Glossary of SharePoint and OneDrive Terms

OneDrive: Anonymous sharing is not available in OneDrive at the University.

SharePoint: Anonymous sharing in SharePoint is the ability to create and send links to content that do not require any form of authentication on the end of the receiving user. This is the "Anyone with the link" option in the link settings for sharing.  The user clicking the anonymous sharing link to a file or folder within the SharePoint site will NOT be required to login with NetID to access the content. Anyone inside or outside of the University can access the content via the anonymous link, and that link can be forwarded and reused to access the content by other individuals. When content is viewed or edited by an anonymous user (someone who has used the anonymous link to access the content), the "last modified by" field will show as "guest contributor" and no further user information will be available. 

Anonymous sharing allows users to share and access content while not recording any information that would allow the site owner or administrators to identify the user. As a site owner, you will have the ability to identify files or folders that have been shared anonymously, but you will not be able to identify with whom the content has been shared. 

By disabling anonymous sharing, you will require any user that wishes to access the content to at least  authenticate with a valid Microsoft account. You can disable anonymous sharing while still allowing external sharing, however anonymous sharing cannot be enabled if external sharing has been disabled for your site. 

When should anonymous sharing be enabled?

Anonymous sharing should only be enabled when content is designed to be public or unrestricted from any users inside or outside of the organization.

Note: This capability is automatically disabled for all sites with migrated SAFER data. If, after your migration, you believe you require anonymous sharing for your SharePoint site, you must contact BOX-migration@northwestern.edu  so that central administrators are authorized to change the setting.

A SharePoint site includes a document library, and one is created automatically when a new site is created for you. If you have access to do so, you can add additional document libraries to a site as needed. This is useful, for example, if you need to restrict access to a set of files. Each document library displays a list of files, folders, and key information about each, such as who created or last modified a file. You can use this information to organize your files and make it easier to find them.

SharePoint site owners may also limit member access to a single document library or to a collection of document libraries within a site.

When versioning is enabled in your list or library--and versioning is enabled by default when new sites are created at Northwestern--you can store, track, and restore items in a list and files in a library whenever they change. Libraries can track both major versions, such as those in which a new section was added to a document, and minor versions, such as those in which a spelling error was corrected. Lists can track only major versions. Read the Microsoft support information about versions and version history.

If your content was migrated to OneDrive and SharePoint by Northwestern IT, versions of your Box files and sharing permissions were preserved for files and folders (migrated via SkySync, a centrally managed enterprise migration tool).

External sharing is a setting on a SharePoint site that enables/disables the ability to invite users who do NOT have a Northwestern University email address to view or collaborate on a file, folder, library or the site in its entirety as needed. By choosing to enable this feature, you are allowing users to invite external guests by email address to access content within the site, or to access the site as a whole. External guests will need to authenticate using a Microsoft account, and their activity within the site will be tracked via that account name. 

As a site owner, you will have the ability to restrict which users can invite external guests. Enabling this setting does not automatically allow all site users to invite guests. By choosing to disable this feature, all users who wish to access the site or any of the content stored within the site will be required to authenticate with an active Northwestern NetID.

This is a configuration option when requesting a new SharePoint site. The " Member contribute" role restricts the default Edit capability slightly for the member role. Contributors will still be able to view and edit content, however they will not be able to create new document libraries or pages. They can still create folders within document libraries.

This configuration is applied to any SharePoint site for migrated SAFER data.

Member sharing is a setting for a SharePoint site that allows members to utilize the "Share" option to extend access to content within the site to users who may not currently have access to that content. By "Sharing" the content, they are inviting users to have access to that file, folder, or library permanently even if that access has NOT been configured or approved by a site owner or administrator. This also creates an independent permission structure for that content; this means some permission changes made at the library level will no longer propagate to content that has been shared. 

Turning member sharing off: By disabling this feature, you are ensuring that all permission changes will be made by a site owner or administrator. All other users will still have the ability to quickly copy and send a link to the content. Users who wish to access the content via that sent link will need to have owner configured permissions to access the content, or they will receive an "access denied" message. 

When should member sharing be enabled?

This feature is useful for content that does not require strict or closely monitored permission structures, as users can provide access to others without needing support from a site owner or administrator. Enabling member sharing will allow most users with the ability to edit the file, folder or library to also be able to grant other users access to that content.

OneDrive is a Microsoft cloud file-sharing platform. Review Microsoft's Intro to OneDrive online guides. Please note, however, that anonymous linking ("anyone with the link" sharing), named in the help guides, is NOT available at the University. Anonymous links, however, are an option via SharePoint sites if the setting is enabled.

When a SharePoint site is requested, a retention policy of one, two, three, or seven years may be selected. An "indefinite" policy may also be selected.

What is a retention policy?

A retention policy applied to a site will ensure that files or folders within the site cannot be permanently deleted before the duration of the retention policy has passed since the last modified date of the file or folder. For example, a folder with a one-year retention policy applied to it cannot be permanently deleted until one year has passed from the last time it was modified.

Will content be automatically deleted if it is not modified within the retention period?

No. Content will not be deleted once it has reached the retention policy expiration duration. The files will not be deleted or modified by the policy in any way. Once the period expires, it is now possible to delete the file, but it will not be done automatically. 

What happens if a user attempts to delete a file within the retention policy duration?

The "delete" option will appear for users that have the ability to edit the file or folder. Once deleted, the content will be moved to the "preservation hold library" within the site and will remain there until the retention policy duration is reached, at which point it will be permanently deleted. Site owners can restore the content to the original location at any point before the retention policy expiration date.

SharePoint is a Microsoft cloud file-sharing platform for your department, organization, unit, or team. Review the Microsoft Sharepoint Learning Center for more information.

Files that need to be accessed and maintained by others in a unit AFTER a faculty, staff member, or student leaves the University should be stored in SharePoint and not in OneDrive.

Permission levels are the predefined "roles" that can easily be assigned to users within SharePoint sites. Assigning a user a permission level will determine the capabilities that the user will have for that file, folder, library or site. The standard three default permission levels that exist in a SharePoint site are as follows:

1. Owner: Full Control - View, edit, add, and delete capability. Also, the ability to manage the permissions of the content.
2. Member: Edit - View, edit, add and delete capability. Editors will not have the ability to manage permissions, but can extend access to other users via the "Share" feature if member sharing is enabled. See "member sharing" entry on this page for more information.
3. Visitor: View - Read only. Cannot edit, add or delete items and cannot edit permissions.

Important Note about SAFER to SharePoint sites:

For SharePoint sites created for migrating SAFER content, both the default "visitor" role and the default "member" role are modified to be the "visitors no download" role and the "member contribute" role. See definitions on this page for those custom roles.

The SharePoint site owner has full control of a site. The owner has view, edit, add, and delete capability. The owner also has the ability to manage the permissions of the content and to view, edit, or delete ALL content on the site.

The default Member role in SharePoint has view, edit, add and delete capability. Editors will not have the ability to manage permissions, but can extend access to other users via the "Share" feature if member sharing is enabled. See the "member sharing" entry on this page for more information.

Important Note about SAFER to SharePoint sites:

For SharePoint sites created for migrating SAFER content, the default "member" role is modified to be the "member contribute" role. See the definition on this page for more information about this custom role.

The default Visitor role in SharePoint has view-only (read-only) access. The visitor cannot edit, add or delete items and cannot edit permissions.

Important Note about SAFER to SharePoint sites:

For SharePoint sites created for migrating SAFER content, both the default "visitor" role is modified to be the "visitors no download" role. See the definition on this page for more about this custom role.