Microsoft 365 Important Service Usage Information

We have collected basic information that is important to know when using any of the Microsoft 365 applications. Information such as different account types and their uses, distribution groups, storage options, Teams options, and other university specific advice can be found here:

Useful Information for Getting Started

While Ohio State endorses the use of Microsoft 365 apps, they can pose accessibility issues. This means it may take considerable time for individuals with disabilities to master. Therefore, it is best to offer additional options for completing course requirements. For more information, see Microsoft 365 Accessibility.

If you have a disability and rely on assistive technology, and are having trouble related to Teams, please contact the Ohio State Accessibility Helpline 614-292-5000 for assistance.

Keyboard Shortcuts – Office Accessibility Center

Account and Data Retention

Once an account is no longer active the following deletion schedule will apply. The deletion of the account would purge all data (email, email archive, OneDrive files, and other related storage data) held within that account. 

The following account types would be deleted 5 years after separation:

• Faculty, Staff, Retiree, Student Employee
• Guest
• Non-human accounts, i.e. Organizational accounts (Shared Mailboxes)

The following account types would be deleted 2 years after separation:

• Graduated Students who graduated starting May 2024
• Other Students (those that do not graduate or have withdrawn)

For allowed data types in Office 365 services, please refer to the IDP site institutional data classification matrix for details on Permitted Data Usage By Service, Permitted Data Usage By Activity, and Institutional Data Element Classification Assignments.

As a group owner you are responsible for reviewing and removing any unneeded groups on an annual basis.  You should follow established university guidelines for the retention and deletion of any date. University retention guidelines.  

In alignment with university retention policy and compliance approval, several retention timeframes have been set within Teams.

For a comprehensive break down of Microsoft 365 service storage and recommended records management guidelines please refer to the University Microsoft 365 Matrix on the University libraries records management website.

You are responsible for managing the deletion of recordings when no longer needed, based on the appropriate university recording retention guidelines.

For steps on how to change Meeting Retention settings refer to Recorded Meetings in Microsoft Teams.

Current Retentions

• Individual or 1:1 Chats will be saved for 3 years, messages older than 3 years are deleted automatically on a rolling schedule.
  • Individual user messages inside a team group chat can be deleted by the user in accordance with content-appropriate retention schedules.
• Team group conversations and Team channel conversations will be deleted after 8 years, messages older than 8 years are deleted automatically on a rolling schedule, unless the Team is deleted.
  • Team interactions can be deleted by an admin or Team owner in accordance with content-appropriate retention schedules.
• Team Meeting recordings will have a default expiration of 1 (one) year.
  • One year is sufficient to have met retention to cover the most common recordings, class materials and trainings/presentations. Anything that needs to be kept longer should be thoughtfully considered as to where it falls in a retention schedule.

Changes

• Attendance Reports in Teams Meetings will have a 1 (one) year retention policy applied.
  • Since there is currently not a retention policy in place, Attendance Reports for events created before November 1, 2024 will remain accessible until late August 2025. To ensure access to attendance reports for all meetings created before November 1, 2024 is retained it is recommended to download the attendance data using the Attendance tab. There is no bulk download option, and each report will need to be downloaded separately. To learn how to turn attendance reports on and off see Manage Meeting Attendance. 

Refer to the Teams FAQ page if you have more questions.

A number of Office 365 services (Teams, OneDrive, Sway, Stream, etc.) allow you to share content either by creating a link to a file, folder or Sway document, adding people to a Team, publishing a link (iCalendar or Stream recording) or emailing the content directly. You should only share content with the appropriate people if they have a need to access the content. 

Guidelines to keep in mind:

• Avoid using public or anonymous links
• Enable sharing only for a limited time, disable the shared link once it is no longer needed
• Default sharing permission is View only, only allow editing if truly needed
• Try to only share files instead of folders to limit possible exposure of data
• Do not share restricted content
• Refer to the to the IDP site and appropriate IDP links from “Data Types” section above, for detailed information on acceptable use of data based on service and classification
• OneDrive for Business allows you to see the items you have shared and generate a sharing report to allow easy review.
  • To generate a sharing report access OneDrive on the web, go to Settings (gear in top right corner), OneDrive settings, click More Settings, Create Sharing report
• Teams allows you to see the items you have shared and generate a sharing report to allow easy review.
  • To generate a sharing report access Team site on the web (open in Sharepoint link under Team Files tab), go to Settings (gear in top right corner), Site Usage, scroll down on the page, click Run Report under “Shared with External Users”
• Adding a person to a Team, Planner or Office 365 group provides that person with access to all the resources and data contained within that service, including edit permission.
• Some services allow you to protect the document with a password, which a good idea if sharing. Make sure to securely exchange the password with those that need to access the document.

When you create a new Team, Planner or other app this will create an Office 365 group as the foundation. An Office 365 group is comprised of several other resources such as a mailbox, shared calendar, file storage location for collaboration, and shared Planner. By adding a person (internal or external guest) to the Office 365 group for access you are allowing them the ability to access all resources connected to that app.

Warning: Do not use any person's name or your own, nor any University lastname.# for the name or email address of any Microsoft 365 Group, Team, etc.  

As an owner of a Team, Planner, Office 365 group, or other Microsoft 365 App you are responsible for reviewing and removing any unneeded accounts, data, groups, or Apps on an annual basis.  You should follow established university guidelines for the retention and deletion of any data. University retention guidelines.

When adding a person to a Team you are allowing them full access to all the group chat history, channels, and read/write to all files contained within the Team. This includes any external guests, people from other organizations that you invite to be members of a Team.

Recommendation: use private channels to limit what people have access to.

As an owner of a Team you should periodically review the group members of the Team and/or private channels and remove anyone that should no longer have access.

If using a private channel you should have multiple owners.  If there is only 1 owner of a private channel and they leave the organization, a member of the private channel is promoted to being the owner.

As an owner of a Team you should periodically review the items shared with people who are not a member of the team and remove anyone that should no longer have access. See instructions under “Sharing of content” section.

People you add to a Team even as members or guests will get certain capabilities within the Team. You should review those settings/permissions when you create a Team. Recommendations related to which settings should be enabled or disabled are below. These setting are found under Team settings:

1. Select the Teams  

   

    on the left side of the app.

2. Go to the team name and select More options  

   

    > Manage team.

3. Click the Settings tab

Deleting a channel in Teams does not delete the files(s) or OneNote notebooks stored within in the channel. You must perform an additional step to manually delete them. You should follow established university guidelines for the retention and deletion of any data. University retention guidelines.

When you delete the channel there is a prompt with the text “Your files are still accessible here” Click that link before clicking Delete. This will open a web page where you can move the files to another channel or permanently delete them.

If you do not remove the files at the time you delete the channel you can manually go in later to delete no longer needed files from a deleted channel: Log into OneDrive on the Web, click the Team name on the left side under “Shared Libraries” (if not shown click More Libraries), select the file(s) to be deleted and click Delete.

When creating a Team you have a choice of setting the Privacy mode to Public or Private which controls who can see the Team when searching and how they request to join.  With a Public team anyone can see the Team and files without being an explicit member.  If you use a public team you should create a private channel to store any files you do not want to be public.

Warning: Do not use any person's name or your own, nor any University lastname.# for the name or email address of any Micrisoft 365 Group, Team, etc.  

With a Private team only members of the team can see the team, the files within the team and must be added as explicit members.  We recommend creating only private teams.

If you created a public team you can make the team private by following these steps:

To change the privacy settings for your team from public to private (or vice versa), go to the team name and select More options 

 > Edit team toward the bottom of the menu. Under Privacy, select either Public or Private.

Anyone you invite to a meeting in Teams will be able to access the chat and any files added during the meeting.  After the meeting ends, they will also have access through their Chat feed. If this is a recurring meeting, this will include future meeting chats and documents. Recommended to double check participants who are in a meeting.

If you have a recurring meeting and you add someone new for just one event, make sure you remove them from the meeting list afterwards in your chat feed.  Find the meeting in your Chat feed, once selected, go to the top right corner and click on the participant icon, click the X for anyone that should not be in the meeting.

Always double check the participant list of any meeting to make sure on the desired people are in attendance.

Learn who can record a meeting and who can view a recording.

In a Teams chat you have a couple of ways to share a file, depending on the method determines where the file is stored and accessed.

• If you add a file to an individual chat (not a channel group chat) that is stored in OneDrive, that file is shared with the people in the chat, view only by default but you can change those settings if needed.  This is not a copy of the file.
• If you add a file to an individual chat (not a channel group chat) using “Upload from my computer”, the file is copied to your personal OneDrive account and stored in the “Microsoft Teams Chat Files” folder. That file is then shared with the people in the chat, view only by default but you can change those settings if needed.  This is a copy of the file from your computer. Using the link to access the file will not change the file on your computer, just the one stored in your OneDrive.
  • Periodically you will want to check the “Microsoft Teams Chat Files” folder and remove any files that are no longer needed.
• If you add a file to channel group chat that is stored in OneDrive, you have the option to upload a file or share a link.
  • Upload file: you will be prompted for a place to store the file.  The file is then copied to that location within the Team. That file is available to the people in the Team and no sharing link is created or needed.  This is a copy of the file from your computer. Accessing the file in the Team or group chat will not change the file on your computer, just the one stored in the Team.
  • Share a link: that file is shared with the people in the chat, view only by default but you can change those settings if needed.  This is not a copy of the file.
• If you add a file to a channel group chat using “Upload from my computer”, you will be prompted for a place to store the file.  The file is then copied to that location within the Team. That file is available to the people in the Team and no sharing link is created or needed.  This is a copy of the file from your computer. Accessing the file in the Team or group chat will not change the file on your computer, just the one stored in the Team.
• If you add a file to a chat in a meeting using “Upload from my computer”, the file is copied to your personal OneDrive account and stored in the “Microsoft Teams Chat Files” folder. That file is then shared with the people in the chat/meeting, view only by default but you can change those settings if needed.  This is a copy of the file from your computer. Using the link to access the file will not change the file on your computer, just the one stored in your OneDrive.
  • Periodically you will want to check the “Microsoft Teams Chat Files” folder and remove any files that are no longer needed.

Attaching a file to a Planner task copies that file into the main section of the Team that is only accessible via the web.

Deleting a task in Planner that has attachment(s) does not delete the attachment(s) and you must perform an additional step to manually delete them.

To manually delete no longer needed attachments from Planner tasks:

1. Log into OneDrive on the Web
2. Click the Team name on the left side under “Shared Libraries”
3. Select the file(s) to be deleted
4. Click Delete.

Office for the web and some Microsoft 365 mobile applications provide users with optional, cloud-backed services called “Optional Connected Experiences” that is enabled by default. Optional Connected Experiences are not covered under an organization’s license with Microsoft and are licensed directly to the user. When these optional services are used, Microsoft may collect “diagnostic” data which may include personal data as defined by Article 4 of the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) that is pseudonymized. Users may opt out of these services through the web or mobile application interface. Please be aware that functionalities may be impaired (e.g., inserting online pictures) if opting out of the service.

These cloud-backed services are optional. Whether you use them is up to you. Additional details available at Overview of optional connection experience in Office.

Use of the OneDrive for Business sync client is only approved for university managed devices. If needing access to OneDrive data from a non-university managed device, you should use the web app and not download any unnecessary files. Using restricted (S4) data on personal or unmanaged devices is prohibited.

Within OneDrive for Business on the Web there are several notifications you can use to stay informed about what is occurring with your OneDrive files. These settings are access but going to OneDrive on the Web, clicking the gear (top right corner) and choosing OneDrive settings.

Notification settings are listed below with recommendations as to which ones should be enabled or not:

• Reminders for missed Sharing emails – personal preference
• Email notification when OneDrive detects lots of files are deleted at once – recommend enabled
• Email notification when others reply to your comments – personal preference
• Email notification when others comment on my documents – personal preference
• Email notification when the link in a sharing email you sent was clicked – recommend enabled
• Email notification when others upload files to your file requests – recommend enabled

Class Notebook is part of OneNote. Each one includes a Content Library for teachers to share course content, a Collaboration Space where teachers and students can work together, and a private notebook for each student. After a Class Notebook is created, teachers and students can access it from any device using the OneNote app.

Some items to be aware of with class notebooks:

• You have the ability to create parent/guardian links (more informationhere) that allow people without an account at your school to view the Class Notebook’s Content Library or individual student notebooks. The links you create are read-only—a guardian with access can’t edit the notebook’s content. Because of this any student using a class notebook should be made aware that privacy is not expected.
• When you create a Team of type Class, a Class Notebook is automatically created, and members of the Team are added as “Students”.  As new members are added to the Team, they will also be added to the class notebook as “Students” with their own individual section created. Only 1 class notebook is permitted per Team.
  • Existing Class Notebooks cannot be directly migrated into Teams.  You can copy pages from one notebook to another though.
• If a student’s membership in a Team is changed to an owner of the Team, that student receives full access to all Class Notebook sections. It is not recommended to modify a student’s permission directly in a class team unless that is the outcome you intend. Instead you can change permissions within OneNote connected to the class notebook from teams if you need to adjust permission on just the class notebook. Further details available here.

Additional information on OneNote Class Notebooks, high recommended to review:

OneNote Class notebook getting started

Using OneNote Class notebook in Teams

Staff Notebook is part of OneNote for Microsoft 365. Each one includes a Content Library for staff leaders to share resources, a Collaboration Space where all staff can work together, and a section group for each staff member that only that staff member and the notebook co-owners can see. Staff leaders and members can access their Staff Notebooks from any device using the OneNote app.

Some items to be aware of with staff notebooks:

• When you create a Team of type Staff, a Staff Notebook is automatically created, and members of the Team are added as “Staff”.  As new members are added to the Team, they will also be added to the staff notebook as “Staff” with their own individual section created. Only 1 staff notebook is permitted per Team.
  • Existing Staff Notebooks cannot be directly migrated into Teams.  You can copy pages from one notebook to another though.
• If a staff’s membership in a Team is changed to an owner of the Team, that staff member receives full access to all Staff Notebook sections. It is not recommended to modify a Staff’s permission directly in a class team unless that is the outcome you intend. Instead you can change permissions within OneNote connected to the staff notebook from teams if you need to adjust permission on just the staff notebook.

Additional information on OneNote Staff Notebooks, high recommended to review:

OneNote Staff notebook getting started

Using OneNote Staff notebook in Teams​​​​

When someone leaves the university access to different systems, applications and storage locations will be removed. There are things users can do to make certain they maintain access to important documents, maintain continuity for any Teams they manage, or even access to organizational accounts.

What happens when I leave the university?