Centralize company data with team folders

Team folders are the way to build out your core company data structure in Dropbox. Team folders are created by an admin, and are a company-owned place to share files with team members and outside contributors working on the same projects.

In this article you'll learn how to:

• Create team folders
• Manage team folder sync settings
• Set access permissions for specific users

Team folders are first shared with Dropbox groups, which include members who perform similar functions (e.g. a finance group). Then, the admin who created the team folder sets the correct access level (view or edit) for each group.

Any subfolders created in a team folder will automatically be shared with these groups. Subfolders can also be shared with individual team members and people outside the team. As with groups, the admin can set view or edit permissions of individual members in subfolders.

Follow these steps to get started with groups:

1. Sign in to dropbox.com with your admin credentials.
2. Click Admin Console.
3. Click Team folders.
4. Click Create a team folder.
5. Give your team folder a name.
6. Add a group (or groups) that need access to the team folder, and decide if the group should have view or edit access.
   • You can go to the groups page to create groups.
   • All group members have access to the team folder and all of its contents.
   • Remember, team folders must be shared with Dropbox groups, not individuals. Next, we'll discuss sharing subfolders of team folders with individuals that are inside or outside the company.
7. To create a subfolder (a folder that is inside of the Team folder), click to enter the team folder.
8. Right-click and select New folder.
9. Name the subfolder.
10. Once the subfolder is created, hover over the subfolder and click Manage access.
    • You can share subfolders with individuals or other groups, and you can change their permissions to Can edit or Can view.
11. Verify that access permissions are correct.
12. To centralize your company data, encourage team members to move shared folders that they own into a team folder.
    • Any shared folder owner can move a shared folder that they own into the team folder. With this step, shared folder owners transfer ownership of files from themselves to the company.

Team folders in action

To make team folders more concrete, we'll explain how a hypothetical company might use them. Imagine a marketing team manager is tasked with planning events throughout the year. Each event requires different people and teams to be involved. But, they still want all event-related files organized in one place. A team folder is what they need.

In our example, they would create a team folder called "Events Team" and share it with only the Events Team group.

The company is planning a sales event, so the marketing manager creates a subfolder called "Q3 Sales Event" inside the "Events Team" team folder. They share the "Q3 Sales Event" subfolder with the Sales Team group. The Sales Team group can only see the "Q3 Sales Event" subfolder, and no other contents in the "Events Team" team folder.

Finally, the marketing team manager reviews which teams have access to what files in the "Events Team" team folder. In the following illustration, the subfolder "Q3 Sales Event" is automatically shared with the Events Team group. Why? Because the Events Team group is a member of the team folder that the "Q3 Sales Event" folder is in. The Events Team group inherits access to "Q3 Sales Event." The Sales Team group also has view-only access to "Q3 Sales Event."