Connecticut State Colleges & Universities

Connecticut State Colleges & Universities
IT Support Center

Office 365 - OneDrive for Business FAQ

Have you been using CSCU OneDrive for Business as a CCC student or were you piloting faculty/staff OneDrive for Business before it was deployed to all faculty/staff on July 11th, 2017? Some things have changed now that it's deployed to everyone so checking out the info about sharing and syncing would be beneficial. The section about syncing also includes information about renaming your local PC's folder from 'Board of Regents System Office' to 'CSCU'.

New to using OneDrive for Business and want to know what you need to know about sharing and syncing first? Check out the following frequently asked questions when using One Drive for Business. Before you share or sync for the first time, read the information below.

CSCU refers to all 4 Universities (CSUs), all 12 Community Colleges(CCCs), Charter Oak State College (COSC) and System Office (SO).

Questions:

Answers:

  •  What do I need to know about OneDrive for Business?
    • OneDrive for Business is different than a personal OneDrive.
    • The OneDrive for Business client is the software used to sync your OneDrive for Business files with your PC or Mac. 
    • CSCU Faculty/Staff/Students will use their CSCU college or university provided Office365 accounts to login to OneDrive for Business (or when accessing a document shared with them) and not a personal Microsoft Account. CCC Faculty/Staff and Students can refer to the Online Help Desk for support of their Office365 accounts.
    • Faculty/Staff usage needs to comply with the OneDrive for Business Standard including not storing DCL3 data in OneDrive for Business. DCL3 data accessed by unauthorized entities could cause personal or institutional financial loss or constitute a violation of a statue, act or law.
    • All Microsoft features are connected, so your OneDrive for Business is built on top of SharePoint. SharePoint, Groups and Team files are all stored in your OneDrive for Business share. So, many things you can do to your OneDrive for Business documents, apply to your Group and Team files as well (share, sync, etc.)
    • Do not store personal files in your OneDrive for Business share. It is meant for work related documents. When you leave CSCU, your OneDrive for Business files will be inaccessible and you will not have access to these documents.
    • Files deleted from OneDrive for Business are not recoverable after 60 days.
    • There are two views into OneDrive for Business (regular and Classic). Each accomplishes the same thing - access to your OneDrive for Business files - but they look and feel very different. If you are in the regular OneDrive for Business view, click on the "Return to classic OneDrive" in the lower left corner of the browser window to use the Classic OneDrive view. If you are in the Classic OneDrive view and want to return to the regular OneDrive for Business view, click the Apps (in upper left corner of window) and select the OneDrive tile from the App selection.  Note that the OneDrive for Business icon in the systray currently uses the Classic OneDrive for Business view. Use the information above to change your OneDrive for Business view if you prefer one view over the other.
    • If you want to maintain a file’s Last Modified date, sync your OneDrive for Business files to your PC using the OneDrive for Business client and add files/folders using your File Browser. If you use the Upload feature when in OneDrive for Business, the Last Modified date becomes the date you uploaded the file.
    • Previous versions of files are kept and can be restored using OneDrive for Business's Version History feature.
  •  What do I need to know about sharing?
    • Anonymous sharing of files/folders is not allowed. You, as the owner of the document, specify exactly who you are allowing to access your document and what type of access you are providing (edit or view):
    • When someone has Edit capabilities, they have the ability to delete that file from your OneDrive for Business and you are not notified that it was deleted!  You cannot at this time share a document with someone only to edit the document, it automatically gives them the permission to delete the document from your OneDrive for Business site. Therefore, we highly recommend that you regularly check your Recycle bin for files that others may have deleted not knowing they were deleting the original shared document, not a copy of it.
    • A person with Edit capabilities does not have the ability to rename your file or to share your file with anyone else.
    • We recommend that you regularly check your document's sharing permissions by clicking in the sharing column for each file you are sharing. NOTE: There is not a central location you can go to see all the files you are sharing, you need to check each file's permissions. When access is no longer needed, remove their access by changing their permission to "Stop sharing"
    • There are two groups of users you can share files with in OneDrive for Business: Those who have a CSCU Faculty/Staff/Students account and those that do not. Those that do not have a CSCU Faculty/Staff/Student account are known as External Guests and will access using their own personal Microsoft Account. If the person you are sharing the document with is a CSCU Faculty/Staff/Student, when you share the document, use that person's college or university provided Office365 account.
    • When you share a document to someone, you are providing a link to access the document. When the user accesses your document, if they are not logged in already to Office365, they will be prompted to login:

    • There are several situations where someone may see this:

      • If you shared a document with someone and they logged on with a different account to access your document. They can request access if they want and enter a message. You will receive an email with their request that you can approve or deny.
      • The very first time an External Guest accesses any file on our site, after they have logged in with their personal Microsoft Account, they will get this warning until their External Guest account is created on our site. They may have to wait a period of time (could be as short as a few minutes), but they can just click the link again and they will have access. This situation is confusing as they get the "Sorry, you don't have access to this page" but do have access and just need to wait and try again later.
      • If you have removed access to the document or someone is attempting access that does not have access to the document.
    • Expect some delay when working in OneDrive for Business. For example: if a file is deleted from your OneDrive for Business account. It is not immediately deleted and my exist for a bit of time in a synced location (i.e. your PC) and could also be accessible to someone that you shared it to.
    • When someone shares a file with you, keep the emails containing links to shared documents handy or bookmark the links to the shared documents as there does not seem to be a way to see all documents that anyone has shared with you.  If those emails are lost, the person who sent you the shared invitation can resend a link.
    • Be aware that if a user's account is deleted that had made changes to one of your documents, that their actions in the Version History of a file will no longer be listed once the account has been removed (i.e. Their name will no longer be listed in the Version History that they made any changes).
  •  What do I need to know about syncing?
    • The OneDrive for Business client is the software used to sync your OneDrive for Business files with your PC or Mac. 
    • When you sync your One Drive for Business share to a PC or phone, you need to make sure that device is secured (is up-to-date and running latest software, is regularly patched, running anti-virus software, etc.)
    • Errors may occur when you try to sync files with illegal characters in the name, blocked file types, large files (larger than 15 Gb), malware or infected files, long path names (i.e. too many folders or large folder/file names). You will need to locate and resolve any sync errors. Use the OneDrive for Business icon in your systray to see sync errors and refer to Microsoft documentation.
    • Do you want to sync files from an Office365 Group or Microsoft Team? Follow this procedure for using the OneDrive for Business client to sync group files to your PC. 
    • To see what files are syncing to your Windows PC, use the OneDrive for Business icon in the systray and click on the Settings tab. This will show you what locations you are syncing and can change the folders that are syncing, stop syncing or unlink the PC from your One Drive for Business account.
    • If you used OneDrive for Business prior to July 14th, 2017, your local PC folder may still be using the old name 'Board of Regents System Office' vs the new 'CSCU'. Following this procedure will properly rename it to the new location.
  •  How do I fix sync issues?

    • You may experience issues with files syncing using the OneDrive for Business client. Microsoft provides some basic help and more information for addressing sync issues. The most common, are the following:

    • File size (no larger than 15 Gb)
    • File path length (make sure the file path is shorter than 255 characters)
    • Illegal characters in file or folder name
    • File permissions are wrong
    • File name conflict
    • Not enough disk space