Sharepoint Offline use

You are probably here because you are interested in making Sharepoint files and folders available for offline use. I have come across this requriement quite a few times. It is usually the sales or service team that need to have all relevant files readily available at their fingertips while on the move or at the customer site.

To my understanding, Sharepoint does not offer an "out of the box" solution for this, but there are various workarounds and helpful featuers that you might want to consider to fulfil this requirement:

• "Sync to local Sharepoint Workspace": ths creates a local copy of your Sharepoint Site, see here.
• "Outlook Sync": this build-in connection feature comes in handy for a single list or few libraries. You can copy/sync your files directly to MS Outlook (including preview)!
• "Open in Windows Explorer": this feature lets you open a document library in good old windows explorer. In this view, you can drag & drop files from this Sharepoint bib to your local harddrive
• "3rd Party": Knowing that Sharepoint uses a windows explorer fileshare structure, you can make use of professional thirdparty tools. I use a sync tool called "SyncToy" - which is free.
• "SkyDrive": In Sharepoint2013 you have the ability to use SkyDrive (a "Dropbox" clone) which copies your files to the cloud. Not quite local on your machine but at least reachable with your mobile device.
• "Sharepoint Add-ins": I am not aware of any other professional Sharepoint Add-ins that might also sync data, but I am sure it is available
• "Excel/OneNote": you can export lists easily with the export to excel command. Files that are stored in one note are automatically synced with Sharepoint (unless manual sync is activated)
• "Custom programming": If all else fails, you could program a bidirectional interface to your needs

Depending on how important this requirement is, you might want to consider a seperate tool. I found that the Semantic Guide by Semafora (previously Ontoprise) has a very good offline client.