Syncing Thumb Drive

Our church secretary likes to keep most of her documents on a thumb drive which creates a problem when she's gone, since no one but her has her drive. We've asked that she keep church stuff on the churches computers for this reason, but to no avail. She said this time, "I forgot..."

I would like to make it so her thumb drive (or folder with church stuff) automatically sync's to a folder on the churches computer anytime she inserts her drive. That way, if something happens to her, the church will have all it's stuff and won't have to reinvent all it's wheels. If it can be done behind the scene with no human interaction then that would really be great.

If this were Linux I know I could do this with rsync, what's a good way to do this on Win10?

Short version of what happened, the church is out of envelopes and we need the file to order more but she's out of town. We asked her to email us the document but you guessed it, she doesn't have her thumb drive with her. I think those things are churches property and should be on the churches computers so the church doesn't have to depend on one person. With her permission, I want to have her thumb drive automatically sync to the churches computer so we don't have this problem in the future.

Thats bad and maybe illegal in the uk if it has personel data even names adress etc it could be a crime. The best bet is two fold setup Google sync that will backup her files to the cload in seconds so you can get them anywhere.

You could put an auto run inf file that runs robocopy to sync

Samuria said:

You could put an auto run inf file that runs robocopy to sync

This functionality was removed in Vista (and in an optional XP patch) as, if you think about it, running a program when a drive is inserted is an excellent way to spread malware. It will not work on Windows 10.

What could be done is to have a program running on the PC polling for the insertion of the drive but you would have to first identify what drive was connected (is it hers?) or copy everything that anyone ever plugged in (have you the space?)

I would go for the human solution first - explain the problem and ask her to copy it. If that fails then ban thumb drives.

If she wants to work at home she can e-mail a copy to herself, work on it at home and then e-mail it back to a common e-mail account.

Worst case fill all the USB ports with hot-glue.

lx07 said:

If she wants to work at home she can e-mail a copy to herself, work on it at home and then e-mail it back to a common e-mail account.

That's the second part of the problem, she keeps using her personal email for church business which keeps us from having an archive of what we've done. She even sent out letters with her personal email as the way to respond. She doesn't seem to get the importance of the church being able to archive and maintain everything it does.

lx07 said:

Worst case fill all the USB ports with hot-glue.

Kind of extreme, but effective!!!

It wouldn't be illegal since whatever solution we use will be with her permission, or, like was said, we'll just have to ban thumb drives. I wasn't looking to secretly copy her drive, but I do want to keep the churches records on the churches computers.

We have a one drive that is linked to her computer which is what the video person uses for the power points she makes for each service. She makes them at home then can pull them up on our video machine off of onedrive. But I can't get her to do that either, she's kind of stuck in the world of, "the way I've always done it..." Which is why I would like something automatic that works behind the scene so she can keep doing it, "the way she always done it" and the church can have a record of our files.

We had this problem a while back trying to make a new members certificate while she was out and though we had this solved, it was working well for a while but I can see we've gone back to old way.

AlphaUMi said:

Anyway, https://allwaysync.com/ can be of use to you. It can sync files/folders using various methods. For example, it can trigger a sync when an usb device is inserted.

And I should have a paid license for allwaysync, I used it in corporate America to back my laptop up to my home system so I didn't loose anything in the event of a crash. Thanks, I forgot all about that application.

This should be handled as an employment issue; present her with a written notice with an explanation of the policy and require that she abide by the rules. A signature that she has read the Policy and understands it should be put in her file and a copy of it given to her in front of at least 2 people. All church business should be on the Church computer only, not on a thumb drive. Quite frankly she should be terminated from the position if she can't abide by church policy. Find out why she's doing that and let her know it won't be tolerated. The Church secretary probably has more access to personal information than anyone else at the church. You don't have to be ugly, but you need to be firm.

I don't think you need or should try to find a way fix the issue via software. It is no a technology problem.
EJ

We're a small church so pretty much everyone is volunteer, and she mostly does the job because no others stepped up.

The reason she does it is because she often does church work from her day job (secretary), home and church. I'm not trying to be unappreciative or make her life hard, just keep the church files up to date in the event she is replaced or not there.