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OneDrive questions

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OneDrive for Business

All Staff, Associates and Students are now able to access a new, secure online file sharing tool called OneDrive for Business via Office 365 on a Windows or Mac computer. Please note that this is separate from your personal OneDrive if you use that.

OneDrive for Business should be used for storing your work-related files, so please do not load your music collection or personal photo albums to it.

OneDrive for Business provides you with 1 Terabyte of online storage and is simple and easy to use, like other online files sharing tools, for example, Dropbox and WeShare.

The University of Exeter has signed up to Microsoft's via JANET's terms and conditions to ensure that our data is stored in the EU and UK. Other cloud storage providers such as Dropbox do not guarantee that, and are not supported by the University's central IT department.

You can access OneDrive for Business securely using your university login details on any computer or internet-enabled device via either iExeter or via the app launcher menu in Office 365.

You can also download the OneDrive app to your tablet or smartphone via the relevant App store.

Once you’ve uploaded your work files to your OneDrive for Business account, you’ll be able to access them at home, in the field, or anywhere when you are on the move.

OneDrive for Business is part of the Office 365 family and can be accessed via the app menu at the top of the O365 screen.

You must use your full university email address as your username to log in to any O365-based application.

For example, instead of entering your username as js201 you need to enter j.smith@exeter.ac.uk

Your password is is case-sensitive.

Please note: you do still need to use your username (e.g. js201) to log in to your computer and other applications such as Trent, SRS, etc.

You just need to right-click on a file or folder name in your OneDrive for Business account, and click Share

Then enter the names of people you want to collaborate with internally to the University, and/or enter the full email addresses of external colleagues.

You can find support materials in the University's Office 365 Training section.

The University of Exeter has signed up with Microsoft to use Office365 via JANET’s terms and conditions, specifically to take advantage of the Europe-wide security and data protection aspects negotiated by JANET with Microsoft.

Microsoft have agreed to JANET’s more stringent conditions which help meet the UK Data Protection requirement that customer data is safely stored and used within Microsoft’s European datacentres.

Office365 is compliant with ISO27001, the international information security standard, which means that it is safe to store sensitive data in any of the applicable Office365 components.

You get 1 Tb of data storage in your university OneDrive for Business

Each file can be up to 10 Gb

File and folder names cannot be more than 256 characters

You cannot use these characters in filenames #, %, <, >, :, ", |, ?, *, /, \

You cannot store certain file types such as .TMP .CON .PRN .COM .LPT

For further details see Microsoft's Knowledge Base article

You can download the OneDrive for Business sync client by clicking on "Sync" on your OneDrive for Business homepage.

You will then need to enter your full University email address to install the client.

When you install the client, you will be asked which folders you want to sync to your hard drive. Be careful not to store and sync more content than your hard drive has space for as this can stop your PC or laptop working.

For more information please see OneDrive for Business known issues

OneDrive on mobile devices

You can access your University OneDrive for Business on a variety of mobile smart phones and tablets.

Click on the relevant App store link below:

For more details on how to use the OneDrive app on your iPhone or iPad please see the guide How to Use OneDrive on iPad and iPhone