Dropbox SOP

Guide to our Facente Consulting Team Space

Organization | House Rules | Resources

raising hands Welcome! Working on projects in the team space makes it easy for everyone to find stuff.

Everyone at FC has access to the team space. Do all your work in the team space – drafts, final versions….everything.
Only you can see what’s in your member space, unless you share a document with someone. It’s purple and it has your name on it.

card file box Organization

We have 4 top-level folders in our team space. 

The folders in our team space are organized like this:

  • file folder1 – Active Projects
    • file folder1 – Admin
      • file folder Contract Budget SOW
      • file folder Project Management 
    • file folder 2 – Documents – OLD
    • file folder 3 – Reference Materials
    • file folder 4 – Final Project Deliverables
  • file folder 2 – Pending Projects
  • file folder 3 – Archived Projects
  • file folder 4 – FC Admin

TheActive Projects folder is where we save documents related to all active projects. Each folder is named like this: “Client Project Name.” Each folder also has four standard subfolders. The rest of the folders can be customized for each project. As a general rule, we try to keep working documents “loose” so they show up at the bottom, under the folders, and everything else gets filed in a folder. No one actually follows that rule, but hey…it’s something to strive for.

The Pending Projects folder is where we save proposals or RFPs for projects we have applied for or may apply for.

The Archived Projects folder is where we move active project folders when the projects are done. Unlike the Active Projects folder, this folder is organized by client.

You can find all kinds of great stuff in the FC Admin folder, from the Employee Manual, to the client thank you note template, to procedures for starting up and closing down a project, and much more. Go here for all things not specific to a project. 

Not everyone has access to all admin folders. Shelley, Dara, JT, and Mo store the TOP SECRET stuff in these special folders. Seriously, you wouldn’t want to mess with these folders even if you could – if you delete the wrong file, you might not get paid. Or you might accidentally fire yourself.

General do’s and don’t’s:

DO: Copy and past the four standard active project folders into any new project folder you create – they can be found in the FC Admin folder, under “4 – FC Admin\14 – Policies, Tools, Templates, Examples.”

DON’T: Freak out if you accidentally erase your whole Dropbox. No one at FC has EVER done anything like that. Nope, that’s never happened. Fortunately, we have Dropbox Business now and can recover files.

house with garden House rules

Naming files and folders

Follow these guidelines to keep our team space uncluttered. 

How to name a folder

Folders in the Active Projects folder should start with the client name (abbreviations OK), followed by a brief project name of your choosing (first letter of project name capitalized, further words lowercase). The project name should be the same in Celoxis – client name followed by project name.

Ex: open file folder SFAF Strategic Plan

How to name a file

When naming your files, just be concise. And clear. Probably good to include the date in most if not all cases, and words like “Draft” or “Final.” Eventually we should develop some conventions but there’s only so much time in the day. 

Syncing files

“With Smart Sync, you can see every file and folder stored in your Dropbox—whether it lives on your hard drive or in the cloud—right from your desktop. To save space, only make folders and files you regularly work with local.” Or so say the brilliant people at Dropbox. I haven’t the faintest clue what that means. But let me (Dara) know if you have any problems. Here’s another “how to” guide.

Do keep an eye on the Dropbox icon at the bottom of you screen. If it’s got a blue checkmark, it’s still syncing. Same for individuals files – green checkmark means synced, blue means syncing, and a red X means it didn’t sync. If things are not syncing properly, restart Dropbox and/or your computer and that usually takes care of it.

Sharing with people outside the team

You can share with people outside of our team space – like clients! This is an awesome feature of Dropbox Business that we didn’t used to have in any way that didn’t require Herculean workarounds.

We can give clients access to select folders.

We strongly suggest(that means“required” in case you didn’t read between the lines) that you create a distinct client folder and only share that, as opposed to sharing the whole project folder, or various files from different folders. We’re a pretty transparent bunch, but never-the-less you want to make sure clients only have access to the things you want them to be able to access – not the entire project folder.  Here are some more info and conventions related to sharing:

  • Share Dropbox folder with client/outside party. If any documents need to be shared with the client, subcontractor, or other outside party, create a separate folder that includes the phrase “SHARED WITH CLIENT” in the folder name and be mindful that no internal or confidential documents are stored there. Do NOT share the entire project folder. You can then share it with outside parties through the DropBox web application (see DropBox SOP).
  • Outside party shares DropBox folder with you. If the client wishes to share a DropBox folder with you, and you accept the invitation, the folder will appear in your personal DropBox folder (the folder with your name and a purple icon in File Explorer, below the standard FC folders). There are some tricky things here about moving the folder after it is shared…contact the Operations Manager.
  • When client prefers Google Drive or other platform. If the client prefers to share files through Google drive or other platform, a Google Drive folder can be created. The client should create the folder, and share it with the relevant staff at FC, if the materials in it will ultimately remain with the client after the project ends. (If FC creates it, ownership cannot later be transferred outside of FC. There is a workaround if it is needed, but best to have the client create and share the folder.) Do NOT duplicate files in the Google Drive and DropBox, to avoid version confusion. Instead, create a link to the Google Drive folder and put the link in DropBox (see Google Drive SOP).
  • When you want to work on a document simultaneously with someone else. DropBox is not the best tool for real-time shared editing of a document. If you want to work on a document in collaboration with another FC team member or with a client, you can open the file in Google docs and share the link with the appropriate parties. When editing in Google docs, the edits will save in DropBox. However, any future edits you make in the DropBox file will NOT be reflected in Google docs.

Creating File or Folder Shortcuts in Dropbox

If you create a file or folder shortcut (right click on a file and select “Create Shortcut,” this shortcut will only work on your computer. It will not work for other people. There is a way around this…

  1. Right click on a file or folder
  2. Select “Copy Dropbox link”
  3. Right click in the place you want to put the shortcut
  4. Select “New” and then “Shortcut”
  5. In the pop-up, Type the location of the item, paste the Dropbox link you just copied
  6. Click Next and add a name for your shortcut
  7. Voila! Everyone can use this shortcut

books Resources 

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This doc was made in Dropbox Paper. It’s free with our account ←-DropBox wrote that. This is an ad.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmsq1uKOa08&