OneDrive and SharePoint work together to make storing and accessing all your files simple and powerful. Microsoft recently outlined a vision for file management in Office 365 that included a set of new features, such as simplified file sharing (both inside and outside your organization), the ability to copy files directly from OneDrive to SharePoint, mobile access to all your Office 365 files on iOS and the innovative Discover view that uses Microsoft Graph to suggest relevant and trending files.

Microsoft announced new sync, browser, mobile and IT capabilities:

Take your files on the go with powerful new sync options

Microsoft promised to bring a single sync experience for all your files in Office 365, across OneDrive and SharePoint. Recently, Microsoft announced the public preview of this eagerly anticipated update for both PC and Mac.

SharePoint sync is being added to the OneDrive sync client, which Microsoft released last year, and offers superior levels of reliability, performance and control—including the flexibility to select the specific folders you want to take offline.

Now you have one simple way to take any of your Office 365 files offline. And Microsoft will make it even easier, with a seamless upgrade from the legacy sync client (groove.exe).

Shared folder sync is another powerful capability shipping with this preview. If a colleague in your organization shares a folder with you from their OneDrive, then you can choose to take that folder offline. What’s more, it doesn’t count against your storage quota!

For better visibility of what is going on with your sync client, Microsoft is rolling out the activity center. When a file is added, deleted or changed in a folder that you are syncing, the activity center shows you exactly what happened—so you can catch up on the most recent activity and see current sync status.

View files fast with better previews and thumbnails

OneDrive offers deep integration with Office Online, so you can view, edit and create Office files from any browser. There are times you want to view other types of files in the browser without downloading them. So, Microsoft is enabling rich previews for your most commonly used business file types. Without leaving OneDrive, you will be able to preview Adobe files, including Illustrator (.ai), Photoshop (.psd) and Encapsulated PostScript (.eps). Email files (.msg and .eml), almost all photo files (including many RAW formats) and streaming video are also supported. Additionally, most of these file types now have high resolution thumbnails in the folder’s tile view.

Access all your Office 365 files through the OneDrive browser experience

Microsoft is releasing an update to the OneDrive browser experience that enables you to access, edit and share all files and folders in SharePoint Online that you own or follow. Microsoft will start rolling this out to First Release customers in the coming months, and rollout to all customers will be complete in the first quarter of 2017. Combined with the single experience in mobile apps and sync, you have one consistent way to work with the Office 365 files you care about. Regardless of whether you’re in the browser on PC or Mac, or on your device using our apps, OneDrive is the one place to access, share, edit and collaborate on all your Office 365 files.

Download multiple files as a .zip file

Microsoft has added another new capability to the OneDrive browser experience. You can now select multiple files and folders and download them in a .zip file.

Keep informed with mobile notifications

For iOS or Android users, Microsoft has added notifications when a colleague shares a file with you. You can now open the file directly from the notification. You won’t have to rely on email to know when you can start working on that shared proposal with colleagues or complete the final review of tomorrow’s presentation. In the future, Microsoft will bring notifications to Android and Windows, as well as add notifications for other file activities beyond just sharing.

Extending the scan function to handle multiple photos

Earlier this year Microsoft released the Scan function on Android, which enables you to take single photos that are then converted to PDF files and uploaded to OneDrive. Microsoft now expanded this allowing you to add multiple photos and combine them in the one PDF file. Now you can scan your multi-page expense receipt or extensive notes across multiple whiteboards into a single PDF that’s uploaded and stored in OneDrive.

This feature will be rolling out to iOS in the coming weeks.

Understand the reach and impact of your work

When you copy from OneDrive to SharePoint—a feature Microsoft recently released—your file becomes accessible and discoverable by your team. Microsoft announced in May that they were working on a feature to measure the reach of your files. Starting today on iOS, you can see over time how many people have discovered and viewed your files. This provides simple insight into the impact of your work. Microsoft will add this capability to Android and Windows in future updates.

New deeper Office 2016 integration saves you time in collaborating with others

Microsoft is continuing to deliver true, seamless Office integration everywhere you use Microsoft Office and OneDrive. In the top right of the Office 2016 ribbon, you can see the users who are currently editing the file and launch Skype for Business to converse in real-time. You can also share the file, see the history of all activity on the file as well. Being able to share with others and getting a snapshot of what is going on with your file without having to jump out of the Office app are big time-savers.

Additionally, when you click the File tab to open a file, you’ll notice now that in addition to having access to files you recently accessed in OneDrive and SharePoint Online, you can now also access files most recently shared with you. The result is simple: access to all the files you’re working with on any device—yet another time-saving feature exclusive to OneDrive and SharePoint.

Secure and manage OneDrive with enhancements for IT pros

Between now and the end of 2016, Microsoft will be releasing even more features for IT to secure and manage OneDrive. Microsoft will add per-user controls for OneDrive directly in the Office 365 User Management console. As an admin, you will be able to set the storage quota and external sharing permissions for a specific user, as well as help a user who misplaced a file or inadvertently shared the wrong file with others. In emergencies, such as a lost device, you can sign a user out of OneDrive on all devices. And, when an employee leaves the organization or is terminated, you can take over the user’s OneDrive to move or copy important files to other locations. This capability complements the feature Microsoft shipped earlier this year that allows you to preserve files in a deleted user’s OneDrive for up to 10 years, so that you can be confident important files are not lost.

Microsoft is also creating a dedicated administration console for OneDrive in the Office 365 admin center, so you’ll have one place to discover and configure OneDrive-specific settings and perform administrative tasks—many of which used to require PowerShell. The new experience is simple, modern, fast and responsive, and makes managing OneDrive for your organization much easier.

The future of simple and powerful file sharing is now

OneDrive delivers a single, consistent experience for working with all your files in your individual OneDrive, your SharePoint team sites and Office 365 Groups. Microsoft is bringing you rock-solid sync, a rich browser experience, highly-rated mobile apps and deeper, more powerful integration with Microsoft Office. And Microsoft is bringing all of this to your PC and Mac as well as all your devices.

Get started with the new updates today! Contact us if you have any questions or need help at sales@vorsite.com or (206) 781-1797.