UConn faculty, staff, and students will be moving off of the Q Drive this year (2023) in favor of Microsoft SharePoint. Use this guide as a starting point for migration help from ITS.
Prereading: What is SharePoint?
Please review the following guides for a better understanding of SharePoint and why UConn is migrating to the platform.
What is SharePoint? (includes video)
SharePoint's Relationship with Teams
If your group uses Microsoft Teams for file storage/sharing, your group is already using SharePoint.
Ask ITS for help
UConn ITS is here to help! ITS can answer any questions you have about the process, provide best practices, and help you migrate your data.
Task | Help from ITS | Self-Service (Moving data yourself) |
|---|---|---|
SharePoint site creation Data can be migrated into new or existing SharePoint sites, or into an existing Microsoft Teams team. To learn more, visit this page: Create a SharePoint Site |
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Data Migration |
ITS recommends that departments work with ITS to utilize the data migration tool to ensure data safety. |
When manually migrating data, files may be unknowingly lost and ITS may not be able to restore lost files (no log is generated). |
Managing Permissions (Permissions are not migrated from the Q Drive, only data is migrated) | The management of permissions is now handled by the SharePoint site owners; users do not need the help of ITS to add, edit, or remove others from a SharePoint site. Check out Add others to a SharePoint Site for more information. | |
Will my data work in SharePoint? | ||
When will my data move?
If you have not been contacted by ITS to move your Q Drive data, reach out to sharepointmigrations@uconn.edu immediately.
ITS works with each data owner(s) (those who manage their group’s Q Drive permissions/data) to pick a migration date. This date is considered the cutover date.
Learn more about the cutover date here: Cutover Date - SharePoint Migrations
What information will I need to supply to ITS?
Faculty, staff, and students should schedule a meeting with an ITS staff member to schedule a migration of their department’s data. This is the time to ask any questions about SharePoint or the migration process. If all parties are satisfied at this meeting’s conclusion, a migration will be scheduled. Be prepared to answer the following questions:
Question | Note |
|---|---|
Does your group ever share files with users outside of the university (externally)? | External Sharing is disabled by default. With external sharing disabled, you cannot collaborate on files/folders with non-UConn users. You can send files to people outside of the university, but you cannot collaborate on them without External Sharing enabled. Note: Members of UCHC and UConn Foundation are external. Enabling external sharing does not decrease the security of your site, but it is disabled by default. |
Will you need to hide certain folders from certain users, or should all members have equal access? | |
Do you have two SharePoint site owners in mind? | ITS requires that you have at least two site owners. Users can be promoted to Owner and demoted to Member at any time. |
Do you have an existing SharePoint site that you would like the data migrated into? Or should ITS create a new site for you? If you would like ITS to create the SharePoint site for you (see above table), what would you like the name of the site to be? What would you like the URL to be? |
Do you want the Q Drive data to be added to a certain folder, or the root level of the site? |
Do you have an existing team in Microsoft Teams that you would like to migrate your Q Drive data into? If yes, do you have any folders in your Q Drive that match the names of a Teams channel? | Teams stores its data in SharePoint; if you are using Teams, you’re already using SharePoint. Learn more: SharePoint's Relationship with Teams Folder name conflict: If yes, for example, the default Teams channel “General” will conflict with a folder named “General” in your Q Drive. This can be avoided by renaming the folder inside your Q Drive, or by migrating your Q Drive files into a folder in the SharePoint instead of the root (top) level. |
Do you have a folder named “Forms” in the top-level (root) of your Q Drive? | This folder will need to be renamed as it will conflict with SharePoint. |
Should each file/folder share need approval of a site owner? (Enabling this setting is uncommon) | Each time a SharePoint user shares a file/folder, a SharePoint owner will receive an email asking them to approve the share. |
What is the current location of your Q Drive data? | Ex. Q:\WestHartford\ITS |
Do you have a server/application accessing your Q Drive? | On-prem services will not be able to access SharePoint/OneDrive data. See Data supported by SharePoint for more information. |
Considerations:
Question | Note |
|---|---|
Do you have a folder with more than 100,000 items inside of it? | In SharePoint, once a folder contains more than 100,000 items, the folder permissions cannot be modified. This means that individual access cannot be granted nor removed from the folder until it contains fewer than 100,000 items. To alter access while the folder has more than 100,000 items, you must use User Groups. Learn more: Manage Folder Permissions in SharePoint using User Groups |
Do you have a large number of files in a historical, or archival, status (300,000 or more)? (Files that you are keeping but do not access in your normal, day-to-day work) | You may want to have this data reside on a discrete SharePoint site. Learn more: Archival SharePoint Sites |
How do I access my SharePoint?
Once your SharePoint site has been created, there are multiple ways to access your files. If you are curious now, please take a look at the following guide: Access SharePoint files.