Salesforce Google Drive Integration

Use cases of Google Drive integration with Salesforce

Salesforce Google Drive integration with Salesforce can be used for various purposes by different industries. Let’s talk about some common use-cases of Google Drive integration with Salesforce. This Integration can be used for sharing photographs of events held within an organization. It is a common phrase after an event – “Where are the photos?” It is challenging to store pictures captured by different people in a single place. The credentials of the organization’s Google Drive repository can be shared with everyone. It is where Salesforce comes into existence and can be used to upload the pictures to the organization’s Google Drive without requiring the Google Drive credentials.

Let’s talk about another example. A project is running in your organization and a Google Drive repository is used for storing all the files related to the project. The project manager only has the credentials of the Google Drive repository. The team members want to upload files to this Google Drive repository. There are two ways of doing this – [a] Either they have the credentials to the repository which they don;t have as the folders need to be secured and credentials can’t be shared with everyone OR [b] the members upload the files to their google drive repository and share the links to the folder with the project manager. It will become a time-consuming and irritating task for the project manager to open the links received by each member and upload the files from there to the common G drive repository. This is where Salesforce comes into existence and can be used to upload the data to the organization’s Google Drive without requiring the Google Drive credentials.

Benefits of Google Drive integration with Salesforce

1. Real-time synchronization: Any changes made to a file can be reflected to both the platforms without any delay. It is a two-way synchronization.
2. Cost reduction: Salesforce has limited storage, and G Drive provides ample storage. Industries that require large files to associate to the salesforce objects can avoid purchasing the expensive salesforce storage and reduce cost.
3. High data security: Google Drive integration with Salesforce is highly secured and provides multi-level security to your data.
4. Efficiency: Files like google docs, sheets, presentations do not require to be downloaded first and then uploaded into salesforce. It saves a lot of time for the user.

Steps to Integrate Salesforce with Google Drive:

01. Create App in Google Console
a. Go to the URL  https://console.developers.google.com/project
b. Click on the create project button to create a new project.

c. From the newly created project dashboard enable the Google Drive API

d. Configured the OAuth consent screen

e. Click on the Create Credentials button then select OAuth Client Id then select web application to create a client id and client secret for authorization. Add a URI for the application from where you will be accessing the API in Authorized redirect URIs field.

02. Configure Auth. Provider for Salesforce Google Drive Integration
a. In Salesforce go to Setup enter Auth. Providers in the quick find box and click New button.

b.  A form will open and select Open ID Connect as Provider Type.

c.  Enter name, Consumer Key and Consumer Secret. Enter endpoints URL
I.    Authorize Endpoint URL: https://accounts.google.com/o/oauth2/v2/auth
II.    Token Endpoint URL: https://accounts.google.com/o/oauth2/token
d.  Add scopes defined in your google app e.g.
https://www.googleapis.com/auth/drive   as default scopes. Click Save.

e.  Once saved, a callback URL is available in the Salesforce Configuration Section.

f.  Add this callback URL as the Authorized Redirect URls in the Google App.

g.  Test your connection by going to the Test-Only Initialization URL and
OAuth-Only Initialization URL.

03. Create Named Credentials in Salesforce
a.  In Salesforce go to Setup enter Named Credentials in the quick find box and click
New Named Credentials button

b.  A form will open. Fill out the following fields:
I.      Name
II.     URL: https://www.googleapis.com
III.    Identity Type: Named Principal
IV.    Authentication Protocol: OAuth 2.0
V.     Authentication Provider: Auth. Provider configured earlier
VI.    Scope: Enter space separated scope defined in your google app.
e.g. https://www.googleapis.com/auth/drive
VII.    Start Authentication Flow on Save: check the checkbox

g. Update the Authorization endpoint URL in the auth provider configured earlier to continue
getting the refresh token. Add the query parameter to the base URL. The updated URL will be
https://accounts.google.com/o/oauth2/auth?access_type=offline&approval_prompt=force.
The approval_prompt parameter is required to get the refresh token after the first one
continuously .

h. Test the connection once again and the user will be authenticated.

04. Create a Remote Site Setting in Salesforce
a. In Salesforce go to Setup enter Remote Site Settings in the quick find box and click
New Remote Site button.

b. Fill Out the form.
Enter https://www.googleapis.com as the remote site URL as the remote site URL.