leaving files on C:\ unsync'd for weeks was just too great.

 

CDM solved that problem. It can be a little slow at times, but we've ran it for 2+ years now with no real problems & their support are really good.

[Network_Boy]

We use CDM and have been for about 2 years. We found the native Onedrive sync to be completely unreliable, and PCs would run like a dog when trying to sync every change made across the whole school Sharepoint drives. CDM is much better.

 

We have had a few issues with it.

 

1. We use 2FA for the Microsoft authentication with CDM, which sometimes goes awry - requiring the stored credentials to be removed from credential manager locally. Once done, it usually signs back in fine.

2. Any software that relies on the 'My Documents' folders being locally stored will bork out. We don't see to be able to get Adobe CC programs working, and IAM Cloud and Adobe both sorted of ended up saying it was each other's fault. Not assigning any blame to either party, but the long and short of it is - we can't get Adobe apps working with CDM running.

3. Sometimes CDM won't pick up the license key. We use Intune and push the key out via a Powershell script which runs on login, but this doesn't always seem to work. I imagine this is an Intune failing rather than CDM, though.

4. Some files don't appear in File Explorer CDM drives - but they are there when you look at the location from Sharepoint in a browser. As mentioned previously in this thread - it seems to be to do with the file path character length limitation (250 characters I think) in File Explorer. However - this will not always manifest itself uniformly/expectedly. For instance, we had a user report this exact problem, but there were files with names longer than the one that was missing in the same folder, and the longer file names WERE appearing in File Explorer. It's a head-scratcher.

[gbrown481]

I have a client that is using CDM for SharePoint online, been using it for nearly 3 years now, works wonders as they needed network drive letters for certain software to run and couldn't use unc paths. The only issue is the need for 2FA. The answer I always gets from iamcloud support is its working as it should do and MS dont force 2FA unless admins specifically make changes.

 

I have tried so many options to force the 2FA when logging into CDM, but it is so temperamental. I created a log on script to remove IAC from credential manager but its not 100% effective and work accounts override credential manager sometimes. I'm currently testing conditional access policies in Azure to try and force 2FA re enter every 12 hours or so, but its just not accurate and doesnt work in the time frames set up to do so.

 

anyone else have clients wanting 2FA everytime?

[thimon]

anyone else have clients wanting 2FA everytime?

 

We have conditional 2FA for all staff. Only asks for 2FA when offsite.

[northeast_technician]

we have used this for a few months now but is anyone having an issue where it refuses to open a file? I have only one or two users where this happens. However, if I copy the same file to say the desktop the file opens fine

[thimon]

If it's just a few tell them to access SharePoint via a web browser. If you really want to get to the bottom of it, enabling logging in CDM, replicate the problem and send the error log to IAMCloud's support. Their support is brilliant!

[Michael]

Apologies to jump on this - this is where I think Google's got it right/better - Google Drive (formerly Google File Stream) works for Documents and Shared Drives.

[thimon]

Google Drive is definitely slick, can’t deny that. However for SharePoint, CDM is the best option for viewing multiple libraries in File Explorer.