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Microsoft Teams and SharePoint are central to Bowdoin College's digital collaboration strategy. Teams is used for real-time communication, file access and project coordination. SharePoint serves as the hub for document storage and workflow enhancement. The following guidelines overview basic file management recommendations and policies.
Microsoft Teams enhances collaboration by integrating with SharePoint files.
- Recommend one team per department for ease of management.
- Requires a minimum of two owners per team.
- A team can have a maximum of 1000 standard or shared channels (including deleted channels)
- Private channels are used for restricted data access. A team can have a maximum of 30 private channels (including deleted channels).
OneDrive stores drafts, notes, and personal work files that are not yet ready for team collaboration.
- A personal workspace to store files that are not yet ready for team collaboration.
- Sharing files with a few individuals for review or feedback.
- Working on drafts or personal notes that do not require team access.
- Upon the termination of an employee, their manager will be granted access to the employee’s OneDrive to ensure continuity of work and retrieval of important documents.
Folder and File Use Guidelines to ensure efficient and organized file management.
- Use short, descriptive names for files and folders to avoid issues with path length limitations.
- Avoid special characters and excessive length to prevent compatibility issues.
- Limit folder hierarchy to a maximum of three levels deep.
- Do not assign granular permissions to individual files or folders. Use Shared and Private channels in a team, when required.
- Synchronizing files should be done primarily for offline use or if you prefer using Explorer/Finder.
- Limit the number of synced objects to 300,000 to maintain performance and reliability.
- Synchronize only the necessary files to optimize storage and access speed.
File Name and Path Lengths - The entire decoded file path, including the file name, can't contain more than 400 characters for SharePoint and OneDrive. Following the Folder and File Use Guidelines above should allow for meeting this requirement. For more information see Restrictions and limitations in OneDrive and SharePoint.
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For example, if the file URL in SharePoint is https://www.contoso.com/sites/marketing/documents/Shared%20Documents/Promotion/Some%20File.xlsx, the limit applies to "sites/marketing/documents/Shared Documents/Promotion/Some File.xlsx."
External Sharing of content with users outside of Bowdoin College is allowed.
- No anonymous sharing is ever allowed and has been disabled by default. Microsoft requires external users to login to access and view any content shared with them.
- External sharing links expire in 180 days with the option for renewal.
- External user can be invited to a team's Shared channel.
Team and Group Inactivity Lifecycle - Teams and groups that are inactive for 180 days will be automatically deleted unless renewed by the team or group owner. Owners will be notified 30 days, 15 days and 1 day before the group's expiration and given the opportunity to renew prior to deletion.
- Inactivity is defined as no write or modification actions of a file or communication in a Teams site channel or chat.
Deleted Item Retention Period - Items in OneDrive, Teams, and SharePoint have a total retention period of 93 day in the Recycle Bin and Second-Stage Recycle Bin. After the total 93 days, items are permanently deleted and cannon be recovered.
- Items stay in the Recycle Bin for 93 days. During this time, you can restore them to their original location.
- If you delete an item from the Recycle Bin, it moves to the Second-Stage Recycle Bin, where it remains for the remainder of the 93-day period.
Invalid Characters - If a file or folder you're trying to upload to SharePoint or OneDrive contains any of the characters listed below, it may prevent the files and folders from uploading. Rename the file or folder to remove these characters before you upload it. For more information see Restrictions and limitations in OneDrive and SharePoint.
- " * : < > ? / \ |
- Leading and trailing spaces in file or folder names also aren't allowed.
Document Tagging for data retention involves applying specific labels to documents to indicate how long they should be kept before being archived or deleted. Data classification involves categorizing data based on its level of sensitivity and the impact it could have if disclosed, altered, or destroyed. Bowdoin data classification policy is located here.