Native Options for Uploading Files into Sharepoint (Part 2 of 3)

Part 1 – Introduction

» Part 2 -Native Options for Uploading Files into SharePoint

Part 3 – Third Party Options for Uploading Files and File Share Migration into SharePoint

Upload Document/Upload Multiple Documents (SharePoint Ribbon)

SNAGHTML2b62b36eWhen you navigate into a document library and select the Documents tab, SharePoint provides a ribbon option to Upload Document and Upload Multiple Documents.  After selecting the appropriate button users can specify a single file or drag multiple files into the interface.

Upload Documents

 

 

Pros

Cons
  • Built into SharePoint
  • Available to everyone (see Active X control limitation)
  • Simple to use
  • 100 files limit per upload
  • Requires MS Office installed locally for the ActiveX control (only available for 32-bit Internet Explorer browsers)
  • Does not handle invalid SharePoint characters
  • Does not retain core properties (created/modified at and created/modified by)
  • No logging available

Upload using Windows Explorer (WebDAV)

WebDAV is an extension to the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) that is supported by Windows Explorer and allows users to view and interact with SharePoint document libraries in a similar fashion as they work with file systems.  The contents of a SharePoint library will appear just like any other folder in Explorer.

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To learn more about connecting to SharePoint using WebDAV, you can review this blog post.

Pros

Cons
  • Requires basic configuration
  • Available to everyone
  • Familiar Windows Explorer interface
  • Supports Copy/Paste and Drag-n-Drop
  • 50MB upload limit (registry change needed to increase)
  • Slow, inconsistent results (timeouts, system/browser freezes)
  • Spotty support for Mac and Linux O/S
  • Host machine configuration requirements (web client service, desktop experience function)
  • Does not handle invalid SharePoint characters
  • Does not retain core properties (created/modified at and created/modified by)
  • Does not allow metadata tagging during upload
  • No logging is available

Other Alternatives (SharePoint Workspace and SkyDrive Pro)

Since this article is focused on File Share to SharePoint Migration, we will not cover SharePoint Workspace or SkyDrive Pro in detail.  However, if your goal is to  SharePoint content an excellent overview of these solutions can be found here

About stevep

Steve Pogrebivsky has written 7 post on this blog.

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