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Practical Usage of O365/SharePoint

FAQs_Practical Usage of O365/SharePoint

You can create Office documents with your locally-installed Office software that are saved and stored in SharePoint or OneDrive. You can also share those documents from within your local Office applications. There's a 'Share' button (generally in the upper right-hand area of the document window) that will walk you through the process. It's very similar to sharing from a web browser. Watch this brief Microsoft video to see how it's done.

Microsoft Word for the web lets you make basic edits and formatting changes to your document in a web browser. For more advanced features, use Word for the web’s Open in Word command. When you save the document in Word, it is saved on the website where you opened it in Word for the web.

The document you open in Word for the web is the same as the document you open in the Word desktop app, but some features work differently in the two environments.

Get more information in this Microsoft support document

Using Excel for the web in a web browser looks a lot like the Excel desktop app. However, there are some differences to be aware of. For example, not all file formats are supported, and some features may work differently than the desktop app. This article explains these differences.

Get more information in this Microsoft support document.

Microsoft did not intend for OneDrive to be mapped as a network drive, and they don’t recommend the practice. Instead, Microsoft envisioned OneDrive as integrated into your computer’s File Explorer (hence the name “OneDrive”), and designed its Office 365 services and features around that vision.

The intended usage is to sync SharePoint files with the OneDrive sync client, which provides Files On-Demand, allowing you to access all your files in OneDrive without using local storage space. You can even access the files when you're offline.

While it is technically possible to associate OneDrive with a drive letter on your PC, doing so employs older technologies and introduces a raft of potential issues. Among those:

  • Mapping a library as a network drive is temporary and supported only through Internet Explorer
  • You have to occasionally visit the site on your browser to make sure your login doesn't expire, on every machine you want the mapping to persist
  • File operations are very slow
  • You may experience unexpected behavior
  • Sharing from the context menu does not work

See this Microsoft support document on how to set up syncing using the OneDrive client.

This Microsoft support article has information on troubleshooting mapped network drives that connect to SharePoint Online.

As part of UTMB's license with Microsoft, you can install Office on up to 5 PCs or Macs, 5 tablets, and 5 smartphones.

Here's how:

  • Log into https:/sp.utmb.edu (VPN not required, but Duo two-factor authentication is)
  • Click on your user icon in the top RH corner, then on ‘my account’
  • You’ll see a blue button in the LH corner of the resulting page, saying ‘Install Office’
  • Click the button to start the process
When you leave UTMB, those applications will continue to open existing documents, but in read-only mode—no edits or copying will be possible until you acquire a new Office 365 license.
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