Microsoft SkyDrive Meets SharePoint

You can use the Office Web Apps to work with Word / Excel / Power Point / OneNote files without the need of Microsoft Office installed in your computer. You can use the Create menu from the top bar.

On entering the new document name in the dialog that appears, you will be taken to the Word Web App as shown below. Here you can edit & save the document. There is limited access to the original Microsoft Word features.

Similarly you can use the other Office Web Apps.

SkyDrive Apps

For synchronizing your files automatically, use the following SkyDrive App:

• http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/skydrive/download

After installing you will get a new SkyDrive item in the Windows Explorer.

SharePoint & SkyDrive

Now let us see how SharePoint can work with SkyDrive. The following are some of them.

SkyDrive Connector for SharePoint

SkyDrive Connector for SharePoint is a sandbox web part that can help manage documents stored on SkyDrive on SharePoint by adding additional metadata. This helps the document to be discoverable on SharePoint.

You can download it from:

http://skydriveconnector.codeplex.com/

Sharing Files in SkyDrive

We can share files in SharePoint or SkyDrive. Inside the Office Application choose the Share / Save As option to locate the SkyDrive folder.

Some Tips for using SkyDrive

Use 2 SkyDrive Accounts

There are basically 2 kinds of files we need to backup:

• Those that are changed frequently. They include your Office Documents like Word, Excel, PowerPoint etc.
• Those that are never changed. They include eBooks, Photos, MP3 files, Video clips

Automatic Synchronization is advantageous, since you will never end up with a loss of data. In this case you can use one SkyDrive account for automatic synchronizing. The other account can be used for manual uploading & sharing.

Create Free Accounts

If the 7 GB limit is not enough, it is possible to create more free SkyDrive accounts.

References

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SkyDrive

Summary

In this article we have explored the SkyDrive features & SharePoint possibilities to work with it. You can find more tools & resources for SharePoint that work with SkyDrive.