How Google Drive notifications work

Google Drive is known as a cloud file storage system that lets users store information, organise it into folders and easily share content with other users, while also allowing teams to work on the same documents simultaneously.

As well as being a document repository, Google Drive has a notification service that lets users automatically receive alerts about certain activities carried out on documents in shared folders.

From the settings button, the tool offers the following events you can be notified about.

• • Recently shared items
  • Access requests
  • Comments, suggestions and tasks
  • Approvals

File edits: When someone edits a document, spreadsheet, presentation or other file shared with you, you will receive a notification about who made the edit and what changes were made.

Comments: If someone adds a comment to a file and mentions your name or replies to one of your comments, you will receive an alert so you can see it and respond quickly.

Access requests: If someone requests access to a file or folder you control, you will receive a notification to approve or deny the request.

New shared files: When someone shares a file or folder with you, you will receive a notification letting you know about the new content you now have access to.

Permission changes: If the permissions on a file or folder shared with you are modified, you will receive an alert informing you of any change in access levels.

Deletions or restorations: If a file is deleted or restored from the bin, you are likely to receive a notification, especially if you are the owner or a collaborator on that file.

But then there is DriveWatcher, which, as well as notifying you of all the actions mentioned above, provides a far more advanced service, with the aim of establishing an information-sharing flow that is much faster and more personalised.

The first thing you should know is that DriveWatcher was created to add extra benefits to Google Drive notifications, and that it is a web application that requires no migration or installation of any kind to use it: simply search for drivewatcherapp.com, in your browser, go in and you will find your Google Drive files.

It is extremely simple and intuitive. On the home screen you will find the area to configure the alert and choose the resource (folder, shared folder, file, forms, sheets and even web pages) you want to monitor. You then decide which actions to monitor.

The next step is what sets DriveWatcher apart from Google Drive notifications. This is where you can choose the frequency with which you want that Drive resource to be checked for changes to notify.

Every 10 minutes, every hour, daily or weekly.

Filters

Filters are rules you can add in DriveWatcher to make the alert far more personalised. For example:

Suppose we have a folder called “Safety protocols”, containing many important documents you need to keep track of. This folder is shared with some people in your organisation. That is why you should set up alerts to monitor any activity recorded in it.

Name: By setting the name filter, you can tell the system to notify you of any change to files whose name contains “Safety”.
Content: By enabling this filter, you will receive alerts for documents containing the text “Safety”.

Mimetype: You can tell DriveWatcher to monitor only PDFs, text documents, spreadsheets, presentations, photos or images, videos, audio files, drawings or folders.

Writers: With this option, you choose to receive alerts when a specific user with writer permission on your documents performs any monitored action. The same applies when you enable the filter for users who only have read permission (Readers).

Notifications and labels

The next extra step that DriveWatcher offers is the setting to choose who you want to notify for each alert.

You can choose to notify a single user or add as many as Google allows. You can add alerts and copy other users in, either in CC or BCC. On top of that, you can group users under labels so you do not have to add them to the notification list every time you create one.

Example labels: Viewers, commenters, contributor and content manager.

Finally, just as with Google Drive notifications, you decide whether to receive notifications in your browser, Google Chat or Gmail.

The notifications DriveWatcher sends show an activity history of everything recorded on the monitored resource. The activity history is also available from a button in the application.

Custom templates

Last but by no means least, DriveWatcher lets you configure templates with brand colours, logos and so on. Imagine notifying your clients in a personalised style, featuring their own brand identity.

Now you know the differences between these two platforms. Both are similar, with the aim of triggering alerts about what is happening in your files, but when it comes to creating more personalised alerts, DriveWatcher offers more features, such as filters, setting how often you receive alerts, creating work groups and notifying different groups. Google notifications are more general; DriveWatcher goes one step further.