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Connecting Microsoft OneDrive lets you add OneDrive files to knowledge bases, so your agent answers from the Word documents, Excel workbooks, and PDFs your team already maintains. Personal OneDrive and OneDrive for Business (work or school) both work, and the access Retell asks for is read-only. This page covers the connection itself. OneDrive adds no integration tools. Like Google Drive and Notion, its job is feeding knowledge bases.

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When to use it

Connect OneDrive when the content your agent should know already lives in Microsoft 365. It’s the right choice when you want to:
  • Keep the knowledge base in step with the file. A price sheet or policy document added from OneDrive re-syncs when the file changes, so the knowledge base follows the document instead of snapshotting it.
  • Let non-developers own the content. The team edits the same Word or Excel file they always have; nobody exports a PDF or opens the dashboard to keep the agent current.
  • Stay inside your existing Microsoft tenant. Sign-in, consent, and revocation all run through Microsoft Entra ID, so the connection is governed like every other app your organization has approved.
For example, an HVAC company keeps its service-plan pricing in an Excel workbook on the operations lead’s OneDrive, updated whenever a supplier raises a rate. The workbook is a knowledge base source, so the booking agent quotes current plan pricing without anyone touching the dashboard.

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Prerequisites

  • A Microsoft account with a OneDrive, either personal or work/school. Retell keeps acting as this account, so prefer a shared team account over an individual’s: if the account loses access to a file or gets deactivated, those sources stop refreshing.
  • Permission to approve the app. The permissions Retell requests are delegated and read-only, which a user can normally grant themselves. If your tenant turns off user consent for apps, Microsoft shows a Need admin approval screen instead, and an Entra ID admin has to approve Retell first.

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Connect OneDrive

1

Add the connection

In the Retell Dashboard, open Integrations, select the Available tab, find Microsoft OneDrive, and click Connect (Add Account if a connection already exists). You can also start from a knowledge base: the Add menu shows Connect Microsoft OneDrive when no account is connected yet.
2

Sign in with Microsoft

The dialog only asks for a connection name (prefilled with Microsoft OneDrive - OAuth). Click Connect (Add Account if a connection already exists), and the browser goes to Microsoft’s sign-in page, returning to the dashboard once consent completes.Expect up to two approval prompts. The first sign-in tells Retell whether the account has a personal or a work/school OneDrive, and the second grants the file picker read access to that specific OneDrive. Both are read-only, and Microsoft skips the second prompt if the account has already approved it. Retell stores a refresh token, so nobody has to sign in again.
Retell's Microsoft OneDrive connection dialog. It has a single Connection name field prefilled with Microsoft OneDrive - OAuth, a hint reading 'Learn how OneDrive files sync into your knowledge bases' with a See docs link, and Cancel and Add Account buttons. There is no Functions tab, since OneDrive adds no integration tools; connecting continues to a Microsoft sign-in.

The Microsoft OneDrive connection dialog, with only a connection name to fill in.

Once connected, the account appears in every knowledge base’s Add menu. See OneDrive knowledge base sync for picking files and how refresh works.

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What you can pick

A connection reaches the signed-in account’s own OneDrive and nothing else:
  • Your OneDrive files. The picker opens on the connected account’s own OneDrive, personal or business.
  • SharePoint is out of scope. Only the picker’s My files view is available; its Recent, Shared, Quick access, My organization, and site views are turned off because they reach into SharePoint. If a file still resolves to a SharePoint document library, the knowledge base rejects it while saving with Selected file is in SharePoint, not OneDrive. To use such a file, copy it into the connected account’s OneDrive first.
  • Folders and OneNote notebooks can’t be synced. Neither is a downloadable file: folders are for browsing only, and a notebook that gets picked is rejected with OneDrive item is not a downloadable file.

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How access works

Retell requests two read-only Microsoft permissions, delegated to the account that signs in: Neither permission grants write access, so Retell can’t create, change, or delete anything in OneDrive. Both are delegated permissions, capped at what the signed-in account can already access. They are account-wide rather than per-file, because Microsoft’s file picker offers no per-file grant like Google’s drive.file scope; what Retell actually fetches is still limited to the files you added to a knowledge base. It never lists, searches, or downloads anything else. Deleting the connection on the Connected tab discards the stored refresh token, so Retell’s access ends immediately. To revoke from Microsoft’s side as well: for a personal account, remove Retell in your Microsoft account’s privacy settings under Apps and services that can access your data; for work or school, remove it in the My Apps portal, or have an admin revoke it in Microsoft Entra ID under Enterprise applications.

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FAQ

The Graph permission is account-wide, so the token technically covers files the account can read. Retell only ever downloads the files you picked and added to a knowledge base. It doesn’t list, search, or index the rest, and it never writes.
Personal and work OneDrive run on different Microsoft endpoints, and the file picker needs a permission scoped to whichever one you have. The first sign-in identifies your account type, and the second grants picker access to that OneDrive. Microsoft skips the second prompt when the account has already approved it.
Usually no: the permissions are delegated and read-only, which a user can normally grant. If your tenant turns off user consent for apps, Microsoft shows its Need admin approval screen instead, and an Entra ID admin has to approve Retell before the connection completes.
Yes. Each connection is separate and is pinned at connect time to the account’s OneDrive type, so a personal Microsoft account and a work account are two connections. The knowledge base Add menu lists them all.
Content already synced stays in your knowledge bases and keeps answering; it just stops refreshing, and its source rows show Sync not available. Reconnecting and re-picking the files resumes updates.
Retell verifies at the end of the flow that the account it authorized is still the one it started with. Signing into a different account mid-flow, or an account that moved between a personal and a work OneDrive, trips this check. Start the connection again and sign in with a single account.

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Next steps

OneDrive knowledge base sync

Pick the files your agent answers from, and keep them re-syncing as they change.

Integrations overview

See every provider Retell connects to and how integration tools work.