Explore the OneDrive Interface

Quick reference

• 00:04 OneDrive is Microsoft's offering when it comes to cloud storage.
• 00:08 So if you've ever used an application like maybe Google Drive,
• 00:11 then OneDrive works in pretty much the same way.
• 00:14 Now, if cloud storage is a completely new concept to you,
• 00:17 the way to think of it is like this.
• 00:19 Historically, we have our files stored in the C drive on our PC, and
• 00:24 those are very much local to our own PC.
• 00:27 So if I wanted to share let's say a word document for
• 00:29 example with my colleague down the corridor, the way that we used to do that
• 00:33 was to simply attach it to an email and send it off.
• 00:36 But that does come with its disadvantages.
• 00:39 With cloud storage, we can save up into the cloud,
• 00:42 which is effectively very similar to an external drive, and
• 00:46 other people have access to that storage, making it really easy to share files.
• 00:51 We can also do things like co-author documents, spreadsheets,
• 00:54 presentations using OneDrive as well.
• 00:57 So multiple people can jump into the same file, and
• 01:00 we can see the changes that they are making in real time.
• 01:03 And the basis for all of that is knowing how to save our files into OneDrive, and
• 01:08 that's what we are going to explore in this lesson.
• 01:10 Now, in times of accessing OneDrive, when you install Microsoft 365,
• 01:15 parts of the setup process is to set up OneDrive, so
• 01:18 it will walk you through the steps you need to take.
• 01:21 If you find yourself in a situation where you have downloaded Microsoft 365 but you
• 01:26 don't have OneDrive, you can simply click on the Start menu and search for OneDrive.
• 01:31 And you should see this thing here at the top of the list, OneDrive App.
• 01:35 If you double-click to open that up,
• 01:37 that will then walk you through the setup process.
• 01:40 And with OneDrive, you can have personal accounts, and
• 01:42 you can also have business accounts as well.
• 01:45 For example, I have both because I have a personal email address, but
• 01:49 I also have a business email address, and
• 01:52 I like to keep my personal documents separate from my business documents.
• 01:56 And another important thing worth noting about OneDrive is that we can work with
• 02:01 it online through the portal, or we can synchronize it with our local PC and
• 02:06 work with our cloud files within File Explorer.
• 02:09 I'm going to talk more about that a little bit later on.
• 02:12 For the time being, let's start out by taking a look at OneDrive online.
• 02:16 Again, we're starting from the Microsoft 365 hub,
• 02:19 we're going to click on our app launcher and open up OneDrive.
• 02:22 So this is what the interface looks like.
• 02:25 On the left hand side, we have our navigation menu.
• 02:27 I'm currently clicked on Home, and within Home we can see the recent files that
• 02:31 we've saved or accessed through OneDrive.
• 02:34 I have some filter buttons at the top, so if I'm just interested in taking a look at
• 02:38 Excel files, I can use that filter, or I can look at all of my files.
• 02:42 Notice just above, we can create new documents directly from within OneDrive,
• 02:47 which is really useful, or we can upload any files or
• 02:51 folders that maybe we have on our C drive.
• 02:54 So if I have a file that's stored off to my desktop that only I can see and
• 02:57 I want to share that with other people, I could upload the file from my desktop,
• 03:02 nice and straightforward.
• 03:03 I then have a, My files link, so if I click on that,
• 03:06 it's going to show me all of My files that are private to me.
• 03:10 And if you take a look at this list, we have a mixture of folders and
• 03:13 also documents.
• 03:14 In this case, I've got two spreadsheets in here.
• 03:17 Now, the information that we can see in these file lists is I can see here
• 03:21 the date that this file was modified,
• 03:24 who it was modified by, the file size, and the sharing status.
• 03:28 So you'll see that most of these are private to me, but the last file here,
• 03:32 the Product_List, I've actually shared this with two other people, Adele and
• 03:37 Grady.
• 03:38 We have a shared link just here,
• 03:40 so this is going to show you any files that have been shared with you.
• 03:44 So I can see here that Adele has shared meeting notes with me, and
• 03:48 I can see that through this shared area.
• 03:50 I then have an area here for any files that I've marked as a favorite.
• 03:54 So if we go back to My Files, notice as I hover over this Excel file,
• 03:58 I get a little star here.
• 04:00 If I click on this, it's going to add it into my favorites.
• 04:04 And then finally, we have our Recycle Bin, and
• 04:06 this is where you can find files that you've deleted.
• 04:08 So very simple navigation.
• 04:11 Now, let's go back to My files again and
• 04:14 take a closer look at what we have in here.
• 04:16 If we want to move through our folder structure, we can click on, for
• 04:20 example, Notebooks, and it's going to take you into that folder.
• 04:23 And you can see we have a breadcrumb trail at the top which helps us easily get back
• 04:27 to where we were.
• 04:28 I can click on My files to go back a step.
• 04:31 Also notice that with the documents, so let's go for Product_List,
• 04:36 if I click on the actual name, it's going to open up that file in Excel Online.
• 04:41 So remember, we have online versions of all of our applications as well.
• 04:46 And I can now work on that file, and my changes will be automatically saved.
• 04:50 And that is another really important feature of OneDrive.
• 04:53 You no longer need to remember to save your files,
• 04:56 because it's automatically saving back to the cloud all the time.
• 04:59 Some other things that we have in here, if we hover over any of our files,
• 05:03 we get a few other options.
• 05:05 We know what the star is, that's the favorite, but
• 05:08 we also have a Share option just here.
• 05:10 And if we click the three dots,
• 05:12 we have a whole menu with loads of other options as well.
• 05:15 For example, I can open this Excel file within the browser like we just did.
• 05:20 Or if I have the desktop version of Excel installed on my PC,
• 05:23 I can choose to open it in that instead.
• 05:26 And working with this file in either of these is pretty much identical,
• 05:30 everything saves back to the cloud.
• 05:32 I can preview the file, I've got another way to share it, I can copy the link, I
• 05:37 can manage access, delete it, move it, all different kinds of things from this menu.
• 05:42 You can also see in the top right-hand corner, we have some options for
• 05:45 sorting, so I can sort by type, name, modified.
• 05:48 I'm currently just sorting my files in ascending order.
• 05:51 We can choose to display in a list, in a compact list,
• 05:54 which gives it slightly less room, or we can display as tiles.
• 05:58 So this is very much personal preference.
• 06:00 Now, another really important button that we have in here, and again we're
• 06:03 going to talk about this in another lesson, is the Sync button just here.
• 06:07 Because I mentioned that even though we are working in OneDrive online,
• 06:11 we can also synchronize our files to our PC to make them a bit easier to access
• 06:16 through File Explorer.
• 06:17 So we're definitely going to come back to this button a bit later on.
• 06:21 Let's just finish up this lesson by discussing this quick
• 06:24 access area on the left-hand side.
• 06:26 Notice what we have underneath here.
• 06:28 We have some of our groups and teams that we've set up.
• 06:32 For example, if I click on Project Alpha, you can see there I have two folders.
• 06:37 If I click on General, I've got three documents stored in there.
• 06:42 And these are actually files that have been shared within Teams.
• 06:45 So Project Alpha is feeding through from Microsoft Teams so I can see those files.
• 06:51 And if we want to check that, we can open up Teams.
• 06:55 And if we scroll down to the bottom, Project Alpha team at
• 06:58 the bottom>General channel, if we jump across to the File section by using
• 07:03 the navigation menu at the top, you can see there are the same files.
• 07:08 So things we share within teams will actively feed through to OneDrive as well.
• 07:14 And you can see that this is linked through to teams because if we now take
• 07:18 a look at the buttons that we have running horizontally across the top,
• 07:21 you can see one of them there is Go to channel, so it's going to allow you to
• 07:25 jump directly to the channel where these documents were shared.
• 07:28 So that's a quick run through of the OneDrive
• 07:32 interface when you're working online.

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