Unishare is a cloud based service offered by the UG that can be used to store and share information with colleagues both in- and outside of the RUG. The files uploaded to Unishare will be stored on the servers of the University of Groningen, and a signed certificate is used to ensure both privacy and safety.

Unishare can be accessed via a web browser and your files will be available any place, any time. Furthermore, you will also be able to authorize others in your team or collaboration to access your files. And last but not least, you can integrate and keep Unishare updated with your file system on your PC or mobile using the Nextcloud client. Nextcloud is available for Windows, MacOS, Linux, IOS and Android.

Unishare offers the following characteristics for RUG employees and students:

• 250 GB of storage at the RUG (100 GB for guests)

• a clear and extensive web interface

• version management

• the ability to restore deleted files

You will also be able to:

• safely share files with colleagues both in- and outside the RUG

• distribute accounts to third parties

Browse to https://unishare.nl and log in with your P-number or email address and corresponding password by selecting the "RUG SAML (MFA)" button and following the instructions. In order to access Unishare all you need is to have a valid RUG account, so no further steps are needed to gain access at this stage. Upon successful login, this is the page you will see.

N.B.: Please keep in mind that if you leave the RUG and your account is deactivated, you won't have access to anything still present on Unishare. Make sure to retrieve your files before you leave.

Navigating the tabs at the top of the page
When you enter Unishare, you will see a number of tabs in the top of the browser screen as shown in the screenshot below. The group of tabs on the left are the ones that you'll be using to manage your files and permissions in Unishare. The tabs on the right are to search Unishare for files and/or users, to view your notifications, and to manage your personal profile.

Starting with the tabs on the right, you have from left to right the usual search icon, the notification bell, the user data base and your profile icon with your status (see the screenshot below). Clicking on any of these will generate a drop down menu with a list of the possible actions you can take. Further exploring the search function or managing your profile is beyond the scope of this guide, so we will not go deeper in this topic here. The use of these functions should be quite straightforward.

The tabs on the left are, from left to right: the UG logo, the Dashboard, the Files, the Photos, the Activity, the Notes, the Deck, the Guests, the Unishare - Howto, and the Tasks tabs as seen in the screenshot below. In all instances, these tabs will open a new, separate page on Unishare when you click on them.

• The UG logo and the Dashboard tab both navigate back to the starting page as shown in the first screenshot of this section of the guide.
• Clicking on the Files tab will redirect you to the file management page of Unishare (see next section).
• The Photos tab will let you see all the files marked by a picture extension (.jpg, .png, etc.) present on your Unishare.
• The Activity tab lets you visualize when and what happened to your files as well as the activity on the files you have access to.
• Clicking Notes will open a page where you can add comments and reminders.
• The Deck tab will open a page that allows you to manage your activity by creating activity cards.
• The Guests tab will redirect you to a RUG page where you can request a guest account.
• The question mark tab is the Unishare - Howto button and redirects to this guide.
• Clicking Tasks will open a page where you can plan your (and your collaborator's) activity through a task list.

To access your files and file structure on Unishare, simply click the Files tab and this window will open.

There are a number of things you can do in the file management system here, but we will focus on mainly 3 activities: Up- and download, sharing of files and folders (both internally and externally), and file versioning. You are free to explore the other options yourself, if you wish to. To start of, in order to create or upload a file, simply click the round button with the "+" sign. A dropdown menu will appear as shown in the screenshot below. Click the option you wish to use and follow the steps that Unishare presents to you.

Once you have files on Unishare, you can choose to share them with your colleagues or external collaborators. To do so, simply click on the button in the red box. Other options for your file can be found by clicking the three periods in the blue box, but are out of scope for this guide. In the menu that appears, you can generate a Share link (red underlined) and you can check who already has permission to access that specific file or folder (blue underlined).

To generate a share link click the "+" sign to the right of the Share option. The links will be generated and the icons shown in the screenshot above will show. Clicking on the clipboard icon next to the Share option will copy the link. You can then share your file by sending the link to a collaborator (via mail, for example).

If you wish to manage or change permissions to the file or folder you wish to share, click the three periods and the menu shown below will appear. Change the settings you wish to change, then click anywhere to close the menu. The red area allows you to change permissions on the file itself, the blue area allows you to set conditions on how and for how long the file is shared.

If you wish to share a file or folder with an external collaborator, you can do so directly by clicking the "Share to email" button at the bottom. Your browser will the ask you to select an email managing program to open the Share link in. If you want to stop sharing a file or folder, simply click the "Unshare" at the bottom of the list.

If sharing was successful, your shared file or folder will now appear like this.

If you share directly with another account on Unishare, please make sure that the "Allow resharing" option is turned off unless it is necessary. To turn it off or on, click on the three dots besides the name of the person you are sharing your data with and deselect the red underlined option.

The gallery is the space where all the files are placed that Unishare recognizes as pictures. Keep in mind that you can still find your pictures in the Files tab. What you will find here, however, is a collection of all the pictures along with their preview in larger thumbnails. You will mostly want to search for a specific picture here.

If you click the Activity tab, this window will open. Here you can easily follow what happened to your files (owned or shared), when it happened, and who made the change.  

The Notes, Deck and Tasks tabs all help you organize your work on Unishare. There are no wrong options here, so feel free to experiment and find the best way you can work with these features.

Notes lets you leave comments for you or your collaborators.

Deck allows you to create cards where you can register to-do lists, deadlines and other activities related to your project.

Tasks allows you to create and assign tasks for yourself or within your group.

If you wish to share a file or a folder with an external collaborator that does not have a RUG account, you will have to request guest access for them.

N.B. This functionality is only accessible within the UG network. 

If you connect on UG premises with an Eduroam connection, you will have an internal UG IP-address. On other machines/locations, you can use a VPN connection, or the virtual Windows, or virtual Linux environment of the UG to also obtain an internal UG IP-address. This is important because Unishare will check you IP-address before allowing you to continue with your request. Once you made sure to have an UG IP-address, you can navigate to the top menu, click “Guest” and then “New Guest User Registration” as shown in the screenshot below.

You will be redirected to a form. Fill in the first and last name of the guest user and your email address. You can add a brief description of your guest's role, if you'd like. At this stage, fill in your own mobile number and set a temporary password following the requirements listed in the form. We outlined the required fields in red.

Click "Continue" to submit the form. You will receive a SMS with a code on the phone number you indicated in the form. You will need that code to create the account. 

N.B. The code is case sensitive.

Once the account is created, you can send the link to activate the account (https://unishare.nl/sspr/public/activate) to your guest. Your guest can then fill in their email address and will receive a confirmation code in that email address.

N.B. That code is also case sensitive.

Your guest can follow the steps of the activation procedure to the end, then return to Unishare and enter via the "Guest User login" button.

In order to access and keep Unishare updated directly on your machine, you need to have a NextCloud client installed on your computer. If you haven’t, go to https://nextcloud.com/, download the desktop installer and follow the instructions of the installer to set up NextCloud on your machine. The advantage of using the Nextcloud client compared to the web browser is that the client is going to keep the files you store in specific locations continuously synced with Unishare.

ATTENTION: Since NextCloud will transfer everything contained in a folder or directory, make sure that you only place what you would like to transfer to Unishare in such a folder. In this way only the files you wish to share are transferred. If you are working with files and folders encrypted using VeraCrypt, an important thing to note is that you cannot create a VeraCrypt volume on Unishare. What you can do is transfer a VeraCrypt volume that already exists on your machine to Unishare. We advise to transfer the volume when it is dismounted, so that all data transferred is encrypted and stays encrypted. A manual on how to use VeraCrypt can be found here, while an explanation on how to ensure proper synchronization when using Unishare can be found at the bottom of this page.

Setting up the Nextcloud client:

1. If all went well in the installation you should now see this screen.

2. Select Log in to your Nextcloud as shown in the example.

3. Type unishare.nl in the red box as shown in the example.

4. And press enter. NextCloud will redirect you to the Unishare website. Log into Unishare to grant NextCloud access to your Unishare folder. Once you logged in, click the red button to grant NextCloud access.

5. The site will then tell you that the accounts are now connected. You can close the browser window. NextCloud will then open this window on your machine. Your username will be where the black line is. Click the red box to select which folder on your machine contains the files you wish to transfer and/or keep updated.

6. NextCloud will now display the path to your folder (underlined red at the top), select Choose what to sync and unselect all folders in your Unishare directory except the ones where you want your files to be uploaded and synced. Make sure to give the same name to the directory on your machine and the one on Unishare, otherwise NextCloud will create a new folder on your machine with the name of the Unishare folder. Check Keep local data, then press enter (once or twice, if the first time didn’t work) to start the sync.

7. If you are syncing or uploading encrypted data, follow the next steps to ensure that your files stay encrypted on Unishare. Once the initial sync is complete, go to the scroll down menu and select Settings.

8. Select the button in the red box.

9. Select Pause sync when you are done uploading the VeraCrypt (or otherwise encrypted) volume. Once the sync is paused, you will have a gray circle with a pause sign instead of the green one with the tick. If the circle is gray, you are free to mount the VeraCrypt volume again.

10. Once you are done working inside the VeraCrypt volume and want to sync it again to the Unishare, just click the button with the three dots again and select Resume sync.

N.B.: Note that if you change your password for your RUG account, Nextcloud might have issues reconnecting your account to Unishare. The quickest way of fixing this is to remove the existing account from Nextcloud and going through the steps explained above again. Your data will not be lost in the process. Please make sure to select the same directory as your last account if you wish to have continuity.