IAMCloud_Leon

Hey - I'm really sorry to hear that. If you want to reach out to me directly to see if there's anything we can do to help out with these issues just drop me a line @ [email protected] Just to reply on your specific points though. A few of our customers did used to report some issues with drive disconnection. This is because CDM uses the Windows WebClient/Webdav connection, and in CDM's case this used to natively authenticate to SharePoint via web cookies. This interaction was a bit fragile in some environments and could be impacted by other applications that tried to use the same SharePoint cookies. But issues relating to drive disconnection were largely resolved last year when we upgraded the authentication to use Microsoft's MSAL framework. If you are still using the product, I'd definitely recommend upgrading to the latest version. If you've already given up, then I'm sorry to see you go. In terms of the user experience not being great for untechnical users - we've not heard that before. There is normally no user interaction at all. Users should just use their mapped drives and be pretty much unaware that CDM is even there. In terms of the big files taking ages to download though. This is definitely fair. It is definitely a known limitation of webdav that it can be slow for very large multi-GB files. The good news about this though is that later this year, we'll have fully moved away from webdav and will be integrating directly via API over HTTPS, which will be pretty much the same speed as accessing the files through the SharePoint web view. We're really excited about the new generation client coming later this year, and it will be a substantial improvement across the board from our current client. Obviously if you are still looking for a solution at that point to solve your 365 file access problems then just get in touch again and we'll happily let you have a decent evaluation period to regain confidence in the product. All the best, Leon

Hi all, We're IAM Cloud - the forum sponsors. I wanted to make this sticky post a bit more useful for people searching for solutions in the Office 365 / cloud IT space. We've created a number of products that solve problems IT managers can sometimes run into. Here's a run-down of the problems our products can help solve (in no particular order). Problem 1) We want to provide our users with mapped drive letters to OneDrive, SharePoint or Microsoft Teams for our desktop and/or VDI or terminal environments. Solution 1) Cloud Drive Mapper. It's our most popular product. Does what it says on the tin but has a few nice extra features too. Affordable and very simple to configure and deploy. You can try it for free too. Problem 2) We want to migrate our Home Drives data to OneDrive for Business. Solution 2) Cloud Winch. Automates the entire migration process, configured in just a few clicks, and affordable. Problem 3) We're a Multi-Academy Trust (or similar) and we have multiple separate Office 365 tenancies that we want to migrate/merge into one central tenancy. Solution 3) Lift&Shift. Cloud-based platform that migrates all your Exchange Online, OneDrive for Business, SharePoint/Teams, OneNote and other Office 365 data from one tenancy to another. Problem 4) We want our users to be able to securely reset their own passwords remotely and re-write the new password back to Active Directory, but we can't justify the costs of Azure AD Premium. Solution 4) Surp4ss! (Surpass). Browser-based password reset with AD-writeback, with school-branded design, configurable policies and different reset methods. Comes with a client MSI you can push to domain joined machines to enable password reset from the Windows login screen too. You can try this for free too. Problem 5) We want to save time with provisioning and deprovisioning accounts by synchronising data from your student system, such as SIMS or Bromcom. Solution 5) IDxSIMS / IDxBromcom (other integrations available) is our identity provisioning & synchronisation service. It makes staff/student IT onboarding much easier, while removing dead accounts quickly, increasing security. Problem 6) We want single sign-on and MFA for our applications and can't find an affordable solution that meets our requirements. Solution 6) Simple Sign-On. Affordable but it has all the main features you need from an SSO platform. It's also flexible and avoids some issues Azure AD can face, especially in Trusts with MANY:MANY 1:MANY MANY:1 relationships between AD and Office 365. Last thing to mention: Support. Support is included in everything we offer, and we will happily go above and beyond wherever we possibly can to help our customers. I know that this sounds like the kind of spiel that every company says, but if you know us, hopefully you'll know this is true. I can sometimes miss replies to forum threads, so if you have any questions about any of the above, please feel free to email me at [email protected] Thanks! Leon

Hi folks, we're sponsors of the Office channel, but we have a solution for this problem https://www.iamcloud.com/surpass/ Quick and easy to get going. Handles the remote password reset and AD write-back. Works out a lot cheaper than AAD Premium 1 and works fine side-by-side with Azure AD or whichever authentication service you're using. And we've got a free trial if you like: https://www.iamcloud.com/surpass-free-trial/ At the moment the deployment needs a tiny bit of (free) support from our team but we're about 3 weeks away from fully automating the deployment and configuration process. Cheers, Leon

Hi folks, Leon from IAM Cloud (forum sponsor). Just a quick update: We released a new Cloud Drive Mapper feature a few months back which automatically (based on permissions) maps all a users' SharePoint Online doc libraries into a single drive letter. I'd say it's CDM's most successful feature yet, so I made a quick video tutorial showing how it works As you'll see, it's easy to set-up, hardly anything to manage, and removes a lot of the challenges with adopting SharePoint Online. All the feedback we've been getting lately about Cloud Drive Mapper, even from customers who've been with us for 4-5 years, have been saying it's the best it's ever been - so if you're interested in taking a look we've got a free trial available for you to check it out yourselves: https://www.iamcloud.com/cloud-drive-mapper-trial-signup/ Cheers, Leon

Oh cool. Yes indeed. It absolutely mitigates those issues - it's pretty snappy. I use it myself at the moment, although it's still a bit bare bones while we add the functionality into it that currently exists in our webdav-based client. But won't be too much longer (a few months) until we release the full version.

Out of interest - do you folks have any wish-list ideas or current issues right now in terms of cloud storage? I'm thinking back-end server sync/backups, desktop to cloud file migration, hybrid cloud storage. That kind of thing? It's always good to hear specific use cases. We're always looking for new problems to solve :-)

Hi @Smokebomb - there's a bit to unpack there, but to summarise: I can't comment on the performance whichever product you used. Our product does currently use webdav for some of its processes (but we're pretty close to releasing a version that doesn't, which we're pretty excited about). That said, we have done quite a lot to mitigate some of webdav's limitations to improve the transfer speeds of it by adding in compression and some other things. When you say Windows Explorer doesn't play nicely with webdav - I'm not sure what you mean there. Webdav is very stable in Windows Explorer. It's a Windows protocol, so it would be weird for it to be unstable within Windows. I'd say in fact that it's more stable than most sync systems like OD & Google Drive. But you're absolutely right that it does definitely have some limitations when transferring very large files - that's one of the reasons we've been working on a new product if I'm honest. The thing about the ODFOD that I mentioned is the issues usually happen in reverse - not teething issues but ageing issues. Normally it's the case in tech that you have a few little issues at the beginning and after a while you iron out the kinks and it gets better with time. What we've experienced - and what a lot of the comments on forums have been saying - is that the people who adopt ODFOD for the longest, actually have the most issues. So who you just get started with ODFOD, organisations normally have a pretty great experience for the first year or so. But it's after that that people start finding those little issues start creeping in more and more. You're right that the OD client has improved since 2018, but so have products like ours (and presumably our competitors too). But CDM isn't for everyone, and I wholeheartedly agree with your suggestion to thoroughly test any solutions before purchasing. That's why we offer a free trial to be honest.

Our product solves quite a lot of different issues, which depends on the context of different IT environments, and has support for certain end-points and functionality not present in the OneDrive client at all. Also has greater backwards compatibility for desktop/legacy apps. But aside from that, to address the specific point on not syncing at all. CDM is much more restrictive than ODFOD and doesn't allow for any kind of offline files at all. Keeping the user experience familiar with drives also means that users aren't given any choice or chances to deviate from the intended method you want them to access their files. The feedback we get from our customers is that it's just simple, intuitive and doesn't lead users into behaviours that may not ultimately be in the best interest for their organisation. Like Dropbox Infinite & GoogleDrive FS, ODFOD is awesome for consumers and in smaller businesses where users all have a very clear understanding and personal responsibility over their data. CDM keeps things simple and unambiguous. But it's not for everyone.

Sweet! Btw did you see the new Teams integration we just released? I'm pretty excited about it - so far as a person can get excited about mapped drives ;-) https://blog.iamcloud.com/cloud-drive-mapper-ms-teams-awesome Let me know if you want me send you over an online meeting to demo it.

One of the numerous problems with Files on Demand -> https://blog.iamcloud.com/the-slow-burning-crisis-of-selective-sync

Hi y'all, this is Leon from IAM Cloud (the Office Software forum sponsor). You may already know about Cloud Drive Mapper (CDM) - which is used by quite a lot of organisations to map drives to OneDrive and SharePoint Online. But we've just added a new integration with Teams, and it's pretty great - especially if you're wanting to better adopt Teams in your school/trust. It's also really easy to set-up. I wrote a blog about it here if you want to check it out. CDM has a free trial available if you want to have a try for yourselves. Any questions feel free to shoot me a message on here or over email @ [email protected] Thanks, Leon

Hi folks - you might be interested in checking out https://www.iamcloud.com/cloud-drive-mapper which actually sponsors this forum, as it resolves the issues you're facing. Also allows you to do folder redirection into each user's OneDrive too, which means all Windows folders - Desktop, Documents, Favourites, Downloads etc will all be in the cloud - not on the local machine. There's a free trial so feel free to give it a whirl.

Hi Jasmine, we are one of the market leaders in this space. Affordable, and we help with all the deployment and support. https://www.iamcloud.com/cloud-drive-mapper

OneDrive mapper and a number of other powershell-based OneDrive mapping scripts are about to fail in a few weeks when MS Office 365 team deprecate the legacy Hidden IE Auth System that the script uses to authenticate. More info + solution here: Is your OneDrive mapping script about to fail?

In just a few weeks, Microsoft is decommissioning their legacy authentication flow to Office 365, which will render most of the PowerShell scripts that map drives to OneDrive for Business and SharePoint Online completely broken. More info here: Is your OneDrive mapping script about to fail? The solution? Luckily, as your loyal and committed Edugeek Office forum sponsors, we've got your backs :-) Here you go: https://www.iamcloud.com/cloud-drive-mapper

Interesting. It sounds like some of your challenges are with fundamental issues in SharePoint and the nature in which you migrated your files initially. Can I ask what tool/service you used for that? Normally you'd expect them to have some kind of process for handling filenames/paths that are too long etc. As for corresponding compatibility challenges with CDM. It's possible that some of the limitations you're encountering re: url length are due to our CDM client's current use of Webdav, which isn't ideal really. Our new client coming soon is moving away from Webdav. So we'll have to give it a try when that's released and we might find that this particular issue is resolved.

When we were working on the Google compatibility we had a pretty big re-think about the whole thing. So we've now designed how it works... Took us a while unfortunately, but in the end it's much better because of it. Won't be long. I'll ping you when it's out, just so you can compare.

Depends on the admin control. So far it looks very user orientated, which is convenient for individuals - a bit like Dropbox Infinite - not for organisational use etc. Also reliant on pure Windows 10 infrastructure and Azure AD. So it's pretty restrictive. We're a few steps ahead with our next release ;-)

Hey. If you want SSO, for a small increase in price you can take the whole IAM Cloud platform www.iamcloud.com which includes our federation/SSO service. So that's one option. If you don't want SSO, then you can use Cloud Drive Mapper with the native authentication in Office 365. This just means that users have to enter their Office 365 credentials to map their drives. That said, if you're using Windows credential manager, then the users may only need to do this once, and then they're saved as part of the Windows profile. So the user doesn't have to re-enter their credentials each future time they login to that machine.

Cloud Drive Mapper is in effect an identity tool that uses drive mapping to integrate with storage, so it's all policy and rule driven in the back end. I don't think Google File Stream is - it's basically the same as Dropbox Infinite. Probably good in small businesses, more challenging in larger and more heterogenous environments. Will be good to see what it can do though.

Hey, yes we've seen Cloud Drive Mapper working fine on mandatory profiles, we're aware of at least 1 customer that uses it in this way. We also have a customer that uses Cloud Drive Mapper in a Citrix VDI environment. Recommend you giving it a (free) trial and seeing it working for yourself though.

Initially we found GraphAPI didn't have all the functionality in it to be able to achieve what we needed, so it delayed things. It does now, so yes, we're working on this too. We're currently working on SSO via RM Unify as well, and we'll look at integrating with other SSO providers going forwards. Which SSO providers do you have in mind?

Initially we found GraphAPI didn't have all the functionality in it to be able to achieve what we needed, so it delayed things. It does now, so yes, we're working on this too. We're currently working on SSO via RM Unify as well, and we'll look at integrating with other SSO providers going forwards. Which SSO providers do you have in mind?

Hey - you can setup OneDrive for Business auto-provisioning in the SharePoint admin centre - instructions are here. Cheers

Hey - you can setup OneDrive for Business auto-provisioning in the SharePoint admin centre - instructions are here. Cheers