Sharing Your Team Site

By default, you are the only owner and member of a SharePoint site that you create – you are the only person that can see and edit your site and the site contents. SharePoint supports many ways for you to control who has access to your site and site content. When you add a person to your site, you can choose their permission level. The three permission levels for sites are:

Permission Type

Permissions Summary

Permission Specifics

Owner

Full control of your site

People who should have the same level of access and permissions as you. They have full control of all site content (like a member) but can also change the site’s appearance, permission settings, and site settings

Member

Edit and contribute

People whom you want to be able to edit site content. Site members can edit and view all site content, including files and pages.

Instead of sharing the whole site, you can instead only share specific files and folders.

Be careful about what privileges you give and who you give them to! This is particularly important for sensitive information. Since members and owners can see all contents of your site, Tufts recommends giving the fewest privileges necessary for your full site and only to people for whom it is absolutely necessary. 

Note: Adding site owners outside of Tufts is not recommended. If you share site ownership with an outside email account, the outside individual will always have this access. Even if all Tufts collaborators leave the university, these outside owners will still be able to view and edit the files and folders in the site. The Service Desk cannot transfer ownership of a site from an account outside of Tufts to a Tufts user.

Changes that are made to shared files and folders affect everyone that has access to it. This is particularly important when someone deletes an item. Make sure your site members, site owners, and document editors are in communication with each other to avoid unexpected file deletions and changes.

  1. On any page in your site, the number of current site members is listed in the top right. This text is a link. To invite new team members, click 1 member. (Note: If you have already added other site members, this number will be greater than 1)
    Member is under settings and help
  2. A panel will appear on the right listing all current members of the site.
    A member list is under the Add members button
  3. Click Add members.
    Add members is the first button on the panel
  4. A field will appear where you can enter names to be site members. As you type, this will auto-populate from the Tufts directory.
    The new panel has definitions of site owners and site members
  5. To change a person from a member to an owner, click the arrow dropdown under their name next to Member and pick Owner instead. Important! Do not add owners outside of Tufts University.
    Permission levels are member and owner
  6. Click Save.
  7. You will see an updated list of site members. Click the X in the top right to close this side panel.
  1. On any page in your site, the number of current site members is listed in the top right. This text is a link. To remove members or change the permissions of existing team members, click 2 members. (Note: The number here will be the number of site members you currently have).
    Members is under settings and help
  2. A panel will appear on the right listing all current owners and members of the site.
    The member list is under the add members button
  3. Underneath the name of the person that you’d like to change permissions for or remove, click their current permission level.
  4. Choose the person’s new permission level, or choose Remove from Group to remove this person completely as a member of the site.
    Permissions are Member, Owner, or Remove from Group
  5. This permission change autosaves. You’re done!