Protect OneDrive-folders with DPM

Recently a customer asked me how they should protect their user-data that is located in their OneDrive for Business folders and here is the solution for that.

Microsoft is currently providing up to 90 days to restore deleted OneDrive objects from the recycle bin. It could seem as enough time for user-data but keep in mind that the recycle bin does not protect you in the two following scenarios:

• Data corruption.
• Version history. There is however some Office-supported file types (Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote) that will create a new version of the document. Note that version history has to be turned on!

Locate path to the local-cache of the OneDrive folder.

1. Right click the OneDrive-folder on the client machine and choose Properties.
2. Press the Location and note down the folder path.

Protect locally synchronized OneDrive-folders with DPM

1. Log onto the DPM-server and open the DPM-console.
2. Install the DPM-agent on the client machine from the Management-tab.
3. Create a new protection group from the Protection-tab.
4. After the Welcome page select the Clients option.
   
   
5. Mark the client/clients computer you want to protect, press Add and press Next.
6. On the Specify Inclusions and Exclusions-page. Enter the path to the OneDrive-folder and make sure you switch to Include under Path (use the variable %username% to avoid adding rows for every user)
   
   
7. Continue trough the wizard and choose your protection rules, data protection method, short(/long)-term goals and storage allocation.

After the Protection Group is successfully created, be patient as it can take some time before the agent is fully configured and starts its first synchronization.

Your users offline OneDrive-data is now protected!