Acme School Supplies Information Storage and Sharing Policy

Date: 4/17/17

Supersedes: 8/5/99

Responsible Departments: Human Resources and the Department of Information Technology

Exhibit A, G Suite Introduction and User Guide

Exhibit B, Information Storage Training Completion and Policy Agreement

Exhibit C, Guidelines for Computer and Internet Use

Exhibit D, Acme Style Guidelines

I. Purpose

A. This document explains the appropriate use of G Suite, G Drive, and Gmail for

storing and sharing company and customer information. On January 15, 2017, Acme

School Supplies transitioned all email accounts to Gmail accounts from Microsoft

Outlook. Following this successful transition, on April 1, 2017, the Department of

Information Technology (IT) instructed all employees to move all locally-stored files

to the cloud-based G Drive, and transitioned from using Microsoft Office Suite to G

Suite.

II. Policy

A. The Acme School Supplies Information Storage and Sharing Policy, issued by

Human Resources and the Department of Information Technology, is the official

guideline for information storage and sharing.

1. This policy supersedes the previous information storage or sharing policy,

which is an addendum to the Guidelines for Computer and Internet Use (Exhibit

C) provided by the Department of Information Technology.

B. Human Resources will provide a copy of Acme School Supplies Information

Storage and Sharing Policy to all current and future employees. All employees will

sign the Information Storage Training Completion and Policy Agreement (Exhibit B),

which Human Resources will preserve on file.

C. All employees must protect private customer and company information as

outlined in this policy. Failure to do so will result in suspension or termination.

III. Procedures and Responsibilities

A. All employees of Acme School Supplies are expected to use Gmail for email as of

January 30, 2017, and G Suite for document creation and storage as of April 30,

2017.

B. Employees should no longer use any other system for file storage or email other

than G Suite. Technical support for Microsoft Office Suite will not be available.

C. The H Drive will be disabled and removed permanently on June 30, 2017.

Employees should transfer all necessary files from the H Drive to Google Drive

before this date.

D. Employees should use Google Drive to store all text-based and presentation files,

such as files with the extensions .docx, .xslx, .pdf, or .ppt.

E. Employees may continue to use local (C: and D:) drives to store files that function

as part of a separate program, such as Quickbooks or any accounting or sales

software. Employees are not responsible for the maintenance of such files, except

employees of the Department of Information Technology.

F. Documents or information shared within the company, including files shared with

other branches or with telecommuters, are private and confidential. No outside email

clients or file storage methods are permitted.

1. Employees are permitted to share and collaborate on documents with non-

employees only if the documents do not contain private information. “Private

information” includes any identifying information about customers’ contact

information, purchasing history, payment information, or marketing files.

2. Customer data, including private information, must not be shared with any

individual or company outside of Acme School Supplies.

G. Payment information, such as credit card or bank account numbers, must be

redacted from all documents before saving (to Google Drive or to local drives) or

sending via email.

H. Employees have unlimited storage space within G Suite. Files and emails

regarding customers or accounts should not be deleted except when they contain

private or protected content, such as customer credit card or payment information.

Such information must be deleted permanently after the protected content is captured

in an encrypted environment, such as accounting software.

I. File names must follow Acme Style Guidelines (Exhibit D) for ease of searching

and archiving. All files should follow the format: Customer code MMDDYY File

Type. Example: PWAYHS 021317 Purchase Agreement.

IV. Further Information

A. Direct any questions regarding the technical use of G Suite, G Drive, or Gmail to

the Department of Information Technology. This includes questions regarding the

sharing of documents or information, file transfer, and file types.

B. For a copy of the G Suite Introduction and User Guide or Information Storage

Training Completion and Policy Agreement, see any member of Human Resources.

C. If you believe that customer information is being improperly stored or shared,

please contact Human Resources immediately.

G Suite Introduction and User Guide

Introduction

For years, Acme has used an H Drive to host our digital files. Every few years, our H Drive

becomes too full, and we must purchase additional storage space to host our files – many of

which are no longer needed. Most Acme staff members use the H Drive to host a portion of their

files, but after many years, the files aren’t organized well or easy to access, and it sometimes

takes a long time to load. Worst of all, these files are only accessible from our office. The H

Drive worked well for us when we adopted it years ago, but now our sales force is mobile. Our

salespeople take their shows on the road, but important data doesn’t travel well with them, which

decreases our productivity and is just plain frustrating.

After a lot of research and consideration, Acme has chosen to move over to Google’s G Suite to

store our files. G Suite isn’t just a data storage solution, but a comprehensive, robust group of

office tools. This document will help you understand how to transition over to using these tools.

Understanding G Suite

You have probably been using Microsoft programs at work or school for the past 20 years or so,

as they have become fixtures in our day-to-day lives. While Microsoft’s offerings are effective

and useful, they are not without issue. As we have found, the storage of hundreds of documents

becomes costly and difficult to maintain over time. It can be difficult to share or find

information, and collaboration within a document is clunky. Google’s G Suite responds to these

shortcomings and more. G Suite encompasses most common office tools: email (Gmail,) a

storage method (Drive,) and a collection of word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation

programs (Docs, Sheets, and Slides, respectively). The entire G Suite is cloud- and browser-

based, which means we can access and share everything online, rather than hosting all of these

tools on our own computers.

It might feel overwhelming to learn these new tools at once, but they all function quite similarly

to the tools you are already used to. For example, you have had a chance by now to organize

your new Gmail account, setting up file folders, distribution lists, and a signature line – just like

your old Outlook email account. In the same way, Google Drive will function similarly to the H

drive, except that it is hosted online rather than within the standard filing system on your

computer that we used before. You will be able to create the same text documents, spreadsheets,

and presentations as before on G Suite’s browser-based office tools. You can even transfer over

your saved Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents, and they will automatically

convert into the G Suite equivalent so that you can continue to refer to and edit these documents

as before.

In this document, and in the upcoming team training, we’ll go over the differences between G

Suite and the Microsoft Suite, so it’s ok if you’re not familiar with any of these concepts yet.

You will find a great deal of similarity between the system we’ve been using and the new G

Suite, which means it’s all relatively easy to learn.

What is “Cloud-based Storage”?

G Suite is just one of many products on the market that offer cloud-based storage. What does that

mean, exactly? The “cloud” simply refers to storage that exists on the internet rather than on a

personal computer or shared, local server. In other words, we are going to safely and securely

store our data on the internet instead of clogging up our own computers. Thousands of modern

businesses have elected cloud-based solutions with great success. Cloud storage requires no

maintenance, and it is easy to use and keep organized. The only downside is that cloud storage

requires a constant internet connection. Fortunately, we live in a digital world; all Acme

computers are always connected to the internet, and our mobile sales force uses devices with

permanent internet connections, as well. This means that with G Suite, Acme employees will

have access to their important files regardless of their location – on the road, at home, or in their

office.

Because G Suite is all online, the different parts of this platform are all “browser-based”,

meaning that you use them directly from your internet browser, like Chrome or Internet

Explorer, just like how you access your Gmail account or perform web searches. You don’t need

to download anything, and you will never need to update any software.

Accessing the G Suite

For the past few months, we have been using Gmail instead of our previous email program,

Microsoft Outlook. You already know how to sign in to your Gmail account using your

username and password, which means you also already know how to sign in to your G Suite

account, since everything in G Suite is connected.

To get started, just sign in to your Gmail account like usual. To use the new features (like storage

or document creation,) simply click on the icon at the top right of your Gmail browser made up

of 9 small squares:

This icon will show you a selection of other G Suite offerings that you can choose from. We

learned how to use the calendar and contacts tools along with email, but you also see icons here

for Drive, Docs, Sheets, and Slides, among others.

Let’s get acquainted with the different icons in this dropdown:

I’m used to... Now look for… More info

Microsoft Outlook Email Gmail and Google Calendar

Mail and calendar tools function very similarly to

Microsoft Outlook, except for that they are

browser-based instead of needing to open a

separate program. You can email your colleagues

and clients and set up meetings just like before,

with the added benefit of 24/7 access from

anywhere.

H Drive Google Drive

Google Drive is like an online version of the H

Drive we’ve been using for years. Instead of

maintaining expensive in-house servers, we let

Google take care of storing our files. We can

access our files anywhere; they’re easy to search,

and even easier to share and collaborate.

Microsoft Office Suite G Suite

Docs, Sheets, and Slides function almost exactly

like Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. They

work from your internet browser (Google Chrome

or Internet Explorer,) and don’t require any in-

house storage space. It’s easy to collaborate with

your team to create presentations or share data.

Storing, Accessing, And Sharing Documents

With Drive, you can easily store and access all of your existing, legacy documents (like .docx,

.xlsx, .pptx, and .pdf documents). There is no storage limit, so you can upload as many files as

need using the following instructions:

1. Sign in to your Gmail account.

2. Select Drive from the dropdown.

3. Click on the blue “New” button in the top left corner, which produces a dropdown menu.

4. You can either create a folder and organize your documents as you upload them, or just select

the files you’d like to upload and organize them later.

5. To create a folder, click “New folder”. This will display a popup where you

can enter the name of your folder. This is the same process as you would use

to create a folder on the H drive. Once you’ve typed in your desired folder

name, click “Create”.

6. Folders appear in the center of your Drive session. Double click to open

them, just like you would with the H drive.

7. There are two ways to upload files. The first option is to click the blue “New” button in the

upper left corner and select “File Upload”.

8. This brings up the file browser that you would normally use to open files in programs like

Word, for example. You can select single files from this list by clicking on them, or hold down

the CTRL and Shift keys at the same time to select multiple files. Once you’ve made your

selection, click “Open”.

9. Drive will upload your files. This process can take a few seconds or up to several minutes

depending on the size and number of files you’ve selected. You can check the progress of the

upload by viewing the pop-up in the bottom right corner of the page. Once all of your uploads

are complete, the files will appear in the center of the page, and a green check mark will appear

next to them in the progress box.

10. You can also upload files by opening a folder on your computer and simply dragging your files

into the window, similar to how you might organize files on the H Drive. You can open My

Documents or whatever folder you’re copying files from, select the files you’d like (as

described above,) and drag them to the middle of the page. When the screen is blue, you can

release the mouse button to drop the files into the upload area. Then, Drive will upload your

files the same way as in step 9.

Once you’ve uploaded all of your documents, you can preview them by double-clicking, which

will open the document in the viewer.

From the viewer screen, you can read the document or select other options. In the upper right

corner, you can select to print, to download the file, or for more options:

The unique option in this dropdown is “Share,” which is a feature in

Drive that allows you to easily send documents to colleagues or clients.

To share a file:

1. Click the Share option from the dropdown.

2. Enter the email address of the contact you’d like to share the

document with in the pop-up, or click “get shareable link” to get a link

that you can copy and paste into a lengthier email. Either option brings

your contact to your Google doc, which they can then access, read, and

edit.

3. Using the Share feature, you can share a file with a colleague or collaborator and make

edits to the same document together in real time. Or, you can change your file settings so

that only you may make edits. For more about the Share function, click here. We will also

discuss Sharing in further detail during the G Suite training meetings.

Using Browser-Based documents

Using and sharing collaborative browser-based documents (like Google Docs, Sheets, and

Slides) will look a little different from traditional, legacy documents (like .docx, .xlsx, and

.pptx), but all of these alternative platforms are very similar to the traditional platforms you are

used to. Your Drive session provides you with many options for interacting with your

documents. You can preview any document by double-clicking, or right-click to bring up more

options.

Options like “Move to” and “Rename” function the same as Microsoft equivalents, so we will

not cover them here. If you would like to edit your document, hover your cursor over “Open

with”, and an additional dropdown appears. Click on the “Google Docs” option, which will open

your document in Docs (equivalent to Word.)

You’ll see that this interface very closely resembles Word and has nearly all of the same

features; note that the “File, Edit, View, Insert…” functions are at the top of the document like in

a Word window, font and alignment changes are directly below them, and all of the tool icons

are the same as in Word. This interface similarity is also the case for Excel files in Sheets and

PowerPoint files in Slides.

You can type, edit, and change your document directly from your browser window using these

functions that you are already familiar with from using Word.

For specific questions or more detailed information about using browser-based documents, check

out G Suite’s Learning Center. You can find specific “Getting Started” pages for Docs, Sheets,

and Slides or use the search function.

Extra Tools

In addition to basic office tools, G Suite provides services that might also be useful. You can

access any of Google’s offerings from your Gmail session by clicking and selecting them

from the dropdown. You can also find them all here. A few suggestions:

If you use… You might like… More Info

Skype

Google Hangouts

If you use video, voice, or text chat to meet with clients,

you can use Google Hangouts instead. The screen sharing

feature allows you to make presentations remotely and

interactively with up to 15 people.

MapQuest

Google Maps

Google Maps provides accurate directions that include

up-to-date traffic information, alternate routes, and a

street view that shows you exactly what an area looks

like. This is helpful if you meet clients in unfamiliar areas

and need help finding your way around.

Facebook

Google+

Many salespeople use Facebook to connect with clients

and maintain personal networks, but some prefer to keep

business and personal networks separate. Google+ is a

social networking site that you can use for business

purposes.

You are not required to use any of these services, but they are available to you at any time

through G Suite.

Information Storage Training Completion and Policy Agreement

I have competed training on information storage at Acme School Supplies. I received and read a

copy of Acme School Supplies Information Storage Policy and Procedure. I understand that

customer and company information are considered private, and I am responsible for protecting

information I receive. Improper sharing of either customer or company information may result in

suspension or termination.

_________________________________________

Employee Signature

_________________________________________

Date