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How do I turn a Onedrive for Business folder into a network viewable UNC share for a Canon Imagerunner to scan to SMB?

Anonymous
2021-08-03T18:10:08+00:00

Hi all,

I have a client who has a Canon ImageRunner C5540, which needs an SMB share to scan to.
It also has WebDAV as an option, which I'm unfamiliar with, but have been told by my associate that it contains many a problem, and he doesn't want to go this route. (and he's the one with the authority, so it's out)
There's also the "scan to email" option, but the client doesn't want to pay for a Microsoft Flow license, which Sharepoint seems to require to setup the configuration, so that's also out.

We've just recently switched the client from DropBox to Sharepoint/OneDrive for Business.
They were scanning to a local folder on one of the computers, which was somehow syncing to Dropbox, but I'm not sure how the configuration was done, and the entire Dropbox setup has already been depreciated, so I don't have any access to even attempt a guess.

I need to setup something similar for their new Sharepoint implementation.
I'm looking to somehow take one of the folders in Sharepoint (possibly via the OneDrive for Business sync client on the computer with the aforementioned local folder.) and set it up as a UNC share, so the printer can scan to the folder, which needs to then sync up with the Sharepoint library folder.

I'm having a hell of a time trying information specific to my circumstance, so now I'm reaching to to see if anyone has encountered this, and has any solutions or suggestions to help.

Much appreciated!

Microsoft 365 and Office | SharePoint | For business | Windows

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  1. Anonymous
    2021-08-16T15:58:45+00:00

    Hi Neha,

    Thanks for the info!

    We ended up finding out that we have a Power Automate free license available to us, and it contained the elements I needed to setup "email to a Sharepoint Library," so that ended up being our final solution.

    This seemed like the most robust, reliable, and consistent way to go about it.

    I just figured the client would have to pay for Power Automate, so wrote it off earlier.

    The things you learn!

    Thanks again for all of your help and suggestions on this, and I'll be sure to keep all this in my back pocket for the future.

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  2. Anonymous
    2021-08-09T16:11:24+00:00

    Hi Neha,

    That's ok, I'm well familiar with the process on the Canon end.

    My question is more will this *work* in regard to the Sharepoint/OneDrive end of things?
    Does Sharepoint/OneDrive have any caveats about being setup as a UNC share, and, as the Canon needs an account (Not sure if it has to be local or can be an Azure AD account) on the machine to use, can I utilize an Azure AD account for this. (I presume you can't answer this question, as you mentioned not knowing how to do it on the Canon, which is fair. I'll reach out to them about that.)

    Another thought I had this morning, was to setup a script of some form that migrates files from a local folder to the Sharepoint/OneDrive folder on the machine, and then periodically deletes the files from the local folder. (So as to not eat up the limited SSD space)
    Though I wouldn't even know where to begin to write something like that, unfortunately.

    And then another thought was to use a symlink between a local folder and the Sharepoint/OneDrive library folder, though, I'm not familiar with whether this creates a new folder that pairs with the Sharepoint Library folder, or whether it's just a "shortcut."

    Is anyone familiar with these last two ideas?

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  3. Anonymous
    2021-08-04T23:19:15+00:00

    Hi Rhys,

    Based on your post, I found a related thread where customers are discussing something similar, please check the link below:

    Sharepoint Online map as local network share in file exporer (Windows 10)

    Regards,

    Neha

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  4. Anonymous
    2021-08-03T22:08:27+00:00

    Hi webbrewers,

    Well, this would be a WebDAV connection setup on the printer (instead of pointing it to a UNC share), not locally in Windows.

    The OneDrive sync client works just fine for connecting the users' computers to Sharepoint, so we don't need an alternative there.

    And, as I stated, I've been told I'm not to use WebDAV, so that option's pretty much out of the question.

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  5. matt howell 3,511 Reputation points
    2021-08-03T21:59:19+00:00

    WebDav actually works well and supports local network locations that allow direct interaction with Sharepoint via file explorer. It's certainly more reliable and less buggy than Msft's sync client. I haven't used it for what you need but it's a huge timesaver for me being able to save directly to, and open things from SP. The only caveat is occasionally you have to refresh the connection using IE, which is the only browser that supports webDav. Here's what file explorer looks like with a few network locations created - from here I can access anything across 100's of SP sites:

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