Using only OneDrive for Students Documents

[Foresthippy]

Hi,

 

We have a hybrid local AD/M365 set up, but currently use onsite storage for pupils' documents. We are considering doing away with local home folders and just connecting users to their OneDrive folders. Computers are shared in typical computer suites, so pupils log in at various computers throughout the day.

 

I noticed a recent thread about files not syncing in time before logging off and users thinking their files were lost. Is this a common problem? What other problems will we need to overcome, or would make this unfeasible?

 

Thanks,

John

[DaveTheTech]

I have migrated our students to OD, there hasnt been a problem.

 

The older students have a 1:1 device, the younger ones use a computer suite. Folder redirection kicks in after 10-15 seconds on their initial load

Edited June 10, 2022 by DaveTheTech

[FragglePete]

We made our new intake last year having nothing but OneDrive - takes a few seconds after logon for it to sync but it appears as an O: drive in file explorer along with a direct link. We redirect the main folders (Documents, Photos, Desktop, etc) to their OneDrive. It's generally been a success with no issues. I had been aware on here of people having issues with it not sync-ing before they log off but not really seen this. There is a message that pops up stating that it's syncing if they try to log off but had no issues yet.

 

Am looking to migrate everybody else at some point. Interesting, had this fall in my mailbox yesterday - https://cloudconnect.burconix.com/ - which looks very interesting could be a nice little thing to have. We use BCX Manager to manage desktops, printers, deployment, users, etc but this new utility of theirs maps in file explorer to Sharepoint Libraries, OneDrive, etc. Looks nice - will investigate next year.

 

Pete

[robyholmes]

We're fully OneDrive & Teams (SharePoint) storage here. Using Known Folder Redirection to OneDrive and Automatically syncing SharePoint Libraries for our main departments (Which are MS Teams).

 

Only thing to keep an eye on is local storage. Microsoft Storage Sense can help but also you need to be deleting local profiles to stop OneDrive from filling the local SSDs with cached copies of files.

[PureDarkStar]

We're currently using Cloud Drive Mapper (https://www.iamcloud.com/cloud-drive-mapper/). I've only been here 6 months but I don't think we've ever had a problem with it.

 

It currently maps to OneDrive to a shared drive but it works with SSO and is brilliant.

[Atky]

We've found sync issues are caused by non-supported versions of OneDrive.

[MartinT]

We're fully OneDrive (and Teams/SharePoint) and the teething problems with earlier version of OneDrive have gone away. Sync times are acceptable and we reset to Files-on-Demand on each login so that no workstation has too many files cached locally.

[Atky]

We're fully OneDrive (and Teams/SharePoint) and the teething problems with earlier version of OneDrive have gone away. Sync times are acceptable and we reset to Files-on-Demand on each login so that no workstation has too many files cached locally.

 

Hi Martin, is resetting the files on demand a group policy thing or something you do with scripts?

[MartinT]

Hi Martin, is resetting the files on demand a group policy thing or something you do with scripts?

 

Yes, we have these two GPO policies set:

Convert synced team site files to online-only files: Enabled

Use OneDrive Files On-Demand: Enabled

 

Also, this is handy:

Silently sign in users to the OneDrive sync app with their Windows credentials: Enabled

 

...in Computer Configuration / Policies / Administrative Templates / OneDrive

[broadld]

Hi Guys,

 

Hopefully someone can help. We have been looking at setting up our new intake with Onedrive only user areas with redirection. However we have come across some issues:-

 

- We have gone down the route of creating a environment variable for users similar to the second post on this thread. http://www.edugeek.net/forums/cloud-services/226083-migration-network-user-folders-onedrive.html

- In the past we have used roaming profiles and folder redirection. Which has worked great for us. However roaming profiles do not play nicely with Onedrive auto sign in. How is everyone dealing with this? Are you just using local profiles and using folder redirection to a small network user area? I have looked at Microsoft User Experience Virtualization https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-desktop-optimization-pack/uev-v2/ and FSLogix for user profiles. FSLogix seems to work ok but limits the user to one login as it locks the VHD file.

- Using UEV and folder redirection for Onedrive seemed to work but it only redirected Onedrive on the second user login to the same machine

 

We are trying to achieve where a brand new user logs in and everything is redirected to their Onedrive automatically. I can't believe Microsoft don't have a setting for redirection straight to Onedrive. I know there is Known folder redirection but this doesn't do all folders that you can redirect and doesn't work for existing users that already have redirection.

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks

David

[JRA]

Hi Guys,

 

Hopefully someone can help. We have been looking at setting up our new intake with Onedrive only user areas with redirection. However we have come across some issues:-

 

- We have gone down the route of creating a environment variable for users similar to the second post on this thread. http://www.edugeek.net/forums/cloud-services/226083-migration-network-user-folders-onedrive.html

- In the past we have used roaming profiles and folder redirection. Which has worked great for us. However roaming profiles do not play nicely with Onedrive auto sign in. How is everyone dealing with this? Are you just using local profiles and using folder redirection to a small network user area? I have looked at Microsoft User Experience Virtualization https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-desktop-optimization-pack/uev-v2/ and FSLogix for user profiles. FSLogix seems to work ok but limits the user to one login as it locks the VHD file.

- Using UEV and folder redirection for Onedrive seemed to work but it only redirected Onedrive on the second user login to the same machine

 

We are trying to achieve where a brand new user logs in and everything is redirected to their Onedrive automatically. I can't believe Microsoft don't have a setting for redirection straight to Onedrive. I know there is Known folder redirection but this doesn't do all folders that you can redirect and doesn't work for existing users that already have redirection.

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks

David

 

Just in case you're still fighting this one, I am also. This morning stumbled across Cloud Drive Mapper from iamcloud. Looks quite nifty!

[broadld]

I'm not sure what other people are doing. Maybe someone can clarify.

We were in the same position where roaming profiles don't work with One Drive Auto sign in. We did get this all working with FS Logic but the size of the drive is massive.

We decided to setup the new intake with UEV so OneDrive auto sign in would work then we are educating users to save to OneDrive. As redirection only occurred on second login and it was inconsistent.

I can't believe there is not yet a redirection to Onedrive for everything. Not just known folders which only does docs, desktop and pictures. Instead, people are having to create environment variables with redirection etc and have to try and bodge an enterprise solution to redirect everything to OneDrive.

Maybe Microsoft don't want everyone to store everything in the cloud.

[maxrebo]

We`re using Cloud drive mapper (Iam cloud) here, to link our OneDrive accounts (staff only at the moment), once you have it setup with SSO, it works pretty much flawlessly.

We will be moving pupil's user areas to here soon as well.

[JRA]

Maybe Microsoft don't want everyone to store everything in the cloud.

I think Microsoft are quite content to peddle this ethereal fantasy of seamless online experiences and collaboration to business-types who waft along on these incredible ideas waving tablets around blue-skying all day, where the actual guts of "doing it" are palmed off to IT support who have to deal with a cack backend to most of it. Thankfully there are third parties who fill in the gaps with stuff that works. Group Policy Prefs being a good one from back in the day. And probably IAmCloud being another one (I'm about to try that out.)

[Boredguy]

We've been using OneDrive for our users storage for a while now and just using the standard "AllUser" installation of OneDrive on Demand.

Our Users GPO has a GPP Policy to create the OneDrive - SchoolName folder in the C:\Users\UserName folder at logon so that the Folder Redirection works even before OneDrive has connected.

Same Policy has GPP registry values for OneDrive so that it automatically signs in as the user with their e-mail address etc. Only issue is the couple of times a year when the OneDrive client decides it needs to update so it takes a bit longer before it connects at logon.

This was the method we used, and have rolled it out to all the schools in our Trust. http://www.edugeek.net/forums/how-do-you-do/216456-microsoft-onedrive-365-a.html

 

We have not bothered mapping or allowing access to SharePoint/Teams files via the old Windows Explorer View, instead users are directed to use the Website to access the resources or via the Sites link within Office applications.

[MartinT]

Similarly, we are using OneDrive without any add-ons, just some GPO policies. It all works fine as the default store for everyone.

[thimon]

Local user profiles here using OneDrive client and Group Policy folder redirection settings. All working fine.

[psydii]

I'm not sure what other people are doing. Maybe someone can clarify.

... people are having to create environment variables with redirection etc and have to try and bodge an enterprise solution to redirect everything to OneDrive.

 

Enterprise solutions are always a bodge to some extent.

 

I can't for the life of me find my notes from 2018 when we rolled this out, but broadly what we did was

 

1) Created a computer based GPP that on every machine creates the following folders

%SystemDrive%\Users\Default\OneDrive - *Org Name*\Attachments

%SystemDrive%\Users\Default\OneDrive - *Org Name*\Documents

%SystemDrive%\Users\Default\OneDrive - *Org Name*\Photos

%SystemDrive%\Users\Default\OneDrive - *Org Name*\Videos

etc

This means the folder redirection targets are ready the first time the user logs on, even though the first time the user logs on OneDrive hasn't run. Thus folder redirection works and a few moments after logon the user's files start to appear for them, once they have logged on once to a machine, their files are visible immediately.

 

2) In the GPO that has the above settings we enforce 'enable files on demand' (I think this is the default these days), migrate pre-existing Team Sites (probably not needed in 2022), and silently configure OneDrive using Primary Windows account (again I think this is probably default behavior in 2022)

We also set "enable co-authoring in app sharing for Office files" (again probably the default behaviour these days) and prevent users from syncing personal OneDrive account (to save space and a futile step to prevent data leakage from staff to personal accounts)

 

 

3) Now in that same GPO create a User scoped GPP that creates the following folders in each users' profile

OneDrive - *Org Name*

OneDrive - *Org Name*\Documents

OneDrive - *Org Name*\Pictures

OneDrive - *Org Name*\Videos

etc.

This catches any users that have got profiles that were created before the computer GPP entries in step 1 applied.

4) Also in the same GPO in the user scoped create an GPP environment variable called "OneDriveSync" with the value of %userprofile%\OneDrive - *Org Name*

 

3) Created a 2nd GPO to supersede the original user folder redirection policy and instead redirect folders to the appropriate OneDrive location e.g. Documents to %OneDriveSync%\Documents

Control the application of this policy via group membership so you can control the roll out of the migration.

 

 

It has been so long I can't remember whether for users who had existing profiles saw the redirection occur automatically the first time, or whether it took two logons. Certainly, I clearly hoped that be creating the folders using GPP that GPP runs before folder redirection, but if not, it wasn't a big deal we were rolling out slowly and nobody complained.

 

However, for users with fresh user profiles the redirection happens perfectly first time.

 

This method was actually in the official Microsoft documentation for a while, but has been replaced by Known Folder Move.

 

We attempt no roaming of profiles beyond what ever is left of ESR and Chromium settings roaming.

 

 

EDIT: Well gosh, I found it! The old guidance upon which the above is built: https://github.com/MicrosoftDocs/OfficeDocs-SharePoint/blob/92b3c82c523a3b1babc723a889c6c13012afef82/OneDrive/redirect-windows-known-folders.md and the current guidance based around known folder move:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-gb/sharepoint/redirect-known-folders

Edited October 17, 2022 by psydii

[broadld]

So to anyone using iamcloud Cloud Drive Mapper. Are you using group policy redirection to redirect folders to this mapped drive?

We basically want to be able for a new user to be able to just login and all their folders be redirected to Onedrive. With no user interaction.

We had to scrap roaming profiles as these didn't play nicely with Onedrive auto sign in.

The only thing we got close with was FSLogix and it seemed to work fine when roaming. However, you could only have one login as it locks the vhd. In testing we also came across where when you logged off it left a lock on the drive so prevented login.

[psydii]

We don't use Cloud Drive Mapper or FSLogix, but FWIW we migrated documents overnight using the "sharepoint migration tool", and went through the users in batches (which is what step 3 in my post above enables)

[broadld]

We don't use Cloud Drive Mapper or FSLogix, but FWIW we migrated documents overnight using the "sharepoint migration tool", and went through the users in batches (which is what step 3 in my post above enables)

 

Thats great I will do some more testing with this.

What are you doing for profile data then? Are you using anything or just letting it create a new profile when users login on every machine?

How have you found device hard disk usage with OneDrive sync data? Does storage sense keep usage down to a minimum when used with files on demand? The only reason i ask is that some of our PC's have 120 GB SSD's in.

[psydii]

Profiles are created per computer.

 

Seating plans are key, so students use the same computer week in week out, this allows storage sense to manage each profile in turn, and the student only has a 'long wait' (about a minute) on the first logon.

 

We have 256Gb SSD and in this configuration storage sense does mostly keep on top of things.

 

Occasionally we need to clear out old profiles (particularly when a class that makes heavy use of media files no longer uses a room we have found their profiles and hydrated files hang around)

 

Depending on your usage pattern, and what apps are on the desktops, 128Gb might require a tight maintenance programme to work.

[broadld]

Excellent thanks for this it has been really useful. Been testing with this and seems to work fine.

How do you deal with user areas after they have been migrated and switched over? Do you set the files as read only for a while or just remove them from the user?

Do you redirect appdata at all or just leave this local?