Dropbox Team folders are an option for departments who want the option to centrally store data without linking files to an individual account. Data stored in team folders are not impacted if the original owner of the file leaves the institution. Team folders are created by UH Dropbox administrators and access is managed by one or more designated individuals for the department (typically IT staff or departmental leads) known as team folder managers. Team folder managers have the ability to add/remove users’ access, create groups, and assign permissions to sub folders.
Requesting a Team Folder
To create a team folder for your department, a request should be sent to the UH Dropbox Administrator via infosec@hawaii.edu containing the following information:
- Campus
- Name of Department/Unit
- List of users who require manager access
- Purpose of team folder
- (Optional) Sub-folders to be added
Requests for team folders must come from departmental IT or a departmental lead responsible for managing access to departmental files. The requester must accept responsibility of managing access to the team folder and understand that they will have full access to all files within the team folder.
Upon creation of the team folder, team folder managers will be assigned into a group following the naming convention [Campus Abbreviation]-[Department]-GROUP (i.e. SYS-ITS-GROUP). Members of this group have full access to the team folder. Please note that only the UH Dropbox Administrator may add users with full access to manage the team folder. Additional groups may be requested to be created by the UH Dropbox Administrator using the naming convention [Campus Abbreviation]-[Department]-GROUP-[Group Name].
Navigating Team Folders
Team folders will appear under your user content along with other owned and shared folders. Team folders are designated with a building icon. Subfolders within team folders will also have the same icon.
Team folders also display the number of UH Enterprise team members that have access to the folder. A list of members may be viewed by clicking the “…” icon, then “Manage permissions”.
Creating and Managing Subfolders in a Team Folder
Users with edit access to a team folder have permission to create subfolders within a team folder. To create a subfolder, click on “Create” at the top of the Dropbox web interface. In the create folder popup window, there will be the option to grant access to everyone who has access to the parent folder or restrict permission to specific user groups.
After creating the subfolder, additional users may be granted access by clicking the “…” icon, then clicking “Share”. Enter the team members or groups to assign access to the team folder and select whether shared members have edit or view-only access. Then, click “Share folder”.
To remove or change a user or group’s access to a shared folder, click on the “…” icon, then click “Manage Permissions”. Click on “remove” next to the user or groups to be removed, or click on the permission dropdown to edit the user or group’s permissions to the subfolder.
Managing Groups for Shared Access
For departments with many members, groups are recommended to grant access to files within a team folder. Groups may be assigned a view-only or an editor role.
Dropbox provides the option to create your own user-managed groups that can be assigned to team folders by team folder managers. To create a new group using the Dropbox web interface, click on your profile icon in the top-right of the window, then click “View team and groups”.
In the Groups menu, you will be able to see your groups as well as all groups available to other team members. To create a new group, click “Create group”.
To add members to a group, select your group under “My groups”. Then, click “Add members”.
To remove a member of the group, click on the gear icon next to the user’s name, then click “Remove user”.
