Celebrating the top OneDrive moments from Microsoft Ignite 2020
Published Sep 22 2020 08:00 AM 37.6K Views
Microsoft

Over the past year, our team made it a priority to bring you a more natural files experience in OneDrive. We set out to help you find your content faster; simplify the way you work with files across other Microsoft apps; and, if you’re an administrator, protect your users’ content with more focus.

Today at the digital  Microsoft Ignite 2020  (September 22-24, 2020), we celebrate how OneDrive has become an even more efficient app for intelligently managing your files.  

 

To get an overview of all the OneDrive announcements do check out our on-demand session: What's new and coming to OneDriveWe have also published a guide to help you view all the related OneDrive sessions at Microsoft Ignite 2020. 

Also, tune in to our latest episode of Sync Up- a OneDrive podcast to hear the product team recap the latest and greatest for OneDrive at this year's Ignite.

 

 

Your feedback and ideas for OneDrive continue to inspire us to build a better service—so keep your comments coming! In the meantime, read on for a  summary of the most significant updates to OneDrive announced at Ignite. Here are our top 3 moments for OneDrive.

 

Experience easy file access

  1. Performance and design improvements: We’ve upgraded page load times to help users get their work done in half the time. These improvements will be available by end of month. Along with performance improvements, we’re also focusing on inclusive design principles to provide millions of our users more choice and greater flexibility. That efforts starts with Dark Mode for OneDrive web, which we’ll be releasing soon for both commercial and personal accounts. In addition to its aesthetic appeal, Dark Mode also reduces eye strain and improves the battery life of your devices.

    Dark mode for web.Dark mode for web.

 

  1. Add to OneDrive: Files are often the starting point for getting work done and staying connected. OneDrive not only makes it easy for you to access and organize your work files, it also helps you get back to the files that matter the most—especially now with Add to OneDrive, a much-awaited feature that we’re rolling out in public preview with the option to opt-out. Now, when someone shares a folder with you in OneDrive, Microsoft SharePoint, or Microsoft Teams, you can easily add a shortcut to that shared folder, either from Shared with me or your shared libraries, in your OneDrive to easily find it later. Added folders retain all the power of OneDrive, which means you can sync and access these folders from anywhere on any device; share and co-author files in added folder; and, stay up-to-date with @mentions, activity, and notifications. Added folders respect all existing policies, compliance, and security settings, too.

    Add  shared folders to your OneDriveAdd shared folders to your OneDrive

 

  1. OneDrive mobile app updates: 

    1. OneDrive Home: OneDrive Home provides easy access to all your files keeping the recent files, shared libraries and critical offline documents  just a tap away for whenever you need them. This feature is rolling out now for iOS and coming soon for Android.

      OneDrive Home on iOSOneDrive Home on iOS

       

    2. OneDrive app for Surface Duo: The OneDrive mobile app is a critical component of Surface Duo. It is fully integrated into the Surface Duo operating system to help you stay connected to your files and photos, collaborate on the go, and make the most of the dual-screen and spanning capabilities. Surface Duo and OneDrive together enhance multitasking with drag-and-drop functionality and provide a built-in PDF editor for a book-like reading and markup experience.

      OneDrive app on Surface DuoOneDrive app on Surface Duo

       

 

Work and share with confidence

  1. Sharing integration in Teams: Teams is your hub for teamwork where people collaborate on files, communicate, and streamline processes. In an effort to provide a consistent sharing experience across Microsoft 365—no matter where you share your file, whether through Office apps, Outlook, OneDrive, or SharePoint, the sharing experience is similar—we’re bringing some of the sharing capabilities you already know to Teams. Now, users will be able to set familiar sharing and access controls directly in Teams with the added option to share a link with a specific private or group chat. This means only people in that chat have access to the shared content. Shared links intelligently reconcile to file name and all sharing follows the admin settings and configured policies. This feature will be rolling out soon.

    Sharing integration in Microsoft TeamsSharing integration in Microsoft Teams

     

  1. Move and keep sharing: Our files often go through a workflow or lifecycle—from creation to review to final. During this journey, you might need to relocate your file from an individual OneDrive site to a SharePoint shared library to extend its reach to a broader group of collaborators. But doing so should not affect the file’s original access controls. Now, when you transfer an individual file to a shared library, the sharing permissions remain intact. This feature is rolling out now.

    Move and keep sharingMove and keep sharing

 

  1. Expiring access for external users: We realize strong teamwork requires you to share and collaborate with peers inside and folks outside your organization, be it your partners, customers, or third-party vendors. To protect shared files, administrators can set a mandatory expiration period to ensure access doesn’t last forever and help avoid leaking organization data by accident. This policy can be enabled in the SharePoint admin center (both modern and classic) and applies to both OneDrive and SharePoint. Once the policy is implemented, external users will automatically lose access to content on the site-by-site level (or OneDrive-by-OneDrive level). SharePoint site administrators and OneDrive owners will have the authority to extend or remove access for the selected users. This feature is rolling out now.

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  2. Tasks in Microsoft Office: Tasks can originate from anywhere at any time. This is particularly problematic if you need to break concentration from whichever Office document you're in to assign that task through another app. But those were the old days; these days, you can assign tasks using comment @mentions directly in Word and Excel, with PowerPoint coming soon. You can add a due date to @mention task assignments and track changes through inline comment history. These task assignments also trigger email notifications with a link to the comment in the document.
    Collaborate with your peers in Office apps with comments, @mentions and tasks.Collaborate with your peers in Office apps with comments, @mentions and tasks.

 

  1. “At a glance” summaries in sharing emails: When users receive an sharing email notification , they will now see a short three-bullet point summary of the document, helping them quickly determine if the file is relevant to them. This feature will be available later this year.

  1. Offline edit support for Office docs in OneDrive for iOS: We will soon be supporting the ability to edit Office documents you have marked for offline use in OneDrive mobile app for iOS. Once offline, simply tap ”Edit” or “Open in Word” to start editing. Then, pick up right where you left off once online. This feature will be available later this year.

    iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAACkYAAAd0CAYAAAAflCIoAAAACXBIWXMAAAsTAAALEwEAmpwYAAAJ.png

 

Administer and control effectively

 

  1. Sync admin reports: Based on your feedback, we’ve worked hard on our vision for sync admin reports to enable sync admins from small businesses to large enterprises with not only data but actionable insights. Admins will soon be able to monitor sync adoption and health. With the sync admin reports, admins will have access to machine sync insights on a per user basis and can check sync status and sync app versions of individual devices. Admins can also monitor the success of Known Folder Move rollout and see the related progress for each device, like which devices are successfully opted into Known Folder Move, how many folders have moved, and more. Finally, they will be able to drill into sync errors and see the errors on each device, empowering them to proactively solve end user problems. As businesses moves more towards remote working scenario, this has become immensely important for sync admins. Sync admin reports will roll out to public preview later this year. Sync admin reportsSync admin reports

 

  1. Admin center consolidation: To further empower you with efficient control over organizational content, we are happy to announce that later this year OneDrive admin center will be converging with SharePoint admin center to provide holistic control and streamline the admin experience. Admins can control internal and external sharing at the organization level in both SharePoint and OneDrive and set access controls for users; manage their default storage limit; allow users to receive device notifications; specify retention policies; and, manage sync controls for OneDrive—all in one place. Along with enhancements in reporting, this convergence will also provide support for WCAG 2.1 accessibility, Global Reader, error messaging, and performance.

    SharePoint and OneDrive admin center consolidationSharePoint and OneDrive admin center consolidation

     

 

  1. Known Folder Move improvements: We’re releasing enhancement to give you more control over your Known Folder Move deployment and target more users.
  • First, we have removed selective sync as a blocker for Known Folder Move. In the past, if a user chose not to sync their OneDrive Documents or Pictures folders, they were not eligible for Known Folder Move until they synced those folders.  Now, we will no longer require users to correct this issue manually; instead, we will do it automatically in the Known Folder Move flow, thus enabling it to be rolled out to more users. ​This functionality is available now.

  • Second, admins can now choose which known folders (Desktop, Documents, or Pictures) they would like to move to OneDrive as part of the silent policy—they no longer have to choose all of them at once. This functionality is available now.

  • Third, we are working on a new policy to allow you to specify a file name or file extension you’d like to exclude from sync at the device level. This addresses an issue where certain file types didn’t sync for example when desktop folders full of shortcut files were moved to OneDrive. These files will continue to be in the sync root on the device but they will not be uploaded to OneDrive.​ This functionality will be available end of year.

 

  1. Security and compliance features: Microsoft runs on trust. We continue to provide you enterprise-grade and frictionless security along with a comprehensive compliance offering. 

    • This spring we announced Microsoft Information Protection (MIP) sensitivity labels for securing Teams, SharePoint Sites, and .... We started with associating privacy and device policies with sensitivity labels. Today, we are announcing external sharing policies with MIP sensitivity labels, in public preview soon. With this, you can associate external sharing policies to the sensitivity labels, making them even more powerful to achieve secure external collaboration with frictionless experience to your users. 
    • We are soon releasing in private preview the ability for admins to access governance insights for files in SharePoint, OneDrive, and Teams, helping you monitor sensitive content across your organization as your workforce grows and becomes distributed across the globe.
    • Administrators can now configure the Data Loss Prevention (DLP) rule with an action to block guest access to the sensitive content with anyone with the link. Not only at the sensitive content level, we are helping you to protect and avoid leakage of sensitive at all the end points on Windows devices. Learn more about endpoint DLP in here. 
    • We are also announcing the public preview of unified session sign-out in SharePoint and OneDrive ,which will empower admins to sign out a user from all their sessions across all devices (including unmanaged).
    • Finally, we are thrilled to announce general availability of information barriers for SharePoint and OneDrive. You can now segment your organization per your compliance needs and create barriers for communication and collaboration between those segments.

For more information on the security and compliance features do check out this blog.     

 

Learn more and stay engaged

 

If you want to learn more and hear from the experts on the various functionalities mentioned above do check out the following sessions: 

We have also organized a virtual booth where you can ask questions, give feedback and engage with the OneDrive product group.

 

Focus area 

Thursday, Sept. 24th
8:00am – 10:00am PDT 

Thursday, Sept. 24th
4:00pm – 6:00pm PDT 

OneDrive 

Join live 

Join live 

 

As you can see, we continue to evolve OneDrive as a place to access, share, and collaborate on all your files in Microsoft 365, keeping them protected and readily accessible on all your devices, anywhere.

 

You can stay up-to-date on all things via the OneDrive Blog and the OneDrive release notes.

Check out the new and updated OneDrive documentation.

Take advantage of end-user training resources on our Office support center.

 

Thank you again for your support of OneDrive. We look forward to your continued feedback on UserVoice and hope to connect with you at Ignite or another upcoming Microsoft or community-led event.

 

Thanks for your time reading all about OneDrive,

Ankita Kirti – Product Manager – OneDrive | Microsoft

    

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