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Jack_Eidsmsness's avatar
Jack_Eidsmsness
Brass Contributor
Jan 23, 2023

linking to synced file or to suggest syncing a file in Team site or OneDrive?

Could we get a way to link to a synced directory from onedrive? There are some use cases involving 3rd party apps where I want to avoid driving my users towards a "download, modify, upload" pattern, and I don't want to give them a bunch of steps.

I'm looking for a way to simplify a process of finding a shared directory in teams or sharepoint, and automatically clicking the "Sync" button (or guiding them to it, per the sender's intentions); Lastly, opening explorer (or Finder) window, to that directory.


It seems like it should be possible that we could devise a scheme, something like
ms-onedrive-sync://sometenant.sharepoint.com/sites/some-site/some-library/path/to/file

If the user was already syncing all of "some-library", or just "path/to" then I'd like for the scheme to recognize either situation and open the correct file from disk. However if they are not, I'd want it to prompt the user to start syncing. A prompt with "open in browser"/"start syncing" buttons would probably do it.

 

Basically I'm proposing a URL scheme that will be processed by local onedrive software, and either open a synced folder (without including C:\Users\... in the text), or fall back to the in-the-cloud sharepoint.com URL. If it already exists, that would be fantastic.

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OneDrive for Business
suggestion
  • Jack_Eidsmsness's avatar
    Jack_Eidsmsness
    Brass Contributor
    Oct 02, 2023

    I asked this some time ago, and since it's still an open question in my mind, I thought I'd see if anyone has a fresh perspective on it.

    It seems like it ought to be possible, e.g. in a web browser, if a sharepoint or other m365 search comes up with a ...xyz.sharepoint.com/sites/some-site/Documents/Documents/path/to/Not-the-right-doc-but-close.docx, I should be able to get a link to the folder "%USERPROFILE%/OneDrive - {my org}/some-site - Documents/Documents/path/to" in explorer; For the browser to know what the local software has been syncing may or may not even be necessary. Even without that info, if the browser calls out to onedrive, (worst case) onedrive could call right back in to https://......./ ... Not very elegant, but there are so many options, and that's taking for granted that a file:||| link is a lost cause. The example is PC specific, buy Macs have similar mechanisms available.

     

    I'm almost considering what it would take to hack it in, with an SPFX component