Box Departmental Storage Coming

BoxBeginning February 15, we will be accepting requests for departmental storage using Box. With Box, departments will have unlimited storage on the cloud system to collaborate and share files. These departmental folders will show up in your Box space and will be designated by a blue folder icon.

Box.com Collaborated folderTo request a departmental folder in Box, please contact the OIT Help Desk at help@smu.edu. We will need to know your department or school, the preferred name for your folder, and those individuals who will require access. It’s important to note that Box uses “waterfall” permissions; this means that users can be added to subfolders without impacting the top-level permissions, but permissions granted at the top level cannot be revoked from subfolders! Please keep this in mind when requesting a resource, and add only the minimum required users to your top-level folder. You can always add additional users to your subfolders later.

For additional information on managing folders in Box, please see Folder And Subfolder Permissions.

OIT will soon provide guidance on migration of data from Locker.SMU and BStore.SMU to Box. Stay tuned!

Box.SMU is Now Available

The holidays may be over, but we have one more “Box” for you to open.

BoxWe are proud to announce the availability of Box.SMU. Box is a cloud-based storage and collaboration service for SMU faculty, staff and students. Files can be securely stored and easily accessed within Box from most devices. Share large files securely with anyone – even if they are not SMU employees or students. View and comment on any kind of document, and connect with coworkers – no matter what device they use

Benefits of Box 

  • Access files wherever you have an internet connection
  • View and sync files from most devices
  • Store your files securely with 256-bit multi-layered encryption
  • Unlimited storage quota
  • Upload files with a maximum size limit of 5 GB per file
  • Full text search within documents
  • Collaborate on documents with colleagues both inside and outside the University

Getting started

  1. Go to box.smu.edu to log in. All active SMU faculty, staff, and students have access to Box.
  2. Click the “Box Login” button to access Box. At the welcome screen, click the “CONTINUE” button to log in using Single Sign-On.
    • If you are currently logged into another system using Single Sign-On, you will be directed to your online storage space in Box.
    • If you are not logged in to a system using Single Sign-On, login with your SMU ID and your SMU Password. You will then be directed to your online storage space in Box.
  3. Enjoy your new storage space.

Access Your Content

You can upload content easily to Box using your web browser. Share your content with your colleagues or outside of your company using Box‘s two ways of sharing. You can even access your files with your mobile device with the Box app.

Departmental Storage

While Box is an enterprise storage solution for SMU and is the intended replacement for Locker.SMU, we do not recommend migrating department files to the service at this time. Box is launching as an individual online storage space for faculty, staff, and students. Later this spring, we will provide Box storage for departments. Files commonly stored on the network drives, Locker.SMU, or Inside.SMU for departmental sharing and documents related to HIPAA and PII should remain on those services until the announcement of Box for departmental use.

Please contact IT Help Desk at 21-768-HELP if you have any questions or issues, or visit the Box service page at www.smu.edu/OIT/Services/Box.

Migrating Your Personal Box Account into an Enterprise Account

Current Box users authenticating with their SMU.edu email account will be converted to a managed Box account under Southern Methodist University on January 11, 2016.

BoxThe change to an Enterprise account under SMU will not cause any data loss to your files, alter your permission settings, or affect the folder structure of your content. However, it will give you access to several important features that are not available to personal Box account users:

  • Upload file size limit increased from 250MB to 5GB
  • Larger storage quota
  • Password protected sharing
  • Faster uploads
  • Detailed version history

If you would like to join SMU’s Box account as a managed user and merge your personal data, take no action.

If you currently have any content within your Box account that you would like to remove or transfer to a personal Box account, please do so by January 11, 2016.

Options to remove or transfer to a personal Box account:

  • Change your current Box primary email address from the SMU.edu email address to a personal address.  SMU domain email address will no longer be available for use with personal Box accounts.  Instructions can be found at support.box.com/entries/20359433
  • Open a new personal Box account with a personal email address and invite this personal account into your SMU.edu account folders that you’d like to migrate. Promote your personal Box account to be the folder owner and remove your SMU.edu as a collaborator from the folder(s)
  • Use a third party service such as Mover, available at mybackupbox.com, to transfer content from Box account to another

Please contact IT Help Desk at 21-768-HELP if you have any questions or issues, or visit the Box Project Page at smu.edu/oit/projects/box.

Box Project Enters Pilot Stage

BoxThe Box Project has begun testing with users in our pilot program. Box is our new enterprise online storage solution to replace Locker and will offer unlimited space to SMU students, faculty, and staff for storage of documents and media.

Some of the features include:

  • Unlimited Storage.
    With Box, you have access to unlimited storage! Feel free to upload as many files as you want; just be aware the maximum single file size is 5GB.
  • Mobile Integration.
    Connect to Box using your mobile device. Download and upload files using your smartphone or tablet.
  • Box Sync.
    Store select files locally and edit them offline. Files will sync when your computer is reconnected with the internet. This is a great feature for travel.
  • Document Sharing.
    Share documents with members of your team, or with external users.
  • Document Creation. 
    You can create Office documents in Box, or try Box Notes. With Office 365 integration, you can edit your documents online. You can also collaborate with your team members, editing documents simultaneously and reviewing contributions in real time. Versioning is enabled making it easy to roll back to previous versions of a document.

Box will be rolled out to the rest of campus in early 2016. We are currently developing our internal documentation, policies and procedures that should be in place at the time Box moves to production early next year.

Look for more information about this exciting new service after the winter break.