Getting Started With Pro Teams+ Unlimited – Administrator Guide

Welcome, and thank you for choosing Sync!

Your Sync Pro Teams+ Unlimited account includes a powerful admin console, centralized share folders, and advanced access controls, giving you a secure space for all your team’s work.

Use this guide to get familiar with the user permissions, folder structure, and security settings you’ll manage as an admin. Additionally, once you’ve completed your admin setup, take a look at the end-user guide to learn more about Sync.

In this article:

1. Activate your account and sign in
2. Administration overview
3. Setting up roles and permissions
4. Adding and managing users
5. Optimizing your files and folders for Sync
6. Sharing folders with your team
7. Uploading your data to Sync
8. Securing your account
9. Contacting support

1. Activate your account and sign in

Start by checking your inbox for a verification email from Sync and follow the instructions to activate all of the features on your account. Follow these steps if you did not get this email.

To access the admin console:

• Sign in to the web panel.
• Click the Users tab on the top menu bar to access the admin console.

2. Administration overview

Your Pro Teams+ Unlimited plan includes powerful role-based access management, giving you full control over file sharing and other features available to your organization. Permissions are managed at three distinct levels:

• Admin – You (or other admins you designate) manage global permissions across the organization, including file sharing.
• Group – Set permissions for specific groups within the organization, tailoring feature access and file sharing based on team or department needs.
• User – For more precision, set permissions at the individual user level, offering flexibility for unique roles or specialized access requirements within teams.

Before onboarding your team, consider the following approaches to access management:

• For organizations operating in highly regulated industries, an admin-controlled setup provides the most security and control. Here, file sharing is setup and owned by an admin, with optional delegation to select groups or users as per compliance requirements.
• For smaller organizations a group or user-controlled setup provides more autonomy for the team, with less admin overhead.

3. Setting up roles and permissions

Use the role editor to create security policies that apply to one or more team members.

Add or edit a custom role:

1. Sign in to the web panel.
2. Click the Users tab on the top menu bar to access the admin console.
3. Click the Roles tab to access the role editor.
4. Click + Add New Role to create a new role with custom permissions, or View or Edit to modify existing roles.

Roles work best when they reflect the structure of your organization. For example, create roles for Marketing, Finance, Leadership, and Support, each with distinct permissions.

Default roles:

Pro Teams+ Unlimited includes two non-configurable roles out-of-the-box:

• Administrator – super-user permissions with all permissions enabled.
• Default User – the default role for new team members with no account admin permissions.

Permissions:

The following permissions are configurable per user or per group, by creating a custom role:

• Purge Files – Permanently delete data (Administrator).
• Manage Users – View, add, and edit users (Administrator).
• Manage Roles – View, add, and edit roles (Administrator).
• Can Share Links – Enable link sharing (Administrator, Default User).
  • Link Password – Make passwords a requirement when sharing links.
  • Link Expiry – Make shared links auto-expire after a set time.
• Can Create Team Shares – Enable folder sharing and collaboration (Administrator, Default User).
• Force 2FA – Enforce email-based two-factor authentication.

Enable multiple administrators:

Your Sync Pro Teams+ Unlimited plan supports multiple admins, however, secondary admins must be added to a custom admin role as follows:

• Create a new role named Administrator 2 with all permissions enabled, and assign this role to any team member you designate as a secondary admin.

4. Adding and managing users

What is a user?

A user is defined as a team member within your organization (typically @yourdomain). Each user gets their own account and sign-in credentials, with feature access based on role permissions managed by you.

Adding users:

1. Sign in to the web panel.
2. Click the Users tab on the top menu bar to access the admin console.
3. Click Invite user.
4. Upload a CSV file or manually enter user email addresses.
   • The CSV upload method allows you to specify custom roles you have already created, speeding up the provisioning process when adding users in bulk. Download the CSV template to get started.
   • Otherwise, users added manually will be assigned to the Default User role, which you can change later.
5. Click the Invite button to complete the process.
   • This will send an email invite out to each user being added.
   • Be sure to apply custom roles at this step, if needed (Click the … ellipsis icon beside a user, and select Change Role)

User management:

Apply custom roles, reset passwords, and off-board users as follows:

1. Sign in to the web panel.
2. Click the Users tab on the top menu bar to access the admin console.
3. Click the (… ellipsis) icon beside a user.

Select Change Role, Change Password, or Remove User and follow the instructions.

User status:

• Active – The user account is activated and ready to go.
• Invitation Pending – User needs to check their email to activate the account.
• Invitation Expired – If a user has not activated within 7 days, resend the activation email (click the … ellipsis icon beside a user, and select Re-send Invitation).

CSV file troubleshooting:

• Make sure there are no empty rows.
• Make sure the first two columns (email and role) are not blank.
• Set the role column to Default User, or, for a custom role make sure the role has already been created.

5. Optimizing your files and folders for Sync

Sync enables file access from any computer or device. For optimal compatibility, speed, and security, familiarize yourself with these file and folder best practices, before uploading your files.

Folder basics:

• Sync utilizes a top-down security model, where permissions set at the top-level folder automatically apply to all nested subfolders and files.
• Use top-level folders to organize files based on project, department, or themes.
• Use sub-folders (within each top-level folder) to keep each top-level folder organized.

Examples:

• Typical folder tree
• Flat tree
• Deep tree

Best practices:

• Keep your folder structure simple, by limiting the use of deeply-nested sub-folders.
• If you do have deeply-nested subfolders, each with different permission requirements, move them to the top level first, keeping in mind the top-down security model. This will make sharing later much easier.
• Use a consistent naming convention (eg., “Client_Name_Project” or “YYYY-MM-DD” for dates).

6. Sharing folders with your team

Sync Team Shared Folders enable centralized file access across your organization. Shared folders are added to the Sync account of each user you invite, giving you granular control over file access.

Share folder permissions:

• Role-based – By default, all users can share folders. Use role-based permissions to restrict folder sharing at a group or user level.
• Folder-level – Users that share folder are designated folder owners. Folder owners manage access, with view, edit, and owner delegation.

Before you begin:

• Share folder permissions apply to all nested subfolders and files within the share folder.
• Sub-folders within a shared folder can only be shared separately with links.
• If you’re sharing a folder with more than 30,000 files, create an empty top level folder and share it with your team first, before uploading files into the folder.

• Figure A: The top-level Marketing folder is shared with the team. Because Sync utilizes a top-down security model, the team gains access to the Projects, Photos, and Budgets sub-folders by default. These sub-folders cannot be shared separately to different teams.
• Figure B: The Projects, Photos, and Budgets sub-folders are each shared separately to 3 different teams.
• Figure C: To share the Budgets sub-folder separately, move it out of the Marketing folder (to the top-level), or create a link.

Sharing a folder:

1. Sign in to the web panel.
2. Click the (… ellipsis) icon beside the folder you want to share.
3. Click Share as team share from the menu.
4. Enter the email addresses of users that should have access.
   • Save time by selecting a role (which automatically adds all users associated with the role).
5. Set Can view and edit or View only permissions for the users you’ve added. Permissions can be changed anytime.
6. Click Create Share.
7. Once the share is created an email invite is sent to each user, with a link to join the share.

Manage share permissions:

1. Sign in to the web panel.
2. Navigate to the share folder you want to manage, and click the (… ellipsis) icon beside the folder.
3. Click Manage team share from the menu.
4. From the management panel add users, update permissions, and revoke access.

Additional reading:

Team Shared Folders Guide Sharing with Links

7. Uploading your data to Sync

Sync provides multiple methods to upload your files and folders to the cloud:

• Desktop app – Best for the initial upload and large data sets of 100+ files.
• Web browser upload – Best for small data sets and everyday use.
• Mobile app – Best for data residing on a phone or tablet.

As an admin migrating your data-set to Sync for the first time, the desktop app offers the fastest, most reliable upload experience for large data sets.

Before you begin:

• Are you planning on sharing a folder with more than 30,000 files?
  • Create an empty folder and share it first, before uploading files into the folder.
• Are you uploading a large data set with more than 100 files?
  • Use the desktop app, which supports auto-resume and the fastest speeds.
• Adjust the sleep settings on your computer as the Sync desktop app will only transfer files when your computer is on and signed in.
• To maintain compatibility between Windows, Mac, iOS, and Android, be aware of incompatible file names and the 254 character path length limit.

Uploading next steps:

Follow these guides to install the desktop app and start uploading.

Desktop App guide for Windows Desktop App guide for Mac

• Introduction to the Sync web panel.
• Introduction the Sync mobile apps.

8. Securing your account

Keep your team secure with these features:

• Be sure to provision a new user for each employee at your organization using Sync. Doing so helps maintain data governance and compliance, by ensuring that your organization is always in control of user accounts and data.
• Use role-based access controls (RBAC) to control which Sync features are available to your users, enforce 2FA company-wide, and restrict permanent file deletion (purge).
• Use Team Shared Folders to share folders and control access per user or group.
• Use Links to enable secure files sharing outside your organization.

9. Contacting support

Bookmark our system status page to get realtime updates on the operational status of Sync. Your Pro Teams+ Unlimited plan includes priority email support and scheduled phone support on request. To open a support ticket:

1. If you are signed into the web panel click Help on any page. Otherwise you can contact support by using this form.
2. Provide as many details as possible, including:
   • Description of the issue.
   • Users affected.
   • Platform (desktop, web, mobile).
3. Click Submit. We strive to provide a response as fast as possible. Click here to learn more about our support hours, and how to request a phone call.

Congratulations, and thanks again for choosing Sync!

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