Using My Book Essential on home network

I just purchased a 1T My Book Essential external drive. I am planning to use it to backup my desktop and laptop  computers. Both of these computers are on my home network. I want to connect  My Book  to the desktop computer and then share it on the network.  Will WD Smart Ware automatically backup my laptop to My Book with this configuration or will I need to disconnect from the desktop and reconnect directly to the laptop? 

WD SmartWare is for direct connect only.  Doesn’t support over network.