Google Shared Drives

Google Shared Drives are digital repositories where teams can easily share, store, search, and access their files anywhere, from any device.

Files in Shared Drives belong to the team instead of an individual. Even if members leave, the files stay exactly where they are so your team can continue to share information and get work done. Each Shared Drive is allocated 100GB of storage.

Appropriate Use

Shared Drives are intended for University faculty and staff to use for collaboration and continuity. They are ideal for projects or teams with rotating membership. Explore other storage services available using the Storage Options tool.

  Data classified as private and highly-restricted (e.g., HIPAA, PCI) should not be stored in a shared drive. See University Policy re: Data Security Classification

To ensure appropriate access to the files stored in your Shared Drives, you can assign permissions by role. The person who creates the Shared Drive is the primary manager. This role is responsible for managing member access to the Shared Drive as well as ensuring that the Shared Drive does not exceed its data storage allocation of 100GB. 

Highlights

Shared Drives are designed to make collaboration seamless and ensure that institutional knowledge stays with the University, even as project teams change.

• Team Ownership: Files belong to the team, not any one person. This means if a colleague leaves the University, the team doesn't lose access to important work.
• Consistent Access: By default, members of a Shared Drive see the same files and folder structure. This creates a 'single source of truth' for your team and ensures everyone is working from the same set of documents.
• Simplified Onboarding: By using Google Groups, you can add or remove members from multiple Shared Drives all at once—saving you time when your team grows or changes.
• External Collaboration: You can easily invite partners from outside UMN to join your Shared Drive for cross-institutional projects.
• Granular Sharing: You have total control. You can share a single file with someone for a quick review without giving them access to everything else in the Shared Drive.

Managing Your Storage

To help the University maintain a sustainable digital environment, Shared Drives have a 100GB storage allocation.

• Helpful Alerts: You’ll never be caught off guard. A notification banner will appear at the top of your Shared Drive once you reach 80% of your storage limit.
• Need More Space? If your project requires more than 100GB, we are here to help. First, take a moment to review your files and remove any duplicates or outdated drafts. If you still need more capacity, simply contact Technology Help to request an allocation increase.

Considerations

• Only UMN instructors and staff are permitted to request new UMN Google Shared drives via the Shared Drive Request Form
• Faculty and staff sponsors can create Shared Drives and include students as members.
• Shared Drive names are provisioned with an automatically-generated name (formatted per UMN Google naming conventions) when the drive is created via the Shared Drive Request Form
• Certain actions that can be done in Google Drive, such as folder level sharing, reduction of access, etc. are not available within Shared Drives.
• Offline access to files from Shared Drives is only available with Google Drive for desktop.
• Use Box Secure Storage for Personal Health Information (PHI) - users who work with Private Health Information (PHI) should use Box Secure Storage instead Google Drive. Box Secure Storage is the University’s storage solution for sensitive and private-highly restricted files.

Abandoned Shared Drives

A UMN Google Shared Drive is considered abandoned if: 

• No members of the Google Shared Drive have an active UMN Google account; and/or
• People with active UMN Google accounts are members of a Shared Drive, but no members have the manager role.

When Shared Drives are abandoned, the Office of Information Technology contacts members of the Shared Drive to provide an opportunity to claim it.