Shared drives are like gardens, and if you don't take care of them, they will become overgrown, weedless, and less productive than they could be.
If you intend to tackle your unruly shared drive, read this blog post offers a clear way to get it going again.
Why now?
If you need additional incentive to finally solve the problem, we should point out that it is bad Managed shared drives have more than a few drawbacks.
We are probably all familiar with issues such as document duplication and difficulty finding information However, a drive can also lead to reduced productivity and increased security and compliance risks.
In the age of cloud storage, the risks of a poorly managed shared drive are even more severe – your valuable and sensitive information may vary can be accessed by anyone with an internet connection.
Towards a Better Shared Drive
Over the years, TAB has worked with many organizations to keep their shared drives under control. The following eight steps will help you reduce risk, avoid duplication of work and increase labor productivity.
- Creating an Information Framework
Creating the right folder framework is critical for an efficient shared drive. Ideally, the structure of the shared drive should mimic the departmental structure in your organization. First, create a list of document types that are the same for all departments. Regardless of whether you are dealing with the marketing department or the finance department, you can be sure that you will find documents that relate to the core department as well as the administration, e.g. B. Budgeting, staff and team meetings. Try to make a complete list of all of these general functions. In this way, you can create a standardized and predictable structure for each department folder on the shared drive.
- Designing the Folder Structure
Once you've created the shared framework, you can start mapping the actual framework to folders that are departmentally needed. At this point, of course, you need to create some folders that are unique to each department. To determine which it is, it is helpful to interview employees and check the actual documents to get a complete picture of the information created and used by the department. Once you have the document types under control, you can document the entire folder structure and get input and feedback from employees before completing them.
- Setting up user permissions
Once the folder structure has been set up, you need to document which users have access to which folders. This is an important step for the management of security and compliance risks. The easiest way to implement permissions is in groups and not on an individual basis. Each employee would be assigned to a group, regardless of whether it is a role, seniority or a sub-department. When it's time to implement the new folder structure, your IT department just needs to know which group an employee belongs to to set up the appropriate permissions. This approach accelerates implementation and in the future reduces "ad hoc" authorization requirements that can affect the productivity of your RM and IT teams.
- Setting Up the Drive
After the design of the folder structure is complete and the user permissions have been documented, you can now start creating the folders on the drive. Because the old and new folder structure overlap, you should give folders a unique name to avoid confusion. Something as simple as "NEW HR department" helps, for example, to distinguish it from the existing folder. During this phase, you will also work with the IT team to create user logins, passwords, and setup permissions.
We're almost there! We'll complete our overview of the 8-step method in next week's blog post.
Next steps
