January | 2017 | The Cloud Technologist

Yesterday 1/24/17, Microsoft announced (here) that the OneDrive Next Generation Sync Client (NGSC) which replaces the older Groove.exe sync client now supports syncing SharePoint Online document libraries (sorry, no NGSC for on-premises SharePoint).

First verify that the build number is 17.3.6743.1212

It is supposed to automatically update but you can also download it from: http://onedrive.com/download

If you were previously participating in the preview build so that you could test out this feature, you previously had to deploy a registry key called “TeamSitesPreview” to enable syncing SharePoint Team sites.

Now, as long as you have the client build 17.3.6743.1212, then the registry key is no longer necessary.

However, if you don’t have the registry key then you will need to change a brand new setting that just appeared in the SharePoint Online Admin Center called Sync Client for SharePoint.
As you can see in the screen shot below, the setting for ‘Sync Client for SharePoint’ defaults to ‘start the old client’.

Important: This needs to be changed to ‘start the new client.’

So if you don’t have access to your SharePoint tenant to change the default sync client for SharePoint to use the new client, you can use the registry key to override it locally on your system.

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\OneDrive]

“TeamSiteSyncPreview”=dword:00000001

Tip: If you are in there modifying the tenant, you might as well change the “OneDrive Sync Button” is set to “Start the new client.”

These changes take several hours to propagate. To check that they’ve propagated, go to a SharePoint Online site and click Sync. In the browser dialog box that confirms the request to open a program, the “Program” should appear as “Microsoft OneDrive” and the “Address” should start with “odopen://”

Troubleshooting

If you see either the OneDrive Setup Wizard or a dialog box asking “Which library do you want to sync?” after clicking “Allow” in Internet Explorer, then see Known issues for instructions on how to enable SharePoint site setup in Internet Explorer. There is a known issue that is actively being investigated by Microsoft: If you are using Windows 7 and your SharePoint Online site is still using the classic UI rather than the new modern UI, then you will need to use Edge, Chrome or Firefox until the integration issue with Internet Explorer is resolved.

On a Mac, you may find that you need to perform these additional steps:

If you are currently using the OneDrive Mac Store app, you must first uninstall it before installing the latest build of the new OneDrive sync client.
1. Open Finder and Search for “OneDrive.app” or “OneDriveDF.app” from “This Mac.”
2. Move all returned items to the trash.
3. Once you’ve removed the Mac Store app, you can install the preview build of the new OneDrive sync client.
Exit the new OneDrive sync client by clicking on the OneDrive cloud icon in the Menu bar and selecting Quit OneDrive.
Open a terminal window by using cmd+space and searching for “Terminal.”
Run the following commands:
Defaults write com.microsoft.OneDrive TeamSiteSyncPreview -bool True
Defaults write com.microsoft.OneDriveUpdate Tier Team
Killall cfprefsd
Restart the sync client and log in again if prompted.

Reference: https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Enable-users-to-sync-SharePoint-files-with-the-new-OneDrive-sync-client-22e1f635-fb89-49e0-a176-edab26f69614?ui=en-US&rs=en-US&ad=US

Currently, an Office 365 Group can be created in OWA, the Outlook 2016 Client, Office 365 Planner, SharePoint, Microsoft Teams and PowerBI.

You may want to restrict Office 365 Group Creation to a group of authorized users (example: the IT Department): for testing, preparing support desk & training materials, etc. Then when ready, you can add additional authorized users to this group. Decide if you will use an existing Office 365 Group or Distribution Group, or create a new group, ex: “O365GroupCreators.” The catch is that the group cannot have other groups in it, group members must be users directly added.

Note: Users with higher tenant roles will always have the ability to create O365 Groups (ex: Global Admins).

Instructions:

Uninstall preview versions of Azure Active Directory Powershell

Download and install Azure Active Directory Powershell v1.1.130.0 Preview from Connect:

http://connect.microsoft.com/site1164/Downloads/DownloadDetails.aspx?DownloadID=59185

Launch Azure Active Directory Powershell, then run these commands:

Connect-MSOLService
Set-MsolCompanySettings – UsersPermissionToCreateGroupsEnabled $True
^^If this is set to $false, then the settings below will not take effect.
$template = Get-MsolAllSettingTemplate | where-object {$_.displayname -eq “Group.Unified”}
$setting = $template.CreateSettingsObject()
New-MsolSettings –SettingsObject $setting
$group = Get-MsolGroup -All | Where-Object {$_.DisplayName -eq “ENTER GROUP DISPLAY NAME HERE”}
$settings = Get-MsolAllSettings | where-object {$_.displayname -eq “Group.Unified”}
$singlesettings = Get-MsolSettings -SettingId $settings.ObjectId
$value = $singlesettings.GetSettingsValue()
$value[“EnableGroupCreation”] = “false”
$value[“GroupCreationAllowedGroupId”] = $group.ObjectId
Set-MsolSettings -SettingId $settings.ObjectId -SettingsValue $value