Mastering common challenges in Office 365 – Part 2: OneDrive

In this article of the series – Mastering common challenges in Office 365 – it is all about OneDrive. There are also a lot of other articles in the series. You find Microsoft Forms, Microsoft Planner and Microsoft Stream here on LinkedIn. SharePoint, Teams and more is available on my blog at my article series page.

Getting ready ??

To get ready, the first time after you open the application you get promoted with the Set up OneDrive window where you enter your credentials to use the application.

After successfully entering your credentials and a few straight forward decisions, you are already almost done. If you open your sync client and you don’t see the status indicator column or you are missing Files On-Demand you might wonder why… Well, check the next section on Files On-Demand.

Files On-Demand ?? ??

It is quite easy to active the Files On-Demand feature. Just open the settings of the sync client, navigate to the settings ribbon tab and active it. This settings is most likely disabled if you sign in with an account which is connected to OneDrive for Business and you are using an older version of the client. Important here is that OneDrive Files On-Demand requires Windows 10 Fall Creators Update (version 16299.15 or later) and OneDrive build 17.3.7064.1005 or later.

After setting this feature to active, the sync client will shorty reconnect and after a few seconds you should see the status column in your Windows Explorer.

Sync status indicator overview ?

With the different sync status indicators it could get a little confusing. Therefore here an overview what those are.

Not only Windows is capable of this awesome feature. With Mac OS Mojave we also have this feature on Apple devices. That’s great.

Check out the article from Microsoft and start syncing your files. Have you noticed the dark-mode? Cool, isn’t it?

OneDrive, OneDrive for Business, Groove etc. ?? ?? ?? ?? 

You might also wonder what all those different names are you saw floating around in “that internet”. OneDrive, OneDrive Personal, OneDrive for Business (O4B), SkyDrive, Next Generation Sync Client (NGSC), Groove.exe etc.

To give a short answer which is not totally enough to understand everything is:

• OneDrive for Business is most likely used in your company
• OneDrive (Personal) is used at your home computer
• Next Generation Sync Client is OneDrive for Business and OneDrive (Personal)
• Everything else is almost outdated

Prior to the Next Generation Sync Client I felt like in the GIF below.

That was a hustle ??

Now, it is a solid ladder you are facing with OneDrive and their development. There are several articles out there where you find more detailed information. One website I want to give a shout-out is hansbrender.com – His articles are very detailed, he has great insights in the development process at Microsoft and is a really good source when it comes to OneDrive.

OneDrive File Restore ?

If you have checked a little bit what was on the roadmap at Microsoft you probably saw the File Restore feature. In my tenant it is active since the 6th of February. I guess you have seen this now in your tenant as well. If not, go check for it!

In general it is an easy way for the user to “go back in time” in your OneDrive and restore files from a specific date and time. Currently it is possible to go back up to 30 days. ?? In my opinion 90 days would be perfect, but well… let’s see what Microsoft thinks about that 

To access the file restore feature just open your OneDrive in the web and click on the gear icon in the top right. In the sidebar you should find the menu to go there.

When you are at the restore site you should see in the drop-down the options One week ago, Three weeks ago and Custom date and time. If you select option one or two you get directly “set back” to that time. The last option gives you the option to choose the point of time.

Microsoft announced this feature a while back and also has resources you can check out here. In there, you find also a picture what the file restore from a certain point in time looks like.

In my tenant it is now also shown, but I have a little different options to select in my drop-down, but hey, no hate here. I am happy with my options. ??

Known Folder Move ??

So what is Known Folder Mover or KFM? Microsoft says: Known folders are global pointers in Windows representing a location on the user’s drive. They help users to organize their most important files and access them across different applications. KFM helps you move your docs, desktop, and pictures into OneDrive. Even the Screenshots and Camera Roll folders are included when the Picture folder has opted into KFM.

To set it up, it is just as easy as the Files On-Demand feature. Open your settings, go to Auto save and click on Update folders.

You can then select which folders should be synced. You can also change these settings afterwards.

I only select my Desktop and Pictures ?? for now. Then you get a little window with a cute picture and depending on how much you selected it is super fast ready.

If you know check you Windows Explorer you should see the indicators again.

This is a pretty easy and effective way to protect your users even more. To be honest, I don’t think it needed to be that “security-heavy” promoted, but as long as the feature is available, I am in! ???♂?

OneDrive mobile app ??

An 4.7 out of 5 and 99.5k ratings in the App store plus a 4.4 out of 5 with over 1 million rating in the Play store is not that bad, right? At least that’s what I think of it. I really use my mobile OneDrive more frequently. Especially since I can mark also here my files for offline access.

Also the option to take a photo directly from the app is pretty neat and if you haven’t clicked on Scan… Do it, you will be surprised 

There is much more to discover ?? in the OneDrive app. Just download it and give it a try. It is free and if you don’t like it you can uninstall it. But give the mobile app a chance.

Summary ??

There are still a few people out there who are not happy with OneDrive. The past wasn’t that great with the old Groove.exe, but this whole product improved fast and pretty great. If you’re still one of the people from the GIF below, okay… but please give it another try!

You know I need GIF’s to survive ?? With these view tips you have should have at least an brief overview of OneDrive. There are many things we still need, but the road-map shows that they are working on them super hard. There is also now a great new designed OneDrive documentation section available, check it out to learn more.

If you want to have more details about OneDrive let me know and get in touch with me via mail, Twitter or Facebook. Also stay tuned on my blog. There is already Part 1 about PowerShell, Part 3 about SharePoint, Part 4 about Teams, Part 5 about SharePoint HubSites, Part 6 – Teams reloaded, Part 7 – Microsoft Forms, Part 8 - Microsoft Planner, Part 9 - Microsoft Stream available and much more on my article series website.

Hope I could make you smile, you learned something and enjoyed this article! That's as always the goal! Hope to see you next time again. ?? Until then, don't be AFRAIT