How do individuals get access to Yale’s Dropbox service?

• To request a subscription for yourself or another person please submit a Dropbox License Request. 

What happens if I have a paid or free Dropbox account tied to my yale.edu address and want to keep it separate from Yale’s SSO (Single Sign-on)?

• Nothing, your account will continue to work as a normal independent account.

What happens if I want to bring a paid or free Dropbox account tied to an at yale.edu address into Yale's SSO?

• Dropbox is offered to departments. Once your department adds you to their Dropbox license group, you will receive an email from Dropbox. The email will say, “Join your Yale University teammates in under two minutes. You will get to pick what to do with your existing files.” There will be a button at the bottom that you must click to proceed that says Join your team.
• You will then need to decide what to do with the existing data in your account.
  • You can choose to move the data to a new personal account under a different non-yale email address. At this point you would have two Dropbox accounts, a personal account tied to the non-Yale address that contains all the data you had, and a Yale SSO account that contains no data currently.
  • Alternatively, you can choose to upgrade the account and all existing data to join Yale’s SSO. Your data will be migrated into Yale’s SSO environment and will remain a solitary account.
• If you had been paying for your account prior to joining Yale’s SSO, you will receive a prorated refund once you join the Yale University team.

What happens to someone with a Dropbox account tied to a non-Yale address that wants to move the account to Yale SSO? 

• You will first need to change the email address on your Dropbox account to your Yale email address, so ITS can add the account to Yale’s SSO. Once the email is changed, follow the instructions for moving a Yale.edu email address into the Yale SSO.
• In cases where a collaborator needs a Yale Dropbox account but does not have a Yale NetID or email account, you can request a Sponsored Identity for them. Once the Sponsored Identity has been created you can then request a Yale email account for them.

What happens to accounts with multiple users, i.e., Dropbox team (Standard, Advanced or Enterprise plan) accounts?

• If you have a Dropbox team (Standard, Advanced or Enterprise) subscription, you should communicate with ITS. ITS will coordinate these migrations with Dropbox and the account owner.

If I merge a Dropbox team (Standard, Advanced or Enterprise) subscription to Yale's SSO what happens to existing Folders, Shares, and team members, etc.?

• It will join Yale's SSO and become part of the main Yale University account.

Key Advantage

• $26.33/user/year with unlimited data storage is a significant cost savings versus paying for it on your own.

Key Changes

• Activity logs, invoices and receipts tied to the account do not carry over.
• You will no longer have access to the administrative settings in Dropbox, and you will add or remove users using an additional tool.
• Team API apps do not carry over
• At the next logon, you must reauthenticate and sign-in via Yale's SSO on the Dropbox desktop sync app, and any other Dropbox apps you may have been signed into. If you are not automatically prompted to sign into the Dropbox sync client after the merge you may need to reboot your device.
• The absolute path of any files you are synchronizing to a local device will change (may break any scripts referencing these files using the absolute path):
  • /Users/username/Dropbox (YourTeamName)/myfile.doc will become: /Users/username/Dropbox (Yale University)/myfile.doc

What doesn’t change

• Sharing permissions on team and individually owned files and folders will remain intact.
• Structure of folders and files.

What to expect during the merge

• Existing account folders and members will be merged into the main Yale University account. Their data and permission structure will remain intact.
• The subscription owner will receive an email notification that their team's merger with Yale University is complete.
• Existing team members can begin signing in and joining Yale’s SSO once they receive the email notification to join Yale University.

Can we still allow new individual Dropbox accounts with yale.edu addresses not tied to Yale's SSO?

• Yes, if you sign up for a new Dropbox account with your yale.edu address, and it is not already associated with Yale’s SSO, account creation will proceed as normal.

Is there a limit to how much data can be moved into a Yale Dropbox account?

• The Yale Dropbox service offers unlimited storage but, if you have a Dropbox team (Standard, Advanced or Enterprise) subscription, ITS always needs to coordinate the move with Dropbox and the account owner. Also, if you have more than 10TB of data in an individual account, ITS will need to coordinate the move with Dropbox.

If I have an individual Dropbox account, what happens to existing file and folder sharing permissions when I merge the account to Yale's SSO?

• Nothing, existing sharing permissions will be retained.

What is the impact of the migration to Dropbox apps I have already signed into?

• At the next logon, you must reauthenticate and sign-in via Yale's SSO.

What happens to my account and data if I off-board from Yale?

• Once the Dropbox access administrator for your department removes you from Yale’s SSO, your account will be suspended, and you will be unable to log in. Suspended accounts will be deleted by the Yale University Dropbox administrators every quarter, at this point any data in your account will be deleted along with the account.
• Data in a Team folder will be unaffected by the suspension or deletion of individual user accounts.