Last Updated: May 11, 2018
Description & Purpose |
Purpose: SharePoint is a cloud-based content management and collaboration service managed by Microsoft that is constantly changing. As such, this is a "living" document that will be reviewed and/or updated monthly by CCS. All users are responsible for ensuring they are up-to-date with the Terms of Use. Users will be made aware when major changes to the Terms of Use have been made. Scope: This document applies to any U of G member who is a member of SharePoint, which encompasses faculty, staff, undergraduates, graduates, affiliates, IT consultants, University of Guelph-Humber, and Ridgetown campuses. This Terms of Use document also applies to external consultants and partners that may have authorized access. |
Policies |
University Policies: All users are required to read and adhere to the following University policies and guidelines:
Appropriate Use:
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Microsoft Terms of Use |
All users are required to read and adhere to Microsoft's Terms of Use: |
Eligibility |
While SharePoint can be used by any University member, requests for SharePoint site collections can only be made by faculty and staff with express agreement from the Department/Unit head. Undergraduate and graduate students are not eligible to request site collections, sites or be granted admin privileges, however they may have Site Member or Site Visitor access. If admin access is required by a student, it must require approval by Department/Unit head. If a faculty or staff member is requesting a student have admin privileges, they must put in a request via the CCS Help Centre [8]. Student organizations may request sites provided they have received approval from the Central Students Association (CSA). Site Member or Site Visitor access can be granted to external users. External users are users who do not have a U of G Office 365 license, such as contractors, consultants, faculty from other universities etc. Site Member or Site Visitor access can be granted to specific folders or files within a SharePoint site through “External Sharing” feature, or if there is a need for an external user to have a temporary Office 365 account, they will need to request a sponsored account [9]. External users must not be granted any admin privileges, only University affiliates should be granted admin access. |
Roles & Responsibilities |
For all intents and purposes in this document:
CCS is responsible for:
CCS is NOT responsible for:
Site Owners Site owners are ultimately responsible for the content on the site and its lifecycle management. Responsibilities of the site owner include:
Site Members Site Members have control over content, as they may have the ability to add, edit and delete. Responsibilities of the Site Member include:
Site Visitors Site Visitors have read-only access to content. Responsibilities of the Site Visitor include:
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Requesting the Service | All site collection requests should be submitted through the SharePoint Site Request Form [10]. Requests will be responded to within five business days. All other SharePoint requests such as enabling features, quota increases, installing add-ons, etc. should be submitted to the CCS Help Centre [8]. |
Data Retention & Removal |
Site Removal While the University does not have a campus-wide data retention policy, each Site Owner must determine how long to keep the site data, and where applicable, when to delete the SharePoint site and/or data. This helps to reduce redundant, outdated and trivial (ROT) content. SharePoint will be removed under the following scenarios:
*Before a site is deleted due to inactivity, the following process will occur:
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Quota | The University’s licensing agreement with Microsoft for Office365 offers 25TB quota for Teams, SharePoint Online and Project Online for the entire institution. To strike a balance between distributing quota effectively and equitably while empowering departments to develop solutions to meet their specific needs, CCS will closely monitor usage and institute a ‘soft’ quota of 500GB for each SharePoint site collection, Team Site and Project PWA. If a site collection, Team site or PWA exceeds 450GB, CCS will notify the owner that they are approaching their limit. Depending on available storage, owners may need to purchase additional storage at Microsoft’s current rate ($3/GB/year as of November 2017). CCS will work with owners if this situation arises. |
eDiscovery | Electronic discovery or eDiscovery in Office 365 is used to make content stored within Office 365 searchable, such as SharePoint sites. While the data stored within SharePoint are private, and only accessible to authorized users, users should be aware that data found through eDiscovery can be used in legal cases and security investigations as evidence. Please visit Microsoft for more information on how eDiscovery [11] is applicable to SharePoint. |
Backups & Restores |
The policies around SharePoint backups, restores and rollbacks are defined by Microsoft’s service level agreement, to which no exceptions or accommodations can be made. Users are encouraged to read Microsoft’s Service Level Agreement on a regular basis to ensure that they are up-to-date on any changes. At the time of writing, anything deleted in SharePoint (files, folders, libraries, lists, and complete sites) will go into the “first stage recycle bin”. Each user will have the ability to restore from recycle bin where deleted items will be kept for a maximum of 93 days before being permanently deleted. If a user empties the “first stage recycle bin” the deleted items will be moved to the “second stage recycle bin”, which only the site collection administrator or the SharePoint administrator has the ability to empty. Whether in first or second stage, anything deleted will only be kept for 93 days in total from date of deletion. There are no exceptions to this. Users can restore deleted items from the first stage recycle bin. Restores from the second stage recycle bin will need to be performed by either the site collection administrator or the SharePoint administrator. If backups are required of previous versions of documents that have NOT been deleted, users can roll the document back to a previous version if versioning is enabled on a document library. This policy only accounts for deletions. It does not cover data corruption, as such it is recommended to backup critical data. |
Third-party App Requests | Requests for new third-party apps must be submitted to the CCS Help Centre [12] along with a justification for the request. CCS will review the request to ensure it meets security policies, and determine if there are any unintended impacts to the service or other users. Additional dialogue may be required if there are associated costs and support requirements. |
Visit U of G's SharePoint Online [13] service catalog page for more information.