I need to sync a VPN folder with a Sharepoint SITE

VPN
1

Hi everyone,

I work in a VPN environment where multiple users collaborate on a shared folder. I would like to synchronize this folder with a SharePoint site so that everyone can work in sync both from the VPN route and from SharePoint. However, I haven’t found a solution yet.

Does anyone have any suggestions or recommendations on how I can achieve this? Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you

2

Honestly, that’s not how SharePoint works. You put the content in SharePoint and users collaborate on the content in SharePoint. There is no syncing file shares or any other types of shares to SharePoint.

There is no need to have content in two places.

3

You already have the solution in front of you. Migrate the fileshare content to one or more SP sites (split amongst appropriate libraries/sites base on permissions and business needs) and get rid of the fileshare. SharePoint does all of the file collaboration you need, and figuring out a replication is pointless data duplication and complication for no justifiable win.

4

You are missing some fundamental concepts in your explanation. VPN is a way to connect to a network. SharePoint (cloud) should not require a VPN. Syncing a folder from on prem to SharePoint defeats the purpose of placing it in the on prem or placing it in SharePoint.

Now, if you have an application that cannot write files directly to SharePoint (like a scans folder) but you want that to be available in SharePoint, syncing would make some sense. However, that still isn’t how SharePoint works. You can’t choose an on prem folder to sync to SharePoint. You can choose a SharePoint folder to sync to onprem but you can’t really access that from the network. Even if you could, you have a lot to worry about (permissions and security mostly)

It’s a bad idea. Maybe you can tell us the PROBLEM and we can give you a SOLUTION. You are giving us an XY problem.

5

In modern sharepoint you can sync a library to your OneDrive but I always beg people not to do this. Syncing causes problems. Not sure what a VPN folder is but why not establish a single source of truth?

Also I’ve never heard of connecting a sharepoint library location to another random file share location. In classic sp you could open libraries in file explorer and in modern sp you can sync to your OneDrive…but to another location?..never heard of that.

6

Is the SharePoint on-prem (a physical server in your office or data center), or the M365 cloud offering aka SharePoint Online?

7

Layer2Solutions, give it a try - Syncs a folder on the Server with a sharepoint site. But yeah as the others are telling you thats not the optimal approach how sharepoint works. Migrate completly to it.

8

Thanks for the response, but a Sharepoint folder can be synced to your local computer, and you can work from both places, the only thing I would like to add to that process is change the fixed location of that local synced folder to the VPN, so anyone can have access to it from the VPN. That’s what I am aiming for, if I’m wrong, and it’s not possible, then sorry. And thanks for your response.

9

As above, the main reason to use VPN is to safely access data in a secure environment. Even if you could sync the data then information will be duplicated between SharePoint and your secure environment and as you don’t need a VPN to securely access SharePoint you’re secure environment becomes redundant.

10

What problems? I use if, like many in my org, on a daily basis without issue

11

You’re using SharePoint as some sort of backup location and that’s completely missing the point. Put all files in SharePoint and have people open the files from there. No VPN needed.

If you want to use VPN and file shares with folders, just do that. Then you have no need for SharePoint at all.

12

When collaborating in Microsoft Office files (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) you’re not downloading the file and work on it locally. You’re working on the file IN THE CLOUD directly, allowing continuous auto-save and co-authoring in the same file at the same time. Things like “synchronization” and check-in/out-nightmares are a thing of the past. Even if you download a file using the OneDrive-client and open it in Word it’ll work on the online version of the file and update your local version at the same time.

You want only “one truth”, having 2 different locations for the same file and worked on will inevitably cause merge-issues and will result in multiple versions of the same file branching of from the original file.

If your goal is to “synchronize” a SharePoint document library for off-site backup-reasons: that’s fine and there are multiple solutions for that.

13

I’m not sure if you’re misunderstanding modern SharePoint or talking about classic SharePoint. In classic SharePoint you could open a document library through file explorer so you could map the document library as a network share. You can’t do that in modern SharePoint (2016 onwards and online.)
The new way to sync files is to use OneDrive. As another use has explained that doesn’t give a true copy of the file but allows for an offline interface for the cloud file and manages any collaboration clashes.
As others have said the best option is to move the files into SharePoint and remove the file share. However that means that if your SharePoint environment is not behind a VPN you will lose that protection.

14

here are some issues with syncing to OneDrive:

  1. first of all, why are you doing this? There are a few legit reasons to sync but mostly people do it just to avoid using SharePoint directly, which defeats the purpose of SharePoint and misses out on all the strengths it has to offer. This is often just a stubborn refusal to stop using file shares. If a company is hell-bent on syncing, I can guarantee that their libraries are a mess of nested folders, have no metadata, and are well above the list-view threshold (100,000 files are piled into one location - dragging down performance and making info finding difficult). If syncing is the norm, you are probably not doing SharePoint right at all. If you can’t find anything without syncing, then you need to organize separate libraries and build out some site navigation. It pains me to hear about a company that just moves an entire file share structure into a single doc library and then asks everyone to use OneDrive to find stuff. {insert sad face emoji here]
  2. No version history. No content approval. See #1 above – you’re missing out on powerful doc management features.
  3. if you sync, you must now do all your editing through OneDrive. People looking for a flexible, hybrid experience may be disappointed b/c when they try to edit from the SharePoint location, they find their changes won’t save. They often then interpret this as some mix-up where their permissions have been changed or revoked, so they send the service desk on wild goose chases to “fix” their permissions.
  4. Lost files: people often don’t know how to properly UN-sync, so they just delete the folder from OneDrive, which then deletes the source files in SharePoint for everyone. I’ve had to sit for hours and restore thousands of documents, in increments of 100, because someone inadvertently blew away an entire library.
  5. Performance: everyone syncing large doc collections is going to drag down performance.
  6. As noted by other commentors, at some point you will certainly encounter sync failures, merge issues, and lost changes. There are limits to how many files you can sync. If this is common practice at your organization, you’re probably going to hit those limits and encounter some problems.
15

We’ll… personally at home I have a local file share and mapped drives that everyone accesses in my family… from there I have robocopy check for new files and sync. Simple for me since it’s not a company. Still recommend splitting it out to departments and just collaborating online. Yes, it’s a pain if you were born before 2013 but this is the “new” way of collaborating.

16

No VPN needed is a selling point when migrating people off the old on-prem farm (which we have taken internal only) to M365. In office or out, any device, no VPN needed. Caveat: i turn the mobile display site collection feature OFF, else you will have missing navigation.

17

In classic SharePoint you could open a document library through file explorer so you could map the document library as a network share. You can’t do that in modern SharePoint (2016 onwards and online.)

You actually can still use the WebDAV service in SharePoint Online if you manually map it yourself (though the UI action has been disabled for a while), at least on the two tenants I just checked.

Not that you’d want to, though. That service has a mind of its own and rarely did things without complaining.

18

Oh I don’t have that problem here. Running SPO and MS SharePoint client for Android.

19

Hmmm. When attempting to do stuff in Site Settings on iPad at home, cannot get to what i need with the mobile feature on. This is in a browser, though…even with settings to request desktop site, it mostly doesn’t.

You’re using the SharePoint mobile app…tried it early on and had same problem with missing settings. Likely improved since then, prob time to try it again