How Attach to Cloud can replace your MS Outlook attached files by OneDrive shortcuts automatically, with no extra click.
ATTACH to CLOUD | USAGE CASE #3
Replace all Microsoft Outlook attached files by OneDrive shortcuts – No user interaction
Introduction
In this usage case, Attach to Cloud has been configured to operate as follows:
When sending emails containing attached files (clicking on Send in Outlook),
- The email is placed in the Outlook outbox, as usual
- All files attached to this email are uploaded to OneDrive
- Once uploaded to OneDrive, the files are shared with the recipients of the email
- The files attached to the email being sent are replaced by OneDrive shortcuts
- Once these steps are completed, Outlook sends the email (now containing OneDrive shortcuts) to its recipients
- All these operations are carried out in a fully automatic and transparent way, without a single additional click.
Demo
Janet is sending an email with attached files to John
Hi, I’m Janet!
Attach to Cloud is installed on my computer. Let me show you how it automatically converts my MS Outlook attached files to OneDrive shortcuts.
I just created a new email and attached 3 files I needed to send to John.
I click on Send. That’s it!
My email is put in the MS Outlook Outbox (like any other email being sent).
I can continue working in MS Outlook, for instance writing and sending other emails or sorting my received emails.
As you can see by looking at my email being sent, Attach to Cloud is uploading the attached files to OneDrive and displaying the progression of the upload:
“Attachment 1 of 3 being uploaded to oneDrive…”
When Attach to Cloud finishes the upload, it replaces the uploaded attached files by their OneDrive shortcuts and the email is then sent to John by Outlook.
All this is 100% automatic and transparent. There is not even a single extra click needed!
John is receiving the Janet’s email
Hi, I’m John!
Let’s have a look at the email Janet just sent to me:
As you can see, instead of the files attached by Janet, this email contains OneDrive shortcuts. It’s size is only 56 KB, although Janet sent me 30 MB of attached files!
I can open or download the files by clicking on the OneDrive Shortcuts.
I of course do not need Attach to Cloud to access these OneDrive files, although, as you guess, Attach to Cloud is already installed on my PC!
Let’s go back to the Janet’s Sent Items folder
If we look at the email I just sent to John in my MS Outlook Sent Items folder, it contains the same OneDrive shortcuts as those received by John.
Thanks to Attach to Cloud, we can now collaborate using the same copy of these files stored in OneDrive.
Attach to Cloud Benefits
With Attach to Cloud, we have put an end, overnight, and once and for all, to the nightmare of Microsoft Outlook attached files
The attached file nightmare:
Bill sends an email with 10 attached files to 10 recipients.
Among these recipients Rose, Charlotte and Frank modify respectively 3, 5 and 2 of the 10 attached files and send them back to Bill, not forgetting to Cc the other recipients of the initial email.
Bill receives the emails from Rose, Charlotte and Frank; each containing a new version of respectively 3, 5 and 2 of the 10 initial attached files + the other files that have not been modified.
After Bill spent a huge amount of time finding which files were modified by who and then merging all of the updates into a new version of these files, he sends again the email including the modified attached files and the other files to all of the initial email recipients. and so on…
Attach to Cloud simply put an end on this:
Thanks to Attach to Cloud, instead of having to deal with (most often multiple) local copies of attached files, MS Outlook email senders and recipients are now instantly ready to work together on single copies of shared OneDrive files.
Without Attach to Cloud, the number, relative complexity and lack of integration of the operations required to upload and share files on OneDrive and then inform your collaborators of the availability of these files were considered too daunting by most of our users. Attach to Cloud really made them adopt OneDrive, as well as the powerful Office 365 collaboration features built on it.
Thanks to Attach to Cloud, all our Outlook users now take all the benefits of using OneDrive and Office 365 on their (now non-attached) files
By automatically uploading all MS Outlook attached files to OneDrive, Attach to Cloud prevents files to be attached to emails.
Attach to Cloud thus performs the implicit deduplication of all attached files at the source; it manages to store a single copy of the attached files in OneDrive, that can be accessed by all of their recipients.
All of our MS Outlook users are now using OneDrive for real and leveraging all the benefits of Office 365 on their now non-attached files, among them:
- Real-time co-authoring in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint
- Advanced file sharing inside and outside your organization
- External sharing governance under the control of our Office 365 Administrators
- Selective file synchronization
- Fully integrated file version management
by seamlessly inducing our MS Outlook users to adopt OneDrive and the most advanced and productive Office 365 online collaboration features (requiring user files to be on OneDrive), Attach to Cloud drastically improved their efficiency and their productivity, as well as MS Office 365 profitability at our organization. And all this without any need for user education or training.
Plus, Attach to Cloud allows to attach files of any size to Outlook emails. Thus, it also enabled us to get rid of specific platforms we used to manage the exchange of very large files.
Discover other Attach to Cloud features and configuration options by browsing our other usage cases, among them:
- Allow MS Outlook users to interact with Attach to Cloud to choose which attached files to upload to OneDrive, in which OneDrive target folders, set OneDrive permissions and elapsing dates to the Outlook attached files uploaded by Attach to Cloud to OneDrive, on a per file basis.
- Allow MS Outlook users to attach very large files (up to 15 GB per file), exceeding, by far, the Outlook maximum email size limit.
(Attach to Cloud uploads and shares these files on OneDrive and replaces them by attached OneDrive shortcuts when the email is sent).
- Automatic upload of all MS Outlook attached files larger than a given number of MB to OneDrive based on a rule that can be specified and managed centrally or set by the users themselves.
- Automatic upload of all MS Outlook attached video files (or any other file types) to OneDrive based on a rule that can be specified and managed centrally or set by the users themselves.
(Attach to Cloud charge et partage ces fichiers joints sur OneDrive et les remplace par des raccourcis OneDrive lors de l’envoi du courriel).
(Attach to Cloud charge et partage ces fichiers joints sur OneDrive et les remplace par des raccourcis OneDrive lors de l’envoi du courriel).
More details on the benefits of Attach to Cloud…
If any questions remain after reading these pages, please make sure to check our Q&A page or to contact us, we’ll always be most pleased to answer.
Also, please feel free to try Attach to Cloud for yourself by downloading the free, fully functional Attach to Cloud evaluation version.