Why SharePoint Struggles with CAD—and What Smart MSPs Are Doing Differently

The Hidden Struggles of CAD Workflows in the Cloud

For Managed Service Providers (MSPs) leading digital transformations, Microsoft SharePoint and OneDrive are often the go-to solutions for cloud storage. On the surface, they seem like a perfect fit—familiar, widely adopted, and deeply integrated into the Microsoft ecosystem. But for businesses handling complex Computer-Aided Design (CAD) files, the cracks in these solutions quickly become apparent.

A telecommunications and cloud services provider in Sweden learned this the hard way. Their CAD workflows, once efficient on traditional file servers, became a nightmare of missing files, sync failures, and version conflicts after moving to SharePoint. Frustrated engineers wasted valuable hours tracking down lost changes. IT teams scrambled to resolve sync errors. The company knew it needed a better way—one that not only solved their own pain points but could also serve their clients facing the same challenges.

Why SharePoint and OneDrive Fail for CAD File Management

At its core, SharePoint’s challenge with CAD files stems from its reliance on OneDrive for file synchronization. OneDrive follows a simple philosophy: sync every file to every device. While this model works well for office documents, it clashes with the way CAD teams work.

Unlike Word or Excel files, CAD files are large, complex, and often modified by multiple engineers at the same time. They need a different approach—one that mirrors the behavior of a traditional file server rather than a personal sync-and-share tool. Here’s what’s missing:

1. Drive Mapping for Seamless User Experience – Engineers expect to work from a mapped drive, not sift through a synced folder.
2. File Locking to Prevent Overwrites – Real-time file locking prevents multiple users from making conflicting edits and corrupting work.
3. Granular Permission Control – Strict access rules ensure only authorized users can modify or view files, maintaining security and compliance.
4. Smart Caching for Performance – A cloud solution must intelligently cache files based on locks and permissions to avoid unnecessary sync conflicts and bandwidth drains.

Without these capabilities, SharePoint becomes a bottleneck rather than an enabler of productivity. File sync issues multiply. Teams lose trust in their tools. IT overhead skyrockets.

The Right Solution: CentreStack for MSPs

Recognizing these gaps, forward-thinking MSPs are turning to solutions that bridge the file server-to-cloud divide. CentreStack is built with MSPs in mind, delivering drive mapping, file locking, permission controls, and smart caching to make CAD file management seamless and secure.

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If CAD file chaos is holding you or your clients back, there’s a better way. Discover how CentreStack solves these challenges. Visit CentreStack today.