G:Drive Folders & H:Drive decommissioned September 2025 - Training for UNBC Community is available

What is happening?

The Shared on-campus storage (G: Drive folders) & Personal on-campus storage (H: Drive) for file storage, will be decommissioned as of September 2025. As a best practice for modernizing and safeguarding our file storage infrastructure, UNBC ITS is continuing its shift towards cloud-based file storage.

Moving data into the cloud makes campus files easier to access due to the increase in people who require remote access to their files and the difficulties with VPN-based file shares. With the increasing use of OneDrive, Teams and SharePoint, it is no longer viable to use an older & less secure shared space for file storage.

Training for Microsoft 365 Applications

UNBC has partnered with our vendor to offer live training sessions for applications within Microsoft 365. The purpose of this training is to help prepare UNBC Staff/Faculty to migrate over their data from G: & H: drives to SharePoint & Microsoft Teams.

• Click here for the learning syllabus - training sessions start August 2024! 

The training sessions will be on the following applications:

• Microsoft Teams
• SharePoint Online
• OneDrive

​​​​How do I watch the M365 Training sessions? 

How to find a course in Desire 2 Learn (D2L) using the Discover tool.

Note: M365 Training applications will be located under ITS.

1. Visit D2L at unbc.desire2learn.com
2. Click the green UNBC SSO button to sign in.
3. Click Discover (along the top menu)
4. Select “UNBC Training – ITS”
5. Click the blue Enroll in Course button, then click OK.
6. Click the blue Open Course button
7. Click Content (along the top menu) to access the M365 Training session videos.

What can I do to maximize the value of this training for me?

We want the training sessions to provide value to the UNBC community, we encourage you to provide us your questions ahead of time!

• What is something that you really wish you could do, but don’t know how to do?
• I really wish I could do <fill in the blank> in M365.
• End users always ask me <fill in the blank> questions. Is there a way they can get the same information without asking me?
• What are the pain points in your job?
• What is something that you know exists in M365, but haven’t been using and want to know more about?

What if I can’t attend the training?

The training sessions will be recorded the videos will be available permanently for all UNBC Staff/Faculty to review at any time on D2L (Desire 2 Learn).

There will be a Q&A period at the end of each session, which will give you a chance to ask your questions. If you are unable to attend the training but would like to have your questions brought up during the training session, please email your questions to support@unbc.ca so that we can ensure your questions will be included.

Important Note: We will send out communication once the recordings have been posted and are available for viewing, stay tuned!

How should I plan for the decommissioning of the G and H drives?

Managing your G: & H: Drives - go through your files

Use the search function in file explorer (or finder on Macs) to find files by type or keyword regardless of how your drive is organized (or not organized, as the case may be). The search function is an easy way to find and view files no matter what folders and subfolders they are stored in.

1. Open File Explorer (If you don’t have it pinned on your task bar, use the search on the task bar at the bottom of your screen to find ‘File Explorer’.
2. Click on the drive you want to clean up. Once you select a drive, you will notice it will be highlighted, and the name of the drive will show up in the search box.
3. Use the search box to look for:
   • Common file types: “doc”, “docx”, “ppt”, "xlsx" and image files “jpg”, “gif”, “png”, “tif”.
   • Keywords: “draft”, “version”, “superseded”.
4. Under the view menu, select details to see helpful information about each file in your search results (name, date modified, type and size).

• To access details - in the file explorer window, click the view tab. In the panes section click the details pane button.
  • Name: to locate files with similar names that may be duplicates.
  • Date Modified: to located your oldest files. They may be ready to either delete or move.
  • Size: to see the largest files. Move them to a more appropriate location or deleting them if transitory.

To prepare for this change, UNBC ITS recommends that Faculty & Staff begin migrating their files over to the preferred location.

• OneDrive offers seamless collaboration capabilities, online and offline document editing and syncing, and editing and syncing files across web, mobile, and desktop.

• SharePoint Online is a Microsoft Office 365 cloud-based service that helps users share and mange content, knowledge and applications, encourage teamwork and facilitate seamless collaboration across the organization. It provides a secure location to store, exchange and access data from virtually any device and all major online browsers. 

• Microsoft Teams offers a workspace for real-time communication and collaboration (text chat and video), file and app sharing. Teams and Channels can be used for tracking projects, conversations, files, meetings, etc. A Team is essentially extra functionally and features added on top of a SharePoint Online site. This means that every Team has a corresponding SharePoint Online site, which stores all the Team content.

Microsoft 365 Applications - Learning Syllabus