Set up small church for file storage in Office 365

We are a small church that has just set up Office 365, but had not done anything with it. I am trying to figure out the best way to set up Office 365. I have many questions but the biggest and most critical is file storage. We presently use DropBox Plus (Not Business) for storage of all the church’s files except recorded services. From that main account we grant access to specific folders to our volunteer staff to as needed for their ministry. With office 365 we are hoping to have the same set up and eliminate Dropbox. We want one main cloud storage for all the churches files using either OneDrive or SharePoint of which only 2 or 3 users have access to, but then give different volunteers access to only some of the folders which are part of the main storage. Questions:
Is there a way to set up one main cloud storage to replace Dropbox Plus?
If yes, where should that be? One Drive or Share point? Are there specific instruction to do it correctly?
Should the assigning of folders to volunteers be done using groups, teams, or share feature?
If teams or groups are used to organize file storage access, can volunteers be part of more than one group or team?
Finally if there other articles that you feel will be helpful as we try to get Office 365 set up it would be appreciated.

Thank you!

Microsoft has very specific guidelines for volunteers and o365. Only very narrowly defined volunteers are permitted free licenses. The others must be purchase for something like $24/year.

I am using Dropbox for business Advanced for everything. Before signing up I confirmed with DB that I could save recorded video, MP3, audio files, documents, etc… They said I could save whatever I wanted and with the business Advanced plan the storage is UNLIMITED! You do not get that with Microsoft. Dropbox business Advanced is 20/month per user with a min. of (3) users, however the unlimited storage is worth the cost. This also allows you to have teams and divide it up anyway you want. You also have full control of permissions and what you want each user to see. Hope this helps!

As you probably know, SharePoint underpins most of the Office 365 offering (Exchange is the other main pillar). OneDrive and Teams both utilize SharePoint for file storage and some other functions. When you create a Team, there is an associated O365 Group, and SharePoint site that are automatically created.

Now that Teams supports external guest users, the requirement for purchasing licenses for volunteers is significantly reduced, unless they require features that aren’t available via guest access. Access to shared files should typically not require a license.

What I’ve been doing recently for clients, is setting up Teams (permissions are applied at the Team level), and adding channels as required (which creates sub-folders when viewed in SharePoint/OneDrive). For licensed users, the OneDrive client can be set up to sync (or use Files-on-demand) all of the Teams to which the user has access. External guest users would typically access the shared files via web or Teams.

Clients seem to like it, so far.

2 Likes

Here’s how each person on your team can set up OneDrive and share files.

Go to the Microsoft 365 Portal, and sign in with your user name and password.

From the App launcher, select OneDrive.

In OneDrive, team members can store their own business-related files. You can share either individual files, or a whole folder. Pick a file or folder, right-click, and then choose Share.

Sharing a folder

On the Send Link page, leave the default selection Anyone with the link can view and edit.

Type names or email addresses of team members who you want to have access to the folder, and add an optional message.

If you want your own copy of the email that will be sent, add your email address to the list.

Share a link dialog box showing showing typing and selecting a name.

When you’re done entering who you want to share with, select Send. The email is immediately sent to the people you invite.

Share a link, showing list of names

Here’s what the email looks like.