Box is one of our supported cloud storage systems. It's a robust, secure place to store your files and share them with others at the university and elsewhere.
Box Storage
Every student, faculty and staff member at St. Edward's has a Box account — even if you've never logged in. With it, you get unlimited storage space automatically, and you can use it for just about any file type you can imagine.
Box Sharing
There are two ways to share files in Box if you choose to do so:
- If you're sharing a folder with other Box users for a long period, it's best to invite them as collaborators. If you invite someone to collaborate who does not have a Box account, they will be invited to join Box.
- Note: This is also the solution if you need to give someone the ability to edit files.
- If you need to quickly share a file or folder with someone who doesn't need the ability to edit, you can send them a shared link. Shared links allow the recipient to view and download the specific document you sent, but the user can't edit the document.
- Note: For ongoing collaboration, it's best to share access to the folder.
Sharing Files Outside St. Edward's
You can share documents with people outside St. Edward's, but those people must have a Box account, even if it’s a personal account. To do so, you'll need to adjust the share settings on the file or folder to "People With the Link."
- First, enable the Shared Link.
- Then choose "People with the link."
- You can give them "View only" access or "View and download" access.
Permissions and Security
You can securely share a folder by carefully delegating who can access it. When you invite other collaborators to the folder, you can specify the level of access each user has to your content.
When viewing a folder in the web interface, you can see all the collaborators listed, along with their permission levels, on the right-hand side of the page.
Box Collaboration
If you've been added to a shared folder in Box, you'll receive an email alerting you to the change. The default setting for St. Edward's Box accounts is to accept all collaboration invitations automatically. You can adjust this setting in "Account Settings" > "Sharing" if you would prefer not to auto-accept.
Best Practices for Collaborating
- Box allows you to invite colleagues to folders in one of seven different roles. Each role has a different level of access and ability to edit content. When sharing a folder or subfolder, consider how your colleague will need to interact with the files. Is view-only sufficient? Will they need to edit or add files?
- In Box, folders follow "waterfall" permissions. If a collaborator can access a top-level folder, they can reach everything within that folder. You can invite collaborators to sub-folders within a top-level folder, but granting permissions on a sub-folder level creates a more challenging environment to navigate and manage.
- We recommend structuring your folders to allow for sharing of top-level folders. Sharing folders in this way allows for greater clarity of permissions and ease of navigation for you and your colleagues. As you create new folders or files around the same project or process, your collaborators will be able to see and engage with the shared content more easily.
File Versioning
Box lets you track the version history of your files, so you can see all revisions made to a document. You can also restore an earlier version if needed.
If you're collaborating with others on a file, we recommend you lock the file while you make edits to prevent anyone else from making changes or uploading new versions. In the Box web interface, select "Lock" from the menu to the right of the file name. You can also set a time limit for how long the file will remain locked.
If you want to collaborate on a document simultaneously, you can use Box Notes. Box Notes can also be downloaded and edited locally on your computer if you are using Box Drive, where they will appear as documents in your Box Drive folder.