Google at IU My Drive: Individual File Management Basics

Intro to today’s session

First, let’s talk about what we will be covering in today’s session:

• What My Drive is used for
• Where your migrated files will be located
• Editing your files
• Organizing your files
• Sharing and collaboration

That being said, here’s what we’re not covering in today’s session...

• Specifics about the Box migration
• Preparing for the Box migration
• Departmental storage and group account migrations

Information about the Box migration is covered in the recorded webinar Box: Preparing your individual files for migration, and more information about departmental storage can be found on storage.iu.edu.

What Google at IU My Drive is for

Before we get into how to use Google at IU My Drive, let's talk a little bit about what it should be used for. To do that, let's explore the two categories of files you may have had in your Box account: individual files and work files.

• Individual files are typically files that aren't used for work. These can include (but aren't limited to) cat photos, recipes, videos of your kids, and so on. 
• Work files are files you (and your co-workers) may have created as part of your job at IU - in other words, anything that directly relates to your job. Departmental budgets, training materials, and grant application drafts are some examples of work files.

For more information on individual and work (or institutional) files, either read the KB article Options for storing files at IU or watch the recorded webinar Box: Preparing your individual files for migration.

My Drive is for personal content - so, in other words, it's for storing your individual files, not your shared work files. Think of it this way: if you won the lottery and decided to quit your job, would your co-workers have access to needed work documents if your account was deactivated? If you have documents in your account that are necessary for the day-to-day functioning of your department or office, they’re considered shared work files.

Your shared work files should be stored in either Microsoft Teams, Sharepoint, or Google Shared Drives, depending on what storage solution your department is using. If any of your shared work files end up being migrated from Box to your My Drive, you'll need to manually transfer them to the storage solution your department is using. For more information on the different storage options available for institutional files, visit storage.iu.edu.

Where's my stuff?

How to get to your Google at IU My Drive

When your files have officially been migrated to My Drive, you’ll receive an email from the UITS Support Center saying that your migration has been completed. Once you get that email, you can find your content in My Drive.

There are a couple of different ways to access your content on My Drive - the most commonly used way is through the browser, although you can also use mobile apps and Drive File Stream to access your My Drive. In this part of today's session, I'll show you how to get to your Google at IU My Drive using a web browser - the process is a little different than what you might be used to for getting to your personal Google Drive.

For today’s session, I’ll be using a demonstration account to show you around My Drive – my alter ego for today’s workshop is Carol Cape, or demo32.

Let’s learn how to get to your Google at IU My Drive.

1. To start, in a web browser, go to https://google.iu.edu
2. In the Log in section of the page, under the heading Google at IU Apps, click the Log in to Google at IU button
3. If the IU Login screen appears, log in with your IU username and passphrase.
4. To access your Google at IU My Drive, underneath the text Select one of the tools below to get started, click on Drive: Secure cloud storage and file sharing.
5. A webpage may load, showing features of Google Drive - to continue to your My Drive, click the Go To Drive button either at the top of the screen or under the "Easy and secure access to all of your content" heading.
6. Your My Drive will load, and show you your files. 
7. You can tell which account you’re logged into by looking in the upper right corner of the My Drive interface – there’ll be an icon with your initials or a picture next to the IU logo. Click on that to see which account you’re logged in to, and what other accounts you can access.

Finding your files

Files migrated from Box will be located in a folder named FromBox - inside that folder, you'll see all of the files that you were listed as the owner for in Box. Let’s see how to change how we view our files, and also how to view information about our files.

Changing to List View

By default, My Drive shows us the files in Grid View. Each file is displayed as a thumbnail, showing a preview of the file’s contents,the file name, and an icon indicating the file type. Before moving on, let’s change this to List View. List View gives a more compact view of all our files as well as more information about each item.

• In the upper right corner, I’m going to click the List View button.
• The Quick Access files are still displayed at the top of the My Drive interface, but below I now have a list of files with more information including the owner of the file, when it was modified, and the file size.

Viewing file info

While list view gives us additional information about the files, including the owner, date the file was modified, and file size, we may need to see more information about a file, such as the date it was created and who it’s shared with. I’m going to go into the Pets folder, and look at information about one of the files there.

• To see more information about the Office Pets file,
  • Click the file name
  • In the upper right corner of the screen, Click the View details button
• A panel opens on the right side of the screen. This panel is currently showing the details of the file including when it was created and modified, and by whom. I can also see that this file has been shared with Diane Dell.
• At the top of the details panel, I can click the Activity I can now see all the activity that has taken place with this file.
• To close the panel, in the upper right corner, Click Hide Details.

Editing your files

Once you've found your files, you'll likely want to know how to edit them. This section will show you how to open and edit your files in My Drive.

Opening and editing Docs, Sheets, and Slides files

• Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides are the native apps for editing files in My Drive.
  • Google Docs is a word processing app, similar to Microsoft Word.
  • Google Sheets focuses on spreadsheets, like Microsoft Excel.
  • Google Slides allows you to build presentation slideshows, like Microsoft PowerPoint.
• You can access these apps both through a web browser and on your mobile device – again, today’s session focuses on accessing these apps through the browser, but you can get them on your mobile device via your phone’s app store.
• To open a file made in one of the Google apps, in your My Drive, double-click the file you want to open - it will open in a new browser tab, in the appropriate Google app. From here, you can start editing the file.
• Google will auto-save your files as you work on them, so there’s no need to worry about saving your file regularly – the Google apps take care of that for you.
• If you want to learn more about how to use Google Docs, Slides, and Sheets, check out IT Training's Google Apps courses.

Opening and editing content from other applications

With My Drive, you can open some Microsoft Office documents in the native Google apps – specifically Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files. For other Office files (like Microsoft Access databases), as well as files that might be made in specialized applications (like the Creative Cloud applications, for example), you’ll have to download the file to your computer in order to edit it.

To open an Excel, PowerPoint, or Word file:

Let’s see how to open Excel, PowerPoint, and Word files in My Drive.

• To start, in your My Drive, double-click the file you want to open - a preview of the file will appear.
• To open the file in the appropriate Google App, at the top of the page, click the Open with Google (app name) button, and the file will open in a new browser tab - and can be edited just like native Google files.

For all other files:

For other files, you'll need to download the file to your computer and open it in the appropriate program for the file, then re-upload it to My Drive when you're done.

Organizing your files

As you add more and more files to your My Drive, you’ll want to start organizing them in some way. While My Drive offers several ways to organize files including folders, starring, and creating workspaces. Today we’ll look at folders.

Just as Beth was doing, I am also working in a demo account. My demo alter ego is demo33, or Diane Dell. When I first log in to Diane’s My Drive, I see several files including Google Sheets workbooks, Google Docs documents, an Excel workbook, and a PDF.

Creating folders

Currently this demo account My Drive has one folder, Photos. However, folders can be nested.

• If I double-click the Photos folder, I can see that there is a subfolder titled Class pets as well as three more picture files.
• In the upper left corner, I can click My Drive to return to the top level of my My Drive.

I can create as many folders as I need and organize them in a way that makes sense to me. Maybe I want to organize my folders by date and put all of the photos from a specific year in a folder. Or by topic. I could create a folder titled Recipes. Or even by event. I can see that I have a couple of files related to a trip to London. Let’s create a folder and then move the related files to the folder.

To create a new folder:

• In the upper left corner, click the New button, then click Folder.
• The New Folder dialog box opens and gives us the chance to name the folder. I’m going to name this folder, London Vacation, and press Enter. The new folder is created and in My Drive.

To make a visual distinction between folders, we can assign a color.

• To assign a color to the London Vacation folder, right-click the folder, Point to Change color, and choose a color. I’m going to choose Mars orange.
• The color of the London vacation folder changes and is now different than the Photos folder

Moving files

My London Vacation folder is now in My Drive. I’m going to double-click on the folder to open it. Currently this folder is empty. I need to place the correct files in the folder. There are several ways to do this. I could drag files to the folder or create new files. Today I want to move existing files that are in My Drive to the folder. I’m going to return to My Drive by clicking the My Drive button in the upper left corner. In this view, I can press & drag files directly to a folder.

• I’m going to move the budget file, LondonBudapestBudget.xlsx, to the London Vacation folder.
• As I press & drag the file toward the folder, you can see the thumbnail of the file moving and the folder becoming active. When the file is over the folder, I let up on the mouse and the file is moved.
• I get a notification in the bottom left corner of the screen telling me that the file has moved and giving me the option to undo the move.
• Let’s move the second file, London map.pdf to the folder. This time instead of pressing and dragging, I’m going to right-click on the file name. In the menu that opens, I’m going to click Move to. I now see all the folders available in My Drive. I’m going to click London Vacation and then click Move.
• The file has been moved. Once again I get the notification in the bottom left corner.

Uploading and creating files

There may be items on your computer that you want to add to your My Drive. Remember, even if you’re not working with the Google Apps, you can save any type of files in My Drive.

I’m going to upload a Word document from the hard drive of my computer. Because I want this file to be saved in my London Vacation folder, I will open that folder before I upload anything.

• I’m going to double-click the London Vacation
• In the upper left corner, I’m going to click the New button. This is the same button I used to create the new folder earlier. This time I’m going to click File upload.
• The Open dialog box opens. I can navigate to the folder on my computer that contains the file I want to upload. I’m going to click Desktop, then double click the folder called London.
• Click the file called LondonHotels then click Open.
• A notification appears in the bottom right corner telling me that the file is uploading.
• When the file has been uploaded, it appears in the file list in the LondonVacation folder.

Collaboration and sharing

A benefit of working with Google My Drive is the ease of collaboration. We can share files and folders with specific people via email or with large groups by using a shared link. We can share a file and set permissions directly from My Drive or from within the file.

When collaborating in My Drive, multiple users can be working on a file at the same time. Or users can work on files as needed. Depending on the permissions given to different users, changes might be immediately visible or the owner of the document may need to accept or decline edits and suggestions.

Let’s open a file and explore the sharing options.

Sharing files

Sharing a file via email

I’m going to open the Snack Schedule file. I need to share this file with the other members of the Ravens team.

• Double-click the Snack Schedule file.
• With the file open, we can see the Share button in the upper right corner. This file happens to be a Google Sheets file, but every Google app file will have the Share button in the same place. It might be a different color, but it will be there.
• I haven’t shared this file with anyone yet. When I hover my mouse over the button, it tells me this file is Private only to me. To see the sharing options, I’ll click that button.
• In this dialog box, I have two choices: Share with people and groups and Get link. In this example, I know exactly who needs to have access to this file: the other members of the Ravens. I can add the email addresses for each player in this dialog box.
• When I click in the Add people and groups area, I get a popup list of possible people. Google begins by showing me people I frequently share files with including my actual email account and another demo account. Because this is a Google at IU account, it is connected to the IU contact list and will try to autofill IU usernames and email addresses. However, you can enter anyone’s email address here whether they’re associated with IU or not.
• I’m going to click on Carol Cape to share this file with that demo account.
• The dialog box changes. I now have some choices to make about how I want to share this file and what permissions I want to give Carol. Right now Carol is an Editor. This means she can make changes to the file. If I click the , I have the option to change Carol’s permission.
  • I can make her a commenter which means she can make comments and suggestions, but no changes are made to the file until I accept them.
  • Or I can make Carol a viewer. This would give her the rights to view the file but she won’t be able to make changes or even leave comments.
  • Because I want the team members to add to the snack schedule, I’m going to give them Editor permissions.
• Now that I have decided on the permissions, I have the option to notify I can even write a personal message. I’m going to add a quick note before sending the share request. I’m going to click in the message area and type “Please sign up for a day to bring the snacks.”
• To send this message and the shared file link, I’m going to click Send.
• Carol will receive an email letting her know that she has been invited to edit the file.
• Now when I hover my mouse over the Share button in the upper corner, it tells me that the file has been shared with one person.
• To return to My Drive, in the browser, I’m going to close the Snack Schedule – Ravens tab.

Sharing a file using a shared link

Files can also be shared directly from My Drive. I’m going to share the BookClubList file. To begin, I’m going to right-click the file. From this menu, I’ll click Share. The Share dialog box opens once again. This time instead of entering individual email addresses, I’m going to get a link that can be shared.

• I will begin by clicking in the bottom half of the dialog box, where it says Get link.
• The dialog box changes and now I see the options for working with a shareable link. I can choose what audience has access to the file as well as what they can do with the file.
• By default, the file is restricted, meaning only people who have been added can open the file. When I click the drop-down menu, I can see the other options:
  • Indiana University and
  • Anyone with the link
• Because this file is not related to my job at IU, I’m going to choose Anyone with the link.
• Now I can set the permission levels that go along with this link. Currently it is set to Viewer so anyone with the link can view the file. If I click on the Viewer button, I see the other permission options: Commenter and Editor.
• I don’t want anyone to edit or change my book club list in any way, so I’m going to leave this on Viewer.
• To copy the link, I’ll click the Copy Link button. With the link copied, I can paste it anywhere I want people to have access. Maybe a group email or a Facebook post. Anyone with the link will be able to see my file.
• To close the dialog box, I’ll click the Close button.

Receiving a shared file

What if someone shares a file with you?

If the file is shared via email:

• You will receive a message telling you that you have been invited to edit, view, or comment on a file. The email will also contain a link to the file.
• NOTE: It is important to note that the email will come via Google and will not be signed. If you aren’t expecting someone to share a file with you, don’t click the link in the email. Check your My Drive and see if the file is in the Shared with me area.
  • This would be a great time to brush up on your phishing education at https://phishing.iu.edu/.
• The shared file will be in the Shared with me area of your Google My Drive. On the left side of the screen, I can click Shared with me. I can now see all the files that have been shared with me.
• These files are not stored in My Drive. They are still stored in the original owner’s My Drive. But the files can be opened to view, edit, or comment on them. Any changes made, including edits or comments, will be saved directly to the owners My Drive.

Collaborating with others

I’m going to return to My Drive by clicking My Drive on the left side of the screen.

Earlier I shared the snack schedule file with the demo account, Carol. My colleague, Beth, has access to that demo account and has made some changes to the file as Carol. Let’s see what Carol thinks about the snack schedule.

• I’m going to double-click the file to open it.
• I can see that Carol has claimed a day to bring the snack. She has also left a comment thanking Diane for organizing the schedule.
• I can see in my file that there is a cell outlined in a different color. This is an indicator that another user is working with this file. If I hover my mouse over this cell, I can see who this person is.
• As I’m looking at the file, I can see where Beth is adding new information.
• When working collaboratively in Google apps, you also have the option to chat. I’ll open the chat and send a message to Carol. To open the chat, in the upper left corner, I’m going to click Show Chat. I’ll send a chat message to Carol by typing “Thanks for doing this so quickly.” and pressing Enter.
• To close the snack schedule, in the browser, I’m going to close the tab for the snack schedule. I’m returned to My Drive.