Accessing OneDrive and SharePoint

OneDrive

All OneDrive storage is for a single user. Every SVI staff and student account has access to 1 TB (1000 gigabytes) of OneDrive storage space with their SVI account.

You will need to use your SVI UPN (User Principal Name) to access OneDrive, which is in the format <username>@svi.edu.au.

OneDrive can be accessed through either:

  • The OneDrive client application available for macOS, Windows, Android and iOS

  • A web browser by navigating to www.office.com

  • The Microsoft Teams application

The application is the primary way to use OneDrive. It will show you another “folder” inside Explorer or Finder that you use much like you would use folders on a hard drive or network drive. You can then access this through OneDrive anywhere, without having to be connected to the SVI network, and you are protected from hardware failure as this is not only stored directly on your device.

 


OneDrive application

  • Windows

This is installed by default on all Windows PCs. You can find this either by pressing the Windows or Search button on the left side of the taskbar and typing onedrive until it appears in the list.

Once you have signed in with your SVI UPN, you will find the OneDrive logo on the bottom right of your taskbar, as well as seeing the folder in Windows Explorer:

 

  • Mac

OneDrive is pre-installed on all SVI macOS devices.
For personal macOS devices, this can be found in the App Store.

Once installed, you will find it in the Finder → Applications folder.

Once you have signed in, you will see the OneDrive cloud logo in your top menu bar, as well as the OneDrive - St Vincent’s Institute folder in Finder (as per above picture)

 


OneDrive web browser

In any web browser, navigate to www.office.com. Click the Sign In button and put in your SVI UPN and password.

You will now see all of the Office 365 apps you have access to, including OneDrive:

 


Microsoft Teams application

If you have the Microsoft Teams application installed and signed in, you can access your OneDrive by clicking the Files icon in the left tab:

 


 

SharePoint

SharePoint is a collaborative workspace for groups and projects. One of its features is that operates similarly to OneDrive for cloud storage of files, however this storage is shared between the group.

With the introduction of Microsoft Teams, SharePoint has become much more relevant. Every Microsoft Team automatically has a SharePoint site associated with it.

The easiest way to see this is to open Microsoft Teams. Each channel within the team will have this Files tab at the top like this:

This is a folder inside the Team’s SharePoint folder. Every channel you create will have a separate folder and storage location like below:

To see the whole file structure at once, click the Open in SharePoint button:

This will open the SharePoint website for that Team. You will see below that there is a “General” folder inside the SharePoint Documents folder. This is because the channel in Teams is called “General” - if you created a channel called “Project A”, this would create a folder called “Project A” also.

 

Syncing a SharePoint location to OneDrive

If you have the OneDrive application installed, you can also sync SharePoint folders to your computer. This is a little more complicated to initially set up, but will then function exactly as the OneDrive application does.

You can choose to either sync the entire directory of the SharePoint site, or one or more folder(s) you want regular access to.

 

Entire directory sync

This will sync all folders and files added to the SharePoint (the files tabs for each Channel inside the Team).

To do this, you will need to open the Documents directory within in the web version of SharePoint. The easiest way to do this is through the Microsoft Team application.

  1. Open Teams

  2. Find the Team you want to sync files for

  3. Click the Files tab in one of the channels

  4. Click the Open in SharePoint button

    1. This may be hidden under the … button

       

  5. This will open the web version of SharePoint

    1. You may need to sign in with your SVI UPN (<username>@svi.edu.au)

  6. Click the Documents button on the left to go back up to the Entire Directory:

     

  7. Click the Sync button. This will attempt to open this folder in OneDrive. You may need to approve this like below:

     

  8. Once successful, you will now see the below in Windows Explorer/Finder

     

The blue cloud icon is for your OneDrive, and the building icon is for your SharePoint folders. You will now see each folder you have synced through SharePoint web. The format is the Team name followed by the Folder name (as per the above example, IT-Unit is the Team and Documents was the folder chosen to sync)

 

Single folder sync

Instead of syncing the entire directory, you can choose to sync only a single folder/channel. This can be relevant if your Team uses SharePoint storage heavily and you do not have enough storage space on your laptop/computer to store everything.

Simply follow the above steps, however in Step 6 and 7, navigate to the folder you want to sync, and then click the Sync button with that folder open.