Connecting Dropboxedit

Dropbox is a cloud-based storage service for organizations of all sizes, allowing teams to create, store, share and automatically synchonize documents across desktop, web and mobile. The Dropbox connector provided with Workplace Search automatically captures, syncs and indexes the following items:

Stored Files

Including ID, File Metadata, File Content, Updated by, and timestamps

Configuring the Dropbox Connectoredit

Configuring the Dropbox connector is the first step prior to connecting the Dropbox service to Workplace Search, and requires that you create an OAuth App from the Dropbox platform. To get started, first log in to Dropbox and access your administrative dashboard:


Step 1. Login to Dropbox’s App Developer Portal.


Step 2. Click the Create app button:

Figure 33. Connecting Dropbox: Create

Before we create a new app, there are two important things to understand:

  1. The app can stay in Developer Mode. You do not need to publish it.
  2. Make sure that you create this app with a trusted and stable Dropbox account.

Creating an app with a team-owned account is recommended, should the configuration evolve over time.


Step 3. Select the Dropbox API with Full Dropbox access, and provide a name. The name must be unique within Dropbox (e.g. Organization Name Workplace Search).

Figure 34. Connecting Dropbox: New

Step 4. Within the OAuth 2 section, add the following two redirect URIs, substituting <WS_BASE_URL> with the base URL at which Workplace Search is hosted (scheme + host, no path).

<WS_BASE_URL>/ws/org/sources/dropbox/create
<WS_BASE_URL>/ws/sources/dropbox/create

Examples:

# Deployment using a custom domain name
https://www.example.com/ws/org/sources/dropbox/create
https://www.example.com/ws/sources/dropbox/create

# Deployment using a default Elastic Cloud domain name
https://c3397e558e404195a982cb68e84fbb42.ent-search.us-east-1.aws.found.io/ws/org/sources/dropbox/create
https://c3397e558e404195a982cb68e84fbb42.ent-search.us-east-1.aws.found.io/ws/sources/dropbox/create

# Unsecured local development environment
http://localhost:3002/ws/org/sources/dropbox/create
http://localhost:3002/ws/sources/dropbox/create
Figure 35. Connecting Dropbox: Redirect URIs

Step 5. Reveal the App Key and App Secret and keep them in a secure and handy location: they will be required shortly.

Figure 36. Connecting Dropbox: App key & secret

Step 6. From the Workplace Search administrative dashboard’s Sources area, locate Dropbox, click Configure and provide both the Client ID and Client Secret.

App Key and App Secret correspond to Client ID and Client Secret, respectively.

Voilà! The Dropbox connector is now configured, and ready to be used to synchronize content. In order to capture data, you must now connect a Dropbox instance with the adequate authentication credentials.

Connecting Dropbox to Workplace Searchedit

Once the Dropbox connector has been configured, you may connect a Dropbox instance to your organization.


Step 1. Head to your organization’s Workplace Search administrative dashboard, and locate the Sources tab.


Step 2. Click Add a new source.


Step 3. Select Dropbox in the Configured Sources list, and follow the Dropbox authentication flow as presented.


Step 4. Upon the successful authentication flow, you will be redirected to Workplace Search.

Dropbox content will now be captured and will be ready for search gradually as it is synced. Once successfully configured and connected, the Dropbox synchronization automatically occurs every 2 hours.