Explore Features, Benefits, and Set-Up Guide for Google Team Drive
Google Team Drive is a comparatively new service of G Suite. Business, Enterprise, and Education plan subscribers of G Suite have this service included in their package. This is a service similar to Google My Drive, except that multiple team members can access this Team Drive. As this is a new service, many readers may be wondering that what is Google Team Drive? Even many G Drive users are yet to explore this exciting new product of Google. To answer the question, we will discuss all necessary information about Google Team Drive here. We will talk about benefits and features of Team Drive, as well as its difference with My Drive. Let us get started with a brief overview of Google Team Drive.
What is Google Team Drive ?
Google Team Drive is a shared storage Drive where members can create as well as store files. Users can find it within interface of Google Drive. One person can be member of multiple Team Drives. Users can create new files into Team Drive or upload existing files to it. Now, have a look at the benefits of using this new product of G Suite.
What are Major Google Team Drive Benefits ?
Users will get wide range of benefits if they choose to use Google Team Drive. Here are four major benefits of using this G Suite feature.
- Better Team Management: Managing both members and permissions have become simpler in Team Drive. Members can be added and removed easily in Team Drives. All file sharing permissions can be controlled from the same console. Thus, admins, as well as employees, get benefited from using Google Team Drive.
- Easy Member Inclusion: Document access by new members of an organization is made easy by Team Drive. A new member can be added to Team Drive within a minute. New members can get instant access to all necessary files together by Google Team Drive. This significantly helps to increase productivity of new members.
- Intelligent File Searching: Team Drive contains ‘Quick Access’ feature that can help you find required files quickly. ‘Quick Access’ uses machine learning algorithms to identify documents to users. ‘Quick Access’ analyses trending topics, team calendar, and other relevant data to suggest files to team members.
- Team-based File Ownership: Any files stored in a Team Drive belongs to the team. No individual member can personally claim ownership of any Team Drive file. This ensures stability despite changes and evolve. In case someone leaves organization, you do not have to worry about the files stored on this drive.
Basic Features of Google Team Drive
Google Team Drive comes with a number of exiting features. Some of its highlighted Google Team Drive features are:
- Team Ownership of Files: All files of Team Drive are owned by the Team, not by any particular individual. Thus, all files of the team remain within it even if someone leaves.
- Improved File Sharing Rules: All members of the Team Drive can view the same content.
- Easy Member Inclusion: It is easy to add members in Team Drive. Apart from regular adding method, users will get added to Team Drive automatically by Google Groups. If someone added to a Google Group, s/he will also be added to all Team Drives of that Group.
- Sharing with External Users:Admins can add external users to Team drive. All contribution of the external users gets transferred to and owned by the creator domain of Team Drive.
- Synchronizing on Personal System:Members of Team Drive can synchronize their files on their system using ‘Drive File Stream’.
How to Start Up with Team Drive ?
This segment can be considered as start-up guide for Google Team Drive setup. This will include creating Team Drive, adding and removing members, setting and changing permissions, etc.
- Open Google Drive
- From the left navigation, click to select Team Drives.
- Click on New button above the navigation pane.
- Enter a name for the Team Drive.
- Click on Create. A new Team Drive will be created.
Users has to have ‘full access’ permission to add members to Team Drive and manage permissions.
- Click on Team Drive name.
- At the top, the Team Drive name will appear. Click + Add members under Team Drive name.
- You can add name, emails address or Google Groups to add to the Team.
- (Optional) If you want to change the new member’s permission from full access, click on the down arrow and select new permissions.
- (Optional) You can even enter a message.
- (Optional) Select ‘Skip sending notification’ if you do not want to send a message.
- vii. Choose any of the below options:
- Click on Send to send notification
- Click on Add if you do not want to send notification.
You need to have ‘full access’ permission to remove members from Team Drive.
- Click on Team Drive name from left navigation from which you want to remove a member.
- Click on the down arrow beside Team Drive name at the top. Select Manage Members option.
- Now click on the down arrow beside the name of the member you want to remove. select Remove member.
- Click Done to finish removal process.
Difference between Team Drive and My Drive
After Understanding What is Google Team Drive, Lets find out the common difference between google team drive vs my drive. The major difference here is file ownership. My Drive handles files owned by only one user. In Team Drives, the files are the property of the team, not of any individual. These two are different in many other aspects. The following table will show difference between Team Drive and My Drive.
| Features | Google Team Drive | Google My Drive |
|---|---|---|
| Compatible File Types | All file types except Google Maps | All types of file |
| File and Folder Ownership | The team | Creator of file folder |
| Moving Files | Users | Yes |
| Moving Folderd | Only Admins | Yes |
| File Restoration | Yes,members with edit access or complete access | Yes |
| File Sharing | All team members can view same set of files. | Depending on access permission to individual files, different users may see different files within a folder. |
| File Syncing to My Computer | For Drive File Stream: Yes. For Backup and Sync: No. | Yes |
| Duration of Deleted Files in Trash Folder | 30 days | Until user chooses the option ‘Delete Forever’ |
| Google File Attachment to Google Calendar Invitation | Not available now | Navigation to any My Drive file is possible from a Calendar invite. |
| Support for Mobile Device | Not Yet | Yes |
| Inherited Permissions | Permission for any file will carry forward even after team migration. Permission of My Drive files will not transfer to Team Drive. | Folder level permissions pass down to files created within it. |
Conclusion
Google Team Drive is a useful component of Google Suite. It has made file sharing and management among a group of people convenient. This write-up touched upon all important aspects of Google Team Drive. It answered what is Google Team Drive and other related queries like its features, benefits, and difference from My Drive. This post will also work as a guide for setting up Google Team Drive. It is expected that readers will get benefited from this write-up.