Forum Discussion
Sharing OneDrive Folder or SharePoint Folder with OneDrive for Business
I am in charge of creating and deploying customized MS templates for the organization I work with. I wish to set up a Workgroup Templates folder for everyone in the organization to access, but employees are scattered throughout the world in offices and in remote locations so a network drive was not an option. It was suggested by a templates expert that I use a shared OneDrive folder as the Workgroup Templates location.
The shared OneDrive folder setup works fine on my colleague's Mac computer but I cannot sync it to my OneDrive app on my Windows computer.
Having done research, I do now understand that syncing a shared folder with the new OneDrive app isn't possible. But I am further confused by this page which implies that it is possible to sync shared OneDrive files OR SharePoint files/folders within a business. This page was updated in October 2017.
I have tried setting up a SharePoint site and syncing that folder too, but it doesn't work either.
Could someone please help me understand what's possible and perhaps find a work around for this?
Yes, I have it set up now and it looks to be working. I am also looking into whether there is a reason for that OneDrive setting.
So, to recap, the reason my OneDrive and SharePoint folders were not syncing even though I was getting the "Sync this library to your device for easy access" dialog was because my browser wasn't showing me a popup that asks whether I want to open the OneDrive app on my computer or not. Once I unlinked my computer and relinked it to the OneDrive app and tried the sync again, the popup appeared and I was able to sync.
Further to that, the use of a shared OneDrive folder in this situation was not an ideal solution. The better solution was to share a folder created in a Classic SharePoint Site where I can control the access level for members.
Thank you so much to Salvatore Biscari, Deleted, jcgonzalezmartin, and Laurent Lee A Sioe for the help!
- My advice here:
(1) Ask your Office 365 Admin if everything is correctly setup in your tenant to use Next Generation Sync Client (I have found many cases where the setting for using the Next Generation Sync Client is not enabled)
(2) Create an Office 365 Group / Team (if your organization is using Teams) for collaboration and upload the templates in the Group / Team document library
(3) Invite your colleagues to the Group / Team soy the can access the templates directly in the web or by using the Sync Clientjcgonzalezmartin. Thank you for your response.
(1) I have today been given access to the OneDrive for Business Admin center for our organization. Could you tell me exactly which setting I am looking for? I don't immediately see any settings that could be causing problems, but I also don't see any settings that specifically references the Next Generation Sync Client.
(2) Today I tried setting up a Office 365 team for the project with the Templates user account we've set up in Office 365 specifically for this project and linked my own business e-mail to that team also.
(3) I was not able to sync the folder within the team to my own business e-mail OneDrive account. I don't even see a sync button to do so, whereas I do see a sync button within the OneDrive shared folder and the SharePoint folder to sync.
Is the folder on a particular users onedrive for business site or a sharepoint online document library?
When you say you cannot sync it, is there an error?If,yes..share that please,
How are you attempting to sync it?Going to web interface and clicking on sync? or signing in on the onedrive.exe app on your windows pc?
Are you a part of the same tenant on which the sharepoint site/onedrive for business site is?(external users cannot sync).
Deleted. Thank you so much for your response. Here are the details you requested.
I am working with two different Office 365 accounts here: One is called Templates which is where the shared folder is coming from and one is my own name which is where I want to share the folder to in order to test that I can share it with others. Both of these accounts are part of the organization's Office 365. Does that mean we are part of the same tenant? I'm sorry, I'm not quite familiar with that term. I'm assuming an "external user" is someone who is not part of the organization's Office 365 account. But both of these accounts are administrated by the organization's IT admin.
I tried a folder in the Template account's OneDrive for Business site and a SharePoint online document library. In both cases, when navigating to those places with my Jessica Kavanagh account I could see a sync button. When I clicked on the button I got the dialog that says "Sync this library to your device for easy access" and a "Sync now" link. When I clicked on the link the dialog box would disappear but the OneDrive app never opened. I would go into the OneDrive app and look at the OneDrive folders to sync dialog and the shared folder I was trying to sync wasn't there to check.
Having said all of the above, I just tried to do the same again right now and suddenly it does sync to my computer, though not in my usual OneDrive for Business area but it has created a whole new drive as it were (if that's the word I want, I'm not sure) and put the shared folder there. The only thing that has changed from my last try to this one is that I now have OneDrive admin privileges under my Jessica Kavanagh account. I'm not sure why that would make a difference, but it's obviously not something we can do for every user in the organization.
Just a couple of general comments:
- You should not use ODfB for permanently sharing documents to all users in your organization. ODfB should be used only for business docs pertaining to a single user and, as such, it is suitable for short-term sharing and/or for sharing with few people. Hence you should use a Group doclib instead, or a doclib in a classic Team Site.
- Every user is, by default, the Site Collection Administrator of his/her ODfB. It is not recommended to remove this privilege because doing so you can experiment all sort of malfunctioning, as you have already seen.
Just my two cents...
Have you tried the steps mentioned in your link, as it looks like it's an early adopter feature :
Test SharePoint Online sync for Mac
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If you're using the OneDrive Mac Store app, uninstall it. To do this, open Finder and search for “OneDrive.app” or “OneDriveDF.app” from “This Mac.” Move all returned items to the trash.
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Exit the OneDrive sync client by clicking on the OneDrive cloud icon in the Menu bar and selecting Quit OneDrive.
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Open a terminal window by using cmd+space and searching for “Terminal.”
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Run the following commands:
Defaults write com.microsoft.OneDrive TeamSiteSyncPreview -bool True
Defaults write com.microsoft.OneDriveUpdate Tier Team
Killall cfprefsd
Note: You must be an Administrator on your Mac to preview this feature.
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Restart the sync client and log in again if prompted.
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