Opening documents using File Explorer

[skitchkak]

Hello All,

I work for a organization that is currently on SharePoint 2013 and 95% of the users are used to handling Document libraries using File Explorer as they are heavy users of SharePoint and we have about 700000 documents.

We are in the middle of migrating from SP2013 to SPO. One major concern for all users now is how do they open files using File/Windows explorer once IE support ends in Aug 2021?

Any advise on this will be great. Thanks

[#2]

@skitchkak If you want to continue using mapped network drives with File Explorer in SharePoint Online you could try a 3rd party tool like Zee Drive for mapping the drives.

[#3]

@skitchkak 

You have several options going forward:
1. Use 3rd party apps that install on the user's computer (see post from Myles)
2. Use One Drive for Business client on the user's computer
(properly train your user community)
3. Use 3rd party SharePoint apps that run in the browser, e.g. example
4. Use GPO to map SharePoint network drive
(stability and handling authentication is often a problem)
5 Last and not least: train your users to use the web interface
This may not work well for some organisations with traditional employees but it may prove the best option in the long run.

Each option has it's pros and cons. Get clarity on the requirements and assess whether the users need versioning, metadata, ability to start workflows, search, check-in/check-out, need to handle technical formats (e.g. dwg), have local synched copies of documents, ...
and of course take into account costs because some of the solutions are licensed.

Paul

[#4]

@Paul_HK_de_Jong I don't suppose there is any way to programmatically or in an automated fashion add a quick link to a SharePoint document library to all my users?  I have been looking for PowerShell scripts and I have found some that give 75% of the information such as the site needs to be trusted and you have to open the site before adding a link, but I am still getting errors and I would like to think that Microsoft would make this easier for admins to pass out to their people to help with a bigger acceptance...but I guess not.

Thanks...Tom