Jive can integrate with a number of external storage solutions on a licensing basis. You can integrate it with many more storage providers with minimal development.
By default, Jive uses an external binary storage repository or its own database to store uploaded files. But Jive has the capability to connect to different storage providers, so you can store and organize large files in your storage provider and then socialize them in a Jive group or space. Jive currently provides the following configurations as add-ons:
• SharePoint
• Box.com
• Google Drive
• Dropbox
These connectors provide two-way synchronization between files uploaded to a web part or folder in the storage provider, and a place in Jive where these files are socialized. For more about integration with SharePoint, see the Jive for SharePoint documentation. For more about Box, see External File Storage in Box.
If you want to connect a different storage provider to Jive, you can write an integration and use two-legged oAuth to connect your storage provider with Jive. For more information, see the main Add-ons documentation and visit the Jive Developers site.
External File Storage in Box
If you want to be able to manage your uploaded files via Box.com instead of Jive, you can set up a place-level connection to synchronize files as well as comments about the files from both sides.
To integrate selected Jive places with Box as the external file storage provider, and to socialize the documents you store in your Box folders, you can connect a Box account to a Jive community. The initial relationship is created when you connect a Box admin account to your community. A Box Integration user with rights to this account is created in Jive. When community users and administrators create places, a folder within the Box account is created and identified with the name of the place. Files added to or modified in that folder from either the Box side or the Jive side are then synchronized. When a Jive user uploads a file to the group, the file is posted to the Box group using the Box Integration user.
This means Jive users don't need Box accounts to access the information in places to which they have rights. They can access and modify any files posted there from the Jive side. However, they won't have access to the contents of the folder from the Box side unless they also have a Box account. Box users who have access to the folder will also need a Jive account if they want to add more documents to the Jive-linked Box folder or modify its contents. Users can comment on documents from either side, and their comments will be visible from both Box and Jive.
Note: If you connect a space to Box, be aware that spaces with the All Registered User permission in Jive will be mapped to All Enterprise Users in Box. Users who have this permission in Box will be able to see the content, even if they don't have rights to access the Jive space.
Setting up the Integration
The complete setup includes these steps:
1. Make sure your Jive installation includes the Extended APIs plugin. For more instructions, see Installing the Extended APIs JAR File.
2. On the Box side, apply the correct settings to your Box enterprise account as described in Configuring Box to Work with Jive.
3. On the Box side, create the Box Integration User. This user is the account you'll use to connect your Jive community to Box. It's also the basis for the Jive system user that will be a member of every Box-linked place in Jive, linking it to the associated Box folder.
4. On the Jive side, connect Jive to Box using the Jive Integration User credentials. Then decide whether users can create new places with a Box-connected folder, as described in Connecting to External File Storage.
Note: If you're using an SSO solution such as Okta with Box, make sure the integration user is defined as an admin. Otherwise, the IdP could remove the integration user's administrative privileges from Box, breaking the integration.
Using More than One External Storage Provider
You can use more than one type of external storage. For example, you can have some of your groups store files in Jive for SharePoint, and some in Box.com. After you've set up the initial community connections to your storage accounts, connections are set up group by group. When you create a group, you decide whether the group will use native Jive storage or another storage. However, you can't connect the same group to more than one storage provider.
Configuring Box to Work with Jive
You'll need to configure your enterprise Box account with the right settings before you set up the Jive connection.
To set up the Box side for the Jive connection:
1. Log in as the Box enterprise administrator.
2. In Box, browse to Admin Console > Enterprise Settings.
3. Navigate to the Security tab and select Prevent users from changing their primary email address.
4. Navigate to the User Settings tab.
5. Under New User Defaults > Restrict external collaboration, make sure the Folders owned by managed users can only be collaborated within check box is cleared.
6. Save your settings.
Setting up the Box Integration User
Before you enable the Box-Jive connection, you'll need to set up a Box integration user on the Box side that can post information to Box on behalf of Jive. This user will be used to create the connection to Jive.
The Box Integration User exists only for the integration, and should never be used for any other actions. It should never be logged in for any reason as either a Box user or a Jive user. In the Box admin console, make sure you have enabled auto-accept for the enterprise. This user needs to be provisioned to handle unlimited storage, or at the highest level possible.
Note: Other Box Enterprise Admins will have access to this user: you should ensure that they don't change the settings.
To set up the Box integration user on the Box side:
1. Log in as the Box enterprise administrator.
2. In Box, browse to Admin Console > Users.
3. Create a Box user named Box Integration User. Make sure that Storage allocation (GB) is set to Unlimited. If that isn't possible, set it to the maximum allowed storage allocation.
4. Click Add User.
5. Select the newly created Box Integration User.
6. Under Edit User Access permissions > Co-Admin, make sure the User is granted administrative privileges over all users check box is selected.
7. Under User is granted administrative privileges , make sure you also select the following check boxes: Manage users, Manage groups, Log in to users' accounts, and Run new reports and access existing reports.
8. Save.
9. Log out and log in again as Box Integration User.
10. Browse to Account Settings.
11. On the Account tab, make sure that Account Information - Account type is set to Enterprise.
12. Navigate to the Content and Sharing tab and modify your settings as follows.
a) Set Enable external links to Nothing, restrict sharing.
b) Set Let link viewers to Preview and download the shared item.
c) Navigate to Collaborating on Content > Incoming Invitations and make sure the Automatically accept incoming collaboration invitations check box is checked. This ensures that as soon as a user joins the Jive group, the user is also added as a collaborator to the linked Box folder without needing to take further action.
Note: If you're using an SSO solution such as Okta with Box, make sure the integration user is defined as an admin. Otherwise, the IdP could remove the integration user's administrative privileges from Box, breaking the integration.
Connecting to Box External File Storage
You can enable and disable the ability to store uploaded files in Box through the Jive Add-Ons interface.
Fastpath: Add-ons > Storage Providers
Note: There is no way to disconnect Jive from Box after the two have been integrated, so make sure you start with the correct account.
You can use the Add-Ons settings to connect to Box, to set Box as the default storage provider for uploaded files, and to decide which users can set up places to be connected to a Box folder. Each place you connect to Box will store uploaded files in a separate folder inside that account. These files can be updated on either the Jive side or the Box side, and social interactions such as comments on added files will be visible on both sides.
Note: Only uploaded files will be stored in the external storage provider. Images and attachments will continue to use whatever binary storage location you're already using for your community.
Keep in mind that once you enable the Box connection and create Box-linked places, the linked places can't be unlinked from Box. Changing the settings for creating Box-linked places does not unlink them, and there's no way to unlink them in the Jive community.
To make the initial connection, you'll need an account with Box.com that has enough storage to handle the files Jive users will post in the places you connect to Box. You'll want to provision a dedicated Box account called the Box Integration User specifically for this integration. This account should be an enterprise account with the co-admin role.
The instructions for setting up this user and your Box environment can be found here.
Note: The Box Integration User exists only for the integration, and should never be used for any other actions. It should never be logged in for any reason as either a Box user or a Jive user.
To set up the connection on the Jive side, use these settings:
1. Click your avatar in the top right and select Add-ons.
2. Connect to a Box account: find Box on the Add-Ons tab, click the gear icon, and select Settings. (You should already have Box installed, so you will find it on the Installed tab, but if you don't, click Available to show uninstalled add-ons.) Then click Configure. You'll be prompted to provide the account credentials for the Jive Integration User. This user needs to be pre-created using the instructions in Setting up the Box Integration User.
Provide your credentials and click Grant access to Box. Then click Save and Activate.
3. Go to the Storage Management tab and click Add Integration.
4. Select Jive+Box as the Provider Type. In the Display Name field, type the name you want community users to see displayed when you are selecting a storage provider for the group. Then click Add.
5. If you want all your community users to be able to create groups that use this Box connection for storage, select the Enabled check box.
6. If you want only some of your users to be to be able to create places that use this storage instance, clear the Enabled check box and start typing the name of a Jive permission group in the Permissions Override field. These groups will be granted permission to create groups linked to this storage instance.
7. User Mapping Options determine how the storage connection will connect Box users with Jive users. You should always use the default setting, which is email address.
External File Storage in Dropbox
If you want to be able to manage your uploaded files via Dropbox instead of Jive, you can set up a place-level connection to synchronize files as well as comments about the files from both sides.
To integrate selected Jive places with Dropbox as the external file storage provider, and to socialize the documents you store in your Dropbox folders, you can connect a Dropbox account to a Jive community. The initial relationship
is created when you connect a Dropbox account to your community. When community users and administrators create places, a folder within the Dropbox account is created and identified with the name of the place. Files added to or modified in that folder from either the Dropbox side or the Jive side are then synchronized. When a Jive user uploads a file to the group, the file is posted to the Dropbox group using the Dropbox Integration user. This means Jive users don't need Box accounts to access the information in places to which they have rights. They can access and modify any files posted there from the Jive side. However, they won't have access to the contents of the folder from the Dropbox side unless they also have a Dropbox account. Dropbox users who have access to the folder will also need a Jive account if they want to add more documents to the Jive-linked Dropbox folder or modify its contents.
Setting up the Integration
The complete setup includes these steps:
1. On the Dropbox side, create the Dropbox Integration User. This user is the account you'll use to connect your Jive community to Dropbox. It's also the basis for the Jive system user that will be a member of every Dropbox-linked place in Jive, linking it to the associated Dropbox folder. The only requirements for this account are that it be dedicated to the integration, and that it have sufficient storage to handle the files you want to make available in Jive.
2. On the Jive side, connect Jive to Dropbox using the Jive Integration User credentials. Then decide whether users can create new places with a Dropbox-connected folder, as described in Setting Up External Storage in Dropbox on page 49.
Tips, Tricks, and Limitations
• You can't change the name of anyJive group that's connected to Dropbox.
• Likewise, you can't change the filename of a binary file inside a Dropbox-connected Jive group.
• If you need to delete a binary file in the Jive group and replace it with a file with the same name, you'll need to delete it permanently from Dropbox first. Trying to re-add a file with the same name before deleting it from Dropbox will result in errors and a bad state.
• Moving a file from one Dropbox-connected Jive group to another one and then back will fail, as will any action that creates a duplicate filename situation in Dropbox.
Using More than One External Storage Provider
You can use more than one type of external storage. For example, you can have some of your groups store files in Jive for SharePoint, and some in Box.com. After you've set up the initial community connections to your storage accounts, connections are set up group by group. When you create a group, you decide whether the group will use native Jive storage or another storage. However, you can't connect the same group to more than one storage provider.
Setting Up External Storage in Dropbox
You can enable and disable the ability to store uploaded files in Dropbox through the Jive Add-Ons interface Fastpath: Add-ons > Storage Management
To connect Jive to a Dropbox account:
1. Click your avatar in the top right and select Add-ons.
2. Make sure the StreamOnce add-on is installed.
3. On the Storage Management tab, click Add Integration.
4. Select Dropbox as the Provider Type. In the Display Name field, type the name you want community users to see displayed when you are selecting a storage provider for a group. Then click Add.
5. If you want all your community users to be able to create groups that use this Dropbox connection for storage, select the Enabled check box.
6. If you want only some of your users to be to be able to create places that use this storage instance, clear the Enabled check box and start typing the name of a Jive permission group in the Permissions Override field. These groups will be granted permission to create groups linked to this storage instance.
7. User Mapping Options determine how the storage connection will connect Dropbox users with Jive users. You should always use the default setting, which is email address.
8. Click Edit Settings to connect to a Dropbox account.
a) Click Save to save your instance settings.
b) Click Save to continue.
9. Click Save to save the integration. You'll now see it listed in the Storage Management tab.
10. If you want to make Dropbox the default storage provider for new places that are created in the community, select it in the Storage Management tab. Clearing the Allow users to choose Jive as internal storage check box removes the option to store uploaded documents in Jive for all newly created places.
External Storage in SharePoint
To set up external storage in SharePoint, you'll need to configure your SharePoint instance as well as Jive.
Jive for SharePoint requires a Professional Services engagement, so make sure you contact Jive Professional Services before you try to implement it.
Note: Upgrade users should note that as of this version, Jive for SharePoint is implemented as an Add-on, rather than being delivered through the Extended APIs plugin. For more information about Add-ons, see Integrating Jive with Add-on Services.
You can find the Jive for SharePoint documentation here.
External Storage in Google Drive
If you want to be able to manage your uploaded files via Google Drive instead of in Jive, you can set up a place-level connection to synchronize files as well as comments about the files from both sides. Note that you need a Google Apps enterprise implementation configured with specific permissions groups to use this integration.
Google Drive Permissions Setup
To ensure Jive can share permissions with Google Drive, you need to enable administrative APIs and set up specific permission groups on the Google side.
To apply space permissions correctly, make sure you have the following administrative setup in Google Apps.
(Individual Google Drive accounts are not supported.)
1. In the Google Apps Control Panel, enable the Administrative APIs. You can find instructions in the Google documentation here.
2. Add two new groups in Google Apps: AllRegistered and Everyone. These groups are mapped to user permission groups in Jive that have the same names, allowing both sides of the integration to share the same users.
3. Add the Google users who will use the integration to both groups.
If you use Active Directory to manage and permission groups on both the Jive side and the Google side, permission groups will be mapped and maintained automatically using Active Directory synchronization. If you don't use Active Directory to manage permission groups, setting up the integration in Jive will create user
If you use Active Directory to manage and permission groups on both the Jive side and the Google side, permission groups will be mapped and maintained automatically using Active Directory synchronization. If you don't use Active Directory to manage permission groups, setting up the integration in Jive will create user