Many departments use a SharePoint site for secure online document storage. After access is requested on your behalf, you should receive a welcome message at your campus email with a subject line to the effect of "The new [site name] group is ready."
SharePoint document storage can be accessed through either a web-browser or directly in Windows/Mac OS (with the help of OneDrive). The latter here is basically a shortcut to the SharePoint site within your OneDrive folder in Windows or Mac OS. The different sections below give instructions for the different ways to access SharePoint.
Accessing SharePoint directly via a OneDrive shortcut (highly recommended)
After being given access to a SharePoint site with file storage, you can follow the steps below to create a shortcut (via OneDrive) to access those files/folders directly in Windows and Mac OS. The steps below assume you're signed into the OneDrive app on the computer you're setting up, which should be the case for any campus computers you're signed into.
- Go to Office.com in a web-browser and sign in with your campus Outlook email credentials (this will use your Network password).
- After signing in, click on the upper-left App Launcher icon (also called the "waffle" icon), and choose SharePoint from the list of apps.
- On the main SharePoint page, choose the SharePoint group that you'd like to make a shortcut for. The naming for imported department share drives tends to be "GRP-" followed by the department/team name.
- After opening the intended SharePoint Group site, choose the Documents section on the left-hand menu.
- Click through the document folders to the level you'd like to start from in your link (normally, the topmost folder), and then choose Add shortcut to OneDrive from the top horizontal menu. This option may be hidden in the ". . ." menu depending on your screen size.
(Note: You don't want to choose the "Sync" option because it conflicts with the OneDrive shortcut that we're using)
- After confirming any pop-ups, you should see a confirmation saying "Added 1 shortcut to My Files in OneDrive". Within a minute or so, that new link should appear in File Explorer/Finder within your "OneDrive - buffalostate.edu" folder. You should see both a blue "cloud" icon for its Status, as well as a small "paperclip/link" icon to indicate that it's a link from outside your OneDrive.
Accessing SharePoint from your "Welcome" email and/or the web
After being given access to a SharePoint site with file storage, you can follow these steps to access those files and folders via the web.
- Anyone who has access to the department shared drive will receive a welcome message with the subject line "You've joined the GRP-Example_Name_SharePoint_Site group", from which you'll want to click the "View group in Outlook" button.
- From the Group section for the SharePoint site in Outlook, open the message titled "The new GRP-My_Department_SharePoint_Site group is ready", where you can click Add to team site to open the new SharePoint site in your default web-browser. You can also simply click the Files icon at the top of the Outlook interface while viewing the Group to pull up this same page. If prompted, sign-in with your BSC Network credentials.
- At this point, it is recommended that you bookmark/favorite this page so you can easily return to it in the future.
- To access the department files/folders that were transferred from the department shared drive, click Documents.
