HTCondorWiki: Google Drive Wisdom

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This is a research and a work in progress. No changes have been made.

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)
Editing without access to Google requires Chrome, the foresight to enable offline access in advance, and to have had access to the document while Chrome was connected to Google Drive so it could keep a local copy.

Probably not costs

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

Proposal: shared folder

We create 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
Close collaborators: Can Edit

The SWAMP team are using this solution.

On the up side, access is more closely controlled, and adding a new team member is easy. There is also a single place to find all new design documents (but does anyone care?).

On the down side, permission to create or edit documents is very chunky.

It is not possible to set "Can Comment" on a folder, you need to set it on a file-by-file basis. So if comments are desired from people without edit access, it will be need to be added for each file.

Proposal: individual file management

Individuals just create their own design documents, perhaps with a title prefix of "Design Document:" so they are easy to find. They are marked as "Public: Can Comment" (risk of abuse is low). If other people need edit access, it's granted on an as-needed basis. (We can also only grant comment access on an as-needed basis in a pinch.) The very rare design document with security ramifications won't be public; people are added as needed.

On the up side, eliminates challenges of the folder being removed, and it's very hard to accidentally or intentionally damage a design document unless you're the original author or were very explicitly granted edit access.

On the down side, there is no single place to find all new design documents (but does anyone care?).

Challenges and Questions

Offline support

Does not appear to be allowed for UW Google Apps! Alan has a query out to DoIT to confirm.

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

Google Drive Desktop

Google Drive Desktop nearly useless for our purposes. For native Google Drive formats, the "file" that ends up on disk is just a link to the web site.

How do permissions interact?

Changes to the shared's folder's permissions are pushed down to the contained files, even if those files have had their permissions set specially.

If you create a file outside of the folder, then move it into the folder, it will add the permissions that the folder grants to itself. If you move it back out, it reverts to its previous permissions. There may be a several second lag before the change in permissions is visible.

(All verified by testing.)

What if someone leaves the UW?

DoIT Help Desk said, in a June 19th, 2013 message to Alan ("Subject: Re: UW Madison Google Apps: ensuring documents survive a team member leaving(Case 618712)"):

If a file owned by the user who leaves (we'll continue with your "bucky" example), is saved in the google group, the file will remain, even after bucky has left the University. The other team members won't be able to edit this document, unless they were given editing privileges before bucky left. Alternatively, if you need to give people editing privileges, you can copy the document and another member of the team can just recreate it with themselves as the owner, adding in editors as needed. Folders shared by bucky will also remain even after he leaves.

What if someone closes their non-UW account?

Probably unlikely; how often does someone close their Google account? But there is a risk we'd lose the documents. Proposed: documents must be owned by someone using a UW account. Likely flow: non-UW member creates the file and works on it. Eventually someone from the UW copies the file and that becomes the official copy.

How to log in

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.

(You can log in from any Google login page; just omit your password when you click "Sign In" to be taken to the UW's login page. This doesn't work if you're already logged into a personal account.)

Links

UW's sites/information