Microsoft has indicated that there could be some pretty seismic changes coming to the way it handles file sharing and collaboration through its OneDrive cloud storage solution, but its cryptic messaging leaves a lot to be answered for.
The company regularly updates and adds new features to its entire lineup, posting about them on its dedicated roadmap page. The latest (opens in new tab) in a series of OneDrive updates reads: “Sharing Experiences – simplifying external sharing”.
Its summary shares little more in terms of detail: “We want to simplify the sharing journey when a customer would like to collaborate with someone outside of their organization.”
Sharing files in OneDrive
What we do know is that the update will first be coming to the web version of OneDrive, and that it could arrive as early as this month. We also know that it's in its testing stage.
Microsoft’s annual conference aimed at developers and IT pros – Ignite – is currently taking place, and has provided several juicy tidbits about OneDrive.
In a post on the OneDrive blog (opens in new tab), author irfanshahdad explains that the OneDrive homepage has been “re-imagined”. The changes are more subtle than in-your-face, and revolve around some background work that surfaces recently accessed files and new filters for sorting by file type.
There are also updates to sharing management, with new tabs for shared by you, shared with you, people, and meetings (the latter two doing a good job of categorizing shared files by the owner or the event). The demo on the company’s blog shows these working in tandem with other filters, like sort by file type.
The company is also working on an offline mode for its OneDrive web app, much like is the case with ‘Files On-Demand’ for its desktop clients. The so-called Project Nucleus will allow you to make changes, with edits uploading once an Internet connection is reestablished.
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