Google Drive as mapped drive letter with seamless auth via ADFS?

[azc]

Hi folks,

 

We've been asked to investigate whether we can map a drive letter to student's Google Drive storage. It would need to work just like OneDriveMapper, in that it should be seamless and work without any input from the user. We have Google Apps set up to authenticate with ADFS, so this should all be possible.... somehow!

 

Anyone have any scripts, sites, ideas? Thank you!

[edmokeski]

Looked into this about a year ago, Google's app keeps data synchronized w/ an on-prem or local store, meaning we'd end up duplicating all of our cloud data on our servers - rubbish. We gave up and moved on (instead placing a Chrome shortcut to drive.google.com on desktops w/ the Drive icon), but I'd be interested to hear if anything has come along since then, or anyone else has had a better experience.

[azc]

Yeah looking to find a way of doing it which doesn't involve syncing the contents of the Drive to the local disk every time someone logs in. I don't know why Google can't understand this is a terrible idea in a multi-user environment like education!

[Roberto]

I don't know why Google can't understand this is a terrible idea in a multi-user environment like education!

 

This is the downside of _any_ cloud provider. They're not interested in solving your problems or my problems. They're interested in solving their problems. If we're lucky, they'll have included "the majority of our customers' problems" in the set of "their problems" and we'll be in the majority of their customers.

 

There is an element of "need to change how you work to be more in line with the cloud" here too, in fairness, and I suspect that Google's products are designed around the expectation that all the people using GAFE will be doing so from a individually assigned chromebook.

[dhicks]

This is the downside of _any_ cloud provider. They're not interested in solving your problems or my problems. They're interested in solving their problems.

 

It was interesting watching the Google webinar last week:

 

http://www.edugeek.net/forums/vbcms-comments/177775-article-google-g-suite-webinar-08-dec-2016-a.html

 

Someone had asked the same question ("How do I sync network-based user file areas with their matching Google Drive?"), and the answer given was that Google make a bunch of APIs available and it's up to third-party providers to fill in the functionality required by specific markets. The same held for a question about allowing users to log in by using a QR code - the API is available, implement a solution on top of Google's infrastructure if it's functionality you need.