3. Google Drive

All of our documents are housed in Google Drive and you will be given access to them when you are placed on your first project if you are a development volunteer or when you are given your first business task if you are a business volunteer.

Almost all of our files and folders are accessible by all of our volunteers. Some files have restrictions on who has permission to edit the files.

Please note: We use groups to manage access to our Google Drive. This means that you will simply get access, you will not receive an invitation to view a file. When someone tells you that you have "been added to Google Drive" that means that you now have access automatically. If you follow the instructions below and you can not see the files please contact the person that told you that you were given access. You must use the same email address you used to signed up to CodeDoesGood's Slack. If you need to use a different email address please contact a volunteer coordinator.

Please do not request access to view a file. If you are prompted to request access this means you either do not yet have Google Drive access or you are attempting to access Google Drive using the wrong email address.

Access Instructions

After you have been told that you have been given Google Drive access click this link. You only need to click this link one time and it adds our shared folders to your Google Drive. This link will only work if you have been given access. Do not bother requesting access to this link, you will not be granted it that way. If the link does not work, as explained above please contact the person that told you that you were given access.

When you join CodeDoesGood we will share a number of files and folders with you. This can be a real mess in your GDrive account. If you click on "Shared with me" you will potentially see hundreds of files (and more and more the bigger we get as a group). Like this:

For some reason some people will only see a single CodeDoesGood folder but for those of you who see a big list like the screenshot above, this is not ideal. It is really confusing and hard to find what you need. The best thing to do is to find the folder titled CodeDoesGood and star it. Once you star it you can easily find it by clicking on "Starred" in your GDrive. This will let you navigate through the folder the same way you would navigate through a folder on your computer.

Using Google Drive

There are 2 simple rules you must follow:

1. Do NOT create files when you are logged in with your own email address. Please ask someone on the business team to create the file for you. Lead Mentors know how to create files properly so if you are on a project you can ask your Lead Mentor to do it. Otherwise if you really need that file up there you can create it yourself and then ask someone to fix it when they have a chance. The reason for this rule is because all files on CodeDoesGood's Google Drive must be owned by CodeDoesGood. If you create a file when you are logged in under your own account you will be the owner, not CodeDoesGood.
2. Absolutely DO NOT give access to anyone's email address directly to any file. Access is granted through group permissions. If an outside person needs to access a file please have the business team handle granting permissions. The reason for this rule is for privacy and confidentiality reasons. If we grant access to individual email addresses and then this person leaves CodeDoesGood they will still have access to random files we are unaware of. By using group access we need only to remove their email from our group access list and they will no longer have access.

Volunteers not following the above two rules are subject to removal from their project, or in extreme cases from CodeDoesGood altogether.