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After years of development under wraps, Google has released Team Drives and has blown us away with the simplicity and ease of use of its collaboration features for teams. Team Drives are available for Google Workspace Business users and are a must-upgrade for all Google Cloud customers.

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What is Google Team Drive?

Prior to March 2017, Google Workspace (formerly G Suite) administrators occasionally encountered issues as a result of two human behaviours.

The first problem starts when people would leave groups or organisations. When this occurred, a Google Workspace administrator changed the owner of the departing person's Google Drive files to the new owner. These files eventually wound up in a folder that was kept on the new owner's Google Drive. If or when that person leaves, the transfer to a new owner happens once more.

Secondly, files were moved around. These persons transferred data across folders. They occasionally even moved files to the trash. Everything was fine with the file reorganization until someone changed the files and folders inside shared directories. These files were then reorganized for everyone's use.

Both of the aforementioned issues are resolved by Team Drives for businesses using Google Workspace. A Team Drive offers a location to store team-owned files so that any files someone has uploaded to the Team Drive will stay when they leave. A Team Drive also enables an administrator to restrict file transfers, ensuring that files are kept in their intended locations.

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What are the Google Team Drive features?

Google Team Drive allows you to:

  • Set company ownership of files shared in a Google Drive collaboration folder
  • Protect your company data by restricting deleting of files to admins only
  • Keep your files organised with a rigid folder structure in Google Drive
  • Have a group ‘trash' so multiple team members can see and retrieve files

Peter Moriarty shares his thoughts in this video and gives you an opportunity to access our in-depth training on getting your first Team Drives set up.

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How to set up Google Team Drives

Here's how to set up, enable, and customise Team Drives.

Step 1: Enable Team Drive

A Google Workspace administrator must first enable Team Drives in order to use it in 2017. (Team Drives will be enabled by default starting in January 2018.) To enable Team Drives, log in with a Google Workspace administrator account to http://admin.google.com, navigate to Apps > Google Workspace > Drive and Docs, open Sharing Settings, and then uncheck the box next to “Team Drive creation.” Choose “Save” to save your selection.

To maintain your setting, open Migration Settings under Apps > Google Workspace > Drive and Docs, check the box next to “Allow users to migrate files to Team Drives,” and then click “Save” once more.

Wait a few days for Google to implement this administrative configuration modification throughout your company. When you log in to http://drive.google.com on the web and notice a new “Shared Drives” icon underneath “My Drive,” team drives are ready.

Step 2: Create Team Drive

To create a brand-new Team Drive, use the “New” option after selecting the new Team Drive icon. You'll be prompted to give your Team Drive a name, much as when establishing a new folder or file.

Your new Team Drive resembles a new folder in many ways. However, you'll notice that a separate header picture appears when you pick it or a folder on it. This makes it obvious to you visually that you are interacting with files on a Team Drive. The Team Drive theme is also editable.

Step 3: Add Members to your Team Drive

To provide users access to your Team Drive, add your members' email addresses next. You can choose different levels of access for different persons, just like with other Google Drive sharing capabilities. The “Full” choice when adding a member gives anyone the ability to upload, edit, remove, and move files around.

I advise selecting the “Modify” level of access for the majority of Team Drive users, which enables them to edit and upload files but not remove or transfer them. In some cases, more restricted access levels that limit a member to “Comment” or “View” access alone may be useful. You can add individuals from outside the company if your Google Workspace administrative settings permit it. (For instance, staff at a school or nonprofit organization may share documents with the board using “Comment” only or “View” only access to one Team Drive, but the same board member may have “Edit” access to another Team Drive for committee materials.)

Step 4: Move Files from My Drive to Team Drive

Files from current “My Drive” folders should be moved to the relevant Team Drive. You can drag and drop items from “My Drive” to the proper area on a Team Drive, just as with other file-and-folder operations.

It could be wise to transfer some of these folders to a new Team Drive if you are the owner of numerous folders that include objects that are shared with other people. Any collection of files and folders that a team regularly uses could be migrated to a team drive. Keep more files on your private “My Drive.”

Step 5: Collaborate via Google Team Drive

Make sure that everyone who needs access is aware of where the new files are located after your data have been transferred from “My Drive” to a “Team Drive.” Your “Team Drive” will be accessible online and through the Google Drive mobile apps for Android and iOS. (In the mobile apps, select the Menu option—the three horizontal lines in the upper left—then hit the “Team Drive” symbol to display all of the accessible drives.)

You don't have to be concerned about access permissions when you make a new file and move it to a Team Drive. At the assigned permission level, members have access to the files on a Team Drive. Files are kept even when team members change. In addition, file and folder structures do not alter until someone with full access to the Team Drive does so.

The necessity for a local file server is essentially gone now that an administrator can create and configure Team Drives.

The Difference Between Team Drives and My Drive

Files in shared drives are held by the team/group rather than the individual, in contrast to files in My Drive. The significant distinctions between My Drive and the U-M Google shared drives are listed in the table below.

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