Shared Drives
Shared Drives
This guide explains what Shared Drives are for and how to work with it. Use this when you have identified where to keep your information in G Suite.
This guide is in beta. This means that we are still working to improve it, so your feedback will help us make sure that they are easy to understand and useful. Please let us know your suggestions.
A Shared Drive is a shared space for storing, searching and working on files. Anyone with access to the Shared Drive can see all the files in it. The Team owns files in the Drive. This is different from My Drive. In My Drive, an individual is the owner of the files.
You can give people access to a Shared Drive by adding them as Members. Removing a Member from a Shared Drive means they cannot access the Drive or its content any more. This does not affect the Drive or its content.
Shared Drives are ideal for collaborating on files as a team. They’re also good for storing finished work.
Shared Drives are helpful when you’re working with a group of colleagues:
Shared Drives are good for storing information you need to keep and look at in the future:
If a member of your team leaves, other Drive members will still be able to access files they created in a Shared Drive. That’s because the Shared Drive owns the files and not the person who left.
Shared Drives give access for a group of colleagues working on something together. That means they’re not a good fit when the files have different access requirements. For example, where some files contain sensitive information and only some members of your team should be able to see them. You should store these elsewhere to give different access. For example, another Shared Drive or a My Drive.
You should never use Shared Drives to store files that are personal to you. For example, personal photos, bank statements, or mortgage applications. In these cases it is better to use My Drive.
Shared Drives have some limitations. You cannot:
eDOCS is used across the Council to hold documents and other files. This is changing. For more information, read The systems we use to manage information.
If you are not sure where to keep your records, read Where to keep information.
In G Suite, storing files in a Shared Drive is the best way to gather together files that share the same retention period. A retention period is the amount of time you should keep something for. This is not managed automatically yet in G Suite. Gathering information together in a Drive will make it easy to identify when it is.
Once you have decided you need a Shared Drive:
You can request as many Shared Drives as you need. Remember that Shared Drives give access for a group of colleagues working on the same thing. You might need several Shared Drives if:
Being able to see lots of Shared Drives that you do not use often can be confusing. If a colleague needs to see one or two files in your Drive, share those files instead of making them a Shared Drive member. Try to let colleagues know first before adding them to your Shared Drive.
If you think you need access to a Shared Drive, speak to a member of the team using it.
If you no longer want to be a member, contact the owner. If you are a member of a Shared Drive and you do not think you should be, contact the Shared Drive Owner. They can check if your access is correct.
If someone adds you to a Drive by mistake and it contains personal or sensitive information, report it immediately. Report it even if you’re unsure whether a breach has taken place.
A Shared Drive should always have an Owner. The Owner of a Shared Drive is responsible for:
When one Owner leaves, another should be chosen. The Owner should be the manager or leader of the group, if possible.
The Owner is recorded in a document called ‘Shared Drive README’. This is saved into the Shared Drive when the Drive is created.
The Shared Drive Owner has ‘Manager’ access. That’s because people with ‘Manager’ access can add and remove members. They can also create or delete things in the Drive. The Owner should share this responsibility with at least one colleague. If the Owner is unavailable, colleagues can make changes on their behalf.
Other members should have the most limited access they need to do their job. For example, if a colleague just needs to view files, give them ‘Viewer’ access.
Read Add members and set access levels for more information.
To get the best out of Shared Drives, your team should agree how to work together.
When someone requests a Drive, they explain how and why they want it set up. We record these details in a document called ‘Shared Drive READ ME’ and save it into the Drive. Your team can use this to agree ways of working. Anyone using the Drive can use the READ ME document as a guide. The Owner should add to the READ ME to record how you have agreed to work. For example:
This READ ME should be available to all members of a Shared Drive.
A new Shared Drive does not contain folders. The Owner can create folders without raising a service request. They can also give other members permission to create folders on their behalf.
Read Create folders for more information.
How you organise Shared Drive files affects everyone using the Drive. Remember that storing files in a Shared Drive already groups together similar files. Creating a folder structure just keeps things organised.
A good Drive structure is:
To keep information available and discoverable, the owner must make sure that:
Drive Search is a powerful way to find files in G Suite. It searches the contents of files as well as file names. Clear and consistent naming helps you identify a file without needing to open it.
Give documents and folders descriptive names. Try to keep the context and purpose of the topic in file titles. For example, do not call a document ‘Meeting Notes’. You might forget which meeting it related to, and when. Try to include the date of the meeting, its title and purpose:
‘20190210 - Project X - Key Decisions Meeting’
Writing the date backwards like this means you can easily sort files in date order.
Contact the Information Management Team if you would like advice on naming in a Shared Drive.
Only members with ‘Manager’ access can permanently delete files from the Shared Drive Trash.
Members with ‘Manager’, ‘Content Manager’ or ‘Contributor’ access can restore deleted files. This is only available for 30 days.
Let us know - your feedback will help us improve it.