Overview
Fieldwire users on a Business or Business Plus Subscription have the option to set up integrations between their Fieldwire account and/or projects and Google Drive.
This integration is available for the Files tab and the Plans tab; the purpose of connecting Google Drive to your Fieldwire projects is that you'll be able to pull items directly from the app into Fieldwire. It is multiple one-way syncs (not a 2-way sync) that keeps your apps synchronized; thus, it is important for you to define and designate whether Fieldwire or Google Drive will be your "source of truth".
Note: Projects connected to Google Drive can now support multiple account connections! This means you can sync files from different accounts or directories to your Fieldwire projects.
Note: This article is specifically for Google Drive. If you are not interested in using this app but still want to learn more about connecting apps and setting up automations, please take a look at these articles:
Limits:
- Workato won’t be unlimited like our 2-way sync is. It's limited to fair use, and we will contact you if you are approaching your limit.
- Integration connections can be facilitated via any of the following browsers: Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, or Firefox. Safari and the Brave browser cannot be used at all for Google Drive connections.
Table of Contents
- Demo Video
- Setting up a Connection to Google Drive
- Setting up an Automation with Google Drive
- Frequently Asked Questions
- Troubleshooting
Demo Video
Setting up a Connection to Google Drive
The Google Drive integration is far quicker to set up; however, before doing so, you'll, again, need to make sure that you have both the proper account and project permission levels. (For more information on account-level permissions, check out this article: Introduction to Account Permission Levels: Managers, Account Users, and Project Users). To create a connection with Google Drive, you need the following:
- Either a Business or a Business Plus account
- Be an Account Manager (or Owner) in Fieldwire
- Admin-level access on the app you want to connect to Fieldwire.
Once you've established that you have the proper permission levels, you'll need to:
- Navigate to the Integrations tab on your Account homepage
- Select the Google Drive app
- Click on the blue button that says Connect Google Drive Account
- Name the connection whatever you'd like; the default will always be the "[name of the app] - [First & Last Name in your Fieldwire profile settings]".
- Once you've decided on a name, click the blue Next button.
Once the connection has been established, you should see Connection success in green. Then, click Close. You'll be able to see the name of your connected account under the "Connected account" section and there should be a green banner at the top stating that you can now set up automations in the Settings tab of your projects.
Connecting Multiple Google Drive Accounts
To connect multiple Google Drive accounts:
- Go to Integrations tab
- Select the Google Drive app
- Click + Connect additional account
- From there, follow all of the same steps listed above in the Setting up a Connection to Google Drive section
Setting up an Automation with Google Drive
After you've created your Connection to Google Drive at the Account-level, you can create an “automation” in your projects. However, as a reminder, before doing so, you'll need to make sure that you have the proper project permission levels. (For more information on project-level permissions, check out this article: Introduction to Project Permission Levels: Administrators, Members, and Followers).
Automations are where the magic happens - they facilitate the connection of Fieldwire to one of your document manager apps. To create an automation you need the following:
- Be an Admin on the Project in Fieldwire where you want to create the automation
- Access to the Project Settings tab in Fieldwire
- Navigate to the specific project where you want to create the automation.
- Go to the Settings tab and, on the right-hand side
- Scroll down to the Apps section and
- Click on the Manage automations button.
- This will direct you to a new page where all of the automations that have been created for that specific project will be listed.
To create an automation with Google Drive:
- Click on the + New automation button, which will cause a new pop-up to appear.
- Select Google Drive as the app you'd like to connect your Fieldwire project with
- Choose the Sharepoint account you want to connect your Fieldwire project with (if you have multiple Sharepoint accounts connected)
- Select either Pull Google Drive folder into Fieldwire files or Pull Google Drive plans into Fieldwire plans
- Click on Create draft
- Click on the blue Select folder button
- Select the Google Drive folder that you want to sync to Fieldwire (you can select subfolders as well).
- In the GIF below, we're creating an automation between Fieldwire and Google Drive so that the files in the "My Demo folder" in Google Drive are automatically synced with the Files tab in Fieldwire.
- Click Connect
After clicking "Connect", the "Select folder" button is no longer there and the status has changed to "Connecting". Then, once it's completed the sync, the status will change to "Connected". In addition, under the "Google Drive folder" section, it lists "My Drive / Fieldwire / My Demo folder" to indicate the file path Fieldwire will be pulling from. As it states under the "Fieldwire folder" section, the folder you selected will sync directly to your projects "All files" view. So, in this case, the files within the "My Demo folder" will pull into Fieldwire.
Now, when you navigate to the Plans tab or the Files tab in Fieldwire, you'll see the Google Drive folder you selected as well as all of the files that were within that folder.
Automation for Google Drive and Fieldwire Plans
Once you have established the connection between Google Drive and Fieldwire, you can create an automation to sync plans that you have stored in Google drive directly to Fieldwire. To do so, follow these steps:
- Navigate to the specific project where you want to create the automation.
- Go to the Settings tab and, on the right-hand side, scroll down to the Apps section
- Click on the Manage automations button.
- Click on the + New automation button, which will cause a new pop-up to appear.
- On the pop-up, select Google Drive as the app you'd like to connect your Fieldwire project with.
- Select Pull Google Drive plans into Fieldwire plans
- Click on "Create draft".
Watch process below:
Once you done the steps above, do the following:
- Click on the blue Select folder button, and you'll see a pop-up appear
-
Select the Google Drive folder that you want to sync to Fieldwire
- In the GIF below, we're creating an automation between Fieldwire and Google Drive so that the plans in the "Project electrical" folder in Google Drive are automatically synced with the Plans tab in Fieldwire.
- Note: It is best to start with an empty folder in Google Drive as only new plans in the folder will be synchronized to Fieldwire. Existing plans in a folder will not be synced.
- Click Connect
- After the automation has been created, you can add your plans to the Google Drive folder, which will be automatically synced to the Plans tab in Fieldwire.
Once the plans have synced from Google Drive to Fieldwire, your plans tab should show the exact same plans that are in your Google Drive folder.
Frequently Asked Questions
Once an automation is set up, how long does it take for changes made in Google Drive to display in Fieldwire?
If you alter a large number of plans (100+), you can expect for it to take up to a few hours for the changes to be reflected in Fieldwire.
What are the limitations?
- The automations only track changes that occur in the synced folder. This means that you'll need to create the automation first, and then add your files or plans to it.
- This is a one-way sync; changes made in Fieldwire will not be reflected in Google Drive or Sharepoint.
- Only one automation for Plans can exist per project.
- The limitation for the number of plans that can currently be synced is 1,000.
- Unlike our Box/Dropbox/OneDrive sync, deleting a plan or file in Google Drive/Sharepoint will not result in that piece of data being deleted in Fieldwire.
- The maximum PDF size that can be used is 200MB.
How do we recommend using this automation?
- Choose an empty folder in Google Drive.
- Create the automation in Fieldwire that ties to this folder.
- Drag and drop your Files or Plans into the Google Drive folder.
Troubleshooting
Please reference this article if you experience any issues with setup or integration utilization: Integrations Tab: Troubleshooting.