Business Central and OneDrive

Business Central and OneDrive

By Bert Verbeek 0
Lately I was searching in the BC19 preview container and when I want to change the company I have noticed a new option in the ‘My Settings’ menu:
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It is called the “Cloud Storage” option. When you click on the hyperlink Business Central is looking for the user his OneDrive. But were is this used?

In codeunit 9510 “Document Service Management” there are two new functions: OpenInOneDrive and OpenInOneDriveFromMedia. If you do a were used on those two function you see it is used in the “Report Inbox” page and the attachment page.
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In the attachment page there are two new options added in BC19. “Open in OneDrive” and Download. If you click on “Open in OneDrive” the file is automatically copied to your OneDrive and openend. For example if it is a Word file then Word Online will be opened.

The download option will download the file as an hyperlink to your client.

Also in the “Report Inbox” the two options are there:
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If the file is already there in your OneDrive you get the message:
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So everything is also copied there and not removed!

But when you open an PDF file the preview is there:
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Another create feature. But hope this is just the start of the new integration. On Yammer there is also a message that the following features will come:
  • Developers will be able to implement a third action, Share, that displays the standard Microsoft 365 file sharing window, directly within Business Central. The Share window allows users to share a link with others, email a link, or attach a copy of the file to an email.
  • Improvements to the end-user sign-in experience when using OneDrive from Business Central, reducing the number of windows required to handle identity and consent.
  • Variations to the AL methods will be made available that give more granular control over where and how the file is copied to OneDrive before it is opened or shared.

Note: I’m not a fan for putting files in your database! (This because the attachment functionality is stored in the media table). Your database is getting big. But I think the database is for storing data and not files. There are better solution such as SharePoint Online, Azure File Storage or Azure Blob Storage.

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