Using Onedrive for workstation backup and employee turnover.

[thecomputerguy]

I know that Onedrive isn't a "backup" but using it on laptops or workstations where folder redirection isn't or can't be applied to them is the best option outside of a cheap workstation backup utility.

How do you handle this when an employee is turned over since their Onedrive is linked to their email for the company? Obviously when an employee is turned over I will archive the old mailbox and sign out of all services then sign in with the new account.

For most clients the new employee just takes over the old employee, and I don't typically make a new profile for the new employee they just slide right in where the old employee was as they will typically need access to everything the old employee had.

Do you typically make new profiles every time a new employee is onboarded onto an old employees computer? Or just copy the contents of the old employees Onedrive into a local folder, sign out, then sign back in with the new employees O365 account and copy & paste it all back.

@YeOldeStonecat

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

I make an "Archive" document library in Sharepoint...and give permissions to the account being retired...so they can see it. A directory inside of that for each retired user. Permissions to management to view.

There is a method to "move" OD to another folder, such as a doc library in SP, but there are limitations in how much can be copied (it's pretty small...so while it would be nice, it's useless). So....gotta do the long copy process from within the OneDrive. I'd love to find a better way....it's time consuming.

Once done, remove license from outgoing user. Email...of course convert mailbox to shared.

 

[thecomputerguy]

I make an "Archive" document library in Sharepoint...and give permissions to the account being retired...so they can see it. A directory inside of that for each retired user. Permissions to management to view.

There is a method to "move" OD to another folder, such as a doc library in SP, but there are limitations in how much can be copied (it's pretty small...so while it would be nice, it's useless). So....gotta do the long copy process from within the OneDrive. I'd love to find a better way....it's time consuming.

Once done, remove license from outgoing user. Email...of course convert mailbox to shared.

So basically either migrate the data on the backend using sharepoint or on the front end by doing a local copy and then re-upload the data?

Both sound like underwhelming options.

 

[Sky-Knight]

The latter is pretty easy when you have an admin mailbox on the tenant with a license.

But yeah, the two paths aren't terribly fun.

 

[thecomputerguy]

The latter is pretty easy when you have an admin mailbox on the tenant with a license.

But yeah, the two paths aren't terribly fun.

I feel like on a small-time basis a local backup and re-upload is the best way to go because even if you do the backend migration you'll be dealing with "WHERE MAH ICONS GO?" for the new user.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

I forget the limits of the backend copy...you'll see the text there with the warning. Something brutally useless like "only the first 100 megs will copy"...and you have no idea where it cuts off or stops.

What I did discover....when you have someone with HUGE amounts of files, takes up a lot of local HD space doing the copy even if you have "download on demand" checked....I have a feeling buckets of it are duplicated for a short time.

Yeah I'm disappointed with it. The "backend" method, done in the browser via your admin login...link is avail right in the users OneDrive tab on their user account properties. You'd think that would be the easy/logical way to archive...but..that dang useless file limit...ugh!

I'm about to look for a way to do it via some 3rd party backup, but will likely end up with just as much time invested...or more....so for now, for most users without a TON of data...the "Copy users OD folders while logged into their computer as them, to the Archive folder in SP, which I sync their account to"...works for me.

 

[Sky-Knight]

Hmm... that's not a bad idea, next time I have to do this I'm just going to ask Backupify to restore the files into a different folder. That has to be possible.