Where are you saving your files to, when you save to OneDrive? That depends on whether you’re saving to your personal OneDrive account or to OneDrive for Business for your organisation.
Both are cloud based storage.
OneDrive – Personal – this account is linked to your Microsoft Account. Your Microsoft Account gives you a personal account with access to online office applications and cloud based storage for your personal files.
OneDrive for Business is part of your Office 365 subscription; your work related files should be saved here.
Microsoft Account and OneDrive-Personal
So you may have been asked at some point to set up a Microsoft Account. This is a personal account (nothing to do with work). It might be somewhere you store personal photos, documents etc. As part of setting up this account you will receive some cloud storage. This cloud storage is OneDrive – Personal. It is a good idea not to use your work email address when setting up this account, otherwise it can be confusing. You can use a personal email address (such as gmail, hotmail etc) or set up a microsoft.com email address when you create this account.
To access your Microsoft Account details logon using this URL https://login.live.com/ Use this URL to change your email address, password and see how much storage you have.
To access your personal OneDrive files, logon using this URL https://onedrive.live.com
OneDrive for Business
OneDrive for Business is cloud based storage that comes with your Office 365 subscription. It is a place into which you can save work related files. Which work related files will depend on how your organisation chooses to manage its document storage.
Think of OneDrive for Business as your drawer in the work filing cabinet. Others can’t get into your drawer unless you give them permission to access specific files or folders. If you do give them permission, you will be able to collaborate/co-author documents.
Your organisation may also choose to set up SharePoint libraries and instruct that certain documents should be saved directly to a specific library. SharePoint is also cloud based storage for your organisation, however it has more structure and permission levels are already set on who can see what files. For example, there may be a library for HR, or Accounts, or Marketing.
Saving files to the cloud directly from your office desktop apps
When you save a file, you will have a choice of locations to save the file to. You could save in to your local drive, to a network drive, or preferably to OneDrive for Business or a SharePoint location if the file is work related, or to your personal OneDrive if the file is personal.
You can add these accounts to your Office desktop apps, so when you save the various locations show up under File | Save As.
Connecting Office to your cloud storage
From your Office app choose, File | Account
Under Connected Services: choose Add a Service
Select Storage and then Office 365 SharePoint or OneDrive. If you choose OneDrive, you will be asked to enter your email address and then choose Next. Remember to differentiate between your work OneDrive for Business credentials (work email address) and your personal OneDrive credentials (Microsoft Account)
Enter your password and choose Sign In
