Google Drive: what this connector can do

Member·7 minutes to read

What this page is for

The setup guide is for whoever runs your organisation's Botseon deployment: how to register Botseon with the provider so its sign-in screen works. This page is the other half: what Google Drive actually lets a bot do once it is connected to your account, what it asks you for along the way, its limits, and how to take the connection away again, in Botseon and at Google.

Search, read, create, and share files.

What a bot can do with it

Read — Google Drive tells a bot things, nothing changes

ToolWhat it does
google-drive.search_filesSearch files by name, type or content.
google-drive.read_fileRead a file as text. A Google Sheet comes back as CSV, one per sheet tab.
google-drive.list_folderList the files and folders inside a folder.

Write — Google Drive lets a bot change things

ToolWhat it does
google-drive.create_fileCreate a file in a folder.
google-drive.update_fileReplace a file’s contents.
google-drive.create_folderCreate a folder.
google-drive.upload_fileUpload a file you made, such as a spreadsheet or a PDF, into a folder, byte for byte; or import a PowerPoint deck as Google Slides.
google-drive.create_docCreate a Google Doc from text, so it opens in Google Docs.
google-drive.edit_docEdit a Google Doc in place: replace text, add text at the end, or insert text after a passage.
google-drive.edit_slidesEdit a Google Slides presentation in place: replace text, add a slide, or remove a slide.
google-drive.trash_fileMove a file to the bin.
google-drive.share_fileShare a file with a named person.

Slide decks as Google Slides

Ask a bot for a slide deck and it first shows you sample slides, one picture per style (plain, midnight, ocean, sunrise, forest and mono), and asks which one you want. It builds the deck in that style on its computer. You then get it the way you asked for it:

  • PowerPoint: the .pptx file arrives in the conversation. It opens in PowerPoint, Keynote and Google Slides.
  • Google Slides: with Google Drive connected, the bot uploads the deck into the folder you choose and Drive turns it into a Google Slides presentation. Like every upload, this asks you first. The bot then gives you the presentation's link. A deck larger than 5 MB can't be sent this way, so the bot shares the .pptx file instead.

Editing Google Docs and Google Slides

Ask a bot to change a Doc or a deck in your Drive and it edits the file itself, so the link, the comments and the sharing stay as they were. Every edit shows you an approval card first, and nothing changes until you approve. Deny sends nothing to Google.

  • In a Doc, a bot can replace a word or a sentence everywhere it appears, add text at the end, and insert text right after a passage you name. One request can do up to 20 of these at once.
  • In a deck, a bot can replace text on every slide, add a slide with a title and body text at the position you ask for, and remove a slide by its number.
  • What you get back: the file's link and what changed: how many times each text was replaced, and the number of every slide added. If a text to replace is nowhere in the file, the bot tells you so.
  • Nothing half done: if the passage to insert after is not in the Doc, or the deck has no slide with that number, the bot changes nothing and tells you why.
  • Which files: the files a bot made in your Drive, and the files you opened with Botseon. For any other file you read: "I can only edit files I created or that you opened with me." Your connection stays connected.

The permissions it asks for, in plain words

Every call a bot makes through this connector is tagged with what kind of thing it is. Only the tags below ever apply here — a tag this connector's tools never carry is not listed, because it can never ask you for it.

  • read — Looks something up. Nothing changes, and nothing is sent anywhere. A bot never has to ask first for this.
  • write — Changes something inside the connected account — creates, edits or files something. Asks you first, unless you have told Botseon to always allow that exact action.
  • external_send — Sends something to someone outside Botseon — a message, a reply, an email, a post. Asks you first, unless always-allowed.
  • delete — Deletes something you would consider yours. Always asks first — there is no always-allow rule that ever covers this.

Limits

Search, read, create, and share files. Nothing outside that list is possible through this connector, however a bot is asked to use it.

Google Drive is also only ever as wide as the scopes your organisation's connected app actually requests — the exact scopes are on the setup guide, because narrowing or widening them is a decision for whoever runs your deployment, not for this page.

Disconnecting

In Botseon

Open Plugins from the sidebar, press this connector's card to open its detail page, and under Accounts press Remove next to the account — or Uninstall to remove the plugin and every account connected to it at once. Either one revokes the stored connection immediately: nothing more is read or changed through it from that moment on. Install a plugin walks through the same screen step by step.

At Google

Removing the account in Botseon also asks Google to revoke the token, when this deployment's connector is configured with a revoke URL. Confirm the grant is actually gone by opening Google's own account settings — the connected-apps, security or authorised-apps page covers it — and removing Botseon there too if it still shows up. That is also where you can revoke access without going through Botseon at all, which is worth knowing if you ever lose access to your Botseon account.

What Botseon keeps, and how your data is used

Whatever a bot reads or writes through this connector becomes part of your conversations and the record of that run — the same records, and the same retention schedule, as everything else a bot works on. Botseon is the processor for that content; your organisation decides what it may read and remember, and can delete it sooner than the schedule would on its own.

Your data is sent to a model provider only to produce the bot's answer, and for nothing else — it is not used to train any model. The Privacy Policy's Models and How long we keep it sections have the full detail, including exactly how long each kind of record is kept for.

See also

Last verified against build ad93750.