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IT Service Status
IT Service Status

OneDrive and SharePoint are Here—Engage with These Tools

Posted Date: October 14, 2022

Effective Date: October 14, 2022

Northwestern's transition from Box to OneDrive and SharePoint is complete, and we appreciate your patience and engagement throughout the effort. To advance your experience with these tools, we compiled some tips and best practices and recommendations to help you decide where to store data, access Box content owned by third parties, and more.

Follow Best Practices for Storing Data

Identifying the types of data you own and understanding where to store the information is essential for retaining research and other institutional data.

  • Files you alone are working on should be stored in OneDrive and are private unless you decide to share them. Any files that require collaboration or contain institutional data should be stored in SharePoint.
  • Remember, OneDrive accounts are removed when students, faculty, and staff leave Northwestern, so please connect with individuals leaving the University to ensure files are not lost.
  • OneDrive and SharePoint may not always be the right solution for your document storage and collaboration needs—especially for larger files or research data. Please consult the Document Sharing and Data Storage Finder for other solutions.

Continue Learning About OneDrive and SharePoint

The Northwestern IT Knowledge Base provides technology tips and self-help solutions to common OneDrive and SharePoint questions. Users can also access valuable "how-to" content via LinkedIn Learning.

Collaborate On the Go

Be sure to access and download the OneDrive and SharePoint apps available for your mobile device or tablet for on-the-go access. To download, visit the Apple App Store or Google Play on your device.

Accessing Box Content Owned by a Third Party

If you need to access Box data owned by a third party, you must create a personal Box account using your Northwestern email address. Please note that Northwestern data should not be stored in these personal accounts. Unfortunately, Northwestern IT and school or department IT teams cannot provide support for these personal accounts. Please contact Box Support if you have issues or questions.

Lastly, remember that if you have questions or issues with OneDrive and SharePoint, the Northwestern IT Service Desk is available at consultant@northwestern.edu or 847-491-4357 (1-HELP).