Accessing your OneDrive Folder
OneDrive is a great tool for sharing and storing files. When files are stored in your OneDrive folder you will be able to access them from any NARS PC you log into, ensuring you do not lose files if your PC crashes. When configured properly, your OneDrive will create backups of every file you store on your Desktop and in your Documents folder, in addition to everything you put in your OneDrive folder.
Files and folders stored in your OneDrive folder can also be easily shared, both with internal employees you are collaborating with or external parties who need files that are too large to email.
Your OneDrive folder can be accessed directly from the File Explorer window, where you will see it on the list on the left side of the window.
It can also be opened by clicking on the blue cloud icon on your system tray at the bottom right corner of your main monitor, near the clock. Simply click the blue cloud icon, and then click the Open Folder icon at the bottom of the window.
What do these icons mean?
Your OneDrive folder is just like any other folder on your PC, except that it stores a copy of any file placed within it on the cloud as well as locally on your machine. You can drag files into this folder from another location on your PC, and you can right-click inside of the folder to create new folders to keep organized. Next to your files in this window, you will notice several icons:
The blue cloud icon means that the file is stored on the cloud, but not locally on this computer. This is great for keeping space free on your computer, but if you lose internet access you will not have access to files with this icon.
The green checkmark icon means that the file is stored locally on this machine and the cloud. These files can be opened even when you don’t have internet access. If you open a file with a blue cloud icon, it will turn into this icon to signify it has been downloaded to this machine.
As you edit files that are stored in OneDrive, the changes will be saved automatically. If a file has been changed locally on your machine and the updated file is being synced with the cloud, you will see the blue arrows icon next to the file until the sync is complete.
You may have also noticed the icon that looks like a person’s silhouette next to the green check mark in the image above. This icon will appear if you have shared the file or folder with another person.
How to Share Files with OneDrive
Any file or folder in your OneDrive folder can be shared with anyone. Sharing folders can be a great tool to get files to people quickly; once they have access to a folder, you can simply drop a new file into that folder and they will instantly have access to the file! To share with someone, find the file or folder you wish to share, right click it, and then click Share.
This will bring up the Share dialogue window with options for sharing your files.
This window has fields for the email addresses of the people you would like the share the file or folder with and a message to send along with the invitation. At the top, there is a button to allow you to specify the editing permissions of the users you are sharing the file with. This is VERY important to pay attention to, as setting the wrong permissions will give people the ability to add or delete files and folders on your OneDrive! To prevent this, click the button that says "People you specify can edit", which will open the following window.
From this window you can change the sharing settings for the file or folder. You can choose who can actually use the link, specifying whether they need to be NARS employees, anyone at all with the link (least secure), or only the specific people you send the link to (most secure.) You can also specify whether people with the link can edit by checking or unchecking the "Allow editing" box, and you can even block people from downloading a local copy of the file to their machine by enabling the "Block download" button. Please note that if you are sharing a FOLDER and you leave "Allow editing" checked, users with the link will be able to add files to the folder and delete items from the folder, as well as edit the documents inside of the folder.
The completed sharing window looks like this. The editing settings have been changed, an email address has been entered (you can enter more than one email address if you want multiple people to access the files with the same editing settings,) and a note has been included. When you click "Send" an email will be sent to the specified users with a link to access the files you've shared with them!