OneDrive Migration FAQs (for Employees)
STLCC Information Technology (IT) is transitioning employees from using their network home folders (often accessed as the "P: drive") to OneDrive for Business for individual document storage. Frequently asked questions and troubleshooting tips are below.
Note that while Microsoft also offers OneDrive for home/personal accounts, here we will use "OneDrive" to refer to OneDrive for Business, the storage associated with your College-provided Microsoft 365 account, unless otherwise stated.
FAQs in this article:
- File availability - files sync across all your STLCC devices and are accessible on the web from anywhere without the need for a VPN connection.
- Sharing and Collaboration - by sharing documents with others from OneDrive, users can co-edit documents and have a single copy to work from, eliminating endless versions across email attachments.
- Auto-save and Versioning - when stored in OneDrive, Office apps automatically save updates to documents as they are edited and OneDrive allows you to go back to previous versions.
- Integration - Microsoft Teams, Outlook, and all the Office applications are designed to work best with documents stored in OneDrive.
- Security - Built-in Microsoft security controls allow enforcement of data protection and compliance.
- Files are copied in batches of a few dozen employees overnight, starting around 9pm.
- If the process runs long for any reason, we will not start any new home folder copies after 6am on a weekday.
- Larger batches may be processed over the weekend, starting on Friday night.
- IT will send an email 5-7 days prior to your migration, and again the morning of the move reminding you to close files and log off at the end of your work day.
- We do not have specific dates set for all employees at this time, but the overall timeline is as follows (based on location in the directory received from the Banner HR system):
- New employees: After August 9, 2024, any new employee hired will not have a home folder/P: drive created for them. They should start out using OneDrive for individual documents.
- WSG and Corporate College - August
- Wildwood - September
- Forest Park and Harrison Center - Late September (into October if needed)
- Florissant Valley - October
- Meramec and SCEUC - November
- Any remaining migrations - December
- While it is part of the long-term plan, we will not start looking at the O:\ drive folders until after the OneDrive migration is completed.
- That effort is expected to be far more complex and take much longer, as there are more varying permissions assigned to shared network folders and more places the documents could go (SharePoint sites, Teams).
- Delete files that are not needed any longer. Please do so with caution, and consult your supervisor if you aren't sure about file retention requirements.
- Ensure the OneDrive sync client (blue cloud icon in the system tray) is signed in.
- The OneDrive sync client will also put your OneDrive into File Explorer (Windows) for easy access.
- For the best migration experience, if your OneDrive sync client isn't working, submit an incident ticket at help.stlcc.edu prior to your campus's migration so a technician can correct the situation.
- Watch for emails from STLCC-Information Technology (stlcc-it@stlcc.edu). They will let you know what is happening when, but the only instructions should be to log off at the end of the day (which is a good idea anyway) and contact IT if you need help.
- Logging off at the end of the day when your migration happens is the best way to ensure a smooth transition!
- Changes made to documents during the copying of your files to OneDrive may not be saved.
- Open files may be skipped or cause the process to fail.
- Important changes are made to your STLCC computer the next time you log in after your migration completes. Starting with a fresh, new session ensures these changes occur when expected.
- Absolutely! You are free to move your individual files from your P: drive (or other local storage) to OneDrive.
- HOWEVER, avoid keeping copies of documents in both locations. When the migration gets to your account, it will create duplicates if you left a copy behind.
- Keep in mind that after the migration, your Documents folder (which may point to your P: drive today) will point to the Documents folder under your OneDrive. If you move them to another top-level folder, you may end up wanting to do some rearranging later.
- The scenario of mixing work and personal documents would happen not because of Office applications if you activated them with your work account, but because of the OneDrive sync client. That is typically represented by a blue cloud icon in the system tray (often the lower right corner if on a Windows machine near the clock...see the earlier screenshot for that).
- You can configure the OneDrive client to backup or NOT backup folders like Documents, Pictures and Desktop in the settings.
- Click the OneDrive client in the system tray, and then the gear icon for settings.
- Click "Sync and backup" and then "Manage backup" to see the backup settings.
- On a work computer in the office, it will look like this:
- If you also have a personal OneDrive, it is possible you have that configured to backup your folders to that account.
- The OneDrive sync app should not backup the folders to two accounts.
- If you only have the STLCC account signed in, turn off the backup.
- In OneDrive-speak, backup means sync and goes both ways...from your computer to the cloud, and from the cloud to your computer.
- If you had already been syncing your personal documents to your STLCC-provided OneDrive (the backup was on), then your work and personal documents will become mixed together.
- In that case you'd probably want to move your personal documents to another location to keep them separate and then turn off the sync.
- After moving files, turning off the sync, etc. on your personal computer, check your OneDrive in the cloud by visiting office365.stlcc.edu, signing in, and finding OneDrive in the app picker (the "waffle" in the upper right corner). That will let you see if the personal documents remain in your work OneDrive.
- Make sure you have files downloaded or saved somewhere else before deleting them from the STLCC OneDrive.
- If you are still syncing/backing up your STLCC OneDrive on your personal computer, deleting the files on the web will also remove them from the "OneDrive - Saint Louis Community College" folder on your computer as well.
Troubleshooting
- Due to varying amounts of data, network speeds, and other reasons, sometimes our process can't get to everyone we had scheduled for a given night.
- When possible, we will identify who was missed and send a follow-up communication about what to expect.
- In most cases, your files will be processed the next night.
- Continue to save and close your documents at the end of the day, and log off. It is a good practice anyway, but will definitely help the OneDrive transition run smoothly.
- Look for the OneDrive icon in the system tray (blue cloud icon) and click it to ensure it has signed you in. Log in, or contact the IT Help Desk if you need help with it.
- Log off and back on to the computer. Some steps only occur when you log on for the first time (really log off, not just lock and unlock your computer).
- Restart your computer and log back in. Sometimes the computer needs a nudge to do things the new way, too.
- Be patient! It can take an hour or two for the file sync to complete once the initial file copy to the Microsoft cloud has completed. You should get an alert when it is done.
- Look for your files under "OneDrive - St. Louis Community College" in the Windows file explorer. You may be able to access your documents there even if they aren't showing up in the "Documents" folder.
- If your files are not accessible locally, try finding them on the web. You can sign in at onedrive.microsoft.com, office365.stlcc.edu (click OneDrive from the "waffle" app menu in the upper left), or https://mystlcc-my.sharepoint.com/
- If it has been more than an hour since you got the email saying your migration was complete and you do not see your files even on the web view of OneDrive, submit an incident ticket here at help.stlcc.edu.
- Example: "Location is not available"
- Browse to the document location and open it again. The application should remember the new location next time.
- Open File Explorer. It may be on your task bar at the bottom of the screen, or you can search for it in the Start menu:
- Your P:\ files were moved to the "Documents" folder which can be found on the left side under "OneDrive..." and "This PC" on an STLCC Windows machine. See screen snip below.
- If your application doesn't recognize common folders like "Documents", "Desktop" and "Pictures" and/or needs to use a drive letter to access files, try browsing the file system directly: "C:\Users\username\OneDrive - St. Louis Community College\"
- The mapping for P:\ will no longer be used, and cannot be mapped to the OneDrive folder.
- In many cases, Microsoft Office applications may seamlessly recognize the new location of the "Documents" folder.
- However, in some cases (especially older third-party applications) this might not be the case.
- If possible, remove the broken shortcut to the recently-accessed document.
- Some applications create shortcuts on your individual desktop when they install. Because they are under your profile, they are considered your files and OneDrive syncs them.
- The OneDrive sync client will create a second copy in the cloud if it doesn't know they are effectively the same file.
- Delete the duplicate file with " - Copy" in the name and the white cloud icon indicating it has not downloaded onto the computer (the right icon in this example). After deleting it shouldn't return.
