how to help users find files and stay organized in shared drives when uploading and creating files

[erenalleycorp]

I'm helping a client fix their disorganized Google drive use.

What they wish they could do is allow users to browse the files and folders inside well-organized shared drives to be able to find the correct place to upload or create new files in an organized way without necessarily giving them access to open all of the files. This isn't possible in Google Drive since the lowest role is reader (unless I'm missing something).

What's happening now is that when users are looking for an existing file, each time they go through their shared with me section, and when they create something new, they do it in their own drive and just share it with specific users.

Have others run into these issues? How do you help your users stay organized and use common shared drives instead of always scrolling through "shared with me" and creating their new files in their own drives?

[Jan-Carlos]

Well to have a better organization and collaborate properly, i would recommend to use the "shared drives" in google drive to do this properly.
The shared drive is a way to centralize collaborative content.
It's not a good practice to collaborate using your own drive as a repository, on the long run it will became a mess.
About the restriction of viewing the content, i think is impossible to not view objects and still organize them.

[erenalleycorp]

Do you have any specific strategies for organizing files and folders inside shared drives or training end users to use them properly instead of creating things inside "my drive"?

[Jan-Carlos · Accepted solution]

I recommend this documentation:

https://support.google.com/a/users/answer/13015138?hl=en&ref_topic=12369809&sjid=8339067076050424639...

[erenalleycorp]

Thank you! That's a good start and the type of thing that I was looking for. I will post here my experience with this project and if I find any other interesting ideas.