Instead of struggling to maintain file shares and the server hardware that stores all of that data, many organizations are freeing up resources by moving to cloud-based file storage and content management platforms. If you’re tired of hosting terabytes of business information yourself, Microsoft’s OneDrive for Business offers an online storage solution with additional support for enterprise collaboration.
One Drive for Business grew out of an earlier version, known as SkyDrive Pro, but there’s more to the change than a new name, especially if your organization uses Office 365. Now, each Office 365 user gets one terabyte of cloud storage — an incredible amount of data.
While the main motivation for your company’s Office 365 migration may be to use the cloud Exchange hosting for email or SharePoint Online for collaboration, OneDrive for Business is also a valuable feature that you shouldn’t overlook. Many organizations are still figuring out how to integrate this cloud storage with their content management and enterprise collaboration solutions.
Here are a few of the benefits that make OneDrive for Business attractive to end users and IT administrators.
- Store and access content from anywhere: Instead of having some files on your desktop computer’s local drive, some in a file share and others on a mobile device, OneDrive for Business offers a single location to access your personal work files from any device, whether you need to make changes to documents currently in progress or pull up reference materials.For end users, this means you have the information you want at a moment’s notice, without planning ahead for what you’ll need. For example, let’s say you’re discussing a topic at a meeting and realize that you have a document that’s relevant to the conversation. If the document is saved on your desktop’s local drive, you’re out of luck. But if you saved it in OneDrive for Business, you could pull up the file on your iPad or another mobile device using an internet connection.
- Manage and sync documents across your devices: If you update a document on your desktop PC, you want to feel confident that you’re immediately able to access that most recent, up-to-date version with all of your other devices. When you’re storing files in OneDrive for Business, the sync function ensures you always have the latest version of your files, helping you effectively manage your work-in-progress documents.
- Share and collaborate with team members: Previously, you might have stored documents on your personal drive until you were ready to share the files, at which point you’d upload them to a file share. Combining OneDrive for Business and SharePoint streamlines content management, making it easy to share documents and collaborate with others. Once your file is in OneDrive for Business, it’s easy to share it with your team by publishing it to a SharePoint document library.
- Share content with external customers: In many organizations, employees need an efficient way to share large files with external partners or customers. Lots of people have found it helpful to use a cloud-based storage tool like Dropbox. These tools usually allow you to keep documents in a private folder that only you are able to see and access, and then move specific documents into a public folder where others are able to access and use the documents.OneDrive for Business handles this function particularly well. When you want to share a document, you drop it into your public folder and point people to the right location to find it. This is great for sharing documents that are too large for email attachments and allows you to retain control of your content.
- Maintain security and compliance: OneDrive for Business is similar to Dropbox in terms of capabilities, but it offers important enhancements to ensure data security, privacy and compliance. While a free cloud-storage option may be secure enough for personal use, it probably doesn’t include a service level agreement (SLA) that protects your organization from an auditing and compliance perspective.An enterprise-grade content management solution should ensure that every piece of content you share with outside partners is covered by your organization’s SLA and compliance regulations. OneDrive for Business offers enterprise-grade data protection and the SLA ensures that your company retains ownership of the data. Individual users may not care much about these nuances, but they really matter to businesses, auditors and compliance officers.
In the end, OneDrive for Business offers significant cloud storage that reduces the content management burden for your organization, as well as user-friendly functionality that empowers employees and supports collaboration. It may require you to rethink how you approach content management, but these are changes well worth embracing.
Learn more about implementing the right enterprise content management strategy for your organization by contacting Portal Solutions.
