Do you need OneDrive ?

Microsoft’s OneDrive, together with Office 365’s related AutoSave and Version History, have been terrific tools for streamlining my file naming and multiple iterations. 

But is OneDrive required…or is it a nice-to-have upsell from Microsoft? In short, if you want to experience the full value of Office 365 and its file sharing, version history, and collaboration, OneDrive is essential. 

I initially resisted adding OneDrive to my Windows 10 system. I was already using GoogleDrive and Dropbox, and didn’t want to complicate things with a third cloud drive platform. But as Microsoft + Star Trek diehards now, “Resistance is Futile.” I reasoned that OneDrive is designed to work with Windows and Office 365 and is rich with features that supported my production on PowerPoint more than the other platforms. So I accepted the “assimilation” into the world of Microsoft’s cloud-based file platform, and installed OneDrive. 

Nearly one year later, OneDrive has made presentation development more straightforward and collaborative for me and my clients. But there have been a few bumps in the road…

In Spring 2021, a client called me at 10pm on a Saturday night, urgently needing my help in recovering her missing PowerPoint presentation file. Somehow, her presentation that she was just editing had instantly “vanished” from OneDrive. Her 30-page presentation - hours of work - had just disappeared. 

I logged into my OneDrive account from my Chrome browser, and spotted the file. [I was the owner and she was an editor.] But when I clicked to open it, I got an error message. Definitely trouble! I quickly spotted her file in my local OneDrive folder, and successfully opened it on my PC’s PowerPoint. Whew! I then saved the file as a copy and emailed it to my client. 

We’re not sure exactly what happened to cause her file to go AWOL, but this near-loss is a lesson in precaution and backup. Since this incident, I’ve made a point to be more protective of my work, saving iterative file versions (as described earlier), verifying backups, and ensuring there’s more than one version of my cloud file somewhere. OneDrive is a powerful tool and cloud technology is constantly improving, but when hours of your time and efforts might be technically threatened, make a point to work with redundancy and resiliency.