Forum Discussion
Folderless SharePoint Libraries & OneDrive App
Hi everyone
We are in the process of designing document management in SharePoint Online,. As part of this we are looking at various ways of 'tagging' documents as we want to move away from multiple layers of folders in libraries and the problems that brings. I completely get the need to use metadata rather than using loads of folders but there's one question I have which I haven't really seen discussed so far:
If I set up a grouped by view in a SharePoint library this works well as I can drop documents into the groups and the specified metadata is updated automatically. However, many of our users use the OneDrive client app to access these libraries and when viewing the library through this app the groups aren't displayed. This means that an organised, logical library becomes a long lists of uncategorised files when viewed in the OneDrive app.
I just wondered whether anyone has found any ways around this or is it a case of having to use folders in libraries if you want to access them with the client app?
- I personally disable offline sync for libraries with metadata. Sync client is scary especially if it's a larger library that many people are in. Even when / if sync client ends up supporting metadata I would disable it on larger libraries used for these types of scenarios and force web use.
It's unfortunate thou that the mobile apps don't support it either but you should still be able to get to the file metadata I believe in SharePoint app.
Anyway, I've been trying to get people out of the whole sync everything local habit other than their onedrive. It is just prone to too many variables for disaster :P. gjayne84 I typically use both folders and metadata columns and then use the column default values setting to tie the folders to their respective tags. The ones who sync and work with the files can drag & drop via the File Explorer. And for those who use the browser, created a grouped view that hides the folders. https://www.collaboris.com/how-to-set-default-column-values-on-a-document-in-sharepoint/
