Item: OneDrive
Rating: 8
Author: Verified User

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

OneDrive is being rolled out as a replacement for individual servers for everyone at my global organization. It is addressing the need for cloud storage, collaboration, and secure mobile access. It's helping us stop the use of unapproved and less secure tools like Google Drive and Basecamp. Employees are excited about using it due to the positive improvements to the UX and ease of use.

Pros and Cons

User Experience - OneDrive is easy to use. It's natively integrated on everyone's computers after downloading it from our App portal. It's just like using local file management on your computer. You can easily tell when files are confirmed to be uploaded with intuitive green check marks.
Web Access - If for some reason you need to access your files from a browser instead of natively, the experience is still positive. When opening a OneDrive file in browser, you can edit in browser with the browser office apps.
Mobile Access - Accessing files on the go is critical these days. The OneDrive mobile app is easy to use and allows you to see all of your files and files shared with you. Paired with other O365 apps, you can also edit files on the go which is very convenient. The O365 mobile apps are great!

Sending Links - Though you can easily share links to files from the web experience, it isn't the same on the native experience. It would be nice if you could right click on a file to share its location with someone vs. opening the office application to share with others.
File Character Restrictions - This isn't just with OneDrive, but sometimes files will not upload due to an unsupported character in the file name.

Return on Investment

Positive - Less dependency on insecure tools that pose a risk to our business (Google Drive, Dropbox, Basecamp)
Positive - Increased employee productivity due to multi-device access to files and mobile friendly experience.
Positive - Increased collaboration on files as opposed to previously sending files back and forth.

Usability

Using OneDrive is very intuitive and has been improved over the years. It's just like using native file management on either your Mac or PC. It's drag and drop functionality is easy and it clearly shows when files are uploaded to the cloud or if there are errors.

Support Rating

Support is handled internally through our global information technology team, but our internal support team has not complained about the support they receive from Microsoft. They have actually praised the support they receive from Microsoft for encouraging employee adoption and for rolling out new tools.

Alternatives Considered

Google Drive and Dropbox

I believe OneDrive was selected due to Microsoft's proven record on information security. It is easily integrated with other apps that employees use within the office suite. Google and Dropbox services do not seem as secure as Microsoft O365 products. In a highly regulated industry, we need a secure cloud storage platform and are happy with OneDrive so far.

Other Software Used

Microsoft Office 365, Workfront, Skype for Business (formerly Lync)

Likelihood to Recommend

I strongly encourage others to use OneDrive internally for cloud storage. It reduces the need for expensive internal server management, and I trust Microsoft's abilities to manage and support a massive cloud infrastructure securely. OneDrive is current, easy to use, and can help drive employees off of other less secure or unapproved tools like Google Drive, DropBox, or Basecamp. As part of the O365 package, I know that improvements will always be made to the tool as time goes on. OneDrive does have public link capabilities, but my organization has not enabled this yet. This is something that would help us eliminate a few other tools as well.

OneDrive - A Great Replacement for Personal Servers

Overall Satisfaction with OneDrive