SharePoint Online is an Microsoft 365 collaboration tool that helps you gather and share information with teams within your organization. You can securely collaborate on documents, meetings, tasks, and projects and share information such as contacts and calendars.
Who is eligible?
- University faculty or staff
- Valid CNetID holders
- Departments or business groups. Individual (personal) sites are not available. If you require a personal site, consider using:
- To request a new SharePoint Online site, or make changes to an existing account, please submit the SharePoint Account Request form.
What is required?
General Requirements
- A site administrator must be identified and named for each site. This individual is responsible for all administrative duties, including:
- Support
- Adding or deleting users
- A backup administrator must be identified and named for each site.
Site Administrator Requirements
- You should have some knowledge of SharePoint.
- You should understand SharePoint permissions and be comfortable editing security on their site.
- You should know how to add users to existing groups.
- You must agree to be the first point of contact for user issues related to their specific site. Issues related to SharePoint functionality, or issues that cannot be addressed by a site administrator, may be referred to IT Services for resolution.
What does the service offer?
- A pre-configured SharePoint Online instance, living at uchicagoedu.sharepoint.com/sites/your site name.
- A University-branded look and feel.
What services are not offered?
- No custom design or branding
- No custom URLs
- No custom web parts or custom modules
- No custom styles or style sheets (CSS)
- No custom page layouts or master pages
Access
- University affiliates with a valid CNetID can access SharePoint sites as site users.
- Site access is granted to users by each site administrator and by IT Services when there is no site administrator.
Security
Site administrators are responsible for securing site content. Please use common sense guidelines when storing data in SharePoint Online. If your data is sensitive, consider very carefully if it should be stored online. Please consult the UChicago Sensitive Data Usage Guide for further clarification on what is sensitive data, or contact the Information Security team.
You should not store these types of data in a SharePoint site:
- HIPAA protected information
- Social security numbers
- Credit card information
- Other PII or personal data that is sensitive in nature
Storage
- 10 GB default limit
- Additional storage can be requested
Data Retention
In SharePoint Online, items are kept for 93 days from the time you delete them from their original location. Your data remains in the Site Recycle Bin the entire time unless someone deletes it from the Recycle Bin or empties the Site Recycle Bin. In that case, deleted items go to the Site Collection Recycle Bin, where the items sit for the remainder of the 93 days.
If you accidentally delete an item and want to restore it, view SharePoint's article for instructions.
Customization
The template option does not offer robust customization capabilities. For sites that have requirements beyond the stated functionality, email sharepoint-admins@lists.uchicago.edu for information about custom SharePoint implementations.
Training
Begin learning the basics of SharePoint Online:
Introduction to SharePoint Online
If training is needed, Microsoft provides free training: