Google Drive Integration

Modified on Wed, 11 Oct, 2023 at 8:24 PM

Actionstep offers an integration with Google Drive where you can see documents related to your matter that are stored in Google Drive from within Actionstep.

In this article, we will explain how the integration works and how you can set up this integration in your Actionstep.

Overview

Actionstep keeps its own internal drives for storing and managing your documents that relate to your matter. These are:

Matter Documents: the main repository for documents on your matter
Email attachments: Attachments to messages saved to each matter
Documents Trash: A temporary area for any deleted documents. You can recover documents from trash or delete them permanently

These are accessed from the Matters document screen.

You are also able to integrate with an external document management system. Google Drive is one of these. This integration makes a nominated folder in Google Drive available to be accessed by each matter in Actionstep.

Using Actionstep's Google Drive integration once set up

Once you have set up the Google Drive integration (see below for details on how to do that), you will see an icon on your Matters Document management screen in the panel that is to the left-hand side.

Clicking on this will open a view where you can see all the documents that are saved to this matter in your Google Drive.

Copying/Moving Documents Between Drives

You can copy/move one or more documents between drives by selecting the documents and then choosing Move/Copy from the context menu or right-click menu.

Drag and drop is not available across drives.

Understanding how the integration works

For those who want to know more, we explain a bit more about the integration below.

Where the documents are stored

Actionstep's integration with Google Drive allows you to access documents stored on Google Drive from your matter. It does not copy the document stored on Google Drive to Actionstep, only allow you to see those documents and open them.

NOTE

Because documents accessed through the Google Drive integration are not stored in Actionstep, when a user runs the Conflict Check report in Actionstep, any documents and their content will be excluded from that search.

How to access documents in Google Drive

When you connect to Google Drive, Actionstep will create a set of folders in Google Drive that controls what each matter can access in Google Drive.

The first folder will be called "Actionstep". This will be placed in your root directory in Google Drive.

Under the "Actionstep" folder will be a folder named after your Actionstep organisation key. If you have access to more than one Actionstep account, you might see more than one folder here.

NOTE

An 'organisation key' (or 'org key') is a unique identifier that Actionstep creates for your Actionstep account. If you want to know what your organisation key is, hover your mouse over the name of your business in the top left of the Actionstep screen.

In the organisation, the key folder will be a folder called "Actions". In this folder will be a folder for each matter. The folders will be named based on the matter number.

EXAMPLE

if your organization key is "goodlawyers" and you want to see documents in action ID 5648 then the folder structure on the external drive will be:

Actionstep
- goodlawyers
  - Actions
    - 5648

Note: Once connected to your Actionstep system, the folders may be moved or renamed by users in Google Drive. While the connection should be maintained in most scenarios, your exact configuration may not match the diagram above.

Any folders you create in the matter folder (and the documents stored within that folder) will be accessible through Actionstep.

If your external drive is already organized under this structure then Actionstep will connect the existing folders to the associated matter instead of creating new ones.

Configuring Google Drive to your Actionstep account

To set up your Actionstep to be integrated with your Google Drive you will need to be an Actonstep Administrator.

Go to the Admin screen by clicking on Admin in the top right of Actionstep. Select Integrations and then scroll down to find the Google Drive option.

Admin > Integrations > Google Drive.

Click the button. You will be prompted to accept that Actionstep will integrate with Google Drive. You may be prompted to log into your Google Account to do this. Please be careful to select the correct Google account if you have access to more than one.

NOTE

Your access to Google Drive is as an individual. By integrating your account to Actionstep you are integrating your personal access to Google Drive, not necessarily your company account.

The integration means that every Actionstep user can access documents through it but only documents saved to the matter folders, your other documents should remain private.

This might mean that when viewing the Google Drive integration in Actionstep, your name might appear for the drive. Creating a dummy "company" account for your Google account can be a workaround for this.

TIP

You can assign multiple Google Drive accounts to one Actionstep account.

You can also integrate with other third-party drive accounts (ie, Box, DropBox) in the same way and have these appearing alongside your Google Drive on a matter.