New Year 7 and One Drive

[mdrabble]

All home drives are currently on the network but for the new Year 7 student in September, I am thinking of putting them direcrly on One Drive for their Home drives.

 

Would I be right in thinking if I create a GPO to redirect known folders to OneDrive and Enfore that on the Year 7 OU, that should do the job?

 

Cheers

[mdrabble]

Also.... just looking at Burconix, Cloud Connect does anyone have any feedback on that compare to using the native windows client?

 

Cheers

[DaveTheTech]

I didnt both transfering student data when I migrated ours.

Just used folder redirection and point that towards their OneDrive.

 

ODSP migration tool worked beautifully for the staff.

[FragglePete]

For the past two year intakes have used the OneDrive mapper script with redirected docs, pics, etc.

 

It works well and had no complaints. Just that first login takes slightly longer to get it mapped. The new v5 version I've been testing seems pretty good also and is beating the OneDrive client in getting their O: drive mapped.

 

We also use BCX Cloud Connect, but have restricted this to staff only so we map a drive letter to SharePoint libraries/teams. It's ok, just wish it would work quicker.

 

Staff seem happy, but this approach does show its weakness on PCs that don't have a local profile for them as it takes a bit of time, but PCs that they use on a regular basis it's not so much a problem.

 

Pete

[Aprice]

Also.... just looking at Burconix, Cloud Connect does anyone have any feedback on that compare to using the native windows client?

 

Cheers

 

We've tried Cloud Connect, and were impressed. Certainly makes the changeover a lot easier for the less technically confident staff.

 

Currently quite annoyed with the windows native client as the changes I've just made and saved on my Excel sheet show on my laptop but not on my PC. Despite both saying their synced.

 

90% of the time the native client works fine, but the 10% of the time it doesn't it's incredibly frustrating for everyone. Couple of phone calls a day for the work that they did on a workroom PC not being their when they get back to the classroom.

 

Getting people to actually try Cloud Connect has been a challenge, as they're all used to the native client now and don't want to change.

 

I'd get it in place on day 1 rather than trying to bring it in later.

[mrbios]

What does cloud connect do? Similar to the iAM cloud mapper? or the onedrive mapper script from libensraum?

 

I'm looking at doing a similar thing this year, rather than migrating existing users, just starting from Y7 and overriding GPOs that point to H drive to instead point at OneDrive. Already done a test OU with redirects and it works really well, however one of the CDM/cloudconnect/onedrive mapper tools look like they might solve problems before they arise. Also interested to hear what hurdles other schools have come across with onedrive and what tools have made their lives easier.

[badders]

What type of profiles are people using for students when mapping one drive?

[FragglePete]

What does cloud connect do? Similar to the iAM cloud mapper? or the onedrive mapper script from libensraum?

 

I'm looking at doing a similar thing this year, rather than migrating existing users, just starting from Y7 and overriding GPOs that point to H drive to instead point at OneDrive. Already done a test OU with redirects and it works really well, however one of the CDM/cloudconnect/onedrive mapper tools look like they might solve problems before they arise. Also interested to hear what hurdles other schools have come across with onedrive and what tools have made their lives easier.

Yes - very similar to IAM Cloud - but without the need to poke around with registry entries and keys. All done 'in the cloud' based on Azure Groups. It manages OneDrive Client updating, monitors (and clears) disk space if needed, will look after Folder Redirection. You can assign drive letters to map directly to individual sharepoint libraries or aggregate them all together into one drive - which is what we're doing - one drive letter and each faculty team appears within that drive letter as a subfolder. It'll only let you access that faculty's team sharepoint if your a member of the Team.

 

We only use it for Staff - which keeps the price low. Students we just use the Liebensraum script and like you, introduced this for new Intakes only, our current Year 7 & 8 have this whereas the other years just have the standard OneDrive Client along with OnPrem home drives but we set the OneDrive as the 'default' location for storing stuff. We may look to just migrate these year groups over this Summer regardless but we're finding most are using OneDrive anyway.

 

We're trialed IAM Cloud and was impressed how quickly it would map a drive letter to the drive, the Liebensraum script is also pretty quick too - beating the official client - BCX Cloud Connect is not too far behind, but what it can do with the Sharepoint Libraries and being able to configure it on the web we found really useful so opted for that. I think a newer version of IAM Cloud is going to offer something similar they were testing when we spoke to them but that was a fair few months ago now.

 

Pete

[mrbios]

Yes - very similar to IAM Cloud - but without the need to poke around with registry entries and keys. All done 'in the cloud' based on Azure Groups. It manages OneDrive Client updating, monitors (and clears) disk space if needed, will look after Folder Redirection. You can assign drive letters to map directly to individual sharepoint libraries or aggregate them all together into one drive - which is what we're doing - one drive letter and each faculty team appears within that drive letter as a subfolder. It'll only let you access that faculty's team sharepoint if your a member of the Team.

 

We only use it for Staff - which keeps the price low. Students we just use the Liebensraum script and like you, introduced this for new Intakes only, our current Year 7 & 8 have this whereas the other years just have the standard OneDrive Client along with OnPrem home drives but we set the OneDrive as the 'default' location for storing stuff. We may look to just migrate these year groups over this Summer regardless but we're finding most are using OneDrive anyway.

 

We're trialed IAM Cloud and was impressed how quickly it would map a drive letter to the drive, the Liebensraum script is also pretty quick too - beating the official client - BCX Cloud Connect is not too far behind, but what it can do with the Sharepoint Libraries and being able to configure it on the web we found really useful so opted for that. I think a newer version of IAM Cloud is going to offer something similar they were testing when we spoke to them but that was a fair few months ago now.

 

Pete

 

Thanks Pete, excellent information.

 

I've emailed IAMCloud to ask them about their "next gen" client features and expected release time. Hopefully get some information on that soon, as i type this i've just had an email from burconix as i downloaded their trial yesterday..... need to have a play with it today.

 

Regarding folder redirection, which is likely to take precedence if a GPO exists, the GPO or the settings from the client? Having to sort out my GPOs is likely to be my most frustrating part of the whole process Also i assume even when you use Burcanix/IAMCloud the OneDrive native client is still left there to auto-sign in and show in file explorer, or do you override/hude that in some way to force people to use the mapped drive?

[FragglePete]

Thanks Pete, excellent information.

 

I've emailed IAMCloud to ask them about their "next gen" client features and expected release time. Hopefully get some information on that soon, as i type this i've just had an email from burconix as i downloaded their trial yesterday..... need to have a play with it today.

 

Regarding folder redirection, which is likely to take precedence if a GPO exists, the GPO or the settings from the client? Having to sort out my GPOs is likely to be my most frustrating part of the whole process Also i assume even when you use Burcanix/IAMCloud the OneDrive native client is still left there to auto-sign in and show in file explorer, or do you override/hude that in some way to force people to use the mapped drive?

Not yet using it to do folder redirection, relying of GPOs to do that still at the moment for staff. Also with students, using the %OneDrive% variable method in the GPO for redirection of folders. But, still experimenting with the v5 script which can do redirection if need be.

 

We're seeing these 'mappers' as a transition really - people are used to using a local map drive and this gives then something they are used too, but as we're migrating their faculties to Teams people are getting used to working there instead - it's the old 'your files used to be here, but they are now over there'. I find working directly on larger files directly on a mapped drive a bit laggy when saving as opposed to a link placed in your OneDrive folder. But, it's really just this place as they don't like too much change at once so we're just doing a slow transition - I know some NM would just do a cut over migration.

 

Pete

[TechMonkey]

I've emailed IAMCloud to ask them about their "next gen" client features and expected release time. Hopefully get some information on that soon, as i type this i've just had an email from burconix as i downloaded their trial yesterday..... need to have a play with it today.

 

Not wanting to sound like a stuck record but the IAMCloud next gen client has been expected to be released very soon for the last 5 years, if not longer.

[mrbios]

Not wanting to sound like a stuck record but the IAMCloud next gen client has been expected to be released very soon for the last 5 years, if not longer.

 

Ah ok i took this line from their CDM page "and with some major upgrades coming in 2023, it keeps getting better." and this from their blog release for 2.15 "Cloud Drive Mapper 2.15 add a number of bug fixes and improvements, and we expect it to be one of the last major stable releases until we move to our new next generation client."

 

I took those to mean this year, we'll see what they say when they reply to my email i guess

[free780]

If it still uses WebDAV the performance won’t be great. I think FSLogix is the way to go but not perfect.

[mrbios]

Had a reply from IAMCloud today, their next-gen client is due out July/August apparently.... sadly that is a little too close to september for comfort for me to depend on that route this year. Worth knowing though for those of you who've known it was "coming" for years.