Sagamore Google Drive

Documenting how Sagamore Hills Elementary School can use the Google Drive service of their PTA's Google Apps account. See the following short videos for why/how Google Drive.

• Google Drive Help
• Google Docs in Plain English - YouTube
• Exploring Google Drive - YouTube

The latest thoughts on access, ownership, and permissions, were established 2014-01-16.

Accessing

If you just want to view or download files, simply go to:

https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B5-Bq29kKNGGVkpldTF0U05MWVE

Updating

If you wish to add or edit files or folders, you must:

Login to Google Drive (web, desktop, or app) as sagamorehillspta@sagamorehillspta.org

The theory section explains why.

Saving changes

If you're editing files…

• in your web browser (or app) (e.g. editing a Google Doc or Spreadsheet)
• from your Google Drive desktop folder (automatically synced via the Google Drive desktop client)

the following does not apply to you.

If you download a file from Google Drive, edit it, and want to upload your changes back to Google Drive, please do the following.

1. Select the file in its folder (do not open/preview)
2. Bring up the file's context menu
   • Right-click the file
   • or Select the "More" top menu button
3. Select "Manage revisions…"
4. Select "Upload new revision"

See a past discussion for why.

Permissions

By default, anyone can view files but not edit them. Logged in users can always edit, upload, and delete. Exceptions can be made, but are discouraged.

Theory

There is a single folder which contains all Sagamore Hills PTA files. That folder is owned by the sagamorehillspta@sagamorehillspta.org account. By default, all files/folders are private and new files/folders can only be edited/created by those logged in as sagamorehillspta@sagamorehillspta.org. Exceptions can be on a per folder or file basis.

It is important that all files be owned by sagamorehillspta. Although files owned by others can easily be collected in the PTA's google drive, they would not actually under PTA control, and therefor subject to loss.

Historic

The following was outdated 2014-01-16.

The idea is that all files are owned by the admin account, which is hosted by the Sagamore Hills PTA Google account, so that storage and deleting are under organizational control. All files are also assigned the highest level access (edit access) to the Sagamore Hills PTA Google Group, to which all volunteers are a member, so that any volunteer can edit files (old versions remain available and cannot be deleted (except by the admin)).

Volunteer Google Accounts (email addresses) are added and removed to/from the Sagamore Hills PTA Google Group to allow/disallow working with Sagamore's Google Drive hosted files.

A single folder named "Sagamore Hills Elementary School" contains all files (and folders). This top-level folder is assigned the previously mentioned permissions, which become the default share setting for new contents added to it. Volunteers will go to this folder in their own Google Drive environments to work with Sagamore files.

Although volunteers can add their own files to the Sagamore managed folder, those files should eventually become owned by the admin account (see "Adding files")so that they can be owned by the PTA (stored by, deletable only by, controlled by).