What is Shared Drive

Shared Drives are shared spaces where teams can easily store, search, and access their files anywhere, from any device. Unlike in My Drive, 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. Shared Drive is available in the following editions;

1. Google Workspace Business Standard

2. Google Workspace Business Plus

3. Google Workspace Enterprise Essentials

4. Google Workspace Enterprise Essentials Plus

5. Google Workspace Enterprise Starter

6. Google Workspace Enterprise Standard

7. Google Workspace Enterprise Plus

8. Google Workspace for Education

9. G Suite for Nonprofits 

When do you need to use Shared Drive?

1. When you are working on a project or event with a group of people who all need access to the same files.

2. Most of your files are shared with the same group of people.

3. Your files share a consistent theme or topic.

4. The content you want to store isn’t personal and is of interest to a specific team or group.

Shared Drive’s Value Proposition to an organization

1. Better Team Management: Managing both members and permissions have become simpler in shared drive. Members can be added and removed easily in a shared drive. All file sharing permissions can be controlled from the same console. Thus, admins, as well as employees, benefit from using Google shared drive.

2. Easy Member Inclusion: Document access by new members of an organization is made easy by shared drive. A new member can be added to the shared drive within a minute. New members can get instant access to all necessary files together by Google shared drive as compared to google drive where each file can be shared one by one. This significantly helps to increase productivity of new members.

3. Intelligent File Searching: Shared drive contains the ‘Quick Access’ feature that can help you find required files quickly. ‘Quick Access’ uses machine learning algorithms to identify documents to users. ‘Quick Access’ analyses trending topics, team calendar, and other relevant data to suggest files to team members.

4. Team-based File Ownership: Any files stored in a team’s Shared Drive belong to the team. No individual member can personally claim ownership of any Shared Drive file. This ensures stability despite changes and evolves. In case someone leaves the organization, you do not have to worry about the files stored on this drive.

Google Shared Drives (Team Drives) and My Drive Differences

Get Started with Shared Drive

1. Creating a Shared drive

• Open Google Drive. Click the Google apps icon > Drive.

• In the left pane, click Shared Drives.

• Click CREATE SHARED DRIVE in the right pane.

• In the New Shared driver dialog, name your shared drive and click Create.

2. Add members and set access levels

As an administrator, you can restrict access to files in a shared drive. You can also set the default access for new shared drives. You can apply these restrictions in a specific organizational unit or to your entire organization. When you add a new member, you assign their access. The default access for any new member is content manager

The Add new members dialog opens:

1. On the left, click your Shared drive.

2. At the top, under the Shared drive name, click Add members.

3. Add names, email addresses, or groups from Google Groups.

4. (Optional) To change the access level, next to the Content manager, click the Down arrow and choose an access level.

5. (Optional) Enter a message.

6. (Optional) If you don’t want to send a notification to the new members, check the Skip sending notifications box.

7. Click Send or Add.

Change member access levels

Requires Manager access

1. Still in your Shared drive, next to the Shared drive name, click the Down arrow > Manage members.

3. Next to a member’s name, click the Down arrow and select a new access level.

 4. Click Done.

Remove members

Requires Manager access

1. Still in your Shared drive, next to the Shared drive name, click the Down arrow > Manage members.

2. Next to a member’s name, click the Down arrow and select Remove member.

Shared Drive Permissions Levels

* Default role for new members.

FAQs and Common Cases for What happens;

What level of access does a user with a Google Workspace Business Starter have within a Shared Drive.

For organizations that have implemented Partial domain licensing (PDL) where they have a subset of users on Google Workspace Business Standard and above and some users on Google Workspace Business Starter, the users on the high plan say Google Workspace Business Standard have  full access Shared drives unless restricted by the role they are given, but users on Google Workspace Business Starter can only be given Viewer access to the folders and Shared Drive. Users on Google Worksapce Business Starter can still be granted editor access to files within Shared Drives.

When Someone Leaves the Shared Drive

All the data associated with that user account stays in the Shared drive. This data cannot be deleted by anyone other than the ‘Owner/Manager’ of the Shared drive. 

If the Manager Leaves Shared Drive

then no other member will be able to manage the membership or settings. To prevent this situation, the Manager – before leaving – can designate another member as the Manager of the Shared drive. 

Who can Delete Files in Shared Drives

A ‘Content Manager’ or a ‘Manager’.

By default, all new members added to a Shared drive are assigned the role of ‘Content Manager’. However, if your role is changed to Viewer, Commenter, or Contributor, then you won’t have the permission to delete the files. 

What is the Storage limit within Shared Drive

The storage limit within your organization shared drive is depended on the pooled storage within your Google Workspace plan also,your administrator might set a storage limit on shared drives. To see the storage limit (if any) and how much storage is used, open the Details tab in Drive.

Learn more about Shared drives limit:

https://support.google.com/a/users/answer/7338880?hl=en#shared_drives_file_folder_limits

Review storage limit within your organzaization:

https://support.google.com/a/answer/12002268?fl=1&sjid=3323762039994363440-NA

Contact Us

Verify at Google Cloud Partner Listing; https://cloud.withgoogle.com/partners.

Pawa IT Solutions Limited, 1st Floor, George Padmore Ridge, George Padmore Road, Nairobi, Kenya Tel : +254 778 072 282,  Mobile:+254 717 845 316 sales@pawait.co.ke || sales@pawait.africa www.pawait.co.ke || www.pawait.africa.