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Sync external OneDrive shared folders

Brass Contributor

Hi,

 

I have shared a folder from my OneDrive (for business) to an external user (external organization). He has also an O365 E3 subscription. When he click on the invitation email, he sees correctly the content of my folder and can edit any document. But on the toolbar there is no "sync" button to let him synchronize my folder on his computer. How can I enable this feature ?

 

Thanks for your help,

Antoine

92 Replies

Hi Choking,

    What we did for our team was the external partners provided the contractors (including myself) with an O365 for Business subscription.  Once the security and legal reviews were complete, those external addresses were added to the appropriate SharePoint groups, and we were able to access the necessary information.

    As external users though, we still can't sync (as mentioned in multiple areas in this thread).  I hope that helps for at least information access.  I can say that using non-hosted, small scale Access 2016 databases doesn't really work without being able to sync.  On the bright side, Stephen mentioned it's already on the insider builds, which usually means it's not too far off (barring any stability or other serious bug finds).

 

     Also, if this is causing friction with your customer, I would recommend waiting on transitioning to Teams.  Even with a full subscription, I get pulled in as a "Guest user", which doesn't allow contact lists, meeting link creation, etc.  Swapping back to my "official" business account results in IMs "bouncing" to team members that have a different email domain.

 

Best,

Ben

Hi Ben,

 

Thanks for the input.

Our issue is all about sync though, we need to be able to take a data set out into the field and work offline then sync upon return.  Manual download/upload isn't a replacement and with so many other solutions out there doing this it makes it impossible to promote the MS route.  Hopefully March is a true deadline.

I'm surprised you're getting good sync results with Access DBs.  Sync mechanisms usually struggle with DBs - either blocking them altogether or having issues recognizing change.

We have high hopes for Teams but as you note it will be a while before the dust settles and we know what is there.

 

Choking

Going offline for field work and coming back to sync makes complete sense, especially if versioning is enabled to prevent any accidental overwrites / data loss.

 

I'd be remiss if I didn't point out some key factors for our Access experience:  First, it's not being "hosted" on SharePoint- it's only stored there.  Second, we're a small team (less than 15), and generally it's only in use by 1-2 users.  Finally, I've automated the import function so those users aren't making any design changes, just running reports or queries.  If it was larger scale or if there was a larger user population, I'd probably move it to a full-blown SQL instance.  :)  Regarding your comment on sync mechanisms, I think you're absolutely right.  You can open it through the SharePoint interface and it will work, but is locked as "read-only."  To get full permissions, you have to be able to sync the folder... which is what brought me here once my 6-month "systems break" started. 

 

I took a break from the Server admin field while I went to school- do you think there's anyway a federated or cross-domain trust could help with your issue?  Again, I haven't messed with that sort of thing since Server 2012, so I'm a bit behind the times.

 

Best,

Ben

Ben,

 

It might but I can't bet on customers having a tenant/domain to cross connect.  We have created a SharePoint site and messed with the backend security to get something working but that was unsupported and similar to assigning licensing to outside IDs, no longer convenient.

 

Thanks

This feature is called "B2B Sync" and more information on it is available here:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/onedrive/b2b-sync

That doc also contains links to joining the Windows or Office Insiders program.

HTH,

SA.

Thanks Sven -

 

So let's see if I understand this -

Microsoft is enabling this feature but ONLY on a B2B basis - in other words, they will only allow this if both ends have a Microsoft licensed account.  That's better but only slightly.

 

If I use one of the competitors - BOX, DropBox, Google, etc., we can share to someone without them having a license - they only need to create a free account.

 

There are some that require a license of course.  The issue is maintaining those accounts and subscriptions.  This partial method will help on occasion but is unpredictable - I might as well go about creating and paying for 'guest' accounts so that we know it will work.  Although that might lead to email address conflicts with existing accounts.

 

Example - we have our sharing set to allow external users but the share to email must match the MS account to be used.  This allows for better security and matching of accounts as you manage your shares.  So what if the email isn't the same as the guest's 'business' MS account?  Probably not common but that's one hurdle for the user/admin.  What if they don't have an MS account at all?  That's another hurdle for the user/admin.  Oh, let's not forget that we have to instruct users to instruct guests to click the link for 'organization' account or they'll be lost down another rabbit hole.  It's pretty ridiculous to allow web access but not sync.  Users should be able to expect consistent behavior and not have to wonder if the share will work.

 

Again - I'm only trying to give users something that works and not have them coming back to me asking why they can't use brand X that they have seen which doesn't have any of these restrictions.

 

Also - am I missing something in this document?  It talks about the Windows Insider signup but doesn't explain where it is used.  The Office Insider link just spins.  They talk about several admin portals for sharing but don't point to specific settings that enable B2B functions.  Is there no further setup needed?  Is it enabled for 'Insiders' only??

 

-Choking

We are working on a large study that involves sharing a large number of photos on OneDrive.  We have added quests via Active Directory who are able to edit files and create directories.  But they have not been able to move and reorganize photos as they need to.  We would like them to be able to Sync to their desktop so that they could cut and paste files as they can with a GoogleDrive.    I have people in my organization that want us to move all of our files to GoogleDrive for this reason. 

 

When will guests have the ability to sync to their desktop and move or copy files as needed for them to be able to collaborate with us on this project??  Isn't this a primary objective of Office365?  To allow multiple people within multiple organizations to collaborate on projects??

 

Thanks

No Joy -

So this is still in beta and to use it you must be an 'Office Insider'.  Except the portal to sign up for Office Insider has been down for several days - I assume it is offline intentionally given the large roll-out of various changes in the Office suite happening lately and there being no interest in dealing with test subjects at this time.

 

Anyway, you can use the reg key to push your OneDrive client to an Insider version without registering as an Insider - except that does nothing for the mobile client on iOS or Android or MAC OS for that matter.  And of course there is no one in support that has knowledge of this topic.

 

Still Choking

Hi @Choking,

 

I double checked with the feature owners and you should be able to try out this feature if you are an Office Insider OR a Windows insider (so you do not need to be enrolled in both). We are continuing to make good progress here and hope to have more news soon about when this feature will be generally available. Thanks!

 

Stephen Rice

OneDrive Program Manager II

Thanks Stephen,

 

No word on the iOS client though, right?

 

Choking

@Choking,

 

Nothing to share about mobile just yet. Thanks!

 

Stephen Rice

OneDrive Program Manager II

Hi,

 

Just to follow-up on this topic.

Since last week, the good news is that we can now sync external SharePoint (or OneDrive) from our customers (and we are not insider on W10 neither on O365 ProPlus).

The bad news is that co-editing/authoring does not seem to work : if someone else opens the same document, I don't see him on it !

@Stephen Rice: Is this an expected behaviour ?

 

Thanks,

Antoine

To continue on my previous post, I am still playing around with the feature: I cannot sync with OneDrive with some (external) SharePoint I have access to. Except authorizing external/guest sharing on the SharePoint (or OneDrive) is there some other options that shoud be enabled to authorize OneDrive syncing for external/guest users ?

@Antoine HESKIA Interesting. Would be nice to get some more official information since the B2B Sync article still states Insiders is required. Comments @Stephen Rice ?

 

Everyone - 

 

You can't tell if you are an "Insider".

 

Even if you think you are, you can't tell if your OneDrive tenant has B2B sync enabled.

 

Support has no idea what this is - they cannot tell if it is enabled, how it works, how to fix - nothing.

 

There is no path to bring issues up to - maybe under the general Insider reporting path but support is keeping no records.  What kind of beta program has no issue tracking mechanism?

 

You can't possibly know if this will work with your customers/partners without knowing if it is enabled - this may be acceptable given the beta status.

 

Microsoft - we're trying to work with you, please pull it together so we have a chance.

 

We ended up creating IDs within our tenant to support our partner.  There were only a few so not a big deal this time but we've had to delay any further OneDrive deployment until this is resolved.  I'm not sure how long we can wait, it's been over a year since this was originally released.

 

Thanks everyone for adding your input.

 

@Choking 

I'm not sure how definitive it is, but this page ( https://support.office.com/en-us/article/onedrive-release-notes-845dcf18-f921-435e-bf28-4e24b95e5fc0... ) has build numbers that might help determine what ring a client machine is in.  I was able to manually update from 19.033.0218.0011 to 19.043.0304.0006.

 

Still didn't work, even when I disabled ADAL ( https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/onedrive/b2b-sync ).  However, I'm not an O365 admin, so I can't verify the rest of the required settings are correct.  Hopefully I'll get a response from my vendor (and from the different vendor that manages our organization's SharePoint presence) soon, and can provide another update.

Hello all,

 

This feature in its current state requires some configurations on the sending and receiving end of the external sharing.  Let me once again put this into detail:

For senders, they need to make sure that External Sharing is enabled and ensure an AAD guest account is created for their intended recipients within the sender’s home tenant.  This can happen automatically for the recipients, but can likely fail and fall back to a one-time passcode which does not create a Guest account in the sender’s home tenant thus the section in the KB that refers to creating guest account for the senders tenant.  We are actively working on resolving this issue.

For recipients, they need to make sure you have an Insiders build of the Sync client as well as an O365 account.

 

The B2B feature is still only available for Insiders per our KB article:

This feature is currently enabled in the Insiders ring only (build 19.012.0121.0005 or later - see the release notes for rollout info). To try this feature, join the Windows Insider program or the Office Insider program. 

If you are in the Insiders ring you should be able to go to your About tab in the OneDrive Sync settings and see that you have early access to latest pre-release builds.  If you are not an Insider and would like to try this feature then please enroll in one of the many Insider programs that we respect.

 

We are also actively tracking an issue on the backend that is breaking cross tenant syncing for all affected tenants.  We are still investigating but I will reply back to this thread once more clarity is achieved.

 

@Antoine HESKIA  I’m interested to hear more about the case where collaboration features are not working for you.  Can  you please give me more details about it.

Another call for this feature. I've convinced one of my clients to consider using OneDrive instead of Dropbox for Business - mainly as they have it as part of their Office 365 Business subscription. But now I discover the topic of this thread and their clients can't work the same way as Dropbox, i.e. the shared folder appears as a sub-folder in their own OneDrive space. Worse, you can only edit in Word Online (for example). There is no ability to open in Word, edit and save back. 

 

The reason I assumed this feature was available is that if you share from a personal OneDrive to another Personal OneDrive, it does work like Dropbox. Assumed that because Microsoft had merged the two OneDrive clients, that OneDrive for Business worked in same way. Fool on me! :(

Another call for this feature. I've convinced one of my clients to use OneDrive instead of Dropbox for Business - mainly as they have it as part of their Office 365 Business subscription. But now I discover the topic of this thread and their clients can't work the same way as Dropbox, i.e. the shared folder appears as a sub-folder in their own OneDrive space. Worse, you can only edit in Word Online (for example). There is no ability to open in Word, edit and save back. 

 

The reason I assumed this feature was available is that if you share from a personal OneDrive to another Personal OneDrive, it does work like Dropbox. Assumed that because Microsoft had merged the two OneDrive clients, that OneDrive for Business worked in same way. Fool on me! :(

Hi

 

@Carter_MSFT Sorry for the late answer. I wanted to wait new updates to share more feedback.

Currently, my OneDrive client is in version 19.086.0502.0005 and here is the last 2 issues I got :

  • I still have one customer I cannot sync with... I am a guest user on his tenant. I can access to the TEAMS he granted me access to. And I can open documents from this TEAMS (and from the corresponding SharePoint subsite). If I click on the "Sync" button, OneDrive starts and state that it cannot sync the folder. My customer told me he had disabled external sync except for my tenant ID (in OneDrive admin center). Is there something else to check ?
  • When B2B Sync started, I noticed that for each folders I was syncing, it created a folder in %USERPROFILE% for each of my customer. This was quite convenient because in File Explorer, each folder I am syncing are under the customer name. This behavior has changed : now each folder I am syncing is created under my OneDrive company homedir... Why is this ?

Thanks for your information.