OneDrive for Website Documents

Use a shared OneDrive group account to share documents on University websites

Website editors can use a shared group OneDrive account to post PDFs, Word documents and spreadsheets on school, department or office websites. 

UAlbany OneDrive (OneDrive for Business) is part of the University's Microsoft Office 365 suite of services. OneDrive is supported by ITS. If you have any issue or questions about OneDrive, you can contact the ITS Help Desk.

 

OneDrive - Group vs Personal Accounts

Group OneDrive: Used for your website's documents

  • Each University website should have a group OneDrive account. Many sites already have an active group OneDrive to use for documents.
     

  • If your site does not yet have a group OneDrive account or you need access to an existing group account, please file a ticket with Web Services.
     

  • You can post documents for your site visitors to view or download. You'll have large storage capacity for your site's documents — up to 1 terabyte.
     

  • You should not post documents for classes or academic work. Please use Brightspace for these purposes.

Personal OneDrive: Used for your own documents

  • Everyone who has a UAlbany email address has a personal OneDrive account by default.
     

  • You can use your personal OneDrive to collaborate with others — both internally and externally — more easily.
     

  • Personal OneDrive accounts should not be used to host web documents on University websites.

Learn more: OneDrive Instructions from ITS

 

How to add a document to your website 

If your website already has a group OneDrive account that you can access, please follow these steps to add a document to your website: 

  1. Navigate to your shared group OneDrive and click “Documents.” 

  2. Hover over the document you want to share. 

  3. Click on the three dots that appear near the document’s name. 

  4. Click "Copy Link."

  5. Click "Settings."

  6. Under "Share Link With," select "Anyone."

  7. Under "More Settings," select "Can View."

  8. Click “Apply.”

  9. Use the copied link to share the document on your website.

Note: Shareable links are URLs that can be used on University websites or in campus-wide emails and documents.

When you’re sent a shareable link, please copy it exactly and insert it into your website, email or document as an accessible link.

Never copy or share Office 365 links directly from your web browser. Those URLs are not shareable links. 

 

Best practices for sharing documents on your website 

Make documents accessible: Make sure the document you are sharing is accessible to people who use screen readers and other assistive technology. An easy way to test if your document is accessible is to try to highlight its contents. If the text cannot be highlighted, it is not accessible. For additional guidance please visit the web accessibility portion of this website. 

Create accessible links: Make sure your link is accessible. Accessible links must include enough contextual information that someone using a screen reader or other assistive technology would know what the link leads to if they asked their device to read off all the links on a page. An example of an accessible link is “Read our strategic plan.”  An example of an inaccessible link is “Click here for our strategic plan.” 

Secure your documents: Be sure that the link to the document does not allow editing, as described in the instructions above. This is a security measure to help protect your website content. 

Consider making a webpage instead: Ask yourself if the information you’re sharing needs to be a document or if it would be better displayed as normal page content. Analytics show that users who click on a document most often don’t return to the site afterwards. Use documents sparingly to ensure users stay on your site and get the information they need. 
 

Please contact Web Services at [email protected] if you have any questions. 

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