Counting data, users and ownership

Module 3: Taking stock and planning · Reading time: 10 minutes

Learning objective: After this lesson, you can work out the size of your data per service and per user, determine who owns which data, and clean up beforehand so the switch goes faster and more safely.

Key concepts: storage usage, mailbox size, personal storage, shared drive or team site, external sharing, licence, active user, data owner, administrator, cleaning up, retention obligation

Why count?

With the inventory from lesson 3.1 you know what you have. Now you want to know how much and from whom. There are three reasons for this:

1. Does it fit? Your new package needs to be big enough, including for growth in the coming years.
2. How long will it take? Copying mail and files happens at a certain speed. Copying tens of gigabytes takes hours to days, and a mailbox with a hundred thousand messages takes more time than one with ten large attachments.
3. Who decides? For every folder and every mailbox, someone needs to say: this comes along, this can go.

Storage per service and per user

Large cloud services show how much storage is being used in the admin portal, usually broken down by mail, files and photos, and per user. In Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 you'll find this in the admin area under reports or the storage overview; the exact menu names change regularly, so search your service's help for "storage usage".

Note down per user:

Also look at the last sign-in. Accounts that haven't been used for months often belong to people who have left. Don't move these over as a regular account; instead, archive the data or hand it over to a colleague.

No admin portal, for example because everyone has a separate free mailbox? Then each person checks for themselves: the mail or storage settings show how much space is being used.

Shared storage belongs to the organisation

With most services, there's a difference between:

• personal storage: the files belonging to one person, even if they share them with others. At Google this is called "My Drive", at Microsoft it's OneDrive.
• shared storage belonging to a team or the organisation: at Google a shared drive, at Microsoft a team site in SharePoint or the files in a Teams channel.

That difference matters. A file in a colleague's personal storage disappears when their account is closed, even if the whole team used it. A file in shared storage stays. When you switch, you want shared files to end up in shared storage in the new service too: in Nextcloud, for example, a team folder (lesson 6.2).

So for every important folder, find out where it actually sits. It often turns out that the "Customers" folder is actually in the personal Drive of the bakery's owner, shared with everyone. In that case, that person is the owner and needs to export it themselves, or an administrator first needs to transfer ownership.

External shares

An external share is a file or folder you've shared with someone outside your organisation, or a public link. These almost never come along in a switch: the link only works with the old service. So note down:

• which folders are shared with customers, suppliers or the accountant;
• which public links exist and whether they're still needed;
• what has been shared with you: folders belonging to others that you see in your own Drive aren't in your storage, so they won't come along.

That last point surprises a lot of people. "Shared with me" is not your own copy. If you want to keep something, make your own copy or ask the owner.

Cleaning up before you move

Migration tools take along everything you give them. Anything you don't want to keep is better thrown away beforehand. Cleaning up beforehand:

• makes copying faster;
• makes checking afterwards easier (less to count);
• reduces risk: data you don't have can't leak either.

Don't throw away anything you're required to keep, though. In the Netherlands, there is generally a seven-year retention obligation for business records for tax purposes (Article 52(4) of the Dutch General Tax Act, Algemene wet inzake rijksbelastingen), and ten years for some data, such as records relating to property. Different periods apply to staff records and medical data. In your own country, different retention periods may apply, so if in doubt, ask your accountant or a legal adviser. Anything you must keep but don't use daily can also be archived: stored separately, for example in an archive folder with restricted access.

And the reverse applies too: under the GDPR, personal data you no longer need should not be kept (the storage limitation principle, Article 5(1)(e)). A switch is a good moment to clean this up.

How long does copying take?

A rough estimate helps with planning (lesson 3.3). Speed depends on the old service (which often limits the number of requests per minute), the new service and the number of files. For planning purposes, allow generous margins:

• many small files or messages go slower than a few large ones;
• an initial copy of a large mailbox can take a night or longer; a second round (just the new messages) goes quickly;
• do a trial run with one mailbox and one folder, and scale up from that trial.

Licences and users

Also count the licences: how many users, which type (for example, with or without an office package) and when they run until. With the new service, you choose per person what they need. Not everyone needs an online office package or video calling.

Also record who will be the administrator going forward. An administrator creates accounts and sets permissions. That's different from the data owner: the colleague whose mailbox it is. A good rule: at least two administrators, and administrators don't look into other people's data unless that has been agreed (lesson 7.3).

In practice: what it looks like with a provider

In a WebOké Nextcloud, you see your storage in two places: bottom left in the Files app for yourself, and as an administrator in My WebOké for the whole package. Files in a team folder don't count towards one person, and files someone shares with you count towards the owner. You create users in User management, where you can also see the last sign-in. With other providers, these overviews sit in a different place, but the principle is the same.

Summary

• Count how much mail and how many files there are per service and per user, and check the last sign-in.
• Shared storage (shared drive, team site) belongs to the organisation; personal storage disappears with the account.
• External shares and "shared with me" don't come along: note them down.
• Clean up beforehand, but respect retention obligations; archive what you must keep.
• Record licences, administrators and data owners; at least two administrators.

Quiz

Exercise

Exercise E3.2: Your organisation's numbers. Look up, per user, the storage used for mail and files, the last sign-in, and whether the account is coming along. For your three most important shared folders, find out whether they're in personal or shared storage, and who the owner is. Note down the external shares that are still needed.

Further reading

The steps in these articles apply to WebOké's services; with other providers it works in a similar way.

• Nextcloud manual 6.4: Viewing your storage: what counts and what doesn't
• Nextcloud manual 14.2: Creating, editing, disabling and deleting users
• Nextcloud manual 5.10: Transferring ownership when a colleague leaves
• Nextcloud manual 14.7: Permissions: who manages what in your Nextcloud?
• GDPR, Article 5(1)(e) (storage limitation); Dutch Tax Administration (Belastingdienst), retention obligation for business records: https://www.belastingdienst.nl/wps/wcm/connect/bldcontentnl/belastingdienst/zakelijk/ondernemen/administratie/hoelang-moet-u-gegevens-bewaren