Office 365

[Michael Morris]

Anyone work for an organisation that uses Office 365.

Would appreciate some feedback from someone who regularly uses file sharing, OneDrive, sharepoint, collaboration etc

I believe Cardiff Uni uses the system

[TH63]

I use it. Took a while to get used to tbh but I like the email/calendar/contacts etc

Still getting to grips with one drive myself, but it comes in very handy when trying to share large files that otherwise couldn’t be emailed. Also handy for working remotely on a laptop. Thanks to 365, I can basically access everything I need on any computer anywhere.
I have a common drive, plus my drive on my hard drive, plus one drive. It’s pretty easy to set up folders on there, but i can see it getting messy having files in three separate locations.

[adz-a32]

I use it for university. For presentations, we can collaborate on Powerpoints and see the changes as they are saved, you need the other people's (university in our case) email addresses. We can also store our files on the cloud as mentioned and it is handy when your laptop runs out of battery during a library study session/essay writing session and you can access it on the library computer when you log in.

[Michael Morris]

i serve a group that uses it and they are having some general issues, like organising shared files.

i was hoping to find someone who uses the whole system who might have some tips for me

[Michael Morris]

Thanks TH63 and adz btw

[Baloo]

All of the above. Good for real-time collaboration if that's your thing.

We've also deployed Sharepoint but haven't found it very user-friendly. Can never find anything that I don't access regularly using the search tools.

[Heathblue]

Anyone work for an organisation that uses Office 365.

Would appreciate some feedback from someone who regularly uses file sharing, OneDrive, sharepoint, collaboration etc

I believe Cardiff Uni uses the system

I use it at home, have a 3 user licence, Main PC, Laptop and Mac, works seamlessly, got it so i could keep upto date with office roll outs and so i could use the mac with office, and hookey software is often distributed with a virus within the crack file, I only use one piece of hookey software nowadays which is AutoCAD, I'm almost legal

[OurManFlint II]

I use it in my organisation, i only joined about 6 weeks ago but well into it. Always enjoyed outlook as an email client but the whole package is great. We are still finding our way but potentially its very good.

So i have my own Onedrive and another Teamdrive, equally onenote (god i live this) and a team onenote. Its great, import meetings from outlook or skype and then continue to add further notes, indent pages under the original etc.

Sharepoint is where we store final documents from out of our one drive so others can access, but i think onedrive has really replaced sharepoint (I used this a lot previously).

Skype for business for all meetings and quick chats.

Teams is our teams conversation and idea chat area. We have 1 private for our team and 2 more that have wider people involved. Sadly the wider group haven't adopted it so much so they have these conversations through email rather than Team, which is shit as email is shit once it goes back and forth and nobody knows how to write proper subject headers and what CC means (i'd ban it).

Planner is also good, its not quite like a project plan as you can't add dependencies but works well, again private to a small team or invite larger groups.

Yammer i was tasked with creating and setting up (i suppose its a facebook type thing) so far i haven't done anything as i think i need to have loads of content in the fridge otherwise one post and nothing further isn't going to start the conversations. The idea for Yammer is to share external information that might be of relevance or vaguely interesting to our core business. News, blogs, videos reddit chats etc etc...

[TH63]

I use it in my organisation, i only joined about 6 weeks ago but well into it. Always enjoyed outlook as an email client but the whole package is great. We are still finding our way but potentially its very good.

So i have my own Onedrive and another Teamdrive, equally onenote (god i live this) and a team onenote. Its great, import meetings from outlook or skype and then continue to add further notes, indent pages under the original etc.

Sharepoint is where we store final documents from out of our one drive so others can access, but i think onedrive has really replaced sharepoint (I used this a lot previously).

Skype for business for all meetings and quick chats.

Teams is our teams conversation and idea chat area. We have 1 private for our team and 2 more that have wider people involved. Sadly the wider group haven't adopted it so much so they have these conversations through email rather than Team, which is shit as email is shit once it goes back and forth and nobody knows how to write proper subject headers and what CC means (i'd ban it).

Planner is also good, its not quite like a project plan as you can't add dependencies but works well, again private to a small team or invite larger groups.

Yammer i was tasked with creating and setting up (i suppose its a facebook type thing) so far i haven't done anything as i think i need to have loads of content in the fridge otherwise one post and nothing further isn't going to start the conversations. The idea for Yammer is to share external information that might be of relevance or vaguely interesting to our core business. News, blogs, videos reddit chats etc etc...

Facebook for grown ups I call it. We have a number of departments with their own page and also common interests groups eg Cardiff City group/Chess aficionados etc etc The idea is that you post in a specific group rather than on your own page like FB or Twitter, of course, without buy-in from the end users it could be a bit of a damp squid.

[Michael Morris]

I use it in my organisation, i only joined about 6 weeks ago but well into it. Always enjoyed outlook as an email client but the whole package is great. We are still finding our way but potentially its very good.

So i have my own Onedrive and another Teamdrive, equally onenote (god i live this) and a team onenote. Its great, import meetings from outlook or skype and then continue to add further notes, indent pages under the original etc.

Sharepoint is where we store final documents from out of our one drive so others can access, but i think onedrive has really replaced sharepoint (I used this a lot previously).

Skype for business for all meetings and quick chats.

Teams is our teams conversation and idea chat area. We have 1 private for our team and 2 more that have wider people involved. Sadly the wider group haven't adopted it so much so they have these conversations through email rather than Team, which is shit as email is shit once it goes back and forth and nobody knows how to write proper subject headers and what CC means (i'd ban it).

Planner is also good, its not quite like a project plan as you can't add dependencies but works well, again private to a small team or invite larger groups.

Yammer i was tasked with creating and setting up (i suppose its a facebook type thing) so far i haven't done anything as i think i need to have loads of content in the fridge otherwise one post and nothing further isn't going to start the conversations. The idea for Yammer is to share external information that might be of relevance or vaguely interesting to our core business. News, blogs, videos reddit chats etc etc...

thanks. this is the sort of feedback i'm looking for.

the organisation i work with all have individual onedrives, use outlook, skype for business and the desktop programmes.

i did set up sharepoint and initially but have not used it recently. Users get confused between desktop and online editing.

When a file is shared there's no proper organisation of it. Just a 'shared with me' option with potentially hundreds of individual files in it. Is that just how it works? and if you need to find a previously shared file you just have to search for it?

Do you work on all shared files in the browser?

How were you trained to use it?

[TH63]

thanks. this is the sort of feedback i'm looking for.

the organisation i work with all have individual onedrives, use outlook, skype for business and the desktop programmes.

i did set up sharepoint and initially but have not used it recently. Users get confused between desktop and online editing.

When a file is shared there's no proper organisation of it. Just a 'shared with me' option with potentially hundreds of individual files in it. Is that just how it works? and if you need to find a previously shared file you just have to search for it?

Do you work on all shared files in the browser?

How were you trained to use it?

Not sure if I'm the most technically competent person to be giving advice on this, but in terms of sharing files, you can either share an individual file or create a folder with a number of different files in it.

It sits in your area until you choose to share it (you can also create a link which you can email) Apart from that you can create folders and sub-folders similar to what you have in "my documents" the difference being they're stored in the cloud. It's quite easy to drag files into the appropriate folder. Some of the documents I've been working on lately are mahoosive so it's been invaluable. The only drawback I've come across is that if you want to share files/folders externally, the recipient has to have a web based email address like gmail or hotmail

[Michael Morris]

Not sure if I'm the most technically competent person to be giving advice on this, but in terms of sharing files, you can either share an individual file or create a folder with a number of different files in it.

It sits in your area until you choose to share it (you can also create a link which you can email) Apart from that you can create folders and sub-folders similar to what you have in "my documents" the difference being they're stored in the cloud. It's quite easy to drag files into the appropriate folder. Some of the documents I've been working on lately are mahoosive so it's been invaluable. The only drawback I've come across is that if you want to share files/folders externally, the recipient has to have a web based email address like gmail or hotmail

Ta.

We got Onedrive sorted. All the people are instructed to only save their files in Onedrive. They have individual folders etc. No problem.

But if user no. 1 then shares a single file with users 2, 3, and 4 an email link is sent and the file is made available in the 'shared with me' folder in the cloud accounts of 2,3&4.

If multiple people then share docs with 2,3&4 they all reside in the 'shared with me' option in the cloud. So if I was user 4 and I had 100 files shared with me I can't organise them into folders, only see them in the 'shared with me location.

Some people are then opening the file on their desktop and it saves to their own onedrive and the sharing option is lost.

I wonder if there's a dummies instruction guide on the best way to use it. Then I can run some training groups to get them on track.

We've been using it for a couple of years but it seems to be getting more complicated than easier.

[OurManFlint II]

Ta.

We got Onedrive sorted. All the people are instructed to only save their files in Onedrive. They have individual folders etc. No problem.

But if user no. 1 then shares a single file with users 2, 3, and 4 an email link is sent and the file is made available in the 'shared with me' folder in the cloud accounts of 2,3&4.

If multiple people then share docs with 2,3&4 they all reside in the 'shared with me' option in the cloud. So if I was user 4 and I had 100 files shared with me I can't organise them into folders, only see them in the 'shared with me location.

Some people are then opening the file on their desktop and it saves to their own onedrive and the sharing option is lost.

I wonder if there's a dummies instruction guide on the best way to use it. Then I can run some training groups to get them on track.

We've been using it for a couple of years but it seems to be getting more complicated than easier.

Is it a confusion between document repository and document management system?

I think this is behaviour rather than the tool. If you need to share docs you should do that via Sharepoint (send an online link), if somebody takes that off line and f*** with it then great but everybody else will still see the original in sharepoint. If they need to share it with further people they either need access to the sharepoint of they get the off-line version their mate has downloaded and sent (Risky for version control).

If its in onedrive and its a document multiple people are editing than they need to make sure changes are done 'online' otherwise if they take it and then try to save back it gets all funky, if just one person edits not so bad.

My shared sharepoint site is mapped to my drive in explorer view and regularly syncs with the online one. We very rarely create and edit directly in the wed version of sharepoint. But i can drag completed one drives files easily into it.

I don't see that 'Shared with me folder' in my onedrive

and i don't see other teams sharepoints site in my folder view, i'd have to go online for that.

no expert sorry if confusing the issue

[Vimto]

Ta.

We got Onedrive sorted. All the people are instructed to only save their files in Onedrive. They have individual folders etc. No problem.

But if user no. 1 then shares a single file with users 2, 3, and 4 an email link is sent and the file is made available in the 'shared with me' folder in the cloud accounts of 2,3&4.

If multiple people then share docs with 2,3&4 they all reside in the 'shared with me' option in the cloud. So if I was user 4 and I had 100 files shared with me I can't organise them into folders, only see them in the 'shared with me location.

Some people are then opening the file on their desktop and it saves to their own onedrive and the sharing option is lost.

I wonder if there's a dummies instruction guide on the best way to use it. Then I can run some training groups to get them on track.

We've been using it for a couple of years but it seems to be getting more complicated than easier.

That was my experience of it.

It might have features that would make 'power-users' jump for joy, but in my experience of trying to support it, and watch people (try to) use it, 365 is a tad counter intuitive -and a bit of a mindf*ck for 'regular, bread&butter' end users. (and a headache for support people too).
I've seen plenty Admin staff who have been MS Office proficient for years absolutely driven to distraction by 365.
Maybe it's become a little more about the licensing option than the end-user usability I fear!

Sorry, none of that is of real assistance I know, just saying, it's a f*cker of a thing to deploy successfully.

[Philo2]

MS Teams is great for sharing files with different groups of users (its not as good yet as Slack which it ripped off though).

I work across several different project groups and have set up a "team" for each, each "team" then gets broken down into channels to focus the communications, each channel gets its own files tab so I can easily find content and can control exactly who gets access to them. Its all based on SharePoint behind the scenes.