File Storage in Microsoft 365

[Guest KenelleMoore]

Greetings to our lovely NTA non-profits. Some of the most popular questions that the NTA team receives from our organizations have to do with file and document storage options and which one is best one to use from an organizational standpoint. This article will uncover the best use cases for storage in OneDrive, SharePoint, and Microsoft Teams.

 

 

 

OneDrive

 

 

 

 

OneDrive is a cloud storage system that allows you to save and access your documents and files from any device you sign into the account with. If you are working on Windows 10 or above, you may already be familiar with your personal account of OneDrive that was preinstalled to your computer. Once you are approved for the NTA program’s granted offerings and you receive your non-profit tenant and licensing, you will now have a OneDrive dedicated to your organization. In your file explorer the two will be distinguishable as the OneDrive dedicated to your organization will have its name attached to it after a hyphen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

OneDrive is the best place to store files and documents that you are personally working on. These files are visible only to you; however, you will still have the capability to share anything you'd like with team members.

 

 

 

One of the many advantages of using OneDrive is the ability to free up space on your computer. You can copy and upload the desired documents from your PC to your OneDrive and delete them from your computer, or by right clicking on OneDrive in your file folder and selecting Free up space, this option makes the files available in the cloud only and requires an internet connection for access.

 

To learn more about how to upload and save files and folders to OneDrive click here.

 

 

 

How to Access OneDrive

 

 

 

 

There are four main ways to access OneDrive: via office.com, the app, the cloud icon, and Microsoft Teams.

 

 

 

Office

 

 

 

1. Visit office.com and sign in with your account credentials.
   
2. Select Apps on the left.
   
3. Select OneDrive from the list or select All Apps and click OneDrive there.
   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The App

 

 

 

1. In the start menu type and select OneDrive
   

 

 

 

 

 

 

1. You can also access the app by opening your file explorer and clicking the OneDrive that is attached to your org’s account. (See first photo in the article).
   

 

 

 

The Cloud Icon

 

 

 

1. At the bottom right side of your desktop, you will see cloud icon for OneDrive.
   
2. Click the icon and select Open Folder OR,
   
3. Click the icon and select View Online.
   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Microsoft Teams

 

 

 

1. Open Microsoft Teams
   
2. Select the Files icon on the left.
   
3. Select My Files at the top left.
   
4. Select Open in OneDrive at the top.
   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SHAREPOINT & TEAMS

 

 

 

 

SharePoint is the best place to share documents and files with the members of your organization by creating a Team Site. Once you create a Team, a SharePoint is automatically created and dedicated to that Team and serves as a backend for file storage. You can create public and private teams or channels so that shared files are only seen by the members assigned to that group or channel. The file structure you see in your team will be the exact same one in SharePoint. To help break this down further, let’s look at the photo below.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The photo above is a snapshot of Microsoft Teams in the Teams tab. You can see there are three teams on the left: a marketing team, an accounting team, and a human resources team. Below the marketing team you will find 4 subcategories called channels. There’s the default general channel, an Advertising ideas channel and then two channels for the blue and yellow teams. If you notice, next to the blue and yellow teams there is a lock icon. This symbolizes that these two groups are private. Anyone who is not in these groups will not see these channels in their list. Files shared within these two channels are only seen by those assigned members. The two channels that do not have a lock icon next to them can be accessed by anyone in the Marketing Team. To the right of the screenshot, you will see an option to Open in SharePoint found by clicking the ellipses. Let’s click that button and see what happens.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Since we were in the yellow team channel when we clicked Open in SharePoint, we are automatically directed to the yellow team’s files in SharePoint as well. Anything you do inside of your team channel, you can also do inside of SharePoint and within the files tab in Teams, which we will explore more next. They are all synced together.

 

 

 

You can also access SharePoint by completing the following steps:

 

 

 

1. Visit office.com and sign in with your account credentials.
   
2. Select Apps on the left.
   
3. Select SharePoint from the list or select All Apps and click SharePoint there.
   
4. Select My Sites from the navigation bar on the left and choose which group you’d like to access.
   
5. Select documents.
   

MICROSOFT TEAMS

 

 

 

 

There are multiple ways for you to access, share, view and collaborate on files and documents within Microsoft Teams. In fact, lots of people prefer to work right out of Teams due to its convenience and ease of access to multiple file locations such as OneDrive, SharePoint, chat files and your Team files.

 

 

 

Chat

 

 

 

Say there is a group chat between you and two other members of your organization, and you all decide to draft a signup sheet for the next holiday party. Simply upload the document to the chat by using the attachment icon and once you and your colleagues open the document from the chat, you can collaborate together right there.

 

 

 

 

 

 

By selecting the files tab at the top of the page you can access all documents and files that have been shared in that chat.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Files Tab

 

 

 

You can also access your files via the Files tab in Teams. The difference here is that you can access files from your OneDrive account, as well as files and documents from SharePoint. Think of this tab as a shortcut to all your files.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Inside of your Files tab within Teams, at the top you will see the following choices of Home, My files, Shared, and Downloads.

 

The Home tab shows you all your most recently viewed and edited files. At the top you can choose to filter these files and search by the document types of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and PDF.

 

 

The My files tab is basically a shortcut to your OneDrive. The same file structure you see inside of your OneDrive you will find in here and you can create new documents straight from this tab. Anything new will automatically be synced to both your OneDrive and Microsoft Teams.

 

 

 

The shared tab provides quick access to any files you have recently shared in Teams. The files are categorized by documents Shared with you and Shared by you.

 

 

 

The Downloads Tab provides quick access to files and documents you’ve recently downloaded from within Microsoft Teams.

 

 

 

I hope this article helped clear up some of the confusion about the many ways you can store and access files and documents within Microsoft 365. Whether your organization prefers to work out of Microsoft Teams or from SharePoint is totally up to you. The best part is that you can sleep safe knowing that whichever you choose, your files will be synced either way. Happy file storing, Non-profits, and thank you for allowing the NTA team to serve you and in turn help better serve our communities!

 

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