So you are thinking about introducing a virtual document management system in your company? Great! This is the first step! Several tools on the market will certainly facilitate this process. If you are hesitating between very popular solutions – SharePoint and OneDrive – we will help you make a decision.
SharePoint is a platform enabling companies from various industries to transfer part of their work to the intranet. It is primarily used to support the circulation of documents in the company. You can place a huge number of files in it, sort them (for example, by subject, projects, users of specific documents), edit, share … A clear layout and easy file search make it easier to manage documents in the company, and the system for creating workflow and assigning tasks for specific documents – efficient teamwork.
However, SharePoint is not only a tool for working with documents. It is so esthetic that it allows you to create personalized solutions. Add-ons or applications can change it into an employee feedback collection program (Kaizen), a tool for efficiently accepting vacation requests in the company, a training platform, or an advent calendar for employees.
OneDrive is simply a cloud that it makes available to its Microsoft users. In shape, as we know it now, it evolved from SkyDrive – one of the first cloud solutions that appeared even before Dropbox or Google Drive appeared.
How to use OneDrive? Set up a Microsoft account (if you purchased Microsoft 365, use Skype or Xbox Live, you already have it) and just upload files there. In the free version, we have 5 GB available. Depending on the needs, we can extend them up to 100 GB. Companies that use Microsoft 365 daily can use 1TB. You can find the exact quote on the Microsoft website.
OneDrive allows you to transfer files to your virtual disk from a computer or directly from mobile devices, as well as basic options for sharing files or folders on the disk with other users. Users can also manage basic security settings.
Although the primary function of SharePoint and OneDrive is to store files, the purpose and way of using them are fundamentally different. Both tools are useful, however, in completely different fields.
OneDrive is a good solution if we just want to store files, do their backups, and manage them. It does not give us any major opportunities, and organizing and sorting the contents of the disk is limited to moving them to folders or setting their privacy. It’s a convenient and functional addition to the company’s Office suite or a place for our family or private photos.
SharePoint is a solution strictly for companies. Its functions go beyond data storage – it allows you to work together on specific files and its organization, such as creating task lists and workflows. It also allows a much more advanced file organization and the creation of a system to access each of them.