Horton Scientific
Worksheet10 min

File Share to SharePoint Information Architecture Worksheet

A worksheet for deciding how network file shares should map to SharePoint, Teams, OneDrive, archive, deletion, or separate records storage.

Map ownership first

  • Who owns the content and who approves access?
  • Which team uses it today and which team will support it after migration?
  • Is the content project-based, department-owned, personal, archival, regulated, or shared externally?
  • What content should be deleted, archived, or retained but not migrated into active collaboration spaces?

Choose the destination

  • Use SharePoint sites for team-owned, department-owned, or process-owned content.
  • Use Teams-connected sites when files are part of active collaboration and chat-based work.
  • Use OneDrive for individual working files and personal drafts.
  • Use archive storage or records repositories for stale content, legal hold, or retention-driven scenarios.
  • Do not use a single giant SharePoint site as a replacement for a file server root unless there is a deliberate reason.

Design for findability

  • Use clean site names, library names, hub navigation, metadata, search-friendly structure, and owner-visible descriptions.
  • Avoid recreating extremely deep folder paths when metadata, separate libraries, or separate sites would be cleaner.
  • Define permission boundaries at site or library level where possible; avoid excessive folder-level uniqueness.
  • Create user guidance for OneDrive sync, Teams files, sharing links, version history, and search.

Want this applied to your environment?

We can turn the worksheet into an inventory, risk register, migration roadmap, and product-backed execution plan.

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