Product information

If you are student, faculty, or staff at UC Davis, you are entitled to a Box.com account.  Box is provided at no cost to students.  Faculty and staff should check with their department before signing up.
How do you sign up? Just go to ucdavis.box.com and click on the Continue button. 

It will take you to the familiar UC Davis web login page. Enter your credentials and you are in and ready to go. 

PLEASE NOTE: Box files close when you leave UC Davis. If you are using or sharing Box files for your department, you will want to make sure those files are not lost permanently when you leave. 
Because often the third party app changes sharing options and features, the best option to keep those files accessible are:

• Copy the contents of that folder to a Box folder a dept account owns or an individual in our enterprise instance.
• Don't do a move since if the move fails it will put some of the items in the deleted items of the old owner.
• Depending upon size of the folder, you might want to wait a day and check the item counts between the two folders.
• Re-establish shares and collaborator settings.

What can I store here on Box?

Box is meant as a collaboration platform.  You can store many types of files to share, just avoid storing sensitive data like electronic medical records, social security numbers, or credit card data.  See Box (Davis) for more information.

Now that you are logged into Box, look around. There is an Upload button that lets you select files or folders to upload to Box. (Note: File uploads are natively supported by all the major browsers. Folder uploads, however, are natively supported only by Chrome.  For all other browsers, you will also need to have java installed on your system to perform folder uploads.)

There is a +New button to create new folders to organize your items and create Box Notes, which are simple text documents you can create right in the Box interface without needing any other applications.

Box is a place where you can share files with others. No more having to worry about how large a file you can email or having to use more cumbersome technologies like FTP to make them available to others.

If you right click on a folder in Box you will see that there is a Sharing option. Following that, you will find multiple ways to share out the folder. 

If you just want to share a non-sensitive file or folder so others can download it, then the first option, Share Link, is easy to use and will give you a unique link to that you can email to others through the Box interface.

This is not quite what you want, so click on People in this folder to change your sharing option to People with this link.

Now, enter the desired email addresses, edit the default message if you want and click Send.

That’s it! You have shared your first folder. Your recipients will be able to click on the link that you emailed them and access your shared folder and all its contents through a web browser, without needing a Box account themselves.

If you do need to add security, you can. The gear icon takes you to the advanced settings.

Advanced Settings page

Just check the Require Password checkbox and enter your preferred password. Share this password with your compatriots and now you have enabled secure access.

Also on this page, you can also make the link expire on a certain date by checking the Disable Shared Link on checkbox and using its calendar control to select the expiration date. Last, if you only want your users to be able to preview the document online but not be able to Download it, you can clear the Allow viewers to download checkbox.

Of course, some of you are thinking, “I don’t just want to share a file or folder, I want people to be able to edit documents and upload new ones.”

Box can help you with that, too.

Right-clicking on a folder in Box will give you the options you see above. Select Sharing and then click on Invite Collaborators.

Next, you will see this dialog box. The folder I am sharing out is named Test.

Type in the email addresses of those you want to collaborate with and select a permission level.

Unsure about which permission level is appropriate? Click on the Learn More link to see this chart detailing the permission levels.

As you can see, there are several options here. Generally, you want to give just enough permissions so your collaborator can do what you ask them to do.

If you are looking to have your collaborator makes changes to files, then Viewer Uploader is your safest bet. Your collaborator can Edit files but cannot delete any files or folders.

The Editor access level adds the delete permission, so you should use this level with care. The Co-owner access level is very powerful, since it makes the user the equivalent of you. They can invite people to collaborate on the folder themselves without needing any additional permission from you. And they can also remove collaborators and delete files. Use the Co-owner access level sparingly, if at all.

Once you have added an email address of a collaborator and selected an appropriate access level, just click on Send Invites to send them off. If your collaborator does not have Box account, they will need to set one up at Box.com before they can access your shared folder. Getting an account is free and easy, so this should not be viewed as a serious hurdle.