Yes, B2B is not quite so simple to understand. I hope that OneDrive Basics 06 has shed some light on this. I, for one, believe that medium-sized companies can implement exactly this concept.

And today the office implementation is on the agenda

We are not talking about Outlook integration today. Because Outlook is also part of Office. And Outlook integration was described in OneDrive Basics 03. So, one program checked off. The figure above shows several connections to the Office programs:

• Word
• Excel
• PowerPoint
  The points 1,2 and 4 shall be displayed here with the browser based Word Online, Excel Online and PowerPoint Online. Directly from the browser without an installed native app, i.e. Word, Excel and PowerPoint installed on the computer. These versions are partly limited, this will not be discussed here. But you can connect to different document libraries (as long as you have the rights to do so). Or you can connect to your own OneDrive for Business. And also with your OneDrive Personal (consumer version). What do I need as a user? Depends on it. If someone sends me an invitation to work on a document, nothing really. A current browser. I just have to save the email with the invitation. Or the link. But I don’t need anything from Office on this device.  The browser is enough.

Can I synchronize this document to my device?

In OneDrive Basics 08 I describe exactly this process and what the requirements are. (Granted, not yet published) And of course in the old and the new way. Because Microsoft is currently changing something right there.  So bring a little patience with you.

 

Working together

Sounds great? Now we look back into the past. You have saved the document locally. And then sent the document as an attachment via e-mail. From that moment on it became complicated. Because I as the sender cannot simply continue working on this document. Because the recipient could also… And then send it back. Now I have two versions. Unfortunately, this was and still is very often the reality. And costs both parties time and money. And it can become much more complicated. As a sales manager I have eight employees, of whom I need figures for the ForeCast at the end of the month. So I quickly prepare an Excel sheet and send it out. I receive eight different versions back. And now I have the work in front of me, namely to combine eight different versions.  And the way is so simple. When creating this Excel sheet I have to think about a few things. Where should each of my eight employees enter their sales figures?  When saving, I then select our shared document library. Or my OneDrive for Business. I saved the link to the document to the clipboard beforehand. Then send e-mail to the sales department as usual. With the link. Now they can edit the document. It’s the same document for everyone.  And if it should be, two or more people can edit the document at the same time. And I, as sales manager, have nothing more to do with editing and revising the document. This works from desktop applications to other desktop applications, across operating system boundaries (Windows / Apple) or even a mixture of desktop and browser variations. You can also see when others are working at the same time. And where you are working. To avoid a collision, you should know where the boundaries are, because the question arises when two people enter data at the same place, what happens? You need to know that the smallest area belongs to the person who clicks first, but this must arrive in the cloud. The smallest range is a cell in Excel, a paragraph in Word, and a slide in PowerPoint. Even if something goes wrong and you just keep writing, don’t despair. The applications point this out to you. Working together needs to be learned. You have to try it out, so invest some time.

Storage location

Office knows more than we can remember. But in the past there were error messages when opening a document like "Sorry, we couldn’t find your file. Has it been moved, renamed or deleted?" Yes, right. Office could not know that I renamed this document in Windows Explorer. Yes, if I had saved the file at the very beginning in a location that is synchronized with the cloud, the manual search would not have occurred at all when I recalled it. Because in all SharePoint libraries and in OneDrive for Business, the version history works. Renaming in Windows Explorer or in the web browser creates an additional version. Everything is logged in a fine and clean manner. And if I select a file with the old name while opening it, the file with the new name is opened and the list is updated. So the above error message is a thing of the past.

And of course there must be a way to read and edit the file offline.

OneDrive integration with native Office Apps

Right, in Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Of course, also in Outlook.  See the beginning of this blog post. For the other typical apps a lot has happened:

• automatic saving
• Share
• Version history
• Last used
  Automatic save

Who does not know the key combination CTRL-S for save? Works also in the newest version of the Office programs. But you don’t have to do it anymore. Because when we save in OneDrive you can safely ignore it. Because every 10 minutes Word now saves automatically. And because OneDrive’s versioning is also activated by default, it always creates a new version. Under Tools Save you can switch on the AutoRestore function and also change the time.

picture	description
	When saving (CTRL+S) the following dialog is called up. The file name can be entered here. And, of course, all locations that have to do with the cloud. All OneDrive for Business locations in the system (yes, there can be several), but also OneDrive Personal. There are also a few options here, even a default location can be set. I can even share a file, even with several people Of course, you can select the document libraries in SharePoint Online via further options
	And once you have specified the name and location, you can activate automatic saving.

Share

picture	description
	If the document is stored in OneDrive Personal, OneDrive for Business or in a SharePoint Online Document Library, it can be shared. The standard dialog is called up.

 

Version history

The version comparison can be called up differently.

picture	description
	First of all there is the call from the client itself . If you click on the OneDrive icon in the notification line, the OneDrive Client opens. Click on the three dots of an entry and then click on Version History.
	Or from the Windows file explorer Select file. Click with the right mouse button, then on Version History.
	Or from the website Select the document and then click on the three points.
	Or within the Office application Click on the name of the document. Then click on Version History
	And also of Office Online Apps. Click on the name of the document. Then click on Version History

Last used

And then the list of recently used documents. As long as you store files in OneDrive Personal, OneDrive for Business or in a document library of SharePoint Online and maybe rename or move them outside the respective app with the Web Browser or the Windows File Explorer, the list of the respective app doesn’t really notice this. You click on the old name and: The correct document from the new location or the new name opens and the list is updated.

 

Summary:

The typical Ogffice programs like Word, Excel and PowerPoint have been rebuilt. Minor errors like renaming or moving no longer cause an error message. The versioning necessary for collaboration, recovery of an older version can not only be viewed from outside, no, even in the applications themselves, the older documents can be opened and even compared in Word. For all this to work, the user only has to make sure that the document ends up in the cloud. This can also be done on the local hard disk in a synchronized folder when I am without internet. The Next Generation Sync Client, i.e. OneDrive.exe, takes care of the synchronization when the Internet is available again. Working together also works with the native apps in our smartphones under iOS or Android.

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OneDrive Basics 01 (Server and Services)
OneDrive Basics 02 (Clients and Apps)
OneDrive Basics 03 (Outlook and Outlook on the Web, Web Browser)
OneDrive Basics 04 (Windows 10)
OneDrive Basics 05 (Windows 10, more than one tenant)
OneDrive Basics 06 (Windows 10, B2B Sync)
OneDrive Basics 07 (Office Integration)
OneDrive Basics 08 (Synchronisation  Shared with me)
OneDrive Basics 09 (mobile Sync with iOS and Android)
OneDrive Basics 10 (Teams)

for those who want to read it in german language