MS365 Collaborative Tools FAQ

Q: What's the difference between SharePoint and OneDrive?

A: SharePoint is a collaborative space that your office or workgroup has access to.  Anything you may want to share or live beyond your relationship with the University should be in SharePointOneDrive is a personal space for your documents or files to live, if you leave the University, anything in your OneDrive will be deleted, even if that is shared with others.  

Think of these two in terms of your physical office space: SharePoint is the filing cabinet in a central location your team or group has access to and OneDrive is your locked desk drawer and only you have the key. 

While it is possible to “share” files and folders from OneDrive, it is recommended that any document you want to collaborate on or would like to share with others, be moved to SharePoint to avoid the risk of those collaborators losing access to those documents in the event you leave the University or your account no longer exists. 

 

Q: Who has access to OneDrive/SharePoint/Teams?

A: All University of Nebraska System students, faculty (including emeriti) and staff with active roles will have access.

 

Q: How do I log into SharePoint or OneDrive?

A: Visit portal.office.com and enter your University credentials.   

Note: If you have a SharePoint site you access with both different email accounts (i.e. @unl.edu AND @unk.edu, OR @nebraska.edu), we recommend opening one in in browser application, and the other in another browser application (i.e. @unk.edu in Chrome and @unl.edu in Firefox). 

This will take you to your Office homepage with “Quick Access” links to your most recent documents. 

Click on the “waffle” or “9 dots” icon in the upper left corner of the page for access to the MS 365 apps, like SharePoint and OneDrive. 

Once in SharePoint, you will see your frequently visited sites by default or you can click on the “hamburger or 3 lines” menu icon in the upper lefthand corner to view the SharePoint sites you have access to are following (note: you may need to click on “View All” to see all the sites you are a part of).

 

Q: Where should I store my data?

A: If you’re working on a personal file, save it to OneDrive. Your OneDrive files are private unless you share them with others. If you’re already working as a team in Microsoft Teams or SharePoint, you should save your files where your team works. Since all files shared with you can be accessed from OneDrive, you can also start a document in your OneDrive and move it to a SharePoint folder shared with you.

 

Q: What file types are supported? What are the file size limits?

A: All common file types are supported. Learn more here.

For file size limits, depending on the web browser you use, you can upload files up to 100GB in size. (This limit is per file, not total.) For more information, see here.

 

Q: How much storage space do I have?

A: Depending on your Microsoft license you will either start with 100GB, 1TB or 5TB of storage in OneDrive. SharePoint has 25TB of storage.

 

Q: How do I recover deleted files?

 

Q: How do I share files?

 

Q: Do external users need a Microsoft account?

A: Yes, external users or guests must have a Microsoft 365 account. If the user does not have a Microsoft 365 account, the user can create one for free.

 

Q: How do I chat with an external user in Teams?

  1. New Chat
  2. To: Enter the external/guest users full email address e.g. user@campus.edu
  3. Click Search Externally

 

Q: How do I add an external user to a Team?

  1. Select your Team
  2. Tap ellipsis (three dots) > select Add member *if you do not have this option ask the owner of the team
  3. Enter the external users full email address, e.g. user@campus.edu
  4. Tap Add as a guest

 

Q: How do I switch between tenants in Teams?

  1. Click on the drop-down menu next to your profile picture on the upper-right in the Teams App
  2. Click on the name of the tenant to switch
  3. Repeat steps to switch back or to switch to additional tenant