How to get Office 365 document sharing to actually work
How to get Office 365 document sharing to actually work
You know how in the movies the monster lopes along yet always somehow catches the screaming girl who's running away from it? That's been the story of Office 365, Microsoft Office, and OneDrive, the three pillars of Microsoft's attempt to move its productivity suite into a collaboration tool, both across users and across devices. But now, after years of progress and piecemeal rollouts, Microsoft has finally pulled together the pieces into a cohesive package and delivered on the original collaboration promise.Well, mostly -- the tools still have gaps, but the main issue is deadly practical: It's not obvious how to use them together, so many users can't capitalize on the collaboration promise, though they now have the tools to do it.
Office 365 Document Sharing Guide
If you install Microsoft’s OneDrive app, you can access your documents -- any files, in fact -- from any application, not only Office 2016 ones, from any of your devices. You can also share those files with anyone using the OneDrive Online web app -- again, whether or not they are Office 2016 documents.
No doubt, Office 365 offers a lot of collaboration and work-from-anywhere potential. But it’s not always clear how to tap it.
Welcome to InfoWorld's comprehensive Office 365 sharing how-to. The following guide will help you and your employees take full advantage of the Office 365 plan you've paid for. Here, for Windows, MacOS, iOS, and Android, I break down how to use the sharing tools available in Office 365, Office 2016, and OneDrive.
Note that Windows 10 screenshots are used throughout this guide unless the tools work differently on other platforms. Microsoft has made many of the features common across Windows 7 and later, OS X Yosemite and later versions of MacOS, iOS 8 and later, and Android 5.0 Lollipop and later, as well as via the major browsers.
But not all features are universally available, and not all features work the same on all platforms. Android users in particular face functional shortcomings, while Windows users (usually) get all the bells and whistles. Microsoft's vision of universal apps still has a long way to go.
My company's Office 365 deployment uses the E3 plan, which covers all these tools. Other plans may lack some capabilities or offer additional features. Also, each business can enable or restrict functionality for its users, so some capabilities I cover in this guide may not be available in your deployment -- take that up with IT, not me.
Despite confusing setup issues, functional inconsistencies across platforms, and not-fully-baked permissions management in Office 365 for document sharing, I strongly recommend you adopt these capabilities in your work environment.
Once you get past the initial hurdles, you'll find it's a very powerful tool to work easily across multiple devices and to share with other users. If you've used Google Docs, you'll understand its power. Office 365 brings that sharing power to world-class productivity tools, a combination that is unbeatable today.
Part 1: Office 365 and OneDrive let you mix and match apps in Windows, MacOS, iOS, Android, and the web
Most of the work for setting up Office 365 collaboration happens on the back end, where you define and manage Active Directory users and associated policies and set up SharePoint and OneDrive access, if applicable.But there's work to be done on the client end as well. IT may decide to leave that client setup to the users -- especially for their mobile devices and home computers (if your company allows their use) -- but users will need some guidance, as outlined in this article.
Office 2016 installation
Most enterprise Office plans allow up to five copies of the Office 2016 suite to be installed on each user's computers (Windows PCs and/or Macs), as well as up to 10 copies of the Office apps to be installed on their iOS, Android, and/or Windows Mobile smartphones and tablets. (Note that a Surface Pro or other PC tablet counts as a computer, not a tablet.)For the Office 2016 suite, Microsoft provides Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, and Word for all supported operating systems and via a browser. Windows users can also get Access, Publisher, and Sway. For the other Office 365 apps, all four platforms and the browser have OneDrive, Outlook, Skype for Business, and Yammer, but Outlook on mobile devices supports only a subset of features, and Skype for Business and Yammer are essentially useless outside of Windows.
Mobile apps are available from the App Store, Google Play Store, and Windows Store. PC and Mac clients are available from office.microsoft.com after signing in via the Sign In menu at the upper right of the page, as shown in Figure 1. Be sure to choose the “Work, school, or university” option. Sign in using your standard Active Directory credentials (what you use to sign into email in an app like Outlook).
You'll see icons for the Office apps you are authorized to use. Scroll down and click Install to install them on your computer. (As Figure 2 shows, you may see an option below that to install Office 365 ProPlus with Office 2013 when using a PC or to install Office 2011 when using a Mac. Do that only if IT says to. The Office 2013 and 2011 apps are there for compatibility purposes, but you need to use Office 2016 to take full advantage of the document-sharing features in Office 365.)
Office 365 Document Sharing Guide
OneDrive installation
OneDrive access comes preinstalled for Windows 10 and is available via File Explorer's sidebar. (You can install OneDrive from Windows Store, but it's not required.) For Windows 8 and 8.1, OneDrive is available through the Windows Store. For Windows 7, you have to download and install the app from Microsoft. For Macs, install OneDrive from the Mac App Store, and be sure to update OneDrive for Mac to the latest version, as it only recently added support for accessing both work and personal OneDrive accounts. On mobile devices, download OneDrive from your respective app store.Once installed, it will be available as a virtual drive in Windows' File Explorer, as a virtual drive in MacOS's Finder, as an Open In location in iOS, as a file browser location in Android -- that is, in their native file-handling facilities. (Part 3 shows iOS's Open In and Android's file browser.)
In Windows, the OneDrive icon should appear in the right side of the taskbar. In MacOS, it should appear on the right side of the menu bar. (You'll see a separate OneDrive icon in the taskbar or menu bar for each account you have added.) If you click the OneDrive icon in Windows or MacOS, a menu shows the sync status and lets you open OneDrive contents in a File Explorer or Finder window.
Right-click the OneDrive icon in Windows 7, 8, and 8.1 to open settings; click the OneDrive icon and choose Settings in Windows 10's OneDrive menu (see Figure 5) or Preferences in MacOS's OneDrive menu (see Figure 6). It's in Settings or Preferences that you add more OneDrive accounts for direct access by your computer and its apps. OneDrive allows access to one personal account but multiple corporate accounts.
Part 2: Whether you use Office 2016 in Windows, MacOS, iOS, Android, or the web, you can share Office documents directly with others
The easiest way to share Office documents is from Office 2016 itself. All the apps allow you to share the currently open document, and apps on some platforms also let you share files from the file list, even if they are not currently open.Whether you're using Windows, MacOS, iOS, or Android, you can share an open document the same way: Click or tap the Share button (the person icon on the right side of the toolbar; in Windows it also carries the label Share).
Microsoft offers Windows users a fairly complex set of sharing options in the Share pane. Several involve sending a link to collaborators via email. Recipients can open or view the documents in a browser or in Office 2016, and they will need an Office 365 account.
Office 365 Document Sharing Guide
- Use the Invite People field to type in the names or email addresses of those you want to share with, or click the Address Book icon to open your company’s Exchange Global Access List, as shown in Figure 7. Only people in the GAL can get shared documents this way, unless IT has enabled third-party sharing for Office 365.
- Use the Can Edit menu to enable recipients to edit the document, such as for collaborative editing or review cycles, or to grant them read-only access to the document, such as for shared documentation.
- Use the Automatically Share Changes menu to control whether any changes you make are shared with the recipients automatically, only when you authorize them to be shared, or never. People editing the document will have the current version of the contents, so this menu is really about whether notifications are sent to those people.
- If you want to provide information about the document you are sharing, enter it in the comments field. That comment will be placed in the body of the email they receive.
The options are similar but simpler for non-Windows users. MacOS and iOS have very similar UIs for sharing in the Share pop-up that appears when you click or tap the Share button:
- Invite People lets you send an email to recipients that contains a link to the document. You can't access the Global Access List in MacOS or iOS, so you’ll have to begin typing at least part of their names to find them. Select Can Edit in the form that appears if you want recipients to be able to edit the document in Office Online or Office 2016.
- Copy Link copies a link to the document. Click the option to have the URL automatically saved to the MacOS or iOS Clipboard, for pasting into a message, text, or other digital medium. Note that you can't specify whether the document is editable or not using this method. Instead, you control editing status via OneDrive Online as described in Part 4.
- Send Attachment opens your email client and attaches the document to a new message, for you to send to whomever you want the old-fashioned way. This emailed document is a copy of the original, so you can't collaborate on an edit when sharing via this method. When you click Send Attachment, you get a choice of file formats to send: the native file format or a PDF.
- Share a Link opens a window from which you choose your preferred method of sharing the link: via email, Google Drive, or any of several other apps. You cannot choose to make the document editable as you can in Windows, MacOS, and iOS.
- Share an Attachment works exactly like Send Attachment in MacOS and iOS above.
- In MacOS, click Recents in the File window to show recently opened documents. Right-click a file and choose Share from the contextual menu. You get the Invite People and Copy Link options in its submenu.
- In iOS, tap the Share button to the right of a file name in the File window's Recents list, then tap Share in the menu that appears. You get the Invite People, Copy Link, and Send Attachment options.
Part 3: The OneDrive service works for accessing shared files both within Office 2016 and the OneDrive app, if properly enabled
Until recently, a functional version of the OneDrive app wasn't available for Windows or MacOS, so many people learned to use OneDrive as part of Office 2016 apps, as descried in Part 2 of InfoWorld's Office 365 document-sharing how-to series.Although you don't need the OneDrive app to use OneDrive cloud storage, using the app lets you share more than Office documents alone.
Enabling OneDrive access in Office 2016 apps
The Office 2016 apps, as well as other Microsoft apps such as Outlook in some platforms, can access OneDrive directly, allowing you to open and save files to OneDrive from within them. To do this, you must be signed into your OneDrive accounts from within the apps.If you sign into Office 2016 with a corporate account, your corporate OneDrive or SharePoint access (from the same account) is usually automatically granted at the same time. Likewise, if you sign into Office 2016 using a personal account, your personal OneDrive access is usually granted automatically as well. But you're not limited to that solitary OneDrive account.
Office 365 Document Sharing Guide
Enabling OneDrive access in other apps
It's a rare person who works only in Office. You use other apps -- email, at least -- and other kinds of files. Chances are you'll want to have OneDrive available to them. In all operating systems but Windows 10, that means installing the OneDrive app, as described in Part 1.Understand that OneDrive works a little differently from OS to OS in how apps and the native file system see it.
In Windows 7, 8, and 8.1 and in MacOS, installing OneDrive creates a virtual drive that you can access exactly as you would any drive: directly from the File Explorer or Finder, or through apps' Open and Save As dialogs.
In Windows 10, OneDrive is available natively in File Explorer and thus in apps' Open and Save As dialogs for any OneDrive accounts you've signed into. You can install OneDrive, but you don't need it for the basics.
In iOS, there is no visible file system, so apps must use the Open In and/or Share facility to access OneDrive. If an app doesn’t provide direct access, use the Open In facility in iOS to save files to a storage service. Use the app's Save feature to open the Locations sheet, shown in Figure 11. (In some cases, such as for Mail attachments, tap and hold a file until the Locations sheet appears.) It will display iCloud Drive by default, but you can switch to storage services by tapping Locations, then choosing the desired service. If a service does not appear, tap More to see if it is installed but disabled, and enable it by setting its switch to On, then tap Done.
To open files stored in OneDrive from an iOS app, that app must support Open In (as GoodReader and Apple's Mail do) or provide direct access from its Open menu or button (as Office 2016, Outlook, and Apple's iWork suite do).
In Android, because there is a file system, OneDrive works very much as it does in Windows and MacOS. Apps can directly access available storage locations through their Open and Save As tools, or they can use Android's File Browser, shown in Figure 12. Each app decides how it provides access to File Browser, but common approaches are through an Attach button (such as in Gmail) or the standard Share button. If you can't see where an app saves or opens files, try tapping the More button (the … icon) or the Menu button (the stack of three lines, aka hamburger icon) to find it.
Part 4: OneDrive integrates with Windows, iOS, and Android -- and works via the web -- to let you share and discover shared files of all types
Now that you have OneDrive installed on your computers and mobile devices, all the files stored in OneDrive from those devices can be shared with others -- not only Office files.There are two basic methods to share non-Office OneDrive-stored files: from your computer or mobile device, or from OneDrive Online in a browser.
Sharing files via OneDrive Online
You'll need to use OneDrive Online to manage your access settings, such as making specific folders available to others. Let's start there.Sign into your Office 365 account from a browser, as explained in Part 1, and go to OneDrive from there. In OneDrive Online, click File in the sidebar to see your files and folders. On a PC, right-click a file in the browser and choose Share in the contextual menu that appears. On a mobile device, long-press the filename in the browser to select the file, then tap the share button in the toolbar.
Office 365 Document Sharing Guide
The Get a Link option provides a link to the file or folder that you can share through any digital means you like, such as in a text message or embedded in a document. But you can't specify editing permissions through such a link. You have to do that for the folder in which the file resides.
To specify the underlying access for a folder, select it for sharing as previously described and choose Shared With, then click or tap Advanced at the bottom of the window that appears. Check the recipient or group for that folder whose permissions you want to modify, then click or tap the Edit User Permissions button to assign the desired permissions.
You can also click or tap Remove User Permissions here to remove access to the folder and its contents. Another way to modify permissions for both files and folders is in the Share With window. You'll see all people and groups that have been granted access to the file or folder. Click or tap the person or group to change its permissions, as shown in Figure 14. The options depend on what permissions the person or group already has but will be at least one of the following: Change to View Only, Allow Edit, and Stop Sharing.
Sharing files from your computer or mobile device
You can share files directly from OneDrive on your PC, iOS device, or Android device -- but not from your Mac, since Microsoft has yet to create a sharing extension for MacOS.The basic technique is to select a file, then use a menu to share it as an emailed link -- one of the methods available from Office 2016 apps. Or you can copy its link and paste it into a message or other digital medium. In other words, you have the same methods available as from Office 2016, but for any file type.
But how to select and initiate that sharing varies by operating system.
As Figure 15 shows, in Windows' File Explorer, you right-click a file stored in one of your OneDrive accounts and choose Share With > Specific People in the contextual menu that appears, then enter the email addresses of those people one at a time, clicking Add after each. Everyone is also an option. Be sure to set permissions for each person: Read or Read/Write. Select Remove to take them off the sharing list. Click Share when done. Recipients will get an email with a link to the file for access in Office Online or OneDrive Online.
If you send people an Office file, it will open in Office Online, where they can edit it in the browser or via an Office 2016 app. If it's not an Office file, they'll get the document in OneDrive Online, where they can view it or download it for use on their computer or mobile device.
You can also choose Share a OneDrive Link from the contextual menu, if available. Doing so copies a link you would then paste into a message or other digital medium.
- Invite People, which sends a link to the recipients for access in Office Online or OneDrive Online. If you want the recipients to be able to edit the file, be sure to check the Allow Editing box in the form that appears where you enter the recipients' email addresses or Active Directory names.
- Send Files, which composes an email and attaches the files as independent copies for you to send from your default email client.
- View People Shared With, which does what it says.
The Android OneDrive app works essentially the same way. But you don't have to do anything to display the selection boxes -- they're always there. After you select the file to share, tap the standard Android Share button (the icon of a < with three nodes) at the top of the screen, then choose Invite People or Send Files from the menu that appears, as Figure 18 shows. These options work exactly as they do in Windows 10 and iOS.
Accessing files shared to you by others
No matter where you use OneDrive, you can see your files -- that is, the ones you saved to OneDrive. But you may not see files shared to you by others.That's because OneDrive does not expose files shared to you by others in either the Windows File Explorer or the MacOS Finder. You can see files shared with you only in the OneDrive apps, via a browser at OneDrive Online, or in some cases from Office 2016.
If you use other cloud storage services -- Box, Dropbox, and Google Drive -- that will come as a shock, since they all show you the files shared to you in both computer operating systems and in their apps. OneDrive's lack of support for file-system access to files shared by others also means you can't use OneDrive as an ad hoc network drive to collaborate on a project together, on files contributed by multiple people.
Microsoft's solution for that is to use SharePoint, which requires IT to set up and manage shared folders for members of Active Directory groups. But SharePoint's integration with native file systems (both Windows and MacOS) is also poor, and you're basically forced to use the same clients for SharePoint access as you already have for OneDrive access. There is now a SharePoint app for iOS to access users and sites, with Windows and Android (but not MacOS) apps planned. Still, it is not really a solution for platform-agnostic collaboration.
Given those limits, what can you do? You can access files shared by others in three ways.
One way is to bookmark the shared files' URLs in your browser, so you can open the documents in Office Online or OneDrive Online. Basically, make your browser your file system for shared documents. If your browser is set to sync bookmarks and settings to all your devices (which Safari, Chrome, Internet Explorer, and Firefox can do across their supported platforms), then that pseudo file system of bookmarks is also shared among them, giving you broad access to the documents.
The second way is to go to OneDrive Online in your browser and click Shared With Me in the file list's sidebar, as Figure 19 shows.
Courtesy = http://www.infoworld.com/article/3083364/office-software/how-to-share-more-than-just-office-365-documents-with-others.html?nsdr=true
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