Infrastructure / Microsoft 365 and Azure / OneDrive for Business

OneDrive belongs to one person. Not to a team.

Confusion is what costs the most, and it becomes apparent on the day of departure.

OneDrive for Business provides each employee with a workspace that is synchronized across their devices, complete with version history and the ability to recover deleted files. It replaces USB drives and personal folders on the file server—but it does not replace a department’s shared folder, and confusing the two will come back to haunt you later.

Talking About Your Files Where Does What Go?

The dividing line is decided before migrating What belongs to an individual versus what belongs to a department: this decision determines everything else.

The Office and the Documents follow The usual Windows are redirected without anyone having to change their habits or their access path.

An employee’s departure no longer results in lost files The storage space of an employee who leaves is retained for as long as you decide, and then transferred to their manager.

What Happens When Everyone Organizes Themselves Independently

None of these actions are malicious. They are solutions devised by people who wanted to work but lacked a designated place to do so.

Working documents are stored on a USB flash drive

It goes from one computer to another, gets lost in a jacket pocket, and no one knows what was on it.

The same files become accessible from any of the person's devices, without having to carry anything.

An employee uploads files to a personal cloud service

He wants to access them from home in the evening. The service that hosts these documents is not bound to your company by any contract.

A professional setting removes the very reason for the action, which works much better than a memo.

A laptop breaks down on a Friday

The disk won't boot up, and the last known backup was taken so long ago that no one wants to admit it.

The files are downloaded to the replacement computer as soon as you log in for the first time.

An attachment is circulating in five different versions

Everyone annotates their own copy and sends it back. No one knows which one is the definitive version, and the merge is done manually.

A link replaces the attachment: everyone opens the same document, and the version history preserves previous versions.

The files for an entire department are stored in one person's workspace

It was convenient at first. When that person leaves, their account has to be closed, and the department discovers that their documents depended on them.

That's exactly what the dividing line prevents, and that's why it's determined before anything is moved.

Where does everything go, and why you should decide that before migrating

This isn't a technical issue: both spaces sync in the same way and look the same in File Explorer. The question is who owns the document when the person is no longer there.

My Account

OneDrive — it belongs to the person

Work in progress—as long as it hasn't become someone else's reference document.
Work-related documents: notes, lesson plans, personal tracking charts.
The Desktop, Documents, and Pictures folders on the computer are automatically redirected.
Something that is shared occasionally with two or three people via a link.

The Team Space

SharePoint and Teams — it belongs to the department

A department's files: proposals, contracts, client files, procedures.
Everything that needs to be left behind when you leave, without you having to think about it at the time of your departure.
This is something that several people regularly update, and the latest version is the official one.
Items with a shelf life determined by the company or specified in a contract.

The two spaces are combined in the same file explorer: for the user, the difference isn't noticeable. It becomes apparent the day the account is closed.

What Users Are Finding

Six differences that are noticeable right from the first few weeks—and two that only become apparent when an incident occurs.

The Desktop and Documents Follow the User

The Windows are automatically redirected to the personal folder. No one has to change their habits, and nothing is left on the machine's local drive.

Files take up as much space as they want

They all appear in File Explorer, but aren't written to the disk until they're opened. A computer with a small hard drive can still see everything.

Previous versions are retained

A document that was accidentally overwritten is restored to its state from the previous day without requiring a restore request.

A deleted file recovers on its own

The trash can is accessible to the user, which resolves the vast majority of the requests that had previously been directed to support.

Sharing with external parties becomes traceable

A link may expire, require authentication, or be read-only—and you'll know what was shared and with whom.

A stolen computer no longer provides access to the files

Access depends on the account, not the drive. It can be removed remotely, regardless of the device itself.

Synchronization is not a backup

This is the most common misunderstanding, and we’d rather get it out of the way early: deleted items are also synced. The version history and the Recycle Bin cover the typical mistakes—but mass deletions, ransomware, and intentional erasure require a separate backup.

We therefore address the issue of preservation at the time of the migration, not as a separate project to be planned for later.

How We Do It

Five steps, in this order. The second step is the one that determines the value of the rest: without it, we just shift the problem around instead of solving it.

View the contents of the file server

The sheer volume, the actual age of the documents, the files that no one opens anymore, and the access rights that have accumulated over the years. Much of what’s there doesn’t need to be moved.

Determine the dividing line, department by department

Items belonging to an individual go into that person’s space; items belonging to a department go into the team’s space. This decision is made in consultation with the relevant managers, not by the IT department, because only they know what needs to be preserved when someone leaves.

Reuse access rights instead of copying them

Replicating the rights of a file server means replicating twenty years of exceptions. Now is the time to start over with real groups—and it’s the only time when doing so costs almost nothing.

Migrating in waves, one service at a time

Each service is supported during the transition. Documents remain accessible at their original location until the transition is complete.

Write down what happens when someone arrives and when they leave

Who takes over the workspace of an employee who leaves, how long is it retained, and who makes that decision? Without this procedure, the first departure reopens the entire issue.

What You Need to Know Before Making a Decision

Four questions that come up every migration, and the last one is the one we prefer to address early on.

What happens to the space left behind by someone who leaves?

It is retained for a period of time that you specify, and the person in charge can access it to retrieve whatever needs to be retrieved. This is a setting: left at its default value, it almost never meets the company's expectations.

Should we keep the file server?

Often temporarily, and sometimes permanently: a business application that writes to a network folder, a production schedule, or a PLC. These cases should be handled separately, rather than delaying the entire migration.

What about very large files or a large number of files?

Design files, photo archives, and databases are not treated like office documents. They are identified during the initial inventory and processed using the appropriate solution.

What We Don't Do

We don't simply move a file server as-is, folder by folder, without reconfiguring the share path or access permissions. It would be faster to bill you that way, but you'd be calling us back two years later with the same problem.

Tell us about your files, and we'll tell you where everything goes.

The first meeting is meant to review the contents of your file server and establish the boundaries with you. There, you'll meet the people who will lead the migration.

Talking About Your Files See SharePoint

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