More than ever, employees are relying on cloud-based tools that allow them to work smarter and more effectively.

For organizations running Office 365, OneDrive for Business is becoming the focal point for end users and cloud IT admins alike. It’s helping end users collaborate and giving admins additional capabilities to manage their tenant’s influx of data.

Despite OneDrive for Business still being in its infancy, there are a number of capabilities that admins can implement or share with end users to help boost adoption and create power users.

Unfamiliarity is a major issue for end users and it’s stopping them from using OneDrive for Business to its full potential. To that point, let’s discuss some practical ways of maximizing OneDrive for your business needs.

Work Offline with the OneDrive for Business Sync Tool

The cloud enables users to work from anywhere, on any device, at any time. But sometimes, you just don’t have internet access. OneDrive for Business offers a tool that helps you get around your Wi-Fi troubles and allows you to work offline.

In order to work without internet access, you first need to download the OneDrive for Business sync app. You’ll then need to sign into Office 365 where you can navigate to OneDrive, find the library you wish to access offline, then press sync.

You can sync up to 20,000 files and folders in your OneDrive for Business library.

Note: If for some reason you have low bandwidth or accidentally began syncing your OneDrive for Business, you can easily pause or stop your OneDrive for Business from syncing.

Collaborate

You get through a project much faster when your team all views the same document version. OneDrive for Business integrates with Word, Excel and other applications for streamlined collaboration. You see changes to the document in real-time through the co-authoring feature, as well as a color indicator displaying where your coworkers made changes.

You also stop the cycle of requesting revisions, updates and other changes through email, which gets frustrating when juggling multiple versions of a file.

OneDrive improves your data quality by giving access to a single centralized document. Version control lets you restore the file back to a previous state, which helps when your team doesn’t agree on the changes or someone accidentally deletes critical information.

Use OneDrive for Business on Your Mobile Device

If your organization uses OneDrive for Business, you can access it on the move through Apple, Android, and Windows Phone devices.

These apps are designed for on-the-go working, so they obviously aren’t as powerful as their web-based or desktop counterparts, but they do come with some inherent capabilities that are unique to their form factor.

With Android devices, you can pin folders to your home screen for quick access to commonly used documents. To do so, after downloading the OneDrive app on an Android device, tap and hold on a blank space of the home screen, then select OneDrive.

From there, you’ll be prompted to select a folder that you can then pin to your home screen for easy access.

For enhanced security, you have the option to set up a PIN or use iOS TouchID to access your OneDrive accounts.

Access Your Other PCs Through OneDrive

The cloud gives you anywhere access to documents, but OneDrive for Windows users takes that access a step further. Through OneDrive, you can actually access your other PCs–even if the files aren’t in your OneDrive folders.

To access documents on other PCs, you’ll need to first enable the “Fetch Files” feature.

Conclusion

OneDrive for Business goes beyond basic cloud storage with its collaboration tools and user-friendly interface.

You don’t need to jump through hoops to work on documents with the rest of your team, send files to individuals throughout your organization or remotely access required files when you’re on the road.

The application’s deep integration with the rest of Office 365 is just one of the other benefits of Microsoft Office 365 OneDrive.