How to use Google Drive for global file server?

Google Drive can be used both in the browser as well as locally as a global file server and can be used both online and offline.

 

Access the Google Drive Naming Convention Doc

A big part of keeping files organized on Google Drive is the way we create and name both the folders and the files themselves within the system.

Please use the MAGNETIC Project and File Naming Structure document and reach out with any questions on creating project folders and/or naming conventions. 

Google Drive as global file server Video Transcript:

What's up everybody?

Checking in Matt and Mani here. We're gonna go over some, cool new features for cloud storage on the Google Drive. Mani's done a whole bunch of work getting this set up for us, in an effort to pass files back and forth a little bit quicker.

It's got some cool little tricks for you and some, just procedural optimization so that everybody knows where to go for what and knows where things are.

Turn it over to him and let him go through the the software for you. 

Yeah. Thanks, Matt. Cool.

So I think there's two ways that we can approach this and to Matt's point, we're gonna use this Google Drive as sort of our new global server access point. That way, we can collaborate and share on files and be able to all have access to it. The main benefit here is, I've done a lot of research and and time spent just working directly from the cloud. So the more that we could do that, the more we don't have to wait upload files after we're done and just always be having current files on there and, available to the team to use.

So let's look at Google Drive first. If you just go to drive.google.com, make sure you're on your Mag account.

You'll be able to see my drive, but what we're specifically looking at for shared client drives are these shared drives?

Mani, if you can just share your screen there too.

Perfect. That would be good. Yeah.

Okay. Let's share right here.

Boom.

Okay. Shared drives. So when we get here to drive, like I said, you'll see Google Drive, my Drive, your Mag account up here in the top, right hand corner. But shared drives, and if we drop this carrot down, you'll see all the clients.

Project managers, as well as myself. Matt, DC will be able to create these new shared drives, for each client that we're gonna have And these drives, are intended to be organized, to kind of sort of match click up the scope of work two twenty twenty three website design development.

And we'll worry about and be responsible for sharing the permissions with the team globally and everything like that. But If you go into these shared drives, we can see our current client list.

And like I said, we'll be able to have the current projects, scope of work, everything in here. Website design development, any files that we might have. It'll be organized just like the server was, but on the Google Drive.

You can use it directly from the website.

But an even more efficient way to do it is to go to actually Google.com slash drive slash download, and download it for your machine Right here, I did it on the App Store. It goes through a quick setup where it has you log in, start syncing your files. It's all pretty automated and straightforward to set it up. And install it on your machine.

The benefit of doing that is once you do so, you'll be able to pull up a finder window any finder  window, and it'll be located and mounted right here as Google Drive and locations.

So now when I click that, I can see my shared drives in the same mirrored client list that I saw on the website, but now on our finder window. So, yeah, like I mentioned, we can go into the client  you're working on, see the information, or the project you're working on, drag files if you have assets from your local machine, downloads, folders, desktop, right on to here. And the minute you down drop them on to here, it will just sync it right to the cloud to ask you if you wanna move it, go ahead and move it, and it syncs it right there.

Another neat trick, like Matt was alluding to is that Over here, you have a favorites bar. You can drag your client over to your favorites bar and just have it quick access. So if I were to close this, open up a new finder window anytime it's right there, and I can get straight to my current client list that I'm I'm working on.

So Yeah. That's really cool. So, download it from the website, install on your machine. You can use it straight from Google Drive, dot com, drive dot Google dot com. The other neat trick, Thomas, actually, I think you, Thomas, for putting this together. I can put it in, our mag folder.

But it's a file structure folder. And, there is a naming and structure doc that I can send out, that DC and I put together to talk about exactly how we, name and organize files. But this is just an empty folder list that anytime I have a new project, I copy that over and paste it into it. So that way, I can have all the structure elements that I need for organizing my files. So really quickly, assets will be anything from client or that we need for the project. Documents sent over to us that we're referencing.

Master will be the, master working file. So the AI, PSD, whatever the presentation, project, logo, everything is.

That's kinda like the final the final version of it. Right?

Yeah. Yep. Exactly.

Review will be any JPEGs that we export PNGs that get sent out for review. Two client will be Matt. Like you said, that final, like, PDF presentation, round one, round two, whatever we're actually sending out and working or anything that are linked in there. So let's say we have to put together a PSD mock up that eventually go into the master. Well, anything that's a working file that is linked or needs to be adjusted for that master will go into, into working.

There's more that goes into it. Let's if we can go to let's try Garman and say, working, or let's try.

We we also have a document on here about rounds and revisions.

Course, I'm gonna try and find a good example really quick, but, you know, we'll have round one version one, which means this is first expiration of logos, round one version two. So I still haven't sent it out to client. But the minute we get changes back on client, it would change to round two version three. So the number on the back end of the version continues growing no matter how many iterations you do, the round just dictates whether or not it's coming back from client.

Yet. So round one is before client sees it, we get feedback. Come back. Now it's around two and you continue on.

Like I said, that's all notated in the document that I'll provide there, but, Yeah. Like Matt said, the primary goal of this video though is just to show you the benefit of installing Google Drive on your machine, how we go about doing that the, this Google Drive download, straight from the App Store or Google Play, install it, go through this setup, make sure you log in to your mag.cr account, and, then it'll show up to be able to use.

And, as I mentioned earlier, I just opened up these local files straight from, the drive. And can work on them and save out a new version, and it'll save it right to the drive.

That way, my files are all there. There are ways of saving files, offline onto your desktop. So if you know you're not gonna have internet access, you can have offline files, and just ask me about that. But, you can't always save them to your desktop, work on them, and then upload them once you have internet access again.

So Yeah, man. Is there any is there anything you wanna share in terms of, like, syncing certain folders versus other folders or syncing files. But then through that process a couple of times, is there any, like, gotchas to look out for? Anything anything that you might throw in there?

I think a lot of times we forget to link files, you know, like, let's say you are working on an illustrator file, and you forget to embed that shutter stock asset, JPEG, whatever.

So that'll be, yeah, super crucial to make sure you're packaging up.

Getting a good habit to just downloading assets from the website and then throwing it right on the drive first. That way, again, you're just working specifically from the drive, because you're right. You could work on this whole illustrator doc, indesign doc, and not package up the assets, and then we're still in need of stuff. So, yeah, just, I guess, being, organized with that kind of thing. Think also being careful not to, download the entire drive to, like, your desktop.

I don't know if that's still an if you're still able to do that, but I remember at one point, like, going to sync the drive with my desktop and accidentally setting the settings to say, oh, download everything that's on the drive and it started, like, downloading all this super heavy stuff. So just be careful that you're not, that you're not accidentally downloading the entire drive to your desktop because, obviously, you'll, you'll bog down your local computer and and run out of, file storage. So Yeah. And thankfully, it was pretty native.

The gen the basic general, beginning settings Okay. We're all all set up that way. So you don't have to go any into anything and say and dictate what folders you choose. It does a great job at setting up automatically, but Let me share mine just in case really quick.

Let's share entire screen again, and I'll just show you what my preferences look like.

In the Google Drive here, it does have preferences, and you can add a folder. It looks like my MacBook Pro, folders from my computer if I wanted it back up anything. But then Google Drive, it's just stream files. I don't have mirror.

I don't think what you're talking about is maybe more, like, mirroring it, but Yeah. Just streaming the files is what we have set up right here.

Perfect. Okay.

So, yeah, that's the important one. If you if you mirror, then you're gonna be downloading all of the assets from the Google Drive. Think you can you can choose which folders that you, that you sync up to also.

Yeah. Yeah. Most definitely.

Very cool. And you and you can see this cloud icon indicates that I don't have it currently downloaded, so it's not taking up any space on the computer. If you wanna quickly download a client, you can do it here. You could do it per year.

You could do it per project, whatever it is. So right here, we don't wanna download all twenty twenty three because it'll do all these. But if we want the business cards. We could download that folder and get all the working files.

You could see all those terms and revisions, and or you could just try and open it up, and it'll just quickly download it. But it has been very efficient and fast, so to work off. Very cool. Right on, Mani.

Thanks for walking us through that. Everyone give a shout, via email or, schedule a call with us if you have any questions on it, but we're hoping that this is a smooth rollout for everyone and that we can start adopting this again. Just to reiterate that the the goal of this, coming out of this year is to really have the Google drive mirror the click up instance. So when you log in to click up and you see all of client spaces on the left hand side and then open those up to each of the, you know, retainer, or scope.

Elements. And then within those, you have all of your tasks and everything. That's kind of the same, the same visual that we're looking to go for in the Google Drive so that it's really easy and nobody gets confused about where files are or where things are stored. So, again, if you have any questions, reach out.

Hopefully, this is a a smooth onboarding for everyone, and we're looking forward to talking about it next time.

Mani, cheers, dude. 

Cheers, man. Thanks. Alright.