A few years back, customers began to inform us that FDA inspectors were requesting documents be shared with them via Box (box.com), instead of a memory stick as was previously common. Recognizing that automating this would bring a great deal of value to our customers, we added Box integration to Ready Room back in November, 2021.

Over the past year or so, we've been hearing more and more about inspectors requesting that documents be shared with them via Microsoft Teams, OneDrive, or SharePoint Online. Today we are happy to announce support for sharing documents with inspectors using these Microsoft services!

Integration with these services is implemented in exactly the same way as we did for Box, and you are strongly encouraged to read the above referenced blog post to get a clear understanding of how to use this feature. Below we will focus on what makes Microsoft different from Box and on certain other related changes since the Box support landed.

First note that Teams, OneDrive, and SharePoint Online are all really the same product. In the Ready Room user interface, we chose to refer to them all as "Teams." Just know that when an inspector shares a Teams folder with you, he's really sharing a OneDrive folder with you, which is really a SharePoint folder. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

As with Box, Teams (OneDrive, SharePoint) is configured per inspector. We have moved the shared storage configuration into its own tab, but otherwise the interface is the same.

The shared folder URL must be the URL that Microsoft provides when a Teams user shares the folder or copies the link (highlighted in the image below). Unlike Box, you cannot use the URL visible in the browser's location bar. Also, while it's expected that an inspector will share a folder with a sponsor, it can just as easily be the other way around.

Once you've added the shared folder, a Ready Room admin with access to that folder must click the "Grant Access" button, which will whisk them over to Microsoft so that they can grant Ready Room access to the shared folder. If this is the first time you are authorizing Ready Room to access Teams, you will be asked to accept the permissions needed for file access.

Security Alert: In our opinion, Microsoft makes it a little too easy to create a folder that is accessible to the world. Please make sure that access to the shared folder is limited to trusted individuals, one of whom must be the Ready Room administrator that clicks the "Grant Access" button. You should inform the inspector of same.

Actually uploading to OneDrive is exactly the same as with Box:

• The Teams Upload link is made visible when a request associated with a properly configured inspector is in the "Inspector Review" column.
• You can upload individual files, the cover sheet, or a zip file containing all attached files and the cover sheet.
• You must specify a subfolder (or folders) where Ready Room will place the file. If these subfolders don't exist, they will be created.
• If successful, the link will turn green to indicate that the file has been uploaded.
• If you upload a file more than once, subsequent uploads will show up as new files suffixed with a space and an auto-incremented integer without parentheses. This differs from Box, which creates distinct versions of a file (as opposed to simple copies). However, Teams doesn't support versioning per se and offers no control over how copies are named.

An important part of eliminating inspection delays is getting responses to an inspector quickly and securely. With the addition of Teams/OneDrive/SharePoint integration to Ready Room, we've taken yet another step in making this so. We hope you agree.