What Is OneDrive for Business & Why Should We Use It?
OneDrive for Business is part of Microsoft Office 365 (or SharePoint Server). It provides a secure place in the Microsoft Cloud where you can store, sync and share your work files. It also comes as a standalone cloud service. It's easy to expand your storage, but OneDrive for Business already comes standard with a whopping 1 Terabyte of storage.
One of the best things about Microsoft OneDrive for Business is that it lets you easily interact with your Microsoft Office files. You’ll have the solutions you already use like PowerPoint, Word, and Excel, along with your Microsoft Office 365 applications that will interact seamlessly with OneDrive for Business.
How Do We Access Our Files In OneDrive?
Another great thing about OneDrive for Business is that it gives you and your team a place to store files and work on documents together that are accessible from anywhere. Microsoft’s cloud storage lets you securely take your files with you wherever you go. And the edits you make offline are automatically uploaded the next time you connect.
You can easily organize your files and find them quickly. You can even sync your desktop to OneDrive. That way, the things you save to your desktop will automatically and immediately get replicated in the OneDrive Cloud. And, you can save your computer settings in SharePoint so you’ll always remember them.
With OneDrive you can access your SharePoint files on the Web or in the mobile app without leaving OneDrive. The SharePoint Server 2019 sites you've recently interacted with or that you follow appear in a list located under the name of your organization. You can see your Office 365 groups on the list as well, and each group will have its own team site.
How Do We Share Our Files?
You can not only access and edit your files, but you can also share them and collaborate seamlessly with others from anywhere and on any device. Securely share your files and folders and work together in real-time using Word, Excel and PowerPoint on the Web from your mobile and desktop devices.
Plus, you can share what you’re working on right from within your Microsoft Office application without having to navigate to another interface. Why is this so great?... Because this means no more attaching files to emails or saving them to thumb drives which can easily be lost or stolen.
Each person in your company will have their own OneDrive for Business library to store their personal work files. When you create and save files to a OneDrive folder, they sync to the Microsoft Cloud so you can access them from anywhere. For shared file storage and team collaboration, you use a SharePoint site. SharePoint sites also sync to the Microsoft Cloud for easy access from anywhere.
How Do We Sync Files In OneDrive for Business?
When you install the OneDrive sync client for Windows or Mac, you can work with your OneDrive files in File Explorer or Finder. And you can save files to OneDrive directly from the program you’re using. When you add, change, and delete files and folders from the OneDrive mobile app or by accessing your OneDrive from a web browser, the files and folders are automatically added, changed, or deleted on your computer and vice versa.
To upload files to OneDrive, you just copy or move them to OneDrive in File Explorer or Finder. You can also use File Explorer to easily organize your OneDrive by creating new folders, and moving and renaming files and folders. Everything will sync automatically.
Will Our Files Be Safe In OneDrive for Business?
OneDrive has many security and compliance features, and it will help you meet some of the strictest compliance requirements out there. It ensures that your users adhere to your most rigorous compliance standards by enabling them to choose where their data lives and providing detailed reporting of how that data has changed and been accessed.
With OneDrive for Business, your files are protected in the Microsoft Cloud. OneDrive actually helps to protect your data. Your administrator can manage your security policies in OneDrive to keep your information safe. You can decide if information can be shared externally or not. With some licenses, you can get reports and manage security based on whether or not your documents contain sensitive information.
Microsoft OneDrive for Business uses two-factor authentication for added security. And your data is protected both in transit and at rest. When data is transmitted, it's protected using transport layer security (TLS) encryption. The Windows Defender anti-malware engine scans documents when they’re downloaded.
Each file is encrypted at rest with a unique AES256 key. These unique keys are encrypted with a set of master keys that are stored in the Azure Key Vault. Plus, firewalls limit traffic into the environment from unauthorized locations.
If you’re worried about physical security in Microsoft’s Data Centers, don’t be… Only a limited number of essential personnel can gain access to Microsoft datacenters. Their identities are verified with multiple factors of authentication including smart cards and biometrics.
The Office 365 "Red Team" within Microsoft is made up of intrusion specialists. They look for any opportunity to gain unauthorized access. The "Blue Team" is made up of defense engineers who focus on prevention, detection, and recovery. And, there are on-premises security officers at Microsoft Data Centers, motion sensors, and video surveillance. Intrusion-detection alerts monitor for suspicious activity.
Will Microsoft OneDrive for Business Back Up Our Files?
They are automatically backed up for protection so you can quickly recover them if you accidentally delete them or if a malicious attack locks up your computer files.
If a lot of your OneDrive files get deleted, overwritten, corrupted, or infected by malware, you can restore them from a previous time. Files Restore helps Office 365 subscribers undo all the actions that occurred on both files and folders within the last 30 days.
And you can go back in time through the changes to Office documents that are stored in OneDrive for Business to the last 500 versions of a document by default, and up to over 90 days. The recycle bin feature allows documents that you deleted to be restored to the point in time that they deleted it for up to 90 days.
A daily activity chart shows the volume of file activities each day for the last 30 days. It gives you an overview of what’s happened to your OneDrive over time and can help you identify any unusual activities, such as when your OneDrive was infected by malware.
If you’re hit with a ransomware attack, you can restore deleted files from the OneDrive recycle bin or restore a previous version of a file in OneDrive. As a OneDrive for Business user, you can also restore your entire OneDrive to any point within the past 30 days.
How Do We Get Microsoft OneDrive for Business?
Unlike most other cloud storage providers, OneDrive for Business makes most of its advanced features available with all subscription types. This provides smaller companies with the flexibility to use standard features out of the box, and configure advanced features based on their unique requirements.
To ensure that Microsoft OneDrive for Business works seamlessly requires a bit of work. So it’s best if you ask your IT Service Company to provide and set it up for your organization.
Want to know more about OneDrive for Business and other Microsoft products? Visit our Blog where we provide updated articles each month.
Does Your Business Need Microsoft 365 or Microsoft Office 365?
Microsoft Excel Training (Free Online Course)
How To Create Information Gathering Forms With Microsoft Office 365