This is a common question which frequently arises on the call to prospects and during SharePoint “Art of the possible” workshops. What is the difference between Microsoft OneDrive and SharePoint? In short, think of OneDrive as your desk and SharePoint as a filing cabinet. You wouldn’t leave personal files on your desk for everyone to see and likewise you wouldn’t store collaborative documents filed away where no one can access them.
OneDrive
Simply, this a tool used to store, backup and share files in the cloud. It provides an alternative, more secure place to store documents, rather than your desktop or an external storage device. Although OneDrive does allow you to share files in a similar way to SharePoint, it is typically used to store personal files that only you want to access.
Storing personal files in OneDrive means, that with access to the internet you can access all your files and hence removes the risk of losing data due to hardware failure or the possibility of misplacing an external storage device. If you wish to store files in both OneDrive and SharePoint, Microsoft allows you to sync them seamlessly.
SharePoint
SharePoint is primarily targeted at businesses and is effectively a document management system (DMS) and collaboration tool. Functionally it behaves like a website and allows for businesses to organise their files by setting up custom ‘pages’. SharePoint can become the hub of your business and is the central point for all employees to access information such as company policies, training documents, standard operating procedures, payroll information and much more. As we all move towards green initiatives, SharePoint has the potential to enable your business to become virtually paperless and help reduce your carbon footprint.
SharePoint also encourages teams to collaborate on projects, empowering them to upload to SharePoint rather than siloing information. Employees can then share, review and modify documents in real time.
