Microsoft OneDrive roadmap: A slide is worth a thousand words
There's been lots of talk this week at Microsoft's Ignite conference about progress the OneDrive and SharePoint teams have made towards promised feature rollouts.
But the easiest way to see what's coming now and relatively soon on these fronts is by the good old roadmap slide. During a session at Ignite on September 27, Microsoft execs shared such a slide, as a few folks on Twitter noted.
I asked Microsoft for a slightly easier to read version of that slide. Here's what I got (and which you can see a bit better by clicking on it to enlarge):
Features rolling out now
For users
- Shared folders + OD-SharePoint Online sync (preview)
- New sharing UXMobile sharing notifications
- Sharing links for folders
- Download multiple files on browser
- File activity view for iOS
- Access SPO (SharePoint Online) files (Android)
- Access SP 2013/2016 files from iOS
- Copy from OneDrive to SharePoint
- File preview enhancements (Adobe, email, images, video)
- Suppport for iOS 10, Android N
For IT
- Bandwidth throttling controls for sync upload
- Block anonymous edit sharing links
- Per User ODB management in O365 user admin console
- AAD conditional access (Windows preview)
- IT-managed Mac sync client deployment (preview)
- Security group sharing controls
- WIP (Windows Information Protection) support for Windows 10
Features coming in Q4 2016
For users
- Shared folders + SharePoint Online sync (GA)
- Access SharePoint Online (SPO) files (Windows)
- New web UX on SharePoint on-prem
- Access SPO files from ODB browser
- File activity view for Android
- External sharing notifications
- Office Instant Previewer
- 'Shared by Me' view
- New UX on iPad and Android
- Re-sharing controls
- Scan for iOS
- Offline files for Windows
For IT
- Dedicated ODB admin console
- Policy to block download for non-compliant devices
- Bring your own encryption key support
- AAD conditional access (Windows)
- IT-managed Mac sync client deployment
Features coming in H1 2017
For users
- @mentions, notifications in Office doc comments
- Microsoft Flow integration
- Access SharePoint on-prem (Android & Windows)
- File activity view for Windows
- Microsoft Graph Discover view in iOS, Windows
- Curate Shared with Me view
- Move files from OneDrive to SharePoint
- Offline folders on mobile
For IT
- Removal of # % blocked characters
- RMS sync
- Max path length increase
- AAD conditional Access (Mac)
- External sharing reports
It's worth noting that the slide Microsoft emailed me does not exactly match the one that was shown in sessions at Ignite. What's different?
The original slide said AAD conditional access (Windows) and IT-managed Mac sync client deployment were rolling out now. The updated slide moved those two features to Q4 2016. It also listed "Sync client installed with Office 2016 for Mac" as a H1 2017 deliverable. That item was removed.
I've asked Microsoft about the reason for the changes. No word back so far.
Speaking of roadmaps, here's another slide from the show for SharePoint users trying to keep track of what's coming when.
I didn't notice any big surprises here. It looks like a continuation of the plans the SharePoint team announced back in May.
Speaking of futures, it sounds like the OneDrive team also showed a bit of a sneak peek during a session here of what the long-rumored replacement for the Placeholders feature might look like. Brad Sams at Thurrott.com says maybe we'll see and hear more at Build next year about what the OneDrive team is cooking up here. Hopefully it'll be baked into Windows 10 Redstone 2, expected next Spring.