SharePoint Online vs OneDrive

Do you know about knowledge management? This term refers to the process of organizing, storing, and connecting knowledge within a company. This process is essential to ensure the sharing and dissemination of information, thereby improving efficiency within organizations. It allows for optimizing employee productivity, improving decision-making, enhancing collaboration between teams, and reducing the risk of errors.

It is estimated that on average, the time to search for information is 1.8 hours per day, which represents a productivity loss for the company. In purely financial terms, the cost required to retrieve a simple document is 90 euros!

Hence the importance, as you will understand, of surrounding oneself with the right tools. In terms of knowledge management, the Microsoft environment is at the forefront, with tools such as SharePoint and OneDrive in particular.

But how do you make a choice, knowing that each has its particularities and advantages? In this article, we offer a detailed comparison between SharePoint Online and OneDrive. Follow the guide.

SharePoint Online

Description

SharePoint is a collaborative platform integrated with the Office 365 suite. More specifically, it is a solution for creating team or communication sites, whether they take the form of an Intranet, an Extranet, or project spaces. SharePoint also offers many advanced features, particularly in terms of document management.

Companies particularly appreciate SharePoint for the possibility it offers to set up a fully customized intranet. The company's information is thus communicated and shared in a fluid and efficient manner, with a view to strengthening collaborative work. Moreover, users can add documents from any computer.

Functionality

SharePoint offers a unique infrastructure to create 100% customized Intranets that reflect the company's values. Here are some of its main features:

• Document Management: SharePoint makes document management easier by gathering them all in one single place. Users have access to all necessary information within a few clicks. Bonus: you get to define the document centralization structure.
• Search: users can search for content (information, business data, collaborators, etc.) within an integrated platform.
• Creation of Intranets and integration of dashboards.
• Business application creation.
• Project spaces: SharePoint allows you to create collaborative spaces by user group and duplicate them in a few clicks.
• Workflow: All work processes are automated for maximum efficiency.

The Advantages of SharePoint

With SharePoint, teams can easily collaborate, share, disseminate, and manage important documents and information.

Streamlining communication and collaboration

One of the main advantages of SharePoint is its ability to streamline communication within a company. Teams can share documents and information, collaborate on projects, and stay informed of important deadlines, all quickly and intuitively. For example, a team working on a project can create a shared document library in SharePoint, where all members can edit the same documents in real-time. There is no longer a need to create multiple versions of the same document.

Integration with other tools

SharePoint also has the major advantage of integrating with other tools and software used by the company. For example, SharePoint can be integrated with Microsoft Office, HR systems, or CRM and project management software.

Ensured security

SharePoint provides complete security and compliance, making it an ideal tool for companies operating in regulated sectors. For example, SharePoint can be configured to limit access to sensitive data, with specific permissions.

Customization of SharePoint sites

Finally, SharePoint offers numerous customization options, allowing user companies to adapt the tool to all their needs.

🚀 Find out how to create a Sexy SharePoint Intranet

OneDrive

Description

OneDrive is an online document storage tool. It allows access to all your files and work documents, no matter where you are. This makes it the ideal tool for hybrid workers, who work part-time remotely and part-time in their company's premises. As such, access to OneDrive works from all devices: smartphone, computer, tablet, etc.

The storage of various types of documents is fully secure on OneDrive. Each user has an account, with which they have the ability to:

• Store documents;
• Share documents or folders with access permission to another collaborator;
• Create a shared work library, accessible from SharePoint and Teams.

OneDrive thus facilitates collaborative work and document management, but it is not an intranet. Its features are, therefore, more limited than those of SharePoint.

Functioning

To use OneDrive, all you need is a Microsoft account. Once your account is created, you can synchronize the OneDrive folder on your computer to access the files stored in the cloud. It is also possible to use the OneDrive app on smartphones and tablets.

More specifically, here are some of OneDrive's features:

• Synchronization: Users can work on documents from their computer, while changes are synchronized in real time to the cloud.
• Document sharing: This feature allows you to see the documents you have shared with others, whether they are internal or external to the company. Moreover, in shared documents, it is possible to access documents that have been shared by a third party.
• Shared libraries: OneDrive is based on document sharing, through which it is possible to access documents from all the SharePoint libraries the user has access to.
• Data protection: OneDrive ensures the protection and security of all documents without the need for third-party applications.

The Advantages of OneDrive

OneDrive offers numerous benefits, including:

• Real-time collaboration on documents,
• The ability to access your documents at any time and from anywhere;
• Access to previous versions of documents;
• The creation and editing of documents online;
• The possibility to share files quickly and easily;
• Data security;
• The automatic backup system.

SharePoint VS OneDrive: Feature Comparison

Document Management

SharePoint allows you to gather all your documents in one single place and access them with just a few clicks. The same goes for OneDrive, which enables quick access to files and work documents from any tool. It is also possible to create a shared work library that can be accessed from SharePoint. On this point, the two tools are equivalent.

Collaboration

With SharePoint, teams can easily collaborate on various projects and share files, information, and documents in real-time. They can also edit them without the need to create multiple versions of the same file, leading to significant efficiency gains.

OneDrive also offers file-sharing functionality, whether internally or with external partners. Real-time file co-creation is also available.

Finally, similar to SharePoint Alert, OneDrive allows you to receive notifications when certain documents are updated. Overall, however, SharePoint has the advantage, as its features as an interface for creating customized Intranets are more numerous and advanced.

Security and Compliance

SharePoint ensures complete security for businesses. It can be configured to limit access to confidential data, with specific permissions.

On the other hand, OneDrive also offers features for restricted access control. Additionally, it provides a system for recovering lost data.

Finally, as a SharePoint administrator or administrator in Microsoft 365, it is possible to block the downloading of Teams meeting files from SharePoint or OneDrive sites.

Pricing

The first SharePoint subscription plan starts at €4.70 excluding VAT per user per month. The Microsoft 365 Business Standard plan, on the other hand, is priced at €11.70 excluding VAT per user per month. The subscription is annual and based on an automatic renewal mode.

The OneDrive offer, meanwhile, is included with Microsoft 365 Basic, with 100 GB of storage. Is that insufficient? A subscription to Microsoft 365 Personal, priced at €69 including VAT per year, provides access to 1 TB of storage space.

Conclusion: 2 Tools for 2 Different Uses

SharePoint Online and OneDrive offer complementary but distinct solutions for file management and sharing within companies.

While OneDrive is an ideal tool for file storage and collaboration on personal documents, SharePoint allows for the creation of 100% customized team sites, ensures complex document management, and facilitates collaborative work on larger projects.

OneDrive can thus be used to store individual or collaborative documents (for example: monthly reports to share with one's team). These reports can be shared with other colleagues by moving them to a SharePoint location specifically dedicated to the project.

Once the report is in SharePoint, team members can access it, read it, and make necessary modifications in real time. This means that multiple people can work on the same document simultaneously. In addition, SharePoint offers advanced document management features, such as the ability to create workflows for document approval or to track version history.

In this example, we see that OneDrive is used for the creation and storage of documents, while SharePoint is utilized for teamwork and document management. These two tools thus work in a complementary manner to provide a secure collaborative work environment.

The choice between each tool then depends on the specific needs of your company. However, it is possible (and even recommended) to combine the features of SharePoint and OneDrive with a view to improving operational efficiency.