Forum Discussion
Do I need multiple OneDrive accts for multiuser access Sharepoint?
Hi all, I'm a total Sharepoint/OneDrive noob. I got a OneDrive for business account for team photo storage (2-300 GB of photos so the 1TB capacity was very attractive – as was managed metadata).
They are all filed in a Sharepoint file library. I then got OneDrive for every user who accesses Sharepoint.
My question is, do I really need everyone to have OneDrive to access and upload photos to the Sharepoint library? It doesn't seem like I do, as I created a user in Sharepoint that had no issues accessing with no OneDrive license. I can test further, but if someone can explain the relationship between the two products, that'd be great.
5 Replies
I'm confused as to what you have actually purchased. Have you purchased standalone OneDrive for Business for both yourself and all users ?
Both ODFB & SharePoint Online use SharePoint libraries for document storage. Think of ODFB as 'My Documents" and a SharePoint Team Site document library as your shared network folders - accessible by a controlled set of users.
Sounds like you don't actually have SharePoint Online licenses
According to Admin Center I have 25 Nonprofit Portal licenses and then 5 OneDrive for Business (Plan 2) licenses (one for each user).
The only user using any of their OD allocation is me (~.75 of 1TB). But it doesn't look like I've got any SharePoint licenses. Yet, via 365 admin, I can access a Sharepoint admin center, and we've set up a Sharepoint site. I can see that Sharepoint usage is .6 of a 1TB allocation (likely tied to that .75 OD allocation).I guess, if it is working, then I shouldn't worry and just remove the extraneous OD4B licenses, eh? It'd be ideal because if I can add ~20 users it means that more of our staff can access the libraries.- I don't know what's included in your NonProfit license sku. But "Technically" you should be licensed per user in the org for SharePoint if they are going to use it. The 1TB for SharePoint is the default Tenant storage and you get like 500MB per licensed user after that on certain sku's. So you need to figure out if your Non Profit main sku includes the SharePoint license (It shoudl show on your license assignment drop down in admin center). And if so and those 25 people are all that access it then you should be covered just using SharePoint.
- Keep in mind, if these users accessing the data are part of your organization then you need to have SharePoint licenses. Even thou you can add anyone to SharePoint, you still need a license. If they are just external users however you can Share freely access to your site. So you need to consider this. If they already do have SharePoint licenses of some kind then no they do not need OneDrive to access SharePoint and add/remove files. Need at least a Kiosk SP license thou, and you also only have so much storage based on your license counts in SP.
As you may know already, OneDrive for Business is meant for personal work documents, whereas SharePoint is generally intended for team documents that have a wider audience. This may help - https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Should-I-save-my-documents-to-OneDrive-for-Business-or-a-team-site-d18d21a0-1f9f-4f6c-ac45-d52afa0a4a2e as well as this.
If users don't require there own storage for their own documents, then no need to assign a OneDrive licence, they should still be able to access SharePoint, with the corresponding SP licence.
