Forum Discussion
Sharing OneDrive Folder or SharePoint Folder with OneDrive for Business
Yes, I have it set up now and it looks to be working. I am also looking into whether there is a reason for that OneDrive setting.
So, to recap, the reason my OneDrive and SharePoint folders were not syncing even though I was getting the "Sync this library to your device for easy access" dialog was because my browser wasn't showing me a popup that asks whether I want to open the OneDrive app on my computer or not. Once I unlinked my computer and relinked it to the OneDrive app and tried the sync again, the popup appeared and I was able to sync.
Further to that, the use of a shared OneDrive folder in this situation was not an ideal solution. The better solution was to share a folder created in a Classic SharePoint Site where I can control the access level for members.
Thank you so much to Salvatore Biscari, Deleted, jcgonzalezmartin, and Laurent Lee A Sioe for the help!
Salvatore Biscari Thank you for your input.
Let me loop back around to the original problem for a moment for which the OneDrive solution was suggested.
We have over twenty Word document templates as well as style templates, theme colors, and SmartArt customization. All these files usually live in the Templates folder on the user's computer and the subfolders of that folder (e.g. Templates/SmartArt Graphics). If they are not within that folder structure, but are instead simply downloaded off a group site as needed, they won't work as designed. They need to be in their respective folders so that the customization and Add-Ins appear within Word.
Currently only a few of the employees of the organization use these templates and each time new versions are released the employees download the individual files and manually place them in the respective folders as needed. It's clumsy and I have no way of knowing if the employees have completed the task correctly or not (or at all). Now I am being asked to roll out the templates across all employees in the organization. Manually installing the templates for each update is really not an option anymore.
What I want to do is use the Workgroup Templates option within Word to point to a folder with the sample subfolder structure which I can update as needed and therefore the users themselves don't need to do anything and won't even know an update has happened. However, the users are scattered throughout multiple countries, offices, and remote locales. A common network drive just does not exist.
Therefore it was suggested that a shared OneDrive folder would do the job because I could easily update it from my end but the folders would be sitting on the local drive so that even if the user travels to a remote location without internet connection the templates will still be accessable to them.
If OneDrive for Business should not be used for permanently sharing documents, then how can I provide a solution to this situation?
For each user, the OneDrive client (AKA NGSC) can sync both the ODfB doclib (which is individual, i.e. similar to a local drive) and several SPO doclibs (which are shared among multiple users, i.e. similar to a network drive).
The correct solution to your use case could be to put the templates in a folder of an SPO doclib and sync it locally for every user.
Try it and let us know.
Laurent Lee A Sioe. Thank you for your response. The problem isn't actually with the Mac computer. The Mac computer is syncing fine. It's the Windows computer I've been having problems with.
Salvatore Biscari I have had the admin privileges removed from my Jessica Kavanagh account and tried setting the sync up again with a SharePoint Document Library.
The sync worked successfully this time. Just before doing that I had actually unlinked my computer from my OneDrive app and then linked it back up again. So when I clicked the Sync button, I got the dialog I normally do which gave me the "Sync now" button and then after I clicked that button I got an additional dialog I haven't seen before from my browser (Chrome) which said "Open Microsoft OneDrive?" with the two options "Open Microsoft OneDrive" and "Don't open." There was also a check box for "Remember my choice for Microsoft OneDrive links."
So I'm wondering if at some point in the past I had been presented with that dialog box before and clicked "Don't open" for some reason and the browser remembered that as my default response. So each time I clicked the "Sync now" link the browser would effectively veto the action and never allow the sync command to get through to the app.
However, I am still concerned about the setup with SharePoint. As a member of the SharePoint group, I can actually edit the folder which is shared with me, even though I'm not the owner. I really don't want that to be the case though since having everyone being able to edit the folder where the templates are kept is going to be extremely problematic. But when I log in with my Templates account as the owner of the SharePoint group I can't see anywhere that allows me to change access to read only. Could you help me out here?
In the first place, it's not clear to me what you mean by "admin privileges". (Of course) you don't need to be a Global Administrator to sync a doclib. On the other hand, every user is by default the Site Collection Administrator of her/his ODfB and, as I already said, it's not recommended to remove such privilege. Perhaps you should investigate a little to understand exactly which kind of "admin privileges" you have not anymore...
Secondly, in Modern Team Sites (i.e. those connected to an Office 365 Group), all Group members have by default edit permission on all the items in the associated doclib(s). It is possible, but not recommended, to modify such default permissions. If you want more flexibility in permissions, you could use a Classic Team Site, instead.
Third, it is too not clear to me what you mean by "my Templates account". Normally, every user has only one account in Office 365. Are you sure that you need to have several accounts? Why?
Salvatore Biscari Thank you for your patience. :)
Firstly, the admin privileges I was given and then asked to have removed from my Jessica Kavanagh account were Global Admin privileges which would have allowed me to alter settings across the whole organization.
Thirdly (am answering this one first so the next one makes more sense), yes, I have access to two Office 365 accounts. One is my own everyday business e-mail, under my name Jessica Kavanagh. The other is the account named Templates which will be responsible for setting up the folder where the templates are stored. I asked for a separate account to be set up for this for the following reasons:
- Because I need to test the sharing to another Windows account, and if my own account is the one that is setting all this up then I can't test the sharing on my own computer. And since I work in a completely different country to my colleagues, testing on my own computer is far easier than emailing back and forth to people in different time zones. When I provide technical support to my colleagues as we roll this out, I will also need to be seeing roughly what they're seeing on my own computer.
- I believe that is better for the shared folder to be set up in an account that is not linked to me personally so that if something happened to me and I was not able to continue my job (temporarily or permanently) this has all been set up to allow anyone who fills my position to take over the care of the templates without having to access my business account. Recent experience has taught me such future-proofing is essential to the smooth running of the organization.
Secondly, when you talk about a Classic Team Site, are you talking about files that are uploaded under the Teams app to a specific team? If that's the case, I have also tried to set that up with the Templates account, but when I browse to that shared folder online with my Jessica Kavanagh account, I see no sync button there.
Thank you for your continued assistance.