Data Management

Google Drive

This is our primarily data storage and management tool. It is part of our Company IT system Google G Suite. Thus it is integrated with our email, calendars and staff websites.

It provides:

- structured online folders

- access permissions to be set for each folder and file

- sharing of folders and files through Google Drive, Google Sites and email links

- Google search of all documents to which a given user has access (company administrator can see all)

- syncing of online folders with desktop folders

- terrible handling of multiple users editing a file/folder at the same time.

We only backup data that is on Google Drive, so anything that you have done a significant amount of work on should be on Google Drive. Ideally work should be filed away in the company file hierarchy straight away, but don't let this be a barrier to putting it on Google Drive - better for it to be in your My Drive before it is shared with anyone else and filed properly than for it not to be on Google Drive at all. For almost everything, you can use Drive File Stream to edit it directly from Google Drive as if it were a local file. 

If your laptop disk fails, which has happened to multiple people, or your laptop breaks down or is stolen, the data that is only on it is lost forever. There is also only one copy of the file on your laptop, whereas there is a history of them on Google Drive, as well as daily backups independent of Google.

Where Google Drive is potentially problematic is where there is a single file where saving that file also updates other files, and these files need to be kept in a consistent state. The only examples I am aware of are CAD assemblies and Adobe Illustrator files. These are best saved locally and copied, along with the referenced files, to Google Drive, or exported in a single file format. It is probably also worth saving a local copy and copying it to Google Drive for anything where the save process can go wrong, for example Microsoft Project. 

Work on Google Drive, by opening files from Google Drive using Windows Explorer and Google Drive File Stream, if you can (for example for any Word, Excel, PowerPoint files). If you are working on something that doesn't work easily directly on Google Drive, copy it to Google Drive at least whenever you reach a significant milestone, or whenever you take a break from it, for example at the end of the day and at lunch time. Once it is on Google Drive, even if the latest version is corrupted, there is a history of snapshots at least daily that we can recover, but if the local file is corrupted, there is a significant chance we can't help you and your work is just lost. 

Google Drive is also our digital archive. At project end, any files stored elsewhere (e.g Dropbox) should be moved in to Google Drive and any old files moved in to an OLD folder, so that in the future it is easy to find everything related to a project, without wading through lots of redundant files.

Updates on Staff website: 

If you add files to the staff site, please make make sure people have permission to view them. Even if the sharing settings are to let anyone in Ballard UK or Arcola Theatre with the link view it, that doesn't mean people in the other company can. We are separate Google G Suite domains because Theatre gets non-profit pricing.

To make sure people can see a file, when looking at the file (not the page on the staff site you are putting it in):

* Click on the Share button in the top right

* Click on Get shareable link in the top right of the dialogue box that appears

* Click on where it says the sharing permissions (for example "Anyone at Ballard UK with the link can view")

* Click on More...

* Select "On - Anyone with the link" and make sure "Can view", not "Can edit" or "Can comment" is selected near the bottom

* Click Save

This will ensure that anyone who sees the document on the staff site can see the contents. The staff site requires you to be signed in with a Google account with permission to view it, so this doesn't give anyone in the world access, the link is still secret, and just provided on the staff site. Be wary of doing this with anything sensitive in, but it is unlikely you'd be trying to put that on the staff site anyway.