Law Office IT question

[Dendox 102]

Surlians

 

I have been at my current firm for a little more than 2 years and in that time our docket has grown by nearly 30%.  We are an all apple environment with each of 7 workstations being an iMac or MBP.  We utilize Microsoft Office Suite - desktop versions, though we have a O365 subscription.

Our data is saved on external hard drives connected to brand new mac mini via thunderbolt which acts as our server.  Our IT guys (third party consultant types) upgraded our server when we moved offices several months ago and we REALLY REALLY struggled with the new server maintaining uptime/connectivity.  After hundred+ hours of research, it appears that it is a limitation of the newest version of the server app for the macmini. 

Our data is not really accessible remotely, though I can VPN with my MBP.  I am limited by copper data lines for our building and, if everyone is on and working, VPN is not super reliable and is quite slow when we have large files to move from the server to my MBP when offsite.

We are FINALLY going to an office/practice management solution - Clio.  I am stoked about its functionality.

It has integration with onedrive, outlook, etc.  I am loathe to suggest we change what people know as they are already going to hate me for making them (or at least the dinosaurs of our office) change what they do and how they do it.

What I would like to know, but have been unable to get much of a straight answer from our IT guys about, pertains to onedrive and "sync".  

If I successfully migrate all of our data to the cloud/onedrive - can I have it "sync" to the server storage (attached hard drives) and have the data available on a local network that mirrors the cloud?  

Making changes via the cloud - O365 web applications -  will be reflected in the attached local drive?

Making changes via desktop applications and documents saved on the local network in the onedrive "sync" folder will be reflected in the cloud?

As a whole, our case files are approximately 5 TB of data.  We can't sync those to our individual machines.  So, thats why I am wondering about the ability to have them "sync" to the server where they already reside with plenty of space.

 

[Guest Lobo]

Are you in Austin?  If so, I got a guy who owns a CMIT office dealing with exclusively law firms and they're insanely brilliant.  

[Dendox 102]

San Antonio.  I am happy to chat with anyone.  

 

[dcbc 14,641]

This may  or may not answer your question. 

Your OneDrive folder is intended to be your file location on your local machine.  In my situation, my documents are stored to a separate network drive.  If I want to access those documents through OneDrive, I have to copy the network drive to OneDrive (or at least to the OneDrive folder). 

My understanding of OneDrive is that it does not automatically sync with the folders you copy to it.  In other words, if you store your files locally in a separate location and copy that location to OneDrive, you have to manually recopy that local file/document to OneDrive regularly in order for them to be accessible in OneDrive elsewhere.  It does not sync with local folders like most backup solutions do.  That's a weird issue in our office (govt/legal).  We have local backup set on our individual network drives.  So we have to save data there.  There is, unfortunately, no way to automatically sync that data with the OneDrive foler (at least not in a way that is built into OneDrive).  I haven't bothered to look for a 3rd party solution to sync folders in Windows since my need to work remotely is pretty small.

I've been meaning to try MS Synctoy.

Edited September 11, 2019 by dcbc

[Dahobbs 18,190]

14 hours ago, Dendox said:

Surlians

 

I have been at my current firm for a little more than 2 years and in that time our docket has grown by nearly 30%.  We are an all apple environment with each of 7 workstations being an iMac or MBP.  We utilize Microsoft Office Suite - desktop versions, though we have a O365 subscription.

Our data is saved on external hard drives connected to brand new mac mini via thunderbolt which acts as our server.  Our IT guys (third party consultant types) upgraded our server when we moved offices several months ago and we REALLY REALLY struggled with the new server maintaining uptime/connectivity.  After hundred+ hours of research, it appears that it is a limitation of the newest version of the server app for the macmini. 

Our data is not really accessible remotely, though I can VPN with my MBP.  I am limited by copper data lines for our building and, if everyone is on and working, VPN is not super reliable and is quite slow when we have large files to move from the server to my MBP when offsite.

We are FINALLY going to an office/practice management solution - Clio.  I am stoked about its functionality.

It has integration with onedrive, outlook, etc.  I am loathe to suggest we change what people know as they are already going to hate me for making them (or at least the dinosaurs of our office) change what they do and how they do it.

What I would like to know, but have been unable to get much of a straight answer from our IT guys about, pertains to onedrive and "sync".  

If I successfully migrate all of our data to the cloud/onedrive - can I have it "sync" to the server storage (attached hard drives) and have the data available on a local network that mirrors the cloud?  

Making changes via the cloud - O365 web applications -  will be reflected in the attached local drive?

Making changes via desktop applications and documents saved on the local network in the onedrive "sync" folder will be reflected in the cloud?

As a whole, our case files are approximately 5 TB of data.  We can't sync those to our individual machines.  So, thats why I am wondering about the ability to have them "sync" to the server where they already reside with plenty of space.

 

What your asking for is possible, but maybe not through onedrive (I don't use it enough to know). There is a lot that you have to consider when utilizing a setup like this, e.g., what version of a document will have priority when changes have been made both locally and on the cloud. This is particularly problematic when multiple users have access to the same documents. More advanced document management systems have a variety of ways to avoid/rectify these problems when they occur. 

[mycox 587]

Yeah, you want differential synchronization. Currently OneDrive will work with MS Office apps, but not with lager files.

[Dendox 102]

I appreciate the responses.  I agree with the versioning and those issues are of concern.  our IT guys have said sharepoint (sister service) offers more robust features to address those concerns.

 

dcbd - I am contemplating all of our files residing in a onedrive parent folder on our mac mini/server.  I already have access to any files that are on the mac mini through the local network.  So - instead of looking in /macmini/f-drive/Cases/2019/  (or whatever the actual file path is) - it would be macmini/onedrive/cases/2019 

I don't see why that wouldn't work.  

[Quagmire 2,147]

This may  or may not answer your question. 
Your OneDrive folder is intended to be your file location on your local machine.  In my situation, my documents are stored to a separate network drive.  If I want to access those documents through OneDrive, I have to copy the network drive to OneDrive (or at least to the OneDrive folder). 
My understanding of OneDrive is that it does not automatically sync with the folders you copy to it.  In other words, if you store your files locally in a separate location and copy that location to OneDrive, you have to manually recopy that local file/document to OneDrive regularly in order for them to be accessible in OneDrive elsewhere.  It does not sync with local folders like most backup solutions do.  That's a weird issue in our office (govt/legal).  We have local backup set on our individual network drives.  So we have to save data there.  There is, unfortunately, no way to automatically sync that data with the OneDrive foler (at least not in a way that is built into OneDrive).  I haven't bothered to look for a 3rd party solution to sync folders in Windows since my need to work remotely is pretty small.
I've been meaning to try MS Synctoy.

You can specify which folders you want to sync with one drive, then you don’t have e to worry about copying them yourself

[MissingInAction 25,478]

Sounds like Sharepoint would do what you need.  

[dcbc 14,641]

7 hours ago, Quagmire said:

 

 

You can specify which folders you want to sync with one drive, then you don’t have e to worry about copying them yourself

 

 

Might work with local folders, but it definitely doesn't work with network drives.  Neither does that stand alone MS Sync file I mentioned above.

8 hours ago, Dendox said:

I appreciate the responses.  I agree with the versioning and those issues are of concern.  our IT guys have said sharepoint (sister service) offers more robust features to address those concerns.

 

dcbd - I am contemplating all of our files residing in a onedrive parent folder on our mac mini/server.  I already have access to any files that are on the mac mini through the local network.  So - instead of looking in /macmini/f-drive/Cases/2019/  (or whatever the actual file path is) - it would be macmini/onedrive/cases/2019 

I don't see why that wouldn't work.  

It might.  I think it might work with local drives.  My stuff is on an F-drive and won't sync on its own.  I've had the experts in Austin take a stab at it, and that was their answer.