Introduction
Combining SharePoint, OneDrive, and file server data so the workforce can access all documents and information through a single application is a major benefit of our Workspace 365 document app. It provides a single view of all documents and files through a user-friendly and intuitive portal that will be rapidly adopted by the workforce. Employees manage and create the documents and files they need for all tasks and projects, easily managing and moving them around as required, along with a single interface for all work-related activity.
Requirements
There is a difference between the Classic- and Modern experiences in SharePoint Online and how this affects the Documents app in Workspace 365.
We recommend to create Modern sites from the SharePoint Admin Center to ensure a smooth experience in the Documents app.
If you use Classic sites, we recommend to disable Faster Loading Experience.
In order for Workspace to list the whole path to a document/library, you need at least assign read- or write permissions on the whole path, so from the Root URL to the Document library.
For more information on this topic, please read Required SharePoint permissions.
Configuration settings
Company's SharePoint URL
When you configure SharePoint Documents for the Workspace environment, go to:
Go to the admin settings page
Select Integrations
Select SharePoint Documents.
Fill in the Company's SharePoint URL (format: https://w365teleworm.sharepoint.com)
We advise against changing the SharePoint root URL, as this may break your SharePoint integration. Refer to Troubleshooting SharePoint for more information.
Template availability
Choose whether you want to show available templates in every library or just the current library.
Library management
Allow users to hide, show or reorder (drag and drop or sort by name, date created, etc.) libraries in the Document app. If enabled, users can click on the three dots and then on "Manage" to manage their document libraries.
This function is optional and it brings a level of selfservice to users (which some organizations might not prefer).
It decreases the amount of clutter which users face when searching for documents or folders.
File synchronization
Determine weather users are allowed to sync files to their local device, i.e. syncing SharePoint libraries to their OneDrive. When this option is enabled from the admin settings page, the sync button will be visible in the Documents app.
Make sure that the client has OneDrive installed (provisioned).
Workspace is not aware of locally installed executables (e.g. Microsoft 365 Apps and/or OneDrive). If the sync is enabled, make sure the users have the application installed. For more information, check the limitations.
We recommend using the new Sync Client, because it provides the newest experiences that comes with Windows. It allows you to sync specific folders within a document library, instead of syncing the entire document library (this does not yet work for 'My documents').
Make sure that you have changed this setting in the SharePoint admin tenant the same as in Workspace 365.
Faster Loading experience
With the 'normal' loading experience, Workspace sends a request to SharePoint per SharePoint site and underlying lists, to check what data it contains and which users are allowed to access the sites. With the 'faster' loading experience, Workspace uses the SharePoint site indexing.
Folders are being uploaded faster to SharePoint, making it faster and reducing the load on the SharePoint server.
It may cause issues for SharePoint Classic sites. For example, folders or entire sites not showing up in the Documents app of Workspace 365.
PDF and text files
You can choose to open PDF and text files with the SharePoint file viewer instead of your browser's viewer. By default, this option is disabled. When enabled, you will see the option "Open in Online viewer" from the action bar menu in the Documents app after selecting a text or PDF file.
PDF files that are restricted from downloading can be opened via the SharePoint viewer.
Office apps
Default preference for opening files
There are two options for opening files in the Documents app: 'Office online apps' will open documents with Office Online editors and 'Office local apps' will open documents with the locally installed Office editors.
Users are still allowed to choose their own preference if both options are allowed.
These settings are saved as a cookie. If you are using an incognito browser or delete your cookies, these preferences will be lost.
These settings will have to be configured per device.
Conditional access for Office local apps
Manage Conditional Access for launching local Office apps.
With IP 'Whitelist' or 'Blacklist' you can choose on which IP range(s) launching local Office apps are available. For example, make it only available from trusted IP ranges (e.g. the company network).
When a user doesn't meet the IP standards, only the 'Open in Word Online' option will appear.
Site availability
Site availability lets you control which sites are available (or not available) to users that will be displayed in the Documents app.
Site availability disabled: Sites are always available to all users who have permissions on these SharePoint or Teams sites.
Site availability enabled (recommended): Workspace will retrieve sites based on the permissions in SharePoint for the admin account you're logged in with. If sites are missing for this admin account, these sites won't be visible for the users.
When the default availability of new sites is enabled, sites are detected automatically based on the user’s permissions on a Microsoft 365 group, Team or Team site. Now, you don't have to separately configure each SharePoint/Teams site you want to add to user’s Documents app view.
Site management
When Site management is enabled, users are allowed to manage and create subsites from the Documents app. These subsites (along with corresponding permissions) created by users will be pushed to SharePoint. This may take some time (usually less than 20 minutes).
By default, Site management is disabled. Most of our partners and customers choose to keep it disabled (they enable Site availability instead).
We fall back on the permissions in SharePoint. If a user is not allowed to create subsites in SharePoint, this user won't be able to create subsites in Workspace.
Subsites cannot be deleted from the Documents app.
Permissions for users when creating a subsite:
Use same permissions as parent site: the subsite will be visible to the Workspace administrator and all users based on the permissions for the parent site.
Use unique permissions: the subsite will only be visible to the Workspace administrator and the user who created the subsite.
Users can change permissions at a later moment in time for created subsites. The view may differ.
Same permissions:
Unique permissions: