OneDrive for Business Power Users.

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1 OneDrive for Business Power Users. Simon Kidd August 2014 Until recently, cloud storage has been typically 25Gb, extendible by additional subscription or reallocation of pooled storage. This has meant that the user could with relative ease synchronise their cloud storage across all their devices, client and web apps on the office PC, laptop, tablet and even phone (if they desired). This approach leads to an everything is available everywhere mentality and should one access point fail, the information is available on the other platforms and resynchronising 25Gb is a straightforward task with a reasonable internet speed. Storing tens of Gb in the cloud, however, makes little impact on a working practice that may have historically stored information on a local device such as a laptop, desktop work station or a local corporate file server. The advent of inexpensive large scale storage available to the consumer and business subscriber requires a change to this method of working: First, mobile devices and some desktop workstations will no longer match the capacity of the cloud storage. Rather that adopt a Synchronise everything approach, the user will need to be selective on what information is required at the time for localised working. The cloud stored information will shift in its role as being rather a convenient transport hub between access points, to the master version of the information being stored. Second, the growth in storage capacity is exceeding the ability of the end to end infrastructure to deliver large amounts of data. Whilst a corporate internet may deliver 100Mbs or 1Gbs to the user in an ideal scenario, this rate is unlikely to be met in a mobile working environment where the user may be constrained from large scale synchronisation by more modest broadband rates of 40/8 Mbs. Third, the current OneDrive for business is a single document library hosted in SharePoint Online as an app part and surfaced in the personal site. The sync client is restricted to 20,000 items (including folders) and a maximum file size size of 2Gb. Synchronisation is at the library level and it is not possible to synchronise selected folders. This is unlike the consumer OneDrive sync client that allows individual folder selection. A quick scan of technical forums recently shows that there are some issues occurring with recent usage of OneDrive for Business. These include: A. expecting to synchronise more than 20,000 items. B. not being able to select which folders to synchronise on each device. C. unaware that OneDrive for Business is a library on SharePoint. D. expecting to use OneDrive for business like a shared S: drive. E. The media message of 1TB for OneDrive for business actually refers to the MySite that has significantly more functionality than a file store. F. Inadequate user awareness and training on appropriate use of OneDrive. SimonJamesKidd Page 1 of 9

2 G. Lack of an information architecture relevant to individual OneDrive for Business usage. With these in mind, here are my notes on how the user experience of OneDive for Business may be improved using the current features. Changing the OneDrive for Business User Experience SharePoint is a tool to help get things done. Out of the box is allows the user and the organisation to personalise it to help make it more effective in doing that. The primary storage mechanism in SharePoint is the list. Lists can be configured for a huge number of applications from simple document libraries to complex records centres with workflow and search centres. Before any SharePoint deployment, two things should happen. First, there should be the creation of an information architecture. This should include what information is to be stored, who uses it, who is responsible for it, who shares it, who is the audience, what parts of the organisation it is relevant to, how it is protected, what happens to old information and what types of information are stored, how the information is to be found. In this context, how the users are expecting to use their MySite/personal work information should be included. Second, there should be user training to cover how the deployment can be used. Since every user has a MySite with OneDrive for Business, this should be included. In the absence of any formal training, there are free resources available from Microsoft that cover the features of SharePoint and the book Microsoft SharePoint 2013, Plain and Simple is also an excellent reference. What is Onedrive for Business? OneDrive for Business is just a document library that is hosted in each users MySite. That is a crucial point. It is easy to be lulled into the false expectation that it can be used just like a shared drive. This can lead to problems later on. It isn t a shared drive, it is a SharePoint library. The OneDrive link is the navigation bar is just a convenient link to this library. However, the personal storage location for users is targeted at replacing the need for network drives. To get the maximum benefit of the personal storage space in SharePoint 2013 the user should make use of all the features that are available within the MySite. In SharePoint 2013 these are less obvious than Presumably this has been a response to request to make more intuitive for the user that is accustomed to using shared network storage and in the past users may have lacked the time or interest to use the MySite libraries and lists. OneDrive for Business offers so much more than a storage location. The features available to the user include version control, check-in, check-out, Legal Hold and ediscovery. Combining OneDrive SimonJamesKidd Page 2 of 9

3 for Business with all the features available within the users MySite allows a rich personal portal to be created with selective synchronisation with devices through the use of the additional libraries, apps and tailoring the site settings. The diagram below shows the basic organisation of the users My Site following the navigation paths. About me, Sites, Newsfeed and OneDrive are all accessible by links brought onto the top menu bar. In reality these are all surfaced by publishing pages. Some of these publishing pages can be personalised and some allow access to the site contents and site features. Exploration of the site features list shows that most of them are de-activated. Unless you know what you are doing, I would leave most of them in that state. A personal OneNote notebook may be SimonJamesKidd Page 3 of 9

4 useful but the use of the site mailbox or calendar apps would duplicate the features available in Exchange and so I doubt their usefulness in this context. Whilst the standard out of the box set up may suit most users, the needs of Power Users and the efficacy of personalisation should be addressed. To assist with the configuration of deployment it is possible to simplify the top level menu bar by hiding some of the default menu items at the Global Administrator level. This is achieved by going to the SharePoint Admin centre, selecting Settings and enabling or disabling the appropriate link. Personalising the OneDrive for Business Experience. Many users may be content to use the out of the box experience to get started. Many users will also not wish to spend their time learning about MySites or how to configure SharePoint. However, beginner users can quickly become power users. Clients and administrators should, therefore, be aware of the possibilities of modifying the user interface so that it can adapt to their changing needs. This awareness should be introduced during deployment so that simple self-service configuration items do not become potential issues. Out of the box, the MySite contains four main areas of focus that are surfaced at publishing pages provided by the top bar links: Newsfeed, provides a microblog that can be shared with other users together with quick access to lists of people, documents, sites and tags that are being followed. Sites, shows a tiled promoted sites link together with followed sites and suggested sites. OneDrive, shows the default Documents library together with links to followed documents, shared documents, and shared site folders. About Me, shows profile information and recent activities SimonJamesKidd Page 4 of 9

5 All these areas come within the 1TB current limit for the MySite. The Office 365 Roadmap published in July 2014 shows that there are branding and theme features being added in later iterations of Office 365. Although a level of customisation can already be accomplished by adapting the master pages, this will not be dealt with here. Further details can be found in the references. OneDrive Page This is accessed from the top level bar and it is probably a good idea to keep the top link in place as it provides a quick route to the standard OneDrive library. Unlike other SharePoint lists that have a synchronisation limit of 5,000 items, this list has a synchronisation limit of 20,000 items. The maximum file size is 2Gb and there are some limitations on file names. The number of items that can be stored is actually 30 million. It is the synchronisation element that is limited to 20,000 and 5,000. Users should differentiate between hot data for current work and cool or cold data that is being maintained for archive, resilience or reference. I suggest that these are handled in different libraries. My example of some simple high level personalisation of this area includes additional libraries and changing the appearance. I have added a number of additional libraries and I can choose whether or not to synchronise with my various PC s and devices using the standard options in the library ribbon. These could include an document archive for longer term storage and reference libraries. The OneDrive page can be edited via the Personalise this Page option found under the users name drop down menu. This allows various social and asset related web parts to be displayed in the central area and also the navigation panel on the left column. SimonJamesKidd Page 5 of 9

6 One use for this could be to add links to additional libraries from the OneDrive page using the content editor web part or display additional libraries or images directly on the page. Some very limited customisation is also possible using the script editor web part. The OneDrive library can also be opened in Explorer from the Library menu. Another possibility is to map a network drive (such as O: or the MyDocuments folder) to the OneDrive library. Either of these options will be familiar to a user whom is migrating from a network file share and allows them to drag and drop files and create folders in a familiar way. Users should be aware that opening the OneDrive in explorer or mapping the drive may open this location to virus and malware attacks or to it being compromised in the event of terminal theft or misuse. SimonJamesKidd Page 6 of 9

7 MySite Page SP 2013 changed the configuration of the users MySite links bringing the Newsfeed, OneDrive and Sites links onto the top menu bar. However the MySite page still exists. The page has a top and bottom web part zone with central two columns and is located at /_layouts/15/mysite.aspx. The relative URL allows Administrators to provide a link to a person s MySite from the promoted site tiles in the Sites Page. SimonJamesKidd Page 7 of 9

8 The left menu is shared with the Newsfeed and About Me pages and may be extended by individual users below the Apps link by dragging and dropping links into the links when the page is open for editing. The upper links (above Blog and Apps) are derived from the Newsfeed and About Me quick launch settings and can only be customised by Administrators. Once configured, they apply to all users. In the example I have added links to OneDrive, People, MySite. Below the Apps link I have added additional links for my set of personal libraries. One could, bring onto the surface of the MySite all the libraries, Blog and Newsfeed to have a single point of reference and align the menu links between all the pages. Subsites: Subsites can be created below the users MySite. These include the usual range of TeamSites, Publishing Sites and Enterprise Sites (Record Centre and Document Centres) that allow the user additional options on storing, sharing and configuring their information and how it is displayed using the available list settings and web parts. The user can also create a Search Centre at this location to enable them to rapidly find information in any of their MySite libraries. SimonJamesKidd Page 8 of 9

9 Sources: Shadravan, D., Coventry, P., Resing, T., Wheeler, C., SharePoint 2013 Inside Out. Lightfoot, J., Lopez, M., Metker, S., Microsoft SharePpoint 2013 Plain and Simple. Coventry, P., Exploring Microsoft SharePoint 2013 Drisgill, R., Ross, J., Stubbs., SharePoint 2013 Branding and User Interface Design. Website: Accessed 30 July SimonJamesKidd Page 9 of 9