Problem

Greenpeace DE uses box.com for content management and file sharing. Its search feature offers filtering by metadata, but a condition is that metadata must be assigned to the content. It was hard  for them to find the right documents. Therefore Greenpeace DE has asked G-workplace if it was possible to set metadata on files in certain (target) folders, triggered by certain changes to the file, such as moving or renaming files.

Solution

G-workplace has implemented a solution built in node.js and implemented as a Google cloud functions to define webhooks on the targeted folders. When a file in these folders is changed within box it will trigger the execution of a cloud function in Google.
The cloud function will take all the required steps to apply the metadata template to the file and fill out its fields based on the filename.
Periodically another cloud function is triggered from within a simple Google apps script to verify users’ folders: if (new) folders are detected that are owned by any of the organisation’s users, that should have a webhook in place, it gets one implemented and updates its descending files’ metadata.

Result

With our solution in place people at Greenpeace DE are able to find content in box based on automatically generated metadata. No manual intervention is required when new users are enrolled or users create new (target) folders. Our solution will automatically detect all relevant changes and additions and apply metadata to make content easy to find.