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Shared drives let you connect a Google shared drive or Microsoft SharePoint document library to a Stralos project. Stralos checks the connected folder on a schedule and lists its files on the project’s Documents page. Only admins can connect providers, add drives and link project folders. Other users can see the connection and drive status, and can request Sync now on a linked folder.

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Provider availability

Connection cards explain when a provider is not configured or drive sync is switched off. Contact Stralos support if the card reports that a provider is unavailable.

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How it works

Every shared drive follows the same flow:
  1. Connect: connect your company’s Google Drive or Microsoft 365 once. Stralos gets access that belongs to your company only.
  2. Add drive: paste the shared drive or library URL.
  3. Confirm: place an empty file with the name Stralos gives you in the drive or library root, then click Check drive.
  4. Link: link the whole drive, or a folder within it, to a project. The first sync starts automatically.
Stralos only reads from the provider. It does not write to, move or delete provider files.

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Before you start

One person can do several of these jobs.

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Connect your company

The Connections section at the top of Settings → Shared drives shows one card for each provider: Google Drive and Microsoft 365. You only connect each provider once. After that, you can add as many drives or libraries as you need. Each card shows its state:

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Google Drive

Stralos sets up an address (a Google service account) that belongs to your company only. You share each shared drive with that address, just like adding a colleague.
  1. On the Google Drive card, click Connect Google Drive.
  2. In the side panel, click Set up our Stralos address.
  3. Wait for the card to show Connected. This usually takes a few minutes, and you can leave the page while it finishes.
  4. Copy the Stralos address from the card.
  5. In Google Drive, open each shared drive you want to sync, choose Manage members, and add the Stralos address as a Viewer.
The address ends in iam.gserviceaccount.com. It must be a member of the shared drive itself: sharing one folder inside it, or a folder in My Drive, is not enough. To sync only one project’s folder, add the shared drive and then link just that folder. If Google won’t let you add the address, or the drive never becomes readable, your Google Workspace probably blocks external sharing. See Allow external sharing in Google Workspace. Google connections support shared drives only. Personal My Drive folders are not supported.

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Allow external sharing in Google Workspace

The Stralos address is outside your Google Workspace domain, so Google treats the share as external. If your Workspace restricts sharing outside your company, Google either refuses to add the address or the drive stays unreadable to Stralos.
You can’t allowlist the Stralos address. Google doesn’t accept service accounts (addresses ending in gserviceaccount.com) as allowlisted (trusted) domains. See Google’s Allow external sharing with only trusted domains. Limiting sharing to Allowlisted domains only lets your users share with the domains on that list, so use one of the options below instead.
A Google Workspace super admin picks one of these options in the Google Admin console. Apply it to the organisational unit (or group) of the people who manage the shared drive. See Google’s Manage external sharing for your organisation for option A, and Create and manage trust rules for Drive sharing for option B. Shared drives have two more settings that can block the Stralos address, whichever option you choose:
  1. External access to shared drives. In Sharing settings, open Shared drive creation and tick Allow users outside your organization to access files in shared drives. When this is off, managers can’t add anyone outside your company to a shared drive. See Google’s Manage shared drives as an admin.
  2. The shared drive’s own settings. A manager right-clicks the shared drive in Google Drive and chooses Shared drive settings. Access for people outside your company, and for people who aren’t members, must be allowed. If the manager can’t change these, the admin can open the drive from Drive and Docs → Manage shared drives and change its Settings there. See Google’s Troubleshoot issues with shared drives.
Google says sharing changes can take up to 24 hours to apply.

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Microsoft 365

Stralos uses a Microsoft Entra application with site-scoped read access. It asks only for Sites.Selected, which gives it access to nothing until a site is granted to it. Personal OneDrive is not supported.
  1. On the Microsoft 365 card, click Connect Microsoft 365.
  2. Enter your Microsoft 365 domain (the part after the @ in your work email) and click Find our Microsoft 365.
  3. Stralos shows an Approval link. Copy it, or click Email the link, and send it to your Microsoft admin. They must be a Global Administrator or Privileged Role Administrator.
Other admin roles can’t approve Stralos. Stralos asks for a Microsoft Graph application permission (Sites.Selected). Ask a Global Administrator or Privileged Role Administrator to grant that, or an administrator with an appropriate custom consent role. A Cloud Application Administrator or Application Administrator can’t, even though they manage other apps.
  1. Your Microsoft admin opens the link and approves Stralos. They then see a Stralos page that tells them to come back to the setup.
  2. Click Finish connecting and sign in with your own work account in your company’s Microsoft 365. A guest account, or an account from another company, can’t finish connecting.
Your Microsoft admin may see an “unverified” publisher warning. Microsoft’s approval screen marks apps whose publisher hasn’t completed Microsoft’s publisher verification. Check the application identity and requested permissions before approving. Stralos requests Sites.Selected plus basic sign-in. See Microsoft’s publisher verification overview.
When the card shows Connected, it also shows your Microsoft 365 tenant ID. Each SharePoint site still needs its own grant, which you set up when you add a library. Your setup progress is saved at each step, so you can close the panel and pick up later with Continue setup.

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Add a Google shared drive

  1. Add your company’s Stralos address to the shared drive as a Viewer member (see above). Sharing a folder inside it, or a My Drive folder, does not work: it must be the shared drive itself.
  2. On the Google Drive card, click Add a Google shared drive. You can also click Add drive at the top of Shared drives and choose Google Drive shared drive.
  3. In the Add shared drive panel, paste the Shared drive URL. Paste the URL of the shared drive itself, not a folder within it.
  4. Click Add drive.
  5. Copy the proof file name that Stralos shows.
  6. Place an empty file with that exact name (like stralos-connect-<code>.txt) in the shared drive root.
  7. Click Check drive.

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Add a SharePoint library

For SharePoint, you paste the library URL first. Stralos then builds a PowerShell grant script for that exact site, with nothing to fill in.
  1. On the Microsoft 365 card, click Add a SharePoint library. You can also click Add drive and choose SharePoint document library.
  2. Paste the SharePoint site or document library URL into Library URL. Paste it straight from the browser address bar.
  3. Copy the Grant script (PowerShell) and give it to your Microsoft admin. The person running it needs Sites.FullControl.All in their admin tool. The script grants Stralos read access to that one site.
  4. After your admin runs the script, click Check access. Stralos asks Microsoft whether it can read the site and tells you if you’re ready to add it, or what to fix.
  5. Click Add drive.
  6. Place an empty file with the proof file name Stralos shows in the library root.
  7. Click Check drive.
The Copy button for the script stays disabled until Stralos recognises the URL as a SharePoint site. Stralos refuses personal OneDrive addresses, SharePoint admin centre addresses, and URLs with embedded credentials or unusual path steps. When your admin runs the script, they will see:
  • PowerShell loading Microsoft’s Graph module for that window only. Their usual security setting comes back when they close it.
  • A Microsoft prompt to approve Microsoft Graph Command Line Tools the first time. That’s Microsoft’s own PowerShell sign-in, not Stralos.
  • A warning about the token cache at the end, which they can ignore.
The script is safe to run again. If Stralos already has access to the site, it says so and makes no change. Always copy the script from Stralos rather than writing your own. It already holds the right Stralos app and the site you pasted. If Microsoft Graph PowerShell 1.x is already installed, your admin updates it first with Update-Module Microsoft.Graph.Authentication. Items shared into the library from elsewhere, and package items such as OneNote notebooks, are not synced.

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Confirm a drive

After you click Add drive, the drive appears in the list as Awaiting proof. The row shows the proof file name so you can place the file without reopening the panel. If you close the panel with Finish later, click Check drive on the drive’s row once the proof file is in place. Unconfirmed drives expire after seven days. Add the same URL again to get a new proof file name.

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Map a drive to a project

  1. On an active drive, open Mappings.
  2. Click Add mapping. The button stays disabled until the drive is active.
  3. Choose the Project.
  4. Under Folder scope, choose Whole drive or A specific folder, then browse to the folder.
  5. Click Add mapping.
You can also map a project from its own project settings.

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Manage shared drives

  • Click Disable to pause every linked folder on a drive. Click Enable to resume it.
  • Under Linked folders, use Sync now, Pause, Resume or Remove on a linked folder. Anyone can request Sync now; the other actions are for admins.
  • Click Remove to remove a drive. Remove its linked project folders first.
  • Users can also request Sync now from the Drive sync strip on the project’s Documents page.
Removing a linked folder or drive does not delete documents already in Stralos.

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Disconnect and reconnect

Click Disconnect on a connection card to stop syncing from every drive for that provider. Documents already synced stay in Stralos.
  • Google Drive: your company’s Stralos address stops working within 15 minutes. Click Reconnect within 30 days to restore the same address, so you don’t need to share your drives again.
  • Microsoft 365: click Reconnect within 30 days and sign in again with an account from your company’s Microsoft 365. To remove Stralos from Microsoft 365 completely, your Microsoft admin opens the Microsoft Entra admin centre, goes to Entra ID → Enterprise apps, opens Stralos Drive Sync, and chooses Delete under Properties. See Microsoft’s Delete an enterprise application.
After you reconnect, each drive shows Access revoked. Click Check again on each drive to resume syncing. After 30 days, a disconnected connection is deleted. You can connect again at any time, but for Google Drive you’ll get a new address and need to share your drives with it again.

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Recover a drive

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Troubleshooting

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Sync behaviour

  • Scheduled runs keep linked folders current.
  • Sync now requests a run on the next scheduled check. Stralos refuses it if a run is already in progress, the drive isn’t active, or the project is lost or archived.
  • Synced files appear on the project’s Documents page straight away as links. Stralos copies a file in from the drive the first time someone opens it or asks to process it. See Documents for what estimators see.
  • A copy that nobody has opened for 30 days is removed and fetched again when needed. A copy used in an estimate is kept.
  • Synced documents are not attached to an estimate. An estimator chooses when to add a document to the estimate and start AI processing.
  • Files larger than 2 GB, and Google file types that can’t be downloaded, stay in the drive. Stralos shows a link to open them in the drive instead.
  • Google Docs and Slides come in as PDF, and Google Sheets as XLSX. Drive shortcuts are not followed.
  • Office lock files, .tmp files and system files such as Thumbs.db and .DS_Store are ignored.
  • Documents are organised into folders that mirror the source folder structure. Moving a file to a different folder in the drive updates its folder in Stralos on the next sync.
  • If you move a document into a different folder in Stralos, sync keeps your choice, even if the source file moves.

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Lost and archived projects

Stralos pauses sync for a project while it is lost or archived. No new runs start, and Sync now is refused. The linked folder stays as it is. When the project is restored, sync resumes automatically on the next scheduled check, with no need to reconnect or link the folder again.