HTCondorWiki: Google Drive Wisdom

Page History

Work in progress

The UW pays for access to Google Apps, including, notably, Google Drive (formerly Google Docs). We have special terms of service for privacy. You don't need a Google account; your UW NetID is good enough. Note that the privacy protects are limited to Drive, Sites, Groups, and Contacts. You can use other Google services with your UW NetID, but you don't get any special protections.

The Flightworthy team is considering using Google Drive to store design documents.

Benefits

Eliminates download/upload step in editing or commenting on a design document
Multiple people can edit or comment on a design document simultaneously
Eliminates formatting wonkiness from using a mix of MS Word and OpenOffice.

Costs

We become reliant on Google (and the UW to keep paying Google)

Probably not costs

We lose advanced formatting; Google Drive is a simple word processor. But do we really need it?

We propose a shared folder into which new design documents are placed. Proposed permissions are:

HTCondor dev team: Can Edit - This is full access; people can create documents, delete them, and modify the permissions (although the latter can be removed?). Should only be given to people we trust with similar access to the Wiki and AFS.
Public: Can View - Maybe grant Can Comment, as the harm in abuse is pretty minimal.
External collaborators - Can Comment (unnecessary if we granted the public this level)

Challenges and Questions

What if someone leaves the UW?

The big problem is maintaining access to files (and maybe even the shared folder) if the owner leaves the UW. It's not clear what will happen to such files or folders. They might stay available. They might disappear.

Testing with just deleting a shared folder, it looks like documents owned by other people are put in the top level of the owner's documents. They're not lost. Presumably having an account closed will do no worse than this.

Alan has a query in to DoIT to find out the exact behavior.

We can download final versions and attach them to tickets, but it would be a shame to get so far and miss the final step.

What if someone closes their non-UW account?

The problem is similar to "What if someone leaves the UW?", but we may have even less control. (Being a UW account may come with additional control over files.) Shouldn't be a problem for the folder; we'll just ensure it's a UW account. But it seems likely that non-UW staff will occasionally create design documents.

Offline support

Untested. Unknown how it handles race conditions. Chrome only.

We really should test this.

https://support.google.com/drive/answer/1628467

http://googledocs.blogspot.com/2010/09/whats-different-about-new-google-docs_22.html (Old. not necessarily how offline conflicts are handled)

"...you'll be able to do full editing of docs while you are offline and when you comeback online it will sync up and resolve all the conflicts." source

How to log in; recommended solution

If you want to simultaneously be logged into a personal account, do so first. If you use the UW login first, it is difficult to later log into your personal account.
https://apps.google.wisc.edu/ - Log in as usual.
If you logged into a personal account first, going to Google addresses will be your personal account; but following links from the UW login will be your UW account.

How to log in; simplified

(This will not work simultaneously with a personal account!)

On any Google login page, enter yournetid@wisc.edu; don't enter a password. Click "Sign in". You'll be taken to a UW login page, log in as usual.

Links

UW's sites/information