Lucidchart was built for collaboration. Now, it’s easier than ever for Enterprise users to get organized and stay organized with the new shared drives feature.

What is the shared drives feature?

Shared drives is a new, Enterprise-only feature in Lucidchart. It enables Enterprise teams to store documents in one location so that documents can be better organized and accessible to all team members.

The shared drives feature is similar to the shared folders feature, in that they both help fuel collaborative work, yet the two are different when it comes to who actually maintains control of the folder:

• Shared drives: Drives are managed by the team but are not “owned” by a single team member. Instead, they belong to the parent Enterprise account.
• Shared folders: Folders are owned by individuals and can be shared with collaborators.

Now, you can do even more with the shared drives feature:

• Team members can set restrictions on who can access and edit shared drives and the corresponding documents.
• Any team member with editing and sharing permissions for a shared drive can add or remove other collaborators and manage (add, delete, edit, or share) documents and folders within the shared drive.
• If you drag a document outside of a shared drive and into your personal documents, then you become the new document owner, overriding the previous shared drive permissions. However, if you share an individual document with a collaborator, then your collaborator will maintain access to that document, even if the document is dragged out of or into a shared drive.
• Shared drives can be made accessible to all team members, or you can restrict access to a shared drive to a subset of team members.

How do shared drives benefit my organization?

The shared drives feature reinforces the collaborative nature of Lucidchart, while simplifying and easing the stress of managing multiple documents and multiple team members. Adjustable access settings make it easy to organize work for different projects or teams while you:

• Better manage document ownership: Don’t let changes set your team back. Because shared drives are owned by the account rather than individual team members, you won’t have to worry about losing access to essential documentation even when team members move on or are pulled onto other projects. All documents stay within the organization.
• Keep your work organized: Shared drives make it easier than ever to find and store your documents in Lucidchart. With this feature, you can group documents by project or by team, and through our advanced search capability, team members can find all relevant documentation in one centralized location. No more wasted time digging through files
• Facilitate better collaboration across your team: With shared drives, you can easily provide access to those who need it and restrict those who don’t. Users with edit and share permissions can add, delete, or manage documents within the shared drive and invite additional team members, so they can collaborate on processes and documentation related to their work.

How do you use shared drives?

Make ideas, information, and processes more readily available to your team members. If you have an Enterprise account with Lucidchart, getting started is easy. You simply need editing and sharing permission for the shared drive to add or remove collaborators.

How to turn on shared drives from the admin panel

Admins have two ways they can manage shared drives:

1. Turn them on so anyone in the org can create a shared drive.
2. Turn them on so only admins can create shared drives.

To invite other team members to collaborate in your shared drive, simply right-click on the shared drive or any document within the shared drive and select “Share.”

If you're an existing Enterprise-admin, click here to select your preferred creation settings. Get your team set up with shared drives, and start collaborating today.