Google Drive

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Google Drive is a cloud-based storage system available to all Smith community members. In Drive, you can create and collaborate with your team on various types of files, including Docs (word processing), Forms (surveys), Sheets (spreadsheets), Sites (websites), and Slides (presentations). You can also store and share non-Google documents as well.

Files in your Smith Google Drive areas are backed up and securely stored.

Accessing Google Drive

Once you’ve logged into your Smith email account, select the Google apps menu (nine dots) located in the upper right of the page, then select Drive. (You can also enter drive.google.com in your web browser.)

Learn the Basics

The Google Drive Essential Training course on the LinkedIn Learning platform is an excellent resource that covers all of the Drive basics, from setting up and organizing to sharing and collaborating. Watch the whole course or pick a specific lesson based on your needs. All Smith community members have access to LinkedIn Learning content.

To explore Google's collection of Drive help articles, visit the Google Drive Help Center

Quick Tutorials

Google also has an extensive support and learning center—we’ve curated some links to help you get started.

Sharing Files

We recommend using Google Shared drives for sharing a collection of work–files and folders.

My Drive vs. Shared Drives

You can store documents and data in a team drive, called Shared Drive, or an individual drive area, called My Drive. You can easily share your documents and files with others without having to email them as attachments or download and upload them. You can give others permissions to individual files or a whole folder and even share files with non-Smith, non-Google users.

For most of your day-to-day work, using Google’s Shared Drives is the best option for sharing files, ensuring others on your team have access to the materials.

For an in-depth comparison, see the Google Help Center article: Compare Shared Drives with My Drive.

My Drive File Sharing

Storing files in My Drive is useful for personal notes and files that do not need to be shared with others. If you need to share individual files from My Drive, check out these Google Support articles:

Shared Drives

Guidelines

Here are some guidelines to keep in mind when using Google Shared Drives.

Shared Drives should be considered:
- - For offices and groups that want to make documents available easily to staff and members.
  - For group collaboration, especially if the resulting document will be viewed or updated by multiple people regularly.
  - For storing documents that support an ongoing office, formal group, or operational function.
  - For documents that are currently stored on an individual user’s Google Drive but would need to remain available to others at Smith if that person left the college.
When setting up a shared drive for a particular group, name the drive in a way that will help identify its formal group affiliation and purpose.
Establish a standard naming convention for your folders and files and make sure all members also follow it. Potential methods include organizing items into folders by working teams, fiscal year, academic year, project name, or event title.
The access level a team member is given on a Shared Drive will become the default access level assigned for subfolders and documents within that Drive. Depending on a member's current role, their access level can be increased on a specific folder or file within a Shared Drive. If you need to further restrict member's access in a subfolder, visit Learn about folders with limited access.

View Shared Drive Folders & Members

You will only see Shared Drives you have created or been given some type of rights to access. To view members of a Shared Drive:

Double-click to open a Shared Drive.
Above the column heading, select the number of members.

To view your access level, find yourself in the list. Your access rights are listed across from your name.

Create a Shared Drive

Shared drives should be created in the Google web browser interface so that roles and permissions can be properly set up. To create a Shared Drive for your team or a project:

Select Shared Drives from the Google Drive menu, then select +New.
Name the Drive, then select Create.

Add People

Next, you’ll want to add your team to the Shared Drive and select their role/access to the Drive.

Manager: Can manage members, and create, add/upload, edit, move, or delete all files and folders.
Content manager: Can create, add/upload, edit, move, or delete all files and folders.
Contributor: Can edit all files and upload new files, but can’t move or delete files.
Commenter: Can only comment on all files.
Viewer: Can only view all files.

We recommend having at least two Managers for each Shared Drive:

Open the Shared Drive. Select the drop-down menu next to the Drive name, then select Manage Members.
Add people by searching for their name or email and setting their role from the drop-down menu on the right.
Notify people you’ve added them to the Shared Drive and send them a message. When you’re done adding people, select Send.

Pro Tip: Use the Google Groups feature to manage team access to folders and documents. For example, you could create a group with the email address its-communication-team-u@smith.edu and add several members. When you grant access to Google files or folders using that one email address, everyone in the group gets access. When a team member leaves, they can be removed from Google group and their permissions to all of the shared folders will automatically be adjusted.

Adjust General Access

In addition to sharing a folder or document with specific people, you can also set/restrict general access:

Restricted: Only people with access can open the link to a file.
Smith College: Anyone at Smith can open a link to the file.
Anyone with the link can open a file.

For more information, see the Google Help Center article Share files from Google Drive.

Manage a Shared Drive

Once your Shared Drive is created, managers and content managers can create folders for specific projects and purposes within the drive. Each folder can:

Contain additional folders (for organization).
Store a variety of documents and data, including those created using Google and non-Google applications, such as Microsoft or Adobe.
Be shared with additional people outside of your team.
Restrict certain shared drive members from accessing the subfolder.

FAQ

For general storage and backup information including FAQs, check out the A to Z topic Storage and Backup

How secure is Google Drive? My team works with sensitive data.

Google Drive is secure and can be used to store most data except Protected Health Information (PHI).

Is Google Drive accessible?

Yes! For more information on accessibility and using screen readers with Google Drive, see Accessibility.

What types of documents and files can be stored in Google Drive? I work with many different types of materials and data.

Files and documents most Smith employees work with daily, such as written documentation, spreadsheets, and PDFs, can be stored in Google Drive. Data and information that is normally managed and stored in other systems, such as Workday or Salesforce, large research data files, personal health information, and video files, are not included. If you would like to discuss best practices for storing these or other materials, please email ithelp@smith.edu to request a consultation.

If I open a Word or Excel document in Google Drive, does it convert the document into a Google format?

While this used to be the case, it is no longer the default behavior.

Can I share something in Google Drive with someone outside of Smith?

Yes, as long as their email address is associated with a Google account and their organization allows access to Google Workspace. It’s best practice to set an end date for non-Smith employees to access it. For details on sharing and setting end dates, see Share files from Google Drive.

How do I find a file that I didn’t create?

You can search Google Drive by several attributes, including the document’s owner and the item name. For more information, check out the Google Drive Help article, Search for files in Google Drive.

How can I tell who a file or folder is shared with?

From Google Drive, select the three dots on the right side of the screen for the file or folder you’re working with, then select Share to see a list of people with access.

Can someone else add files and folders to My Drive?

While this can be done, we usually don’t recommend it as it can cause difficulties when the person leaves the college. Best practices are to use Shared Drives for work that multiple people need to access.

Who can add files to a Shared Drive?

Any member of the Shared Drive with Manager, Content Manager, or Contributor access can add and edit files.

How are the permissions of Shared Drive members' determined for subfolders and files?

The access level a team member is given on a Shared Drive will become the default access level assigned for subfolders and documents within that Drive. Depending on a member's current role, their access level can be increased on a specific folder or file within a Shared Drive. If you need to restrict someone's access in a subfolder, visit the Google Drive Help Learn how to limit access to folders.

If someone on our team deletes a file or folder and we discover we still need it, can we recover it?

Yes. When something is deleted, it goes into the Trash folder for 30 days before being permanently removed. With Shared Drive items, members with Contributor access can restore files from the trash during that time period. For instructions, see Restore a file to a shared drive. If more than 30 days have passed and the item is no longer in the trash, you can Request IT Help for assistance with recovering the file. Include the following information to the best of your knowledge: filename, owner, link to the document, type of file (Doc, Sheets), and when it may have been deleted or lost.

More Help from Google Support

Get Started with Shared Drive

How File Access Works

Store & Share Files or Folders

Add or Move Files to a Shared Drive

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