Understanding the importance of document archiving goes beyond just managing space. It’s about ensuring that your organization can quickly adapt to changes, recover from disruptions, and continue operations seamlessly. By implementing effective archiving strategies, you can protect vital information from accidental deletion, streamline workflows by removing outdated documents from active use, and enhance overall data governance.

As we delve deeper into this topic, we’ll explore both native SharePoint features and custom solutions for document archiving. From utilizing version control and creating archive libraries to setting up retention policies and employing metadata for efficient categorization, these strategies will help you conquer the clutter and maintain a well-organized, efficient SharePoint environment. By the end of this guide, you’ll be equipped with the knowledge to implement best practices for document archiving, ensuring that your SharePoint sites remain functional, accessible, and compliant with your organization’s needs.

Archiving Strategies

Native SharePoint Features

Version Control: One of the most powerful, yet often overlooked, features of SharePoint is version control. This feature maintains a version history for each document, automatically creating a new version each time a document is edited. This built-in archive allows users to track changes, revert to previous versions, and maintain a clear record of document evolution. Version history is especially useful in collaborative environments where multiple users may be editing documents, as it helps prevent data loss and ensures that all changes are documented. By leveraging version control, you can reduce clutter in your main document library while still retaining access to older document versions as needed.

Archive Libraries: Creating dedicated archive libraries for inactive documents is another effective strategy for managing SharePoint document libraries. Archive libraries serve as separate storage spaces where you can move documents that are no longer actively used but still need to be retained for reference or compliance purposes. This not only declutters your main document libraries but also makes it easier to organize and retrieve archived documents. To set up an archive library, simply create a new document library in SharePoint, label it appropriately (e.g., “Archive – Q1 2024”), and move inactive documents into this library. You can further organize these libraries by year, department, or project to maintain a logical structure.

Retention Policies: Retention policies in SharePoint allow you to automate the archiving process based on predefined rules. These policies can be set to move documents to an archive library or delete them after a certain period, ensuring that your document libraries are regularly cleaned up without manual intervention. For example, you can create a retention policy that archives documents that haven’t been modified in the last year or that deletes draft versions after six months. By automating the archiving process, retention policies help maintain a clean and efficient document library while ensuring compliance with your organization’s data management policies.

Custom Solutions

Metadata and Filtering: Utilizing custom metadata columns can significantly enhance the efficiency of your document archiving process. By adding metadata fields to your documents, such as document type, department, or project name, you can categorize and filter archived documents more effectively. This allows for more precise searches and better organization within your archive libraries. For instance, adding a “Retention Date” metadata column can help you identify which documents are due for archiving or deletion based on your retention policy. Metadata-driven archiving not only improves document retrieval but also supports better data governance and compliance tracking.

Content Organizer (On-premises only): The Content Organizer is a legacy feature in SharePoint on-premises environments that can help automate the routing of documents to appropriate libraries or folders based on metadata rules. While this feature is not available in SharePoint Online, it is worth mentioning for organizations still using on-premises versions. The Content Organizer can streamline the archiving process by automatically moving documents to the correct archive library or folder based on predefined criteria. However, it’s important to note its limitations and consider alternative solutions for SharePoint Online, such as Power Automate, which can achieve similar results with more flexibility and integration capabilities.

Best Practices

To ensure a successful document archiving strategy in SharePoint, consider the following best practices:

Define a Clear Archiving Policy: Establish clear guidelines for document archiving, including retention periods, criteria for archiving, and processes for reviewing and updating archived documents. This policy should be communicated to all users to ensure consistency and compliance.

Organize Archived Documents Logically: Create a logical structure for your archived documents, such as organizing by year, department, or project. This makes it easier to locate and retrieve archived documents when needed.

Set Appropriate Permissions: Ensure that archived documents are accessible only to authorized users by setting appropriate permissions. This helps protect sensitive information and maintains data security.

Squirrel: Advanced Archiving Solutions for SharePoint

As organizations continue to generate vast amounts of data, the need for efficient and automated archiving solutions becomes increasingly critical. While SharePoint offers robust native features for document management and archiving, there are scenarios where more advanced tools can provide additional benefits. Enter Squirrel, an innovative SaaS product designed to optimize and automate the document archiving process for SharePoint Online.

What is Squirrel?

Squirrel is an automated document archiving solution specifically developed for SharePoint Online. It streamlines the process of moving documents to more cost-effective storage solutions while ensuring that they remain easily accessible and secure. Squirrel is designed to handle the entire lifecycle of SharePoint documents, from initial creation and active use to archiving and eventual deletion, based on customizable lifecycle policies.

Key Features of Squirrel

Automated Archiving: One of the standout features of Squirrel is its ability to automate the archiving process. Based on predefined lifecycle policies, Squirrel identifies documents that are no longer actively used and moves them to Azure Blob Storage. This automation not only reduces the manual effort required to manage document libraries but also ensures that archiving happens consistently and efficiently.

Seamless Integration with SharePoint: Squirrel seamlessly integrates with SharePoint Online, providing a smooth user experience. When a document is archived, Squirrel leaves a stub file in SharePoint using the same file name as the original, but with an HTML extension. This stub file acts as a placeholder, allowing users to locate and access archived documents easily. When users need to retrieve an archived document, they can simply click the stub file, and Squirrel will automatically rehydrate the document, restoring it to its original format.

Advanced Reporting: Understanding the status and history of your documents is crucial for effective data management. Squirrel includes comprehensive reporting capabilities that provide insights into your document libraries. Users can generate reports on archived documents, view document lifecycle stages, and track storage savings. These reports help organizations make informed decisions about their data management strategies and ensure compliance with internal and external regulations.

Security and Compliance: Data security is a top priority for any organization, and Squirrel ensures that all archived documents are encrypted and protected. The solution employs robust encryption protocols to safeguard data both in transit and at rest. Additionally, Squirrel supports compliance with various regulatory requirements by providing detailed audit trails and maintaining the integrity of archived documents.

Customization and Flexibility: Every organization has unique document management needs, and Squirrel offers the flexibility to customize archiving policies to fit specific requirements. Squirrel allows you to set up tailored policies that align with your organizational goals. This customization ensures that your archiving process is both effective and adaptable to changing business needs.

Benefits of Using Squirrel

Cost Savings: By moving inactive documents to Azure Blob Storage, Squirrel helps organizations reduce their SharePoint storage costs significantly. Azure Blob Storage offers a more economical solution for storing large volumes of data, allowing organizations to optimize their storage expenses without compromising on accessibility.

Improved Performance: Archiving inactive documents helps declutter active document libraries, enhancing their performance. With fewer documents to manage, SharePoint operates more efficiently, leading to faster document retrieval times and a better overall user experience.

Enhanced Organization: Squirrel’s automated archiving and reporting capabilities help maintain a well-organized document management system. By keeping active and archived documents separate yet easily accessible, Squirrel supports a more structured and efficient approach to data management.

Compliance Assurance: Squirrel’s robust security features and detailed audit trails ensure that organizations can meet regulatory compliance requirements. By providing a clear record of document lifecycle actions, Squirrel helps organizations demonstrate compliance and maintain data governance standards.

Conclusion

Squirrel is a powerful tool for any organization looking to enhance its SharePoint document archiving strategy. By automating the archiving process, providing seamless integration with SharePoint, and offering advanced reporting and security features, Squirrel helps organizations manage their document lifecycle more effectively. With Squirrel, you can achieve cost savings, improve performance, maintain better organization, and ensure compliance, all while simplifying your document management process.

For organizations seeking to conquer the clutter and master document archiving, Squirrel offers an advanced, automated solution that makes managing SharePoint documents easier and more efficient than ever before. Embrace the power of Squirrel and transform your approach to document archiving today.

SharePoint Archiving Introduction

SharePoint has become an integral part of many organisations, serving as a powerful tool for collaboration, document management, and information sharing. As the volume of data grows, it becomes crucial to monitor and manage SharePoint storage effectively. Proper storage management ensures optimal performance, cost efficiency, and compliance with organisational policies. This article will guide you through the process of checking the size of your SharePoint storage, ensuring you stay within storage limits and maintain a well-organised environment.

Managing SharePoint storage is essential for several reasons. First, it helps in maintaining the overall health and performance of your SharePoint sites. Overloaded storage can lead to slow performance, making it difficult for users to access documents and collaborate efficiently. Second, effective storage management ensures compliance with organisational policies and industry regulations, which is crucial for data governance. Finally, keeping an eye on storage usage helps in cost management, as exceeding storage limits in SharePoint Online can result in additional charges.

By understanding how to check and manage SharePoint storage, you can avoid these pitfalls and ensure your SharePoint environment remains efficient and cost-effective. This guide will provide step-by-step instructions on various methods to check SharePoint storage size, including using the SharePoint Admin Center, PowerShell, and third-party tools like SmiKar’s SharePoint Storage Explorer.

Understanding SharePoint Storage

Before diving into the methods of checking SharePoint storage size, it’s important to understand the structure and components of SharePoint storage. This foundational knowledge will help you interpret storage metrics and make informed decisions about storage management.

SharePoint Storage Structure

SharePoint stores various types of data, each contributing to overall storage usage. Here are the main components:

• Documents: Files uploaded to document libraries are a major part of SharePoint storage. These can include Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, PowerPoint presentations, PDFs, images, videos, and other file types. Document libraries are commonly used for team collaboration and project management, making them a significant contributor to storage usage.
• List Items: SharePoint lists are used to manage data in a structured format, similar to tables in a database. Each item in a list occupies storage space. Lists can contain data such as tasks, contacts, calendars, issue tracking, and custom lists tailored to specific business needs.
• Site Content: This includes everything else within a SharePoint site, such as site pages, templates, workflows, site assets, and custom solutions. While these elements might not be as large as document libraries, they collectively contribute to the overall storage usage.
• Recycle Bin: Deleted items are temporarily retained in the recycle bin before permanent deletion. This feature allows users to recover accidentally deleted items, but it also consumes storage space until the items are permanently removed.

Storage Limits and Quotas

Understanding storage limits and quotas is crucial for effective SharePoint management.

• SharePoint Online: Storage limits in SharePoint Online are defined by the plan you choose. Each site collection has a storage limit, and the total storage available is pooled across all site collections within your tenant. For example:
  • Base Storage: Microsoft 365 plans typically include a base amount of storage per user. For example, each user might get 1 TB of OneDrive storage plus an additional pooled storage amount for SharePoint Online.
  • Additional Storage: If your organisation needs more storage, additional storage can be purchased on a per-gigabyte basis. This flexibility allows you to scale storage based on your needs.
• SharePoint Server: On-premises versions of SharePoint, such as SharePoint 2016 and SharePoint 2019, allow more granular management of storage with site quotas and database storage management. Administrators can set storage limits at the site collection level, helping to control storage allocation and usage. For instance, you can set a quota of 100 GB for a particular site collection, ensuring it doesn’t exceed the allocated space.

Understanding these components and limits helps in better managing and optimising storage. Regular monitoring and proactive management are key to preventing storage-related issues and ensuring a smooth SharePoint experience.

Methods to Check SharePoint Storage Size

There are several methods available to check the size of your SharePoint storage. Below are the most common and effective ways:

Using the SharePoint Admin Center

The SharePoint Admin Center provides a user-friendly interface for administrators to manage various aspects of SharePoint, including storage. It is an essential tool for monitoring and managing your SharePoint environment, especially for administrators who prefer a graphical user interface over command-line tools.

•  Accessing the SharePoint Admin Center:

  • Log in to the Microsoft 365 Admin Center: To access the SharePoint Admin Center, you need to log in to the Microsoft 365 Admin Center with your admin credentials. Navigate to https://admin.microsoft.com and sign in using your administrative account.
  • Navigate to SharePoint Admin Center: In the left-hand navigation pane, select “Admin centers” and then “SharePoint”. This will redirect you to the SharePoint Admin Center where you can manage your SharePoint environment.
• Navigating to the Storage Metrics Section:
  • Sites Tab: In the SharePoint Admin Center, click on the “Sites” tab. This tab provides an overview of all the site collections within your SharePoint environment.
  • Active Sites: Select “Active sites” to view a list of your SharePoint sites. This list displays all the active site collections along with their URLs and administrators.
  • Select a Site: Click on the specific site you want to check. This will open the site details page where you can view and manage various settings for the selected site.
  • Storage Metrics: In the site settings, select “Storage” under the “Site Usage” section. This section provides a detailed view of the storage metrics for the selected site.

• Interpreting Storage Usage Information:

  • Total Storage Used: The storage metrics section displays the total storage used by the selected site. This includes all documents, list items, site content, and items in the recycle bin.
  • Available Storage: This indicates the remaining storage available for the site. It helps you understand how much space is left before reaching the site’s storage limit.
  • Storage Breakdown: The section also provides a breakdown of storage usage by site components (e.g., documents, list items, etc.). This breakdown helps you identify which areas are consuming the most storage and where you might need to take action to free up space.
  • Insights and Trends: The storage metrics can provide insights into usage trends over time. For example, if you notice a sudden spike in storage usage, it could indicate the upload of large files or an increase in site activity.

By following these steps, you can easily monitor and manage the storage usage of your SharePoint sites through the SharePoint Admin Center. Regularly checking these metrics helps in maintaining optimal site performance and avoiding unexpected storage issues.

Using PowerShell

For more advanced users, PowerShell offers a powerful way to manage SharePoint storage through scripting. PowerShell provides more flexibility and automation capabilities compared to the SharePoint Admin Center, making it ideal for large-scale environments or complex administrative tasks.

1. Installing the SharePoint Online Management Shell:
   • Download and Install: Download and install the SharePoint Online Management Shell from the Microsoft website. This tool allows you to manage your SharePoint Online environment using PowerShell commands. You can find the download link on the Microsoft documentation page for SharePoint Online Management Shell.
   • System Requirements: Ensure your system meets the requirements for installing the management shell. Typically, it requires Windows operating system and PowerShell version 3.0 or later.
2. Connecting to SharePoint Online:
   • Open the Management Shell: Open the SharePoint Online Management Shell on your computer. You can find it in your Start menu or by searching for “SharePoint Online Management Shell”.
   • Connect to Your SharePoint Online Service: Use the following command to connect to your SharePoint Online service:

     powershell

     Connect-SPOService -Url https://your-domain-admin.sharepoint.com

     Replace https://your-domain-admin.sharepoint.com with the URL of your SharePoint Online admin center. You will be prompted to enter your admin credentials.

3. Example Script to Retrieve Storage Information:
   • Retrieve Storage Usage: Run the following script to retrieve storage information for all site collections:

     powershell

     Get-SPOSite -Limit All | Select-Object Title, Url, StorageUsageCurrent

     This script lists all site collections along with their respective storage usage in megabytes. The Get-SPOSite cmdlet retrieves all site collections, and the Select-Object cmdlet filters the output to show the title, URL, and current storage usage.

4. Interpreting the Results:
   • Storage Usage by Site Collection: After running the script, you will see a list of your SharePoint site collections along with their storage usage. This information helps you identify which sites are consuming the most storage.
   • Identifying Large Sites: Use this data to pinpoint large sites that may need attention. For example, if a site is approaching its storage limit, you might need to archive old data, increase storage quotas, or review the site’s content management practices.
   • Automating Reports: PowerShell scripts can be automated to run at regular intervals, providing you with up-to-date storage reports. You can schedule these scripts using Windows Task Scheduler or other automation tools, ensuring you always have the latest storage information.

Using PowerShell for managing SharePoint storage provides a high level of control and automation, making it a valuable tool for SharePoint administrators.

Using Third-Party Tools

In addition to the built-in tools and PowerShell, there are third-party solutions available to help you manage SharePoint storage more efficiently. These tools often provide enhanced features and a more user-friendly interface, making storage management easier and more effective.

• SmiKar SharePoint Storage Explorer:
  • Introduction: One such tool is SmiKar’s SharePoint Storage Explorer. This tool is designed to provide a comprehensive and easy-to-use interface for monitoring and managing SharePoint storage.
  • Features of SharePoint Storage Explorer:
    • Detailed Storage Reports: SharePoint Storage Explorer offers detailed storage reports that highlight large files and areas consuming the most storage. These reports help you understand where your storage is being used and identify opportunities for optimisation.
    • User-Friendly Interface: SharePoint Storage Explorer provides an intuitive and user-friendly interface, making it easy for administrators to navigate and use the tool. Even if you are not a technical expert, you can still manage SharePoint storage efficiently with this tool.
    • Free to Use: One of the most appealing features of SharePoint Storage Explorer is that it is free for anyone to use. This makes it an excellent addition to your SharePoint management toolkit, offering valuable features without additional costs.
  • How to Use SharePoint Storage Explorer:
    • Download and Install: Visit the SharePoint Storage Explorer page and download SharePoint Storage Explorer. Follow the installation instructions provided on the website.
    • Connect to Your SharePoint Environment: Once installed, open the tool and connect it to your SharePoint environment by following the on-screen instructions. You will need to provide your SharePoint admin credentials to establish the connection.
    • View and Manage Storage: Use the intuitive interface to view and manage your SharePoint storage. Generate detailed reports, and optimise storage usage with ease. The tool provides real-time insights into your storage usage, helping you make informed decisions.
• Squirrel: Automated SharePoint Archiving
  While SharePoint Storage Explorer offers real-time insights, Squirrel complements it by automatically archiving SharePoint documents to Azure Blob Storage, reducing costs and ensuring compliance. Squirrel also allows you to set custom lifecycle policies, ensuring your SharePoint environment stays optimized without manual intervention.

By utilising SharePoint Storage Explorer, you can gain deeper insights into your SharePoint storage and manage it more efficiently. The tool’s comprehensive features and user-friendly interface make it an invaluable resource for SharePoint administrators.

Conclusion

Properly managing SharePoint storage is essential for maintaining optimal performance, ensuring cost efficiency, and staying compliant with organisational policies. By regularly monitoring storage usage, setting appropriate quotas, and leveraging tools like the SharePoint Admin Center, PowerShell, and SmiKar SharePoint Storage Explorer, you can keep your SharePoint environment running smoothly. Effective storage management not only helps in avoiding unexpected costs but also improves the overall user experience by ensuring that the system remains responsive and efficient.

SharePoint Online Archiving FAQs

How do I access the SharePoint Admin Center?

You can access the SharePoint Admin Center by logging into the Microsoft 365 Admin Center and selecting “SharePoint” under “Admin centers”.

What is the SharePoint Online storage limit?

The storage limit depends on your Microsoft 365 plan. Each user typically gets 1 TB of OneDrive storage, plus pooled storage for SharePoint Online that can be expanded by purchasing additional storage.

How can I check storage usage using PowerShell?

Install the SharePoint Online Management Shell, connect to your SharePoint Online service, and use the Get-SPOSite cmdlet to retrieve storage usage information.

What types of data consume SharePoint storage?

SharePoint storage is consumed by documents, list items, site content, and items in the recycle bin.

How can I set storage quotas in SharePoint Online?

You can set storage quotas for site collections through the SharePoint Admin Center by navigating to the “Storage” section under site settings.

What happens when a site exceeds its storage quota?

When a site exceeds its storage quota, users may be unable to upload new files or create new items until storage is freed up or the quota is increased.

Can I automate storage reports in SharePoint?

Yes, you can automate storage reports using PowerShell scripts and scheduling them with tools like Windows Task Scheduler.

Is SharePoint Storage Explorer really free to use?

Yes, SmiKar’s SharePoint Storage Explorer is free for anyone to use.

What are the benefits of using third-party tools for storage management?

Third-party tools often provide enhanced features, detailed reports, and a more user-friendly interface, making storage management easier and more effective.

How can I reduce storage usage in SharePoint?

Implement retention policies, using Automated SharePoint Online archiving solutions like Squirrel to archive old data, regularly clean the recycle bin, and optimise document libraries by removing duplicate and outdated files.