We love OneDrive for Business.
Why? Simply because it enables us to work smarter and more effectively. OneDrive for Business helps us collaborate and manage the influx of data with ease.
However, we have encountered several clients who do not use it to its full potential. They have never explored the vast amount of capabilities offered by OneDrive for Business. So they do not use the capabilities that administrators can share with end users or implement to help boost adoption and create power users.
So, if you are an administrator or just a user, here are our top seven tips on how you can leverage OneDrive for Business to increase work productivity.
Download OneDrive for Business Sync App to Work Offline
When you have internet connectivity, you can save, store and share data as well as do more things with OneDrive for Business.
But, what if there is no internet connectivity? Most businesses think there is no alternate option and stand idle, but that is not true. OneDrive for Business offers the sync app to help you work offline in similar the way that you perform your job online. You can sync up to 20,000 files and folders in your OneDrive for Business library.
Here is a step-by-step guide on how you can work offline:
Step 1: Download the OneDrive for Business sync app.
Step 2: Log in to Office 365 and navigate to OneDrive.
Step 3: Locate the library you would like to access offline and press sync.
That is it!
Also, if you accidentally initiate the syncing of your OneDrive for Business or encounter a low bandwidth issue, you can easily stop or pause your OneDrive for Business from syncing.
Get Organizational Insights with Office Delve
Microsoft launched Office Delve last year to simplify team collaboration which helps you observe what your team members are working on across Office 365. Delve also comes with OneDrive for Business integration feature to help you search and share documents easily; offers the benefits of both the project management tool and social networking in one place. It helps you search information and people as well as share and group documents.
According to Microsoft, the technology behind Office Delve is Office graph which maps the relationships between content and people. Delve looks like a replica of Pinterest, as it comes with a card-based interface. Each “card” is made up of several details, such as views, tags, comments, and likes, and Delve shows you the importance of each card.
The cards are also dynamic which means you can click and immediately comment or edit the document once it is launched in Office 365. Here is what you need to do to explore Delve:
Step 1: Launch Delve.
Step 2: You will get several pop-ups which are tips and a quick introduction; follow them.
Step 3: Start exploring.
Save Email Attachments to OneDrive for Business
If you are an Office user, you would agree that you spend much of your work day using Outlook in sending and receiving emails and files, right? This is where One Drive for Business comes in making your job easy and stress-free.
You can save your email attachments in OneDrive for Business from the Outlook web app itself. You can then email them as a cloud attachment or move them to a different folder. In this way, you can access the files at any time and from anywhere without digging through all your emails to find it.
Moreover, you do not have to track and manage multiple versions which makes collaborating on the files in Office Online or Office a lot easier. Here is how you can do this:
Step 1: Open the email with the attachment(s) you want to save.
Step 2: Click the attachment and then select “Save to OneDrive”. This is applicable if you want to save a single attachment. If you want to save all the attachments, just select “Save all to OneDrive”.
All your attachments will then be saved in the email attachment folder in OneDrive and you can send them as cloud attachments or move them from folder to folder within OneDrive.
Using Version Control to Identify Changes in a Document
If you want to stay up to date with the latest amendments made to a document by you or your co-authors, then version control is the way to do it. Here is what you need to do to harness the benefit of version control:
Step 1: First enable it in OneDrive for Business by selecting any file in your library and then clicking Files>Version History.
Step 2: Contact your administrator to enable it, if you see the version history is grayed out.
If you are an administrator, you can delete or enable the version history from an entire library or list. You can also configure the version control settings to save a new version after every edit. In addition, being an administrator, you can set a version cap, which will ensure that the oldest version of a document gets deleted once a certain threshold has been reached.
Step 3: Once enabled, you can view, delete or restore a previous document version.
Set Up a Link in SharePoint to OneDrive for Business
If you are an administrator and your organization uses both OneDrive for Business and SharePoint Server 2010 or SharePoint Online, then this tip is for you. You can configure a link within your organization’s SharePoint that will send users directly to their OneDrive for Business accounts. In this way, end users can quickly transition from SharePoint to OneDrive for Business with ease. Needless to say, this will improve the overall productivity and efficiency of the organization.
Here is a Technet article that provides detailed instructions to help you set this up.
Access OneDrive for Business on Your Mobile Device
OneDrive for Business comes with a mobile app for Android, Apple, and Windows mobile devices. This means that you can access it, even when you are on the move. However, because these apps have specifically been designed for on-the-go working, they are less powerful compared to the desktop or web-based counterparts. Yet, it still offers some built-in capabilities that prove to be beneficial on mobile devices.
For example, if you want to access your commonly used documents quickly, you can simply pin the folder in your Android home screen. Also, you can use iOS Touch ID or set up a pin to strengthen the security when accessing OneDrive documents.
Create and Host an Online Survey
Do you want to gauge your employees’ satisfaction or do you want to make a list of who will cater to your next big event? You can do all this right from your OneDrive account. All you need to do is create a survey with Excel online. In this way, you can record everyone’s responses into a single online spreadsheet. Here is how you can do it:
Step1: Sign in to OneDrive for Business.
Step 2: Click “New” and then “Excel survey”.
Step 3: Create your survey.
You can drag questions up and down, preview what your recipients will see, and edit and share the survey by creating a link to your form.
