Save your files to the cloud more easily
Published Jan 25 2019 09:25 AM 48.2K Views
Brass Contributor

To protect against device loss or damage and to provide anywhere access to files, we recommend storing them in Office 365. Last June we announced Known Folder Move (KFM) in OneDrive for customers on Windows 7, 8.1 and Windows 10. Known Folder Move provides an easy way to redirect your desktop documents and folders to OneDrive, making OneDrive the default location for those files. With KFM, your content is automatically synced to OneDrive with no disruption to productivity.

 

Today we are announcing a new capability that makes it easier for you to create and save your Word, Excel, or PowerPoint document directly to the cloud. When you go to save an Office365 document using Ctrl+S (Windows), Cmd+S (macOS), or the Save button, the new dialog box will default to OneDrive or SharePoint Online. And if you forget to save a new document before exiting, you will also see this updated save experience.

 

Once a document is saved in the cloud, you can easily rename the file and change the location from the title bar. This ability to save your document to the cloud directly from Word, Excel, or PowerPoint will roll out to Office 365 on Windows and Mac beginning in February. 

 

These features, along with OneDrive Files On-Demand for Mac, are part of our investments in making it easier for you to get your files into the cloud. By saving to the cloud, you will be able to securely access your most important documents from any device and start collaborating with others from the get go.

35 Comments
Silver Contributor

What if files has to be saved to some other place most of the time? This will increase time spend saving documents. KFM already works, so if someone saves a file locally, it is still synced. If they save it to other place, that other place presumably already has backup solution. I don't see a point of forcing this default.

Deleted
Not applicable

Hope Metadata Tagging can be included in this dialog box too.

Copper Contributor
Great video Clear and concise
Copper Contributor

Can the default for this still be amended? I use Dropbox for my cloud storage even in Office since I also have a need to sync the contents locally on Linux where OneDrive isn't supported - hence I have it set to a local folder which happens to be inside my Dropbox. I would hope it's going to be possible to adjust this.

Iron Contributor

I certainly hope the default can be changed. We require all files be saved to our own servers.

Steel Contributor

With the very short list of recent folders shown, this looks as if it will introduce even more friction into saving documents into the folders I want to use - I rotate between at least ten folders that I have pinned as recent folders so I can save into them quickly. Please show that we can still save files to the correct location without having to move them in a second, time-wasting step.

 

This also shows no sign of improving integration with OneDrive folder on demand. 

 

In fact, this looks like the 'autosave without a real file name' change that had to be removed from Word because users disliked it. Are you putting back the automatic file name creation that we currently have to open the full File Save dialog to get? I don't want to waste time typing a name when the first few words of my document are *always* the correct file name for me.

Microsoft

Yes, you can set the default folder by right-clicking a folder on the list and choosing "Set as Default Location". 

 

Also, no save then move needed; you can choose the location to save to as part of the save process, just like before. It defaults to OneDrive or SharePoint, but you can choose a different folder (including local folders) during the save if you like.

Hi @Mary Branscombe. I think if you click "More Save Options" link, we'll still see the current backstage view we see that displays Recent, SharePoint and OneDrive locations. @Ben Schorr, can you confirm? 

Microsoft

@Darrell Webster Yes, that's correct.

Steel Contributor

But Ben tells me we will have to click More Options to choose a folder *for every new file we save* with no way to have that shown by default. And I haven't had an answer on how many recent locations will be shown or how many locations we can pin so if we have to click through to *yet another dialog* to have a reasonable number of recent/pinned locations that's lots of extra friction for every file we create.

Microsoft

@Mary Branscombe To be clear that's only true if you've used CTRL+S, or the QAT Save icon, or File > Exit with an unsaved file AND the folder you want to save in is neither your default folder (which you can select) nor any of your last 5 or 6 most recent folders.

 

So, yes, if you press CTRL+S and want to save in a folder you haven't saved in lately, then you'd have to click More save options and you'd then be presented with your current longer/pinned list of folders. 

If you're in the habit of using File > Save/Save As to initiate your save, then you still have the current experience.

 

Out of curiosity, how many folders would be considered a reasonable number for the dialog? It's possible the team can look into making the list longer if there's enough feedback that customers want that.

 

 

Steel Contributor

the notion that 5-6 folders will cover 'folders I've saved in recently' is exactly the problem; I have 8 folders pinned and about 5-8 that I need to show up in recent to stay even roughly as productive as I am now when saving files - and being told to change the habit of 28 years of using Ctrl-S to save files to avoid having to click through multiple extra steps isn't particularly appealing.

 

and what's the experience for having the file name autopopulated from the first line of the document? that's not shown at all in the animations; will that be the same extra click that it's been since last summer?

Steel Contributor

I don't have a single 'default folder'; there is no one folder that it's useful to have presented every time. I don't think that's a useful concept for most pro users.

Microsoft

@Mary Branscombe This is where we get into the "pizza for 400 million people" problem. :) I totally get that you have as many as 16(?) folders that you have pinned and want to access quickly - other customers may have more or less. So the trick is in figuring out what the right number is, given that we can't show every possible folder.

 

As for the file name, I'll have to confirm. I know the product teams were looking at that but I'm not sure what the current status is. I'm optimistic that's going to be fixed in Word, but I don't want to make promises.

 

Microsoft

@Mary Branscombe Fair enough, and there are plenty of users who don't have a single default folder...but there are also a lot of users who do. :) Important to remember that not all of our users are pro users.

 

We're definitely going to be watching the feedback and making adjustments where necessary. I appreciate you raising the issue that 5-6 frequently-used folders may not be enough. That's prompted some good discussion/thinking about if/how much we could increase that.

Copper Contributor
This is a very useful new feature as we are currently moving our users from \\fileshares to Departmental SharePoint Document Centres. After 20 years of clicking through nested folders structures (they never got used to 'pinning') this will make the change easier as it will default to a folder in the new Document Centre. We are taking the 'brutal approach' of using the SharePoint Migration tool to replicate the \\fileshare structure in a Document Centre over a weekend then removing file share access immediately. Yes, people moan for a week or two then just accept the new way of saving. I have never met anyone who 'enjoys change' even if it is demonstrably better than the way they used to do something ;)
Copper Contributor

I Love the Idea. I am sure you can still save like you always used to. This is probably just another way of being able to save. They add different options for performing different tasks because not everyone is alike nor any business or set up. this gives us a system that everyone can find the best way of doing things based on their preference and how everything is set up in the Business Systems. 

Steel Contributor

I got the new save UI today. The default is somewhere I literally never save documents; because I have an E5, it defaults to the root of OneDrive for Business and I use consumer OneDrive for my documents. The MRU on the dropdown is only 5-6 entries and two of those are the top level of both OneDrives, leaving only a few for folders I do actually use, so yes - every single document I save takes at least two extra clicks before I can even pick the folder I want. Get ready to start teaching users new keyboard shortcuts to use to get the save UI they prefer.

Copper Contributor

@Pernille-Eskebo: Offer Ctrl-Shift-S for the old experience.

As said before using File/Save as always gives you the old UI. 

Steel Contributor

Best of all; offer a setting in options and a GPO to choose the classic save experience, the backstage or the new save experience for *each* save trigger (ctrl-s, f12, QAT save icon, close without saving)

Brass Contributor

How about an option to set the default save-to folder in FIle | Options and if that's not populated, home the save-as dialog on the last-used folder.

Iron Contributor
There is no way to override this via GPO? My clients who are lawyers, accountants, hospitals - they aren't going to like this one bit.
Steel Contributor

I've been using this for a few days now and it's so frustrating because if it was only just a little more flexible it would be fabulous but as it's so rigid it's just infuriating. The top three slots on the list are OneDrive root, ODB root and Documents; none of those are where I ever save any documents. The other slots are populated by 4-5 of the 10-12 folders I use frequently. If the folder I want is on that list, It's perfect. But I can't pick what I want to see there or remove the top 3 I never use and replace them with 3 useful folders, so it's one extra click to get to where I can navigate almost every time. That means I never voluntarily use this dialog because I can't remember if the folder I want will be on the short auto-populated list or not, so I just avoid it entirely.

to make this useful rather than annoying; let me choose how many slots to have on the list. If I want 12, give me 12.

let me choose what's in every slot; don't put a folder I will never use in the way and make me click and scroll past it every time.

I bet admins would like a GPO to autopopulate those folder slots and pin folders based on things like group membership.

 

this is about half way useful; make it flexible and it will be great instead of infuriating.

Brass Contributor

My MSIS degree is in Human Computer Integration.  The foundation of this is to NOT alter a function that users are accustomed to, but add new features in such a way that folks are not frustrated with using the application.  Every time MS moves a feature users use all the time to a new location, or alter a feature so drastically that it no longer resembles the user work habits, they are no longer adding value but creating frustration. 

The success of a product means that each new version or iteration does not create a huge learning curve for the users, but extends the new features without altering historical work habits.

Like Ben said about the 'pizza for 400 million', new features should meld with the old, and not totally re-write how things function with each new version.

Copper Contributor
Multiple OneDrive accounts I run my personal/author email on O365, as well as a startup. I frequently have to log out and log in. I realize "My Documents" would have to go to one and only one location, but it would be nice for Office to allow simple point and click to the two different locations. So, will Office be able to stay logged in to two different OneDrive accounts? Related to this, can two devices (Desktop and Laptop) both use a single "My Documents" location? I've had problems with this in the past. Both are really essential features. == John ==
Copper Contributor

This is a both a productivity issue and an organization issue for my team. 

 

Regardless of which option we choose to get to the save destinations that we need, a step has been added and we are taking a hit in productivity. In addition, the user risks saving a file to a drive that is (in our case, at least) literally never used.  Everything that we save has to go various sub-folders within a secure directory on the company's internal servers. 

 

To be clear, I am not asking that you remove the feature, I am asking that you give me and my team the option to set our systems up so that the key command can take us straight to the internal server folders as quickly and efficiently as we were able to before.

Steel Contributor

very much agree Katie; especially as it would only take a few changes to make it useful

- use the Office 365 recent folders list, not just the local machine as currently

- allow users to pin folders into all the slots including the 3 top level ones

- allow admins to prepopulate those pins for users and groups

- allow users to choose how many slots appear in the list

 

as it is, it's one more click before anyone can save their document because in all the months I've been using it, the folder I need has only ever been on the list twice. Telemetry will show users clicking around, not finding what they want and learning to bypass this annoying screen.

Copper Contributor

I can see the use case, and like others I'm not suggesting you remove the 'feature' but there are plenty of scenarios, regardless of the reasoning, where this new 'feature' is not acceptable.

 

How can you introduce new features like this without having GPO's and options available from day 0 to control it!?  Even the greenest of noobs could have anticipated a good percentage of businesses will want to change the defaults business wide - but you did it on purpose didn't you.

 

It is so hard to contribute without vitriol and anti-cloud sentiment, why must you antagonize those of us who CAN NOT stick all of our 1's and 0's in your or anyone else's 'Cloud'

 

Copper Contributor
Please give me a simple and intuitive way to get rid of this horrible new save dialog, I don't use OneDrive or Office365 and most of the time want to save my files in different directories, so that's why I expect to see the old dialog to allow me to quickly navigate to desired target directory. This new one is just pure evil and wrong.... sorry
Brass Contributor
Hi, Will there be a way to disable this dialog? It just feels like more unnecessary clutter that makes it harder to get my work done.
Copper Contributor

@Ben Schorr  @The_Office_Apps_Team I'd echo the need that this needs to be controlled with GPO. Is there a way to do this? or an integration point to add other cloud app providers to insert into the list and become a "default", my organization integrates to the backstage and we will be upsetting a lot of users with extra clicks to save a document now because of this change. Using OneDrive is a corporate risk and is disallowed in many of the organizations we work with (data sovereignty, policy etc)

 

I'm late to the party as this is now shipping. :\

 

 

Silver Contributor

There are a few options to change that https://support.office.com/en-us/article/what-administrators-need-to-know-about-the-new-save-experie...

But so far we only did a help document for users how to change the default manually, as some might need to save to SPO/OneDrive and we don't want to disable the new dialog. Doing a GPO with a registry change is a dirty way also.

Copper Contributor
There are multiple issues with this feature roll-out. Not sure who's sleeping at the switch at Microsoft. 1) Autosave can be turned OFF via GPO, but not ON. I've opened a ticket for this and they said I'd have to go to user voice. I gather some admins don't want files saved automatically to the cloud, so I get being able to disable auto-save via GPO, but like ALL GPO we should be able to turn ON if we want. This isn't something that users should vote on, it's a freaking bug. 2) Autosave to local disks is now apparently not possible. Bizarre, as for 30+ years ONLY auto-save to local disks was available, and worked. So someone had to specifically code around this. Microsoft is pushing their cloud policy down our throat, and contributing to data loss to get their hands on our data. This is NOT acceptable. 3) "KFM" is very fragile and can break. I found 40% of our users had a broken KFM move because "OneNote" files couldn't be moved, so the whole OneDrive folder relocation hung. They weren't even using OneNote. 4) KFM requires a manual step to log into OneDrive, even after Active Directory was synchronized. Apparently, local workstations have to be hybrid joined. This was not documented in the steps to get KFM working. What's more ironic is that Teams will incessantly popup windows asking you to log in. Why can't OneDrive do this, especially after seing the GPO's to make KFM move mandatory? == John ==
Copper Contributor
Good grief, I formatted that with breaks. Doh!
Copper Contributor

I use Mac because I dislike Microsoft, but am forced to use Microsoft 365 because others do.  Now you have changed the save default forcing me to use One Drive, which I do not want to use and I cannot find a good way to save to iCloud or my computer.  One more forced attempt for Microsoft and Apple to disengage.  I don't have time to convert One Drive to iCloud--nor do I want to.  I will look for other means tor my work documents that is user friendly and less proprietary.  Shame, Microsoft for making my life more complicated and controlled.

 

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