Adding a Google Service Account for Google Doc Imports/Exports

Overview

If you want to use a Google Service Account for your Google Imports and Exports, then you will need to add a Custom Credential to Platform so that Civis can create a token to make the connection. In this document, you will learn how to add your service account information as a credential.

Steps

In order to add a Google Service Account Credential, you will need to perform the following steps.

Prerequisite Actions

Work with your IT admins to follow Google’s instruction guide for how to Create and Manage a Service Account’s Keys. Your admins will then give you a JSON block with all you need for setting up the Platform Credentials.

Adding the Custom Credential to Platform

1. Navigate to your “Credentials” page in the Platform UI, under the “Admin” dropdown.

The location of the “Credentials” page in the Civis Platform UI, under “Admin” dropdown in the top right corner of the page.

1. Click on the “New Credential” button in the top right corner.
2. For the type of the new Credential, Choose “Custom”.
3. Type anything for the “username“ since this value is not going to be used.
4. Select  “multiple lines” under the Password Type dropdown.
5. Paste the JSON contents into the password field. There will be multiple entries in the service account key, please ensure that all values are present which includes the opening and closing curly braces. If the key is not included in its entirety, Civis Platform may fail to connect to your Google Service Account.
6. Select “Google” as the Remote Host. If the key is not linked to the Google Remote Host, then it will not be used for Google Docs.

When completed, your credential form should look something like this:

Completed credential form for a Custom Google Credential

Adding the Custom Credential to the Google Doc Import/Export

Now that the custom credential is present in Civis Platform, you can use this for your Google Doc Import or Export. 

1. Navigate to the Google Doc Import/Export in the Platform UI.
2. If you have an Existing Google credential, then click on the credential drop down and select the service account credential.

   

   Credential drop down for a Google Doc Import. It would be the same for a Google Doc Export.

3. Once the service account option is selected, try to avoid pressing the Update Google authentication button since this will not update the service account credential.
4. Update the spreadsheet and worksheet name fields to the values you wish to use. Spreadsheets must be shared with the service account's client_email for them to appear as a selection option.
5. Run the job like any other Google Doc Import/Export.