Sharing Using OneDrive
OneDrive is a cloud based storage tool available to all staff and students of UWSP. OneDrive provides you with 1 terabyte of storage and allows you to share your documents with others. OneDrive also allows for simultaneous editing of documents, which means multiple people can work on the same document at the same time.
To share a document, you can click on the "Share button" at the top right corner of an Office 2016 or Office 365 application. Another option is to access the share feature from within the OneDrive web interfaceby clicking on the document name and looking to the top ribbon menu.The OneDrive and Office365 sharing dialog looks slightly different than the Office 2016 dialog, but both accomplish the same tasks.
Sharing Permission Levels
When you share a document with someone else, be aware of the permission level you are giving them. There are always two options: “Can View” and “Can Edit.” Be aware that giving people permission to edit a document means that they can modify the contents, even delete the entire document, without notice. You should only give edit permissions to people that you trust.
Sharing Links vs Sharing With People
There are two ways you can share a document. You can share with individual people, or you can get a sharing link to the document. There are advantages and disadvantages to both of these methods.
Sharing Links
A sharing link is a very quick way to get a document out to many people at once. When you create these links, you are giving Office and OneDrive permission to let anyone who clicks on that link access to view, or even edit, your file. This is not limited to the people that you initially share the link with.
If your link gets forwarded, copied into another document, or pasted into a webpage, anyone who receives this link will be able to access your document. You should be very careful about creating sharing links, especially ones with edit rights.
To create a sharing link, open the sharing pane by clicking on the share button at the top right of the application, or choosing share from within OneDrive.
Click on the “Get a Sharing Link” option (it’s at the bottom of the Share pane in Office 2016, it’s a tab on the Share popup that appears in Office 365 or OneDrive.) You’ll see two options, one for an edit link, and one for a view-only link. Click on the “Create a link” button for the type of link you want to use, then click the copy button. This will copy the link to your clipboard, where you can paste into an email, document or web site.
Sharing with Individuals
Inviting people to share your document can be more time consuming than creating a link, but gives you more control over who gets access to your document. Directly sharing allows you to give different permission to each person you are sharing with, and prevents edit permissions from creeping to users you don’t want to have edit permissions.
To share with individuals, open the sharing pane by clicking on the share button at the top right of the application, or choosing share from within OneDrive.
In the “invite people” box, type the email address or name of the person you wish to share with. As you enter the name or email address, you will start to see suggestions of people at UWSP to share with. You can type the full name or email address, or simply click on the person when they appear in the suggestion list.
Choose the permission you want to give to that person. Your choices are “Can edit” or “Can view” You are also given the option to add a message to the person.
When you click the share button, an email will be sent to the person you have just shared the document with.
Finding Documents That are Shared With You
Documents that others share with you will appear in the “Shared with Me” view. You can find it in the left column in the web interface of aOneDrive window.
Sharing With Security Groups
UWSP has a number of email addresses attached to groups. Class lists are a good example of these. Unfortunately, there is a design limitation with the sharing features of OneDrive: When sharing to a group, members of the group will not see the shared file or folder in their “Shared with Me” view. The users *will*have permissions to the file or folder, but they will be able to access the file or folder only from the link sent to them from the person who shared the file.
Sharing Folders
You can share OneDrive folders the same way that you can share documents. Please be aware that any documents placed into a shared folder will automatically inherit the same permissions as the folder. It is good practice to explicitly name shared folders, labeling them as shared; this will help you to avoid accidentally sharing documents. Folders will not be shareable with people outside of UWSP.
To share a folder from within OneDrive, select the folder from your file list and choose the sharing icon from the top ribbon.
What Should beShared?
OneDrive should be used for sharing documents with people you are collaborating with on a project. It should not be used to share documents publicly; SharePoint is still the best place for this.
You should avoid sharing anything through OneDrive that contains sensitive, privileged, or protected data. Keep the FERPA, HIPAA, and other federally protected data rights of your students and colleagues in mind when you are deciding whether to share something.