Overview

The Dropbox for Business Team Folders connector in DryvIQ enables you to analyze, migrate, copy, and synchronize team folders in your Dropbox for Business account. This connector is useful in instances where you only want access to team folders. The first step is to create a Dropbox connection by providing the required connection information for DryvIQ to access the account. The connector must use a Dropbox for Business Administrator account. Standard accounts will return an error from the Dropbox for Business platform. The connector will only connect to team folders at the root of the account.

Creating a Connection

1. Expand the Manage section in the left navigation menu.
2. Click Connections.
3. Click Add connection.
4. Select Dropbox for Business Team Folders as the platform on the Add connection modal.
5. Enter the connection information. Reference the table below for details about each field.
6. Click Sign in with Dropbox for Business Team Folders.
7. On the Dropbox API Request Authorization modal, enter the email and password required to log in to the account and click Sign In. Only an Administrator account can be used for Dropbox for Business. Standard accounts will return an error from the Dropbox for Business platform.
8. You will see a green "Connected” message on the bottom of the modal when DryvIQ establishes the connection. (If the connection fails, verify the information you entered.)
9. Click Done to create the connection. 

Features and Limitations

Platforms all have unique features and limitations. DryvIQ’s transfer engine manages these differences between platforms, allowing you to configure actions based on Job Policies and Behaviors. The information below is platform-specific. Use the Platform Comparison‍ tool to see how your integration platforms may interact regarding features and limitations.

Author Preservation

The Dropbox connector uses "per-request impersonation." This means DryvIQ makes requests to the platform on behalf of the account owner, not the administrator. Therefore, files created by other users will fail to upload unless the account owner mounts the shared parent folder into their Dropbox drive before uploading the file. (Refer to “How to join a shared folder” in the Dropbox Help Center for more information.) Failed uploads will be logged with a message like the following: "[PermissionFailure] The account 'Joe Smith' is not authorized to perform the requested operation."

Missing or Unknown Account in Dropbox

If a job is set to impersonate an invalid or unknown Dropbox user during author preservation, DryvIQ will log an error in the Job Activity report. You will see an “Unknown failure” in the job activity with an error description that reads, “Missing or unknown account in Dropbox: <email address>” (where <email address> will be the invalid account that was encountered). 

Dropbox Paper

DryvIQ does not support Dropbox Paper. Dropbox Paper is a separate workspace that stores Paper documents in your account on http://paper.dropbox.com. DryvIQ doesn't have access to these documents as part of your Dropbox connection.

Link Remediation

DryvIQ can remediate a link to a Dropbox file using a direct preview link. DryvIQ will also remediate a shared link only when Dropbox is the source connection. It treats the shared link as a native-item link and does not create a new shared link on the destination. 

Path Lengths

Dropbox does not impose restrictions on the total path length. Segment path lengths are limited to 255 characters. Segments are delimited by a forward slash (/). For example, <max 255 characters>/<max 255 characters>.

Permission Disinheritance

Permissions disinheritance occurs when a set of permissions is applied to a parent folder, and a sub-folder "breaks" those permission rules and adds new ones (by removing user access, changing the permission level, etc.). There is a known issue with permission disinheritance when Dropbox for Business Teams Folders is the source connection. When migrating content to a destination platform that supports permission disinheritance, the disinheritance may not be correctly applied. This will be addressed in a future release. Please contact DryvIQ Customer Support or your DryvIQ Consulting Services representative if you have any questions. 

Team Folders

When DryvIQ creates new team folders, the only user with access to the folder is the user DryvIQ used to create the folder (the admin account the connection was created with or the user being impersonated). Additional permissions will only be applied if the migration job is copying permissions.

Versioning

The Dropbox platform treats content version history differently than other cloud platforms, with each native move and rename tracked as a new version. To only transfer true version history, enable the Scripting option on step 6 during job creation and copy the following JSON into the scripting box:

{
"transfer": {
"versioning": {
            "preserve": "native",
            "select": "published"
        }
    }
}

Version Expiration

Dropbox for Business limits file version history based on your plan. When the version history exceeds the period outlined by your plan, the expired versions can no longer be restored by Dropbox or migrated by DryvIQ.

For more information, please refer to the following information for Dropbox:

• Dropbox for Business Plan Comparison
• Dropbox Version History Overview

Version Limits

While Dropbox allows you to store unlimited versions, the platform restricts the number of version downloads to 100. This means only the most recent 100 versions of a given file will be transferred to the destination. Refer to the Dropbox API documentation for more information. You can also find additional information in the Dropbox Forum.