OneDrive for Business is rolling out a new update for file collaboration across PC and Mac. In fact, this release features the ability to sync all files between both and even make them available offline.
The announcement from the Office 365 blog today highlighted many of the new features. All of them coming to SharePoint Online team sites today.
- Syncing SharePoint sites and OneDrive for Business shared folders
- Standalone Mac client – Available for download today, it has admin control over sync status and Finder support with shortcut included.
- Activity center – Display of details for the most recent syncing and status of sync between OneDrive files.
Furthermore, your teams can now collaborate easier with people outside of the organization too. Most of the newest features are perfect for guests or new users. For those that don’t have an Office 365 or Microsoft account, they’ll be able to create one when accessing a guest link much easier than before. It is a less intrusive way to invite people outside of your organization to the files. The onboarding experience will walk these new users that might not have experience with OneDrive and acclimate them to the basics. The simple sharing pane makes creating an expiration duration for anonymous links easy. That way, collaborating can be within a specific time frame without concern that the link will be accessible when you don’t want it to be.
An update with new features wouldn’t be complete without some changes to the background too. IT admins can now access these features, settings, and a little more in the admin center.
- Home—Admin center dashboard will soon show recent Office 365 Message Center posts and usage reporting related to OneDrive.
- Sharing—This section helps you gain control over how and with whom your users are sharing information. Includes controlling the use of external sharing and anonymous links, as well as limiting which external domains users can share with.
- Sync—You now can block syncing of specific file types and deny syncing to non-domain joined PCs.
- Storage—Where you can easily set default storage limits and document retention durations.
- Device access—This gives you control over how and from where a user can access their files. Includes allow/deny access from personal devices or specific networks as well as rich Mobile Application Management Intune policies for iOS and Android.
- Compliance—Offers quick links to the Office 365 Security and Compliance Center for key scenarios like auditing, data loss prevention, retention and eDiscovery.
- Notification—Ability to turn on/off various notifications for your tenant.
If this is a lot of information to take in, you can watch the demo of most of these features in the Demo Bench video.
Make sure to check on your available updates and let us know what you think about the improved OneDrive for Business.
