How to Coordinate Shared Drive Permission Reviews Without Adding Overhead

Coordinating shared drive permissions is critical for Small and Medium-sized Business (SMB) collaboration. Managed Service Providers (MSPs) can deliver governance without overwhelming the IT team or business stakeholders. Regular reviews ensure the organization is safe from security risks, compliance gaps, and operational inefficiencies.

Coordinating shared drive permission reviews

Coordinating shared drive permissions involves several key steps: defining the review scope, exporting existing permissions, simplifying the review process, engaging managers for input, and documenting outcomes.

📌 Prerequisites:

• Shared drive environment: Windows File Server, OneDrive/SharePoint, or Google Drive
• Admin rights to export permissions
• Departmental owners or managers to validate access lists
• Simple reporting or documentation platform
• Defined cadence for reviews

Step 1: Define review scope and cadence

This step ensures reviews aren’t overwhelming and inconsistent.

📌 Use Case: An MSP working with a healthcare client may prioritize quarterly reviews of finance and HR folders due to regulatory requirements, while scheduling semi-annual reviews for less-sensitive operational shares.

Identifying which drivers, folders, and repositories are in scope ensures that high-risk data receives appropriate oversight. Establishing cadence is also important, as organizations should review sensitive data quarterly to minimize risk, while checking shared content semi-annually.

Assigning clear ownership to data managers or department heads ensures accountability, making experts validate permissions. This structured approach balances security needs with operational efficiency, preventing excessive reviews and oversight.

⚠️ Warning: Ensure the scope is neither too narrow nor too broad to avoid unauthorized access. (For more info, refer to: Things to look out for)

Step 2: Export current permissions with built-in tools

This step exports permission to provide a point-in-time snapshot as a foundation for reviews.

📌 Use Case: An MSP supporting a hybrid environment may use PowerShell to pull ACLs from Windows File Servers for internal teams, export Drive sharing reports from Google Workspace, and pull Microsoft 365 access reports for client departments.

• Windows File Server: Use PowerShell to extract Access Control Lists (ACLs):
  1. Press Win, type PowerShell, then click Run as Administrator.
  2. Copy and paste the following script into the prompt, then press Enter:
     • Get-Acl "D:\DepartmentShare" | Format-List
• Google Workspace: Export drive sharing reports from the Admin console to capture external and internal access.
• Microsoft 365: Generate OneDrive and SharePoint access reports from the Security & Compliance Center.

Step 3: Simplify reviews with lightweight checklists

This step eliminates permission review stalls by giving every review cycle a repeatable and transparent process.

📌 Use Case: This approach works best for organizations that need to run recurring access reviews but don’t want to roll out full audit frameworks or complex tooling. IT and security teams can ensure reviews stay thorough without demanding extensive training.

Each review cycle starts with a checklist that keeps everyone aligned:

• Export permissions from drives in scope: Generate a snapshot of who has access.
• Highlight users no longer with the company: Quickly flag and remove stale accounts.
• Highlight permissions inconsistent with role: Identify access that doesn’t match job responsibilities.
• Review with the department owner: Validate findings with the person who knows what access is needed.
• Remove or adjust permissions as needed: Apply changes to align with the principle of least privilege.

Repeating the same checklist across cycles ensures faster and less error-prone reviews, which in turn makes them easier to delegate.

⚠️ Warning: Apply the checklist consistently across teams to avoid inappropriate permissions. (For more info, refer to: Things to look out for)

Step 4: Engage department managers for validation

This step ensures permissions are accurate and business-aligned without putting IT in the role of interpreting job functions.

📌 Use Case: Ideal for organizations where access needs vary significantly across departments or roles evolve quickly. By involving managers directly in the review cycle, the burden of decision-making shifts closer to where the business knowledge resides, reducing risk and saving IT time.

• Send permission exports to managers: Share a list of users and their current access to relevant drives, systems, or folders.
• Ask simple yes or no questions: For example, ask “Does this user still need access to this folder?” or “Is this access still required for their role?”
• Collect manager feedback: Keep the process straightforward so managers can review quickly without extra training.
• Adjust permissions based on validation: IT applies changes only after confirmation, ensuring that decisions are accurate and business-approved.

Step 5: Document outcomes in a permission review register

This step helps capture outcomes in a structured way to help make reviews auditable and transparent.

📌 Use Case: By maintaining a clear record of each review cycle, IT and security teams can demonstrate due diligence, show accountability, and quickly respond to audit requests.

Set up a simple Permission Review Register that logs decisions in a table. For example:

Steps to implement:

1. Record findings: Capture permission review decisions in the register after validation.
2. Store securely: Keep the register in NinjaOne Docs or a shared compliance repository accessible to IT and management.
3. Maintain version history: Update the register every cycle to build a track record.
4. Use for audits and Quarterly Business Reviews (QBRs): Pull the documented outcomes to show compliance efforts.

⚠️ Warning: Ensure you log decisions consistently to avoid regulatory non-compliance. (For more info, refer to: Things to look out for)

Best practices summary

Keep in mind the following practices when coordinating shared drive permission reviews:

⚠️ Things to look out for

NinjaOne services that help coordinate shared drive permission reviews

NinjaOne can help standardize and automate shared drive permissions by offering the following services:

Running scheduled scripts for ACL or permissions exports

NinjaOne can automate the extraction of ACLs or permission reports at an interval to eliminate manual exports. This process ensures accurate and consistent data capture that’s available for review.

Automating ticket creation for recurring reviews

NinjaOne can automatically generate service tickets tied to permission review cycles. Doing so ensures reviews happen on schedule and are tracked within existing IT workflows.

Storing review registers and checklists in NinjaOne docs

Maintaining permission review registers, checklists, and supporting documentation within NinjaOne Documentation allows IT teams to have a centralized repository of historical and in-progress reviews. This improves accountability, audit readiness, and knowledge sharing across teams.

Providing client-facing QBR reports on review completion

NinjaOne can surface review metrics in QBR reports to highlight review completion rates and trends. Doing so helps build trust with clients by showing proactive risk reduction.

Tracking and resolving remediation tasks

NinjaOne can log over-permissive or inappropriate access as remediation tasks. The system will track them through to completion, ensuring flagged permissions are removed.

Improve security by coordinating shared drive permission reviews

Utilize built-in tools, lightweight checklists, and simple registers to reduce security risks and maintain compliance when coordinating shared drive permission reviews. Coordination doesn’t need to burden IT teams or business managers. With the help of NinjaOne, the process becomes streamlined and efficient.

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