File manager workflow

School drive, incoming shares, outgoing share links, and public tokens.

Operations guide for day and boarding schools.

Last updated August 29, 2026

The drive is shared, not personal. One folder tree lives on the application server and every staff or administrator account that can open /files sees the whole of it; students, parents, and vendor portal users are refused outright. Folders are an organising convention rather than a permission boundary, so the decision that matters is what goes in at all. Anything that needs a smaller audience belongs in a share link aimed at named people.

Usage workflow

/files - create folders, upload documents, rename/move, role-scoped access.
/files/incoming - browse items colleagues shared with you.
/files/outgoing - manage share links you created (copy, revoke, expiry).
Recipients open /files/shared/[token] for public link access.

Pick the file or folder in the drive and choose to share it.
Choose the sharing type: public for anyone with the link, organization for any signed-in user, or individual for named email addresses.
Set the access level. View streams the file inline; download and edit force a download for anything the browser cannot preview.
Add the optional guards you need - a password, an expiry date, and a maximum number of downloads.
Copy the generated /files/shared/[token] URL and send it. The link is the only way a recipient of a public share learns about the file.

What a recipient sees

Situation	Response
Link is valid	Preview in the browser, or a download for other file types
Past its expiry date	A clear expired message rather than a generic error
Download cap reached	Refused with the current and maximum counts
Password set	A password prompt before the file is served
Organization or individual share, not signed in	Asked to authenticate first
Individual share, signed in but not on the list	Refused

Housekeeping

Review /files/outgoing periodically. Links do not expire unless you gave them a date, and only the person who created a link can revoke it.
Uploads are capped at 20 MB per file, so large media has to be split or hosted elsewhere.
Storage usage and folder size both walk the tree on demand, which is slow on a big drive - use them for occasional checks rather than as a dashboard.
Select several items and download them as one zip when handing a set of documents to an auditor or inspector.

Common questions

Quick answers in plain language.

How do I share a document with two named colleagues and nobody else?+

Create the share with the individual sharing type and list their email addresses. Only those users can open the token URL, and it also shows up in their /files/incoming list. Every address must match an active user or the share is not created at all.

A recipient outside the school cannot open the link. What should I check?+

Public is the only sharing type that works without a login - organization and individual both return an authentication-required response. Then check expiry, the download cap, and whether the link has a password the recipient was never given.

I uploaded a corrected file over the old one. Can I get the previous version back?+

Yes. Uploading over an existing filename archives the old content into a hidden versions store first, and the versions view for that path lists earlier copies with a restore action.

Should exam papers or staff records live in the school drive?+

Only if every staff user may see them. The drive is a single tree with no per-folder permissions, so anything genuinely restricted should stay out of it and be sent as an individual share instead.