Forum Discussion
Replacing Dropbox with Sharepoint. Looking for guidance.
Hello all -- I am admittedly not very familiar with Sharepoint - but from what I can see, it can pretty much do *anything*.
That being said - in my organization we are exploring replacing our implementation of Dropbox with Sharepoint - as we already have an E3.
Here is how we use dropbox --
1. It is only used for our mobile workforce - about 100-150 users. These users only have mobile devices (iPhone) - no PC. Currently, maybe 10 of them have tablets.
2. We have the dropbox app installed on one of our file servers. This is the main source of data. The folder structure is something along the lines of:
\\server\share\dropbox\Accounting
\\server\share\dropbox\Sales
\\server\share\dropbox\Operations
\\server\share\dropbox\Distribution
\\server\share\dropbox\Marketing
etc...
Users from our HQ drop various PDF reports into these shares to distribute to our mobile workforce.
3. On the file server that is running the Dropbox app, specific ACLs have been assigned to each of the top level folders within Dropbox (Accounting, Sales, Operations, etc). Only people with the proper ACL can put the PDF files in the folders.
4. From corporate, we manage all of the dropbox accounts. When a new person needs access, a dropbox account is created for them and any of the top level folders they require access to is shared to them. (We are using dropbox free accounts -- I know it could be a little easier with DB for Business).
Basically, management of this is quite complicated. From what I can see, this is basically a document library, correct? Could I mirror this in a sharepoint site, and configure ACL so that various groups of our mobile workforce have access (read only) to whatever top level folder they need? Also, similarly for the HQ office personnel that maintain the reports / PDFs in the folders wiht maybe ODFB?
Or is there a totally different way to go?
Thanks
SB
5 Replies
What you'd be wanting to do is to look at Office 365 Groups to be set up for each of the different teams/departments. That will allow you to apply group-level permissions.
Also with the latest OneDrive for Business sync client users can sync the files and shared locations they have access to, onto their local computer or mobile device.
Groups is a good way to start if you don't have much experience with SharePoint.https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Learn-about-Office-365-groups-b565caa1-5c40-40ef-9915-60fdb2d97fa2- Unless something has changed, I thought that anyone that was a member of the group has "admin" permissions on the files in a group?
I know this stuff is moving fast these days.. Is this not the case?- No, members of the Group will have contributor rights effectively - however to the contents that is realistically the ability to do whatever they want, just not change permissions.
But because it is a document library you can go more granular on the permissions, workflows, publishing permissions, etc.
