Hello everyone - At work, we are working on a project which will allow us to synchronize datafrom a mapped network drive to a sharepoint share document library. We have looked into and used robocopyin hope ofcreating this ability, in addition to looking to other tools like SyncToy. Is this a possibility with a particular program or some Windows tool? In simple terms, we basically want to replicate and synhcronize datafrom a mapped network drive on our network and whatever is created, manipulated, or changed to the folders/files on the network drive, we would like whatever is done to be mirrored on Sharepoint's shared documents. Thanks for your time. Regards, Mike

Are you wanting everything sychronized from the folder to SharePoint AND when SharePoint is updated - have that data sync'd over to the folder? This is generally not a highly recommended activity. Jeff DeVerter

Jeff - We wantany data that isupdated or changedon our mapped network drive to be sync'd on SharePoint. For example, let's say I make a change to a Word 2007 document on our mapped drive (Keep in mind,hypothetically, the original Word 2007 documentis currently saved on Sharepointalso.), I want that same change to be reflected on theWord 2007 document saved on SharePoint. We basically want to ghost the mapped network drive to SharePoint. Wedo not wantbi-directional synchronization, we wantdrive ---->WSS 3.0 only. Additionally, if this concept is possible, is there a way to schedule a specific "sync time" between the mapped drive and SharePoint to reduce network load?

Is there any reason for the seperation? The most obvious thing that springs to mind is to make the share and the document library one and the same thing. Setup a share on the users machines to map to the document library in SharePoint. Users can then either save via SharePoint or via the share.

We currently already have a mapped network drive/share that all employees here have access to. The reason we want the current network drive/share mirrored on the SharePoint is to work withSharePoint, see how itfunctions, and to gain some confidence in SharePoint. Ultimately, we are moving towards making SharePoint our all in compassing shared file location but we first want to see if we can take this step, and see how it works.

No, they can't sync. You should just have a single SharePoint library and not a shared drive, because you can map to the SharePoint library as a separate drive - no reason to have both and duplicate data. Users can still interact with files in the SP library through windows explorer using a mapped drive and wouldn't know the difference from being on an old-school shared drive. They would of course need proper permissions to the SP library, but they could interact in the antique method of using shared drives then later go to the SP library and see their doc for web interaction as needed.SharePoint Architect || My Blog

I think there's some miscommunication going on. We want the ability to have replication between the mapped drive and the SharePoint library, so someone could simply logon to SharePoint and use a file that is originally on the mapped drive. The changes made to the file are only done to the original file on the mapped drive and thenSharePoint reflects those samechanges in its library. SharePoint is simply acting as a holding place for these files, nothingelse.We are not ready to fully depend on SharePoint yet.

There is no such thing out of the box - maybe a 3rd-party tool, a script, or custom code. What I'm saying is that you can treat a SharePoint document library as a shared folder and can map to it just like you map to your shared drive. Your users could still use the mapped drive to the doc lib just like they do in the shared drive, but the document would actually reside in SharePoint and would appear to be on a shared drive. This seems like a great compromise to your situation where your users don't even know the docs are in SharePoint and don't even have to use the SharePoint interface but would actually be updating the files in SharePoint real-time with no complication. What part of that is objectionable?SharePoint Architect || My Blog

Clayton -Are you suggesting that we keep the originamapped networkdrive as it is, and then create ashared folder on SharePoint and create a completelynew mapped folder on the drive where these files will reside? The whole part of this exercise is to work with the original mapped network drive, with the original file tree system, and have it sync with SharePoint. I cannot deviate from this concept.

Good luck then. I've never had to go to that extent to get an organization used to SharePoint. That seems a bit ridiculous to me, so I don't envy your position. Perhaps there is some 3rd-party tool out there that can do this for you. I am not sure why SharePoint is considered so difficult for your users when it's so muchmore powerfuland efficient than using shared drives. I just yesterday trained an executive admin assistant of mature age and had her praising the ease and efficiency of what MOSS provided to her now that she understood and was no longer overwhelmed. She admitted that her initial reaction was of intimidation, because she didn't understand. In an hour, she was making decisions on how many of her projects should immediately move into SharePoint. That's how I like to approach it, but maybe it's a luxury you don't have.SharePoint Architect || My Blog

Hi Mike! Realizing it's been a while since this post, but I have a client in this same position, and was wondering if your organization was able to make this work/ what the solution was? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!