A common request I see with SharePoint Online is to allow users to add and edit document but not delete. By default, most SharePoint Online users have Contribute rights, which means they can add, edit AND delete. So what’s the best way to remove the ability to delete items?

The first place to start is to login to your SharePoint Online team site as a Site Collection Administrator.

From the cog in the top right hand corner select Site settings from the menu that appears.

In the top left of the Site Settings page select Site permissions.

From the Permissions tab on the Ribbon Menu at the top of the page select Permission Levels.

You should now see all the different permission levels available on your could add a new permission here but that means starting from scratch. An easier method is to simply copy and modify an existing permission.

In this case we’ll use the Contribute permission as the base. To make a copy of this click the Contribute hyperlink.

Beware, that any changes you make to the selections presented is actually changing the existing Contribute permission. You need to copy the current settings to a new permission before proceeding. To do this, scroll to the bottom of the current permission. There you should find a Copy Permission Level button. Select this to create a copy of the existing permission level.

Give the new permission level a name (in this case Contribute – no delete) and make any changes to the permissions options below. In this case, any Delete abilities have been unselected.

Scroll down to the bottom of the screen when complete and press the Save button.

You should now be returned to the full list of site permissions. The new permission you just created should now appear in the list. This means that it is available to all elements of the current site.

You now want to apply this new permission to a Document Library. Firstly navigate to the Document Library and press the LIBRARY tab at the top left of the page.

From the Ribbon Menu that appears select Library Settings on the right.

From the selections that now displayed on the page select Permissions for this document library.

In most cases the Document library will be inheriting permissions. To create unique permissions we need to stop or break this inheritance. To do that select the Stop Inheriting Permissions button on the Ribbon Menu.

You will receive a confirmation dialog to confirm you wish to break the inheritance. Press OK to continue.

You should now see a message saying – This library has unique permissions. You will notice that all existing permissions have been copied and now have a selection box on the left of each item.

Select the item who’s permissions you wish to change (in the case Members). Then select Edit User Permissions from the Ribbon Menu.

You will now see a list of available site permissions. In this list should be the permission level just created (here Contribute – no delete). Select this and unselect any other existing right.

Press the OK button to proceed.

You should now be returned to the permissions for the library where you should find that the item you selected now has the new permission level (in this case Members now have the Contribute – no delete permission for this library).

At any time you can re-inherit the permissions to return them back to the way they were.

Here’s a video covering the recent post I did on the same subject:

A few weeks ago I wrote an article about the release of the free SkyDrive Pro app for Windows desktops. In there I noted that I didn’t believe it would be long before we saw more app released for different platforms, and happily I was right.
Microsoft has recently released the new SkyDrive Pro app for both Windows 8 and iOS.
To download on Windows 8 simply visit the Windows market place and search for SkyDrive Pro which should appear like:

The iOS version of SkyDrive Pro you’ll find here:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/skydrive-pro-for-office-365/id655772279?mt=8

You’ll need a valid Office 365 account to use SkyDrive Pro and if you want some information about how use these SkyDrive Pro apps have a look at:
http://office.microsoft.com/client/15/help/preview?AssetId=%20HA104005688&ver=16&app=skydrivepro
I’ll post some more information about these apps when I’ve had a chance to play with them. However if you are looking for information about SkyDrive Pro in general on Office 365 don’t forget my publication:
“Getting Started with SkyDrive Pro for Office 365”
available at my publications page or on most eBook retailers.
Again, you really have to give Microsoft some credit for the speed and consistency with which they are rolling out features for Office 365. That is why I honestly believe it is the best platform for most businesses to use.

In a previous post I outlined how you can allocate more space to SharePoint Online for M and E. The next question people have is can you remove space from a SharePoint site? The short answer is yes, provided the existing SharePoint site hasn’t started using that space already.

The first step in the process to check how much space the SharePoint you wish to remove space from is actually using. To this go to the SharePoint Online administration screen like so:

Click on the SharePoint site in question.

The site collection properties dialog should appear as shown above. In there will be listed Storage Usage as well as Storage Quota.

Thus, the maximum amount of space that can be de-allocated is:

Storage Quota – Storage Usage

In this case that is:

2,000MB – 2MB = 1,998 MB

Press the Close button exit this dialog.

Select the site to de-allocate by placing a check in the selection box to the left of the site. From the Ribbon Menu select the Storage Quota button.

Enter the decreased amount of storage in the Limit storage quota box at the the screen and press the Save button at the bottom.

You’ll see the site updating as indicated by a green spinning circle to the right of the name.

When complete you should find the storage has been decreased the amount you specified in the quota.

Remember, you can only remove the amount of FREE storage from a SharePoint site. If the storage space is in use by SharePoint you need to free the space within SharePoint BEFORE you can de-allocate space.

One of the most common things I find people strike when they start using SharePoint Online on an M or E plan is that they run out of space. The reason for this is that under these plans you have the ability to create additional site collections with independent space allocation, which you don’t get with the Small Business (P) plans.

After getting a new M or E tenant you receive a default SharePoint Online site with the URL:

http://.sharepoint.com

automatically configured.

Problem is that this site is automatically configured with only 1GB of space by default like so:

These days 1GB of space doesn’t go very far and many people become really puzzled when they can’t upload files.

All SharePoint Online plans comes with shared storage of 10GB of space and add 500MB per Office 365 user. For the M and E plans you’ll need to allocated space for everything but the first 1GB manually. To increase your default SharePoint Online site space allocation do the following:

Select the SharePoint site you wish to increase with the check box to the left.

Select the Storage Quota button from the Ribbon Menu.

From the dialog that appears increase the Limit storage quota at the top by entering a greater value of storage and then press the Save button.

You’ll then see a little green circle spinning next to the site you just increased. This means that changes are taking place.

In a short period of time the green circle will disappear and your site will have more space.

You can continue to add space up to the limit that is available for your tenant.

You’ll find that limit listed in the top right under the Ribbon Menu as MB available as shown in the above screen shot.

Yes, you can also decrease the amount of storage a site is allocated under the M and E, however that will be the subject of another post.