File Sharing
Summary
File sharing is common in most organizations and should be familiar to most people. Hospitals may refer to the "S" drive or the department's name like the "Nursing" drive, etc. This type of file share is normally localized to your hospital. Almost every department will have its own File Share that is automatically assigned to the person when onboarded.
Another type of File Sharing is from your One Drive. Anyone in the company that has an email account will have One Drive access. These are your Files and Folders that get backed up in the Cloud when you sign into the account. More information about One Drive found here. You can share your files with the people within your organization.
Hospital File Shares
A file share on a Domain is a folder with permissions propagating down to subfolders and files. This means the Parent (top-level) folder permission flows downwards to the subfolders and files. You can't add different permission to a subfolder or file. There are pros and cons to hospital file shares.
PROS
- Backed up at the data center
- File Share access can be requested through the Service Catalog of the ticketing system
- A place to keep large files
- Security
CONS
- Can be slow if the network is congested
- Doesn't always allow multiple users to be in the same file document at the same time
- Limits certain users from editing easily due to their Web license of Office 365
- Moving files or folders from Shares can cause file share inheritance problems
Q: What is file share inheritance?
A: The permission of the Folder or File that is inherited from the parent folder. What this means is if you try sharing a file from the Nursing drive with a person in Physical Therapy, that person in Physical Therapy won't be able to open or view the file. Files should stay in that folder. Users should request access to the share.
Q: How to avoid file share inheritance?
A: Instead of clicking and dragging a file or folder from your access, copy and save the file to the folder of the shared location. As mentioned earlier, files should stay in the file share, BUT if deemed absolutely necessary, you can move the file to another share.
Q: How do I know if file or folder inheritance is affecting people?
A: When you hear from people that you shared the file with. Some can see it and some can not. The fix is copy and save instead of clicking and dragging. Of course you can create a ticket, but it could result in a delay. It takes a minute to fix it this way.
OneDrive
What is OneDrive? When you sign into OneDrive, your files are automatically backed up to the Cloud from three locations. Your Documents folder, desktop, and Pictures are defaulted for backup. If you don't sign in, you risk losing data that is saved on the computer you're using. Advantages of using OneDrive are:
- Automatically backs up your data
- You can retrieve your data from other devices or computers
- You can share your documents
- Multiple people can edit a document at the same time
There is a limitation to OneDrive in the company. We do have outside contacts turned off due to HIPAA security. If your position requires sharing to outside entities, you'll need to create an incident.
How to share files from One Drive - click here.
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