Monitoring usage and sharing on a SharePoint site

How to run a report on the usage and sharing of files and folders on a SharePoint site.

Sharepoint offers a way for a site owner to see how the site is being used and what items have been shared out with different users.

Instructions 

Monitoring Sharing

1. While viewing your Sharepoint site, click on Site Contents on the left-hand side

   • Alternatively you can get to Site Contents by clicking the gear icon in the upper right to show the site Settings.

2. Click on the "Site Usage" button on the toolbar. This will then show various metrics about your Sharepoint site.

3. Scroll to the bottom of the page, click the link under Shared with External Users called Run Report 

   •  Depending on how many files and folders are in the site, this process could take a while

4. Choose a location within your Sharepoint site and click Save to save the report 

   • Once the report is done processing, there will be a CSV file with the name of the Sharepoint site and the date and time it finished processing, in the folder you chose. You should also receive an email with a link to the report location.

     • If you do not see one, check your spam folder

   • The report will show the folders, who has what access and individual link IDs.

Monitoring Disk Usage

This allows you to visually drill down through your documents folder structure to see usage in a web interface.

1. While viewing your Sharepoint site, click on Site Contents on the left-hand side

   • Alternatively you can get to Site Contents by clicking the gear icon in the upper right to show the site Settings.

2. On the Site contents page, click the Site settings button (usually located in the top right or within the command bar).

3. Under the Site Collection Administration section, click on Storage Metrics.

Exporting Disk Usage

This allows you to export all the files and their file sizes in a spreadsheet for further analysis.

1. Go to the Document Library you want to analyze.

2. Switch the view to All Documents.

3. Add the File Size column to your view if it’s not there (Click Add Column > Show/Hide Columns > check File Size).

4. Click Export in the top command bar and select Export to Excel or Export to CSV.