Share Google Docs by email using Slack channels and Google Drive.

Overview

This application aims to provide Slack teams with a private folder in Google Drive for each channel in the workspace. Members of each channel are given access to the channel's folder using the email address associated with his/her Slack account. This function aims to reduce the use of to Google Docs' "share by link" feature because it is inherently insecure.

Team members are added as collaborators simply by joining the channel or by initiating a custom slash command within said channel. Leaving a channel will remove the user from the set of collaborators for that channel's files in Google Drive.

Users can be explicitly excluded (like bots) or included (for beta-testing, perhaps) from consideration using a configuration file, where the access keys and other configuration options are stored.

Architecture

This application makes use of “serverless” architecture to interact with a Slack bot through Slack’s Web & Events API using slash commands and event subscriptions. In toto, four cloud functions comprise the application’s core functionality: three HTTP endpoints and one subscription-based event processor.

Google Cloud is a natural back-end for this application and the docs have been written with that assumption, but there is no reason the concepts cannot be applied to another back-end, like AWS.

View the architecture docs to see how this app works in detail.

Setup

Some assembly required...

Slack Bot

A Slack Bot is required to act as the interface between your infrastructure and Slack Users.

View the docs for step-by-step instructions on configuring your Slack app.

Google Cloud

This section is under development...

Sign into Google Cloud to start using Google's cloud infrastructure.

View the docs for step-by-step instructions on configuring Google Cloud.

Deployment

The simplest way to deploy this app is to use Terraform. A terraform module is provided to help deploy the supporting infrastructure for this application.

Configuration

Head to the releases page of this repo and download the latest package, titled slack-drive-x.y.z.zip.

Unzip the archive and view the README file in it. It should instruct you to:

1. Download client_secret.json from the Google Cloud console into the package directory.
2. Run terraform init to download the deployment modules.
3. (Optional) Update config.tpl with any additional values.
4. (Optional) Update variables in terraform.tf with the correct values.
5. Record required variables into terraform.tfvars.
6. Or, simply enter them on the command line in step 7.
7. Run terraform apply to view, approve, and deploy the Slack Drive infrastructure.
8. Take note of the output URLs to finish setting up your Slack App.