iWorkplace Feature Focus: OneDrive Manager Framework

Beginning Monday 27^th January 2025, any OneDrive user account that has been unlicensed for longer than 93 days becomes inaccessible to admins and end users. The unlicensed account is automatically archived and viewable via admin tools but remains inaccessible until administrators take action¹.

From experience, most customers have more content in OneDrive than SharePoint and use Global Retention Policies to retain this content after staff leave an organisation. However, several issues arise from this situation, including:

1. Retention complexity. Applying global retention policies to OneDrive can lead to storage bloat and clutter of obsolete data if files are retained for years after employees leave.
2. Policy mismatch. Global retention policies often don't differentiate between personal and organisational content, which may lead to the unnecessary retention of trivial or non-business-critical data, which can lead to compliance risks.
3. Loss of content context. When employees leave the organisation, content in their OneDrive may lack proper metadata, version history, or context, making it difficult for successors or teams to understand and use the files effectively.
4. Searchability and collaboration issues. Organisational content scattered across OneDrive makes it harder to discover, manage, and utilise. Files in OneDrive are tied to individual accounts resulting in team access and collaboration becoming limited.
5. Data governance. Retaining content in OneDrive instead of SharePoint reduces centralised control over organisational data, increasing the risk of compliance breaches.
6. Access management. When staff leave, their OneDrive content might include sensitive or critical business files, which requires careful handling to ensure proper access control and compliance.

This is where the OneDrive Manager Framework helps manage this situation: the topic in the third instalment of our iWorkplace Feature Focus blog series. We tackled Smart Metadata and Smart Labels in the first and second instalments of this blog series.

What is iWorkplace OneDrive Manager Framework?

OneDrive Manager Framework is part of the iWorkplace toolkit that helps you to control the overuse of OneDrive for content management. It reduces information risks and clutter by helping users switch from OneDrive to structured workspaces in Teams and SharePoint. Designed to help you manage OneDrive accounts in your organisation, it can help you discover files, monitor storage, and take action where necessary to mitigate content silos and information risk proactively.

The OneDrive Manager Framework includes:

1. OneDrive Manager to help you discover information silos and understand how users are using OneDrive by comparing files created in OneDrive and SharePoint for each user.
2. OneDrive Active Monitoring to help you understand how quickly OneDrive overuse can become an issue. It equips you with the tools and know-how to actively monitor OneDrive use and proactively manage risks.

OneDrive Manager Framework allows you to discover information silos you never knew you had, take action to minimise the risk of information accidents, and support your users on the journey to best practice OneDrive use.

See it in action

Access the iWorkplace Resource Hub to see how OneDrive Manager Framework works.

Do you have a question about OneDrive Manager Framework or iWorkplace in general? Comment below, and we’ll do our best to respond as quickly as possible.

Visit this page to learn how iWorkplace can help you meet your organisation’s information protection and compliance requirements.

_{1 | Manage unlicensed OneDrive user accounts, Microsoft, 2nd December 2024}