You might see that the Dropbox Community team have been busy working on some major updates to the Community itself! So, here is some info on what’s changed, what’s staying the same and what you can expect from the Dropbox Community overall.
Forum Discussion
New named Dropbox structure
I am a user of DropBox Business, on Windows 10.
Last week, I suddenly realized that the shortcuts to some of my Dropbox folders were broken.
A quick look learned me that the structure had changed...
As a longtime Dropbox Business Advanced customer, I recently received an email saying my plan would be "upgraded" in 7 days that included numerous changes that will be incredibly disruptive to our business operations. The changes include:
- Forcing the rename of the root Dropbox folder, breaking bookmarks and other integrations.
- Creating a new "team space" folder where all existing folders will be moved, creating yet another break in existing links and an even longer file path name.
- Forcing all folders that are available offline to "online only", requiring all users + admins to go back through all folders and mark respective folders offline again. This may result in some users having to re-download large amounts of data, stressing their bandwidth connections (especially remote workers). They may also lose access to critical files after the migration.
- Forcing the team admin to become the owner of the existing team folders, even if they don't actively use or manage those folders personally (e.g. the IT admin personally becomes the owner of the HR and Finance department folders).
- Downtime overnight while the entire change happens without any preview or testing phase.
Naturally, this is terribly disruptive to our business operations as it requires making everyone go through a downtime without any way to know the impacts or prepare for them. This will then cause disruptions to our delivery to services to our customers. I contacted Dropbox support and was told there is no way to opt out permanently and that they are willing to offer me a refund of my annual fees (several thousand dollars) if I wanted to leave and go to another platform.
Furthermore, while you can postpone the upgrade up to 30 days, you cannot permanently opt out of the change. And, you will have to re-postpone within 7 days of the new date, for up to another 30 days. I was told this could go on indefinitely, but of course if you miss it, the upgrade will be forced upon your entire company and there is no way to go back.
Frankly, all of this sounds like an ongoing nightmare that benefits no one, and would serve to only drive customers away to other platforms like Microsoft's OneDrive or Google Drive. What's even more remarkable is that most business customers likely already pay for either Microsoft365 for Office apps, or Google's services for their apps, both of which come with online storage that the customer chooses not to use but do pay Dropbox for separately. Most business customers using Dropbox choose Dropbox because it's different and administration has been friendly and easier. This change is in the complete opposite direction, and what's worse is the way in which Dropbox is forcing customers into the rollout with very little notice is insensitive to how their customers actually use their product.
I'm posting this message to see if anyone else is being affected by the same issue and if so, to please comment and let Dropbox know this change is not welcome. Or at the least, to allow us to opt out permanently, or provide some smoother way to make the transition that just an overnight change without any migration or test process.
