Working with individual work-related files

OneDrive for Business

• UAlbany faculty, staff and students each have 1TB of storage in OneDrive for Business as part of Microsoft 365.
• OneDrive for Business is a personal document library intended for storing and organizing your documents and other files.  
• You can access your OneDrive for Business files from anywhere, including a web browser or a mobile device, and directly from Microsoft 365 apps like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.
  

• You can choose to share files with others within and outside the University.  

  OneDrive for Business is great for:

  • Files that you want only for you (you're working on them by yourself)​
  • Drafts of files you're not yet ready to move to a Team or other shared space
  • Files that you are collaborating on with one or two other users that are not related to a specific Team or project (for example, one-on-one meeting notes)​
  • Collaborating/sharing files with people/groups inside or outside the University
  • Emailing files to others without file attachments
  • Files that you need to access or edit from a mobile device

Home Folders (U: Drive)

• UAlbany faculty and staff have a U: Drive Home Folder with 5GB of storage.  This quota can be increased by request up to 25GB.
• It is file storage space for each individual to store files that do not need to be accessed by others.  

• To access your U: Drive from off-campus, you must be signed into the University's VPN.  See File Storage - Mapping Network Drives for information on how to connect to your U: Drive.

  U: Drive is great for:

  • Files that you do not need to share with others
  • Files that you do not need easy anywhere/anytime access to
  • Files that you do not need to access from a mobile device
  • "Cold storage" for files you want to keep but don't need to access frequently

Working with group work-related files

Microsoft Teams 

• UAlbany faculty, staff and students can use Microsoft Teams to share files, edit and collaborate on documents, take notes, host & join virtual meetings, and chat with individuals or groups from any device. 

• UAlbany faculty, staff and students can create a Team in Microsoft Teams that provides 1TB of storage for files for your team.

  Microsoft Teams is great for:

  • Storing very large files (up to 250GB)
  • Files your group or team need to work on together
  • Files you need to share with multiple people 
  • Files multiple people need to be able to access any time from anywhere
  • Files for clubs, interest groups, committees, project teams, departments
  • Collaborating with people/groups outside the University
  • Being able to have access to your group's files directly on your device with syncing, even while offline
  • Group files that you need to access or edit from a mobile device

Department Folders (V: Drive)

• Each division of the University has a large divisional file space which has a quota that is applied to its entire divisional space.  All department folders in that space share that quota.

• It is a collection of shared department folders.  When a member of a particular division looks at their divisional space they will only see the department folders for which they have been granted access.  So, the view may be different from one person to the next.
  

  V: Drive is great for:

  • Storing very large files (>250GB)
  • A storage location for files that others in your Department or Division may need access to
  • Files that you do not need easy anywhere/anytime access to
  • Files that you do not need to access from a mobile device
  • "Cold storage/Archive" for files you want to keep but don't need to access frequently

    (To access your V: Drive from off-campus, you must be signed into the University's VPN.  See File Storage - Mapping Network Drives for information on how to connect to your V: Drive.)

    For members of each division, this file space is typically mapped as their V: drive on a University computer running Windows.

Other File Storage Options

ITS recommends the storage and collaboration tools listed above.  There are other options for specific uses available.

Emailing Sensitive or Protected Data

A common need different from "sharing" files is emailing other parties a copy of the current or final version of your file.  It is very quick and easy to accommodate the need to distribute a file, but it has its limitations.  You may continue working on the original file, but the other parties do not see any updates to your work unless you choose to send them another copy.