The Google Drive app for Freshdesk allows your agents to easily share files from their Drive accounts on the ticket conversation. This makes it easy for them when they have to share a screencast video to direct customers towards a solution or forward a PDF invoice to clients. Attachments made from Drive aren't stored in Freshdesk, and are directly hot linked from the original source, thereby removing file size restrictions and file upload difficulties for users.


Once the app has been installed on your helpdesk, the Drive icon will appear at the bottom of the text editor while replying to or forwarding tickets, adding notes, and for outbound emails.


NOTE: Agents will have to sign in to their individual Drive accounts to attach files. 


Installation Procedure:

There are two parts to the procedure for installing this app. The first part helps you get the Google Drive permissions necessary for this app to run and the second part helps you set up the app in your helpdesk. You will need administrator access on your helpdesk for this procedure.


On the Google Developer Console:

  1. Login to your Google account and go to https://console.developers.google.com

  2. Click on Select a project at the top left of the screen and click on the + sign in the popup window to create a new project



  3. Enter a name for your project (e.g. Saul's helpdesk - Drive app) and click Create

  4. Click on Select a project again and open the project you just created. You need to add two APIs to the project for your app to run successfully.

  5. Click Enable APIs and Services on the dashboard to access the API library

  6. Search for the Google Drive API and the Google Picker API in the app library,  and click Enable in the respective app pages



  7. Go to the Credentials tab in the left menu 

  8. Click on the Create credentials dropdown in this tab and select API key from the options



  9. Copy the displayed API key to your clipboard




  10. Click on Create credentials at the top left of tab again and select OAuth client ID this time



  11. Click on Configure consent screen 


  12. Enter your email ID and the product name (e.g. Saul's helpdesk - Drive app) and click Save. You will be redirected to the previous screen

  13. Select Web application under Application type

  14. Enter a name for the app (e.g. Saul's Helpdesk - Drive app)
  15. In the Authorized Javascript Origins textbox, enter your helpdesk domain name (e.g. https://sauls.freshdesk.com)
  16. In the Authorized Redirect URIs textbox, enter your helpdesk domain and append /oauth2callback at the end  (e.g. https://sauls.freshdesk.com/oauth2callback)



  17. Click Create and copy the displayed Client ID



You have completed the settings in the Google Developer Console. Navigate to your helpdesk and complete the rest of the setup.


On Freshdesk:

  1. Login to your helpdesk 

  2. Click on the Admin > Support Operations > Apps

  3. Click on Get More Apps. Search and select Google Drive

  4. Click Install and you will be redirected to the app configuration page

  5. Paste the Client ID that you had copied earlier from the Google Developer Console settings in the Client textbox 

  6. Paste the API key in the Developer Key textbox 



  7. Click on Enable 


Using The Feature:

To attach a file from Drive:

  1. Click on the Drive icon in the text editor. This will open up the Google account selector in a separate window

  2. If you are using the app for the first time, you will prompted to sign in to the Google account from which you want to attach files



  3. After signing in to the required account, click Allow to permit Freshdesk to access your Google Drive account

  4. Navigate to the required file among the available folders

  5. Choose the file or folder and click on Select to add it as an attachment. You can add multiple attachments in one go by choosing all the files before clicking Select



Learn more about other file sharing apps in Freshdesk.