Create a New Employee Collaborate Site (Beta)

FYI Admins can create an Employee Collaborate site from the Collaborate - Employee app in FYI.

1. Log in to FYI using the OneDrive Admin Account.
    
2. In FYI, click the Automation menu option.
    
3. Go to the Apps tab.
    
4. Locate the Collaborate - Employee tile and click the cog icon.
   
5. The Configuration settings display.
    
6. Create a new Employee Collaborate site by clicking the plus + button on the right of the Collaborate Site field.
   
   Enter a name into the Collaborate Site field. FYI will automatically create and configure the site with the required permissions.
   
   Note: The Employee Collaborate site name is visible to your employees. We recommend including Employee Portal or similar in the name to clearly indicate the SharePoint site's purpose.
   
   Important: For practices with an existing SharePoint site used for external purposes, we strongly recommend creating a new SharePoint site exclusively for Employee Collaborate. Using an existing site that was not created specifically for New Collaborate may prevent core New Collaborate functionality from working.
    
7. The Document Library field is greyed out when creating a new site.
    
8. The Access Permission field controls which users can access the site and is set to FYI Admins and Users with Employee Management Permissions by default. This field cannot be changed.
    
9. To select a Default Email Template, used when sharing documents with your employees, select the template from the Drop-down or type at least three letters to search for the Template Name. Refer to Setting up Employee Collaborate Email Templates (Beta).
    
10. If preferred, leave the Default Email Template field blank. A default email template will not be selected when sharing documents.
    
11. The Default Share Email field is used to select an Employee Custom Field. This field should be an Email type and is used to maintain the employee's personal email address used to log in to the Employee Collaborate site.
     
12. The Retain Uploads option controls whether uploaded files remain on the Employee Collaborate site after being imported to FYI. If the option is set to Yes, uploaded files are moved to a Processed folder within the employee's Upload folder so employees can confirm their documents have been imported successfully. If the option is set to No, the files are deleted from SharePoint after import.
     
13. Click Next.
     
14. Follow the steps below to set up the Share Folder structure, or click Next to move through the tabs and commit your updates. Important: You must click Next on the final tab before your changes are saved.

You can configure the Folder Structure that FYI will automatically use for all documents within your Employee Collaborate Document Library on SharePoint.

To configure your Folder Structure:

1. From the Available List in the left-hand pane, select and drag the relevant fields to the Structure List in the right-hand pane.
    
2. Reorder the selections in the Structure List by clicking and dragging the fields up and down to match the required filing structure.
   Note: When employee folders are created on the Collaborate site, invalid characters are omitted from the folder name, for example, full stops or forward slashes.
    
3. Click Next.
   Note: The Reset button resets the structure list back to its default settings. Changes to the Folder Structure are not saved until you click Next and complete the remainder of the setup wizard.
    
4. Once your set-up is complete, the Collaborate - Finished message displays. The link to your new Employee Collaborate Site is displayed.
   
   The Employee Collaborate Site Link also displays under the Collaborate Site field when opening the Collaborate - Employee app in FYI.
   
5. Click the link to open your Employee Collaborate site on SharePoint.
   
   Note: The Documents section is blank for new sites. As documents are shared, they are added to the list.
   
6. Note: It can take up to 30 minutes for permissions to be applied before other users can access the site. The Site Owner, the OneDrive Admin Account, is the only user able to access the site during that time.
    
7. You can now optionally customise your site to match your practice branding. Refer to Customising your New Collaborate site on SharePoint.

The Sharing Settings on the Employee - Collaborate tab allow users to add employees and other third-party recipients to the employee folder on the Collaborate site.

To access these settings, the user must be an FYI Admin or be in a User Group with permissions enabled for Share Settings. This also allows the user to access Share Settings for employees.

To update users, refer to Share Settings in Managing User Groups and Managing Users.

You can now test your site by doing the following:

1. Set up a test email address in Gmail that is not linked to your existing FYI staff user account.
    
2. Add the new email address to an employee's Sharing Settings.
    
3. Share documents to the new email address as if it were an employee. 
    
4. In an incognito or private browser session, so you are not logged in to your FYI user account, try accessing the document as an employee. Confirm that you can:
   • Access the SharePoint site Home Page.
   • Access the employee folder.
   • Access a document.
   • Add a document to the Upload folder, and confirm it imports successfully into FYI under the employee account. 

Microsoft 365 offers the ability to expire guest user access after a specific period. This means the employee or contact will be removed from the site and will no longer be able to log in or access documents.

This option must be disabled for New Collaborate Employee sites. Otherwise, practices would need to regularly re-add employees and other contacts to the Sharing Settings in FYI or re-share documents.

Guest User Expiry can be disabled at an organisation level and will be applied to all SharePoint sites for the practice, including sites not used for New Collaborate. Refer to Setting up Microsoft 365 for New Collaborate.

To disable Guest User Expiry for the Employee Collaborate site only, follow the steps below. If Guest User Expiry has already been disabled at the organisation level, you can skip this section.

1. Log in to the Microsoft 365 Admin Center as the OneDrive Admin.
    
2. On the left-hand side, click Show All.
    
3. From the menu on the left-hand side, locate the Admin centers section and select SharePoint. You may need to click Show All first.
    
4. In the SharePoint admin centre, click Sites - Active Sites on the left-hand side.
    
5. Click the relevant site in the list.
    
6. From the Drawer on the right, click the Settings tab.
   
7. Click More sharing settings.
    
8. Click Advanced settings for external sharing to expand the section.
    
9. Untick Same as organization-level setting (30 Days).
    
10. Select Guest access doesn't expire automatically.
     
11. Click Save.