Google Drive connector V2.0 - Amazon Kendra
Supported featuresPrerequisitesConnection instructionsNotes

Google Drive connector V2.0

Google Drive is a cloud-based file storage service. You can use Amazon Kendra to index documents and comments stored in shared drives, My Drives, and Shared with me folders in your Google Drive data source. You can index Google Workspace documents, as well as documents listed in Types of documentation. You can also use inclusion and exclusion filters to index content by file name, file type, and file path.

Note

Google Drive connector V1.0 / Google DriveConfiguration API ended in 2023. We recommend migrating to or using Google Drive connector V2.0 / TemplateConfiguration API.

For troubleshooting your Amazon Kendra Google Drive data source connector, see Troubleshooting data sources.

Supported features

  • Field mappings

  • User access control

  • Inclusion/exclusion filters

  • Full and incremental content syncs

  • Virtual private cloud (VPC)

Prerequisites

Before you can use Amazon Kendra to index your Google Drive data source, make these changes in your Google Drive and AWS accounts.

In Google Drive, make sure you have:

  • Either been granted access by a super admin role or are a user with administrative privileges. You do not need a super admin role for yourself if you have been granted access by a super admin role.

  • Configured Google Drive Service Account connection credentials containing your admin account email, client email (service account email), and private key. See Google Cloud documentation on creating and deleting service account keys.

    Note

    We recommend that you regularly refresh or rotate your credentials and secret. Provide only the necessary access level for your own security. We do not recommend that you re-use credentials and secrets across data sources, and connector versions 1.0 and 2.0 (where applicable).

  • Created a Google Cloud Service Account (an account with delegated authority to assume a user identity) with Enable G Suite Domain-wide Delegation activated for server-to-server authentication, and then generated a JSON private key using the account.

    Note

    The private key should be generated after the creation of the service account.

  • Added Admin SDK API and Google Drive API in your user account.

  • Optional: Configured Google Drive OAuth 2.0 connection credentials containing client ID, client secret, and refresh token as connection credentials for a specific user. You need this to crawl individual account data. See Google documentation on using OAuth 2.0 to access APIs.

  • Added (or asked a user with a super admin role to add) the following OAuth scopes to your service account using a super admin role. These API scopes are needed to crawl all documents, and access control (ACL) information for all users in a Google Workspace domain:

    • https://www.googleapis.com/auth/drive.readonly—View and download all your Google Drive files

    • https://www.googleapis.com/auth/drive.metadata.readonly—View metadata for files in your Google Drive

    • https://www.googleapis.com/auth/admin.directory.group.readonly—Scope for only retrieving group, group alias, and member information. This is needed for the Amazon Kendra Identity Crawler.

    • https://www.googleapis.com/auth/admin.directory.user.readonly—Scope for only retrieving users or user aliases. This is needed for listing users in the Amazon Kendra Identity Crawler and for setting ACLs.

    • https://www.googleapis.com/auth/cloud-platform—Scope for generating access token for fetching content of large Google Drive files.

    • https://www.googleapis.com/auth/forms.body.readonly—Scope for fetching data from Google Forms.

    To support the Forms API, add the following additonal scope:

    • https://www.googleapis.com/auth/forms.body.readonly

  • Checked each document is unique in Google Drive and across other data sources you plan to use for the same index. Each data source that you want to use for an index must not contain the same document across the data sources. Document IDs are global to an index and must be unique per index.

In your AWS account, make sure you have:

  • Created an Amazon Kendra index and, if using the API, noted the index ID.

  • Created an IAM role for your data source and, if using the API, noted the ARN of the IAM role.

    Note

    If you change your authentication type and credentials, you must update your IAM role to access the correct AWS Secrets Manager secret ID.

  • Stored your Google Drive authentication credentials in an AWS Secrets Manager secret and, if using the API, noted the ARN of the secret.

    Note

    We recommend that you regularly refresh or rotate your credentials and secret. Provide only the necessary access level for your own security. We do not recommend that you re-use credentials and secrets across data sources, and connector versions 1.0 and 2.0 (where applicable).

If you don’t have an existing IAM role or secret, you can use the console to create a new IAM role and Secrets Manager secret when you connect your Google Drive data source to Amazon Kendra. If you are using the API, you must provide the ARN of an existing IAM role and Secrets Manager secret, and an index ID.

Connection instructions

To connect Amazon Kendra to your Google Drive data source, you must provide the necessary details of your Google Drive data source so that Amazon Kendra can access your data. If you have not yet configured Google Drive for Amazon Kendra see Prerequisites.

Console

To connect Amazon Kendra to Google Drive

  1. Sign in to the AWS Management Console and open the Amazon Kendra console.

  2. From the left navigation pane, choose Indexes and then choose the index you want to use from the list of indexes.

    Note

    You can choose to configure or edit your User access control settings under Index settings.

  3. On the Getting started page, choose Add data source.

  4. On the Add data source page, choose Google Drive connector, and then choose Add connector. If using version 2 (if applicable), choose Google Drive connector with the "V2.0" tag.

  5. On the Specify data source details page, enter the following information:

    1. In Name and description, for Data source name—Enter a name for your data source. You can include hyphens but not spaces.

    2. (Optional) Description—Enter an optional description for your data source.

    3. In Default language—Choose a language to filter your documents for the index. Unless you specify otherwise, the language defaults to English. Language specified in the document metadata overrides the selected language.

    4. In Tags, for Add new tag—Include optional tags to search and filter your resources or track your AWS costs.

    5. Choose Next.

  6. On the Define access and security page, enter the following information:

    1. Authorization—Turn on or off access control list (ACL) information for your documents, if you have an ACL and want to use it for access control. The ACL specifies which documents that users and groups can access. The ACL information is used to filter search results based on the user or their group access to documents. For more information, see User context filtering.

    2. For Authentication—Choose between Google service account and OAuth 2.0 authentication based on your use case.

    3. AWS Secrets Manager secret—Choose an existing secret, or create a new Secrets Manager secret to store your Google Drive authentication credentials. If you choose to create a new secret an AWS Secrets Manager secret window opens.

      1. If you chose Google service account, enter a name for your secret, the email ID of the admin user or "Service Account User" in your service account configuration (admin email), the email ID of the service account (client email), and the private key that you created in your service account.

        Save and add your secret

      2. If you chose OAuth 2.0 authentication, enter a name for your secret, client ID, client secret, and refresh token that you created in your OAuth account. The user mail id (user whose connection details are configured) will be set as ACL. The connector doesn't set other user/group principal info as ACL due to API limitations.

        Save and add your secret.

    4. Virtual Private Cloud (VPC)—You can choose to use a VPC. If so, you must add Subnets and VPC security groups.

    5. (For Google service account authentication users only)

      Identity crawler—Specify whether to turn on Amazon Kendra’s identity crawler. The identity crawler uses the access control list (ACL) information for your documents to filter search results based on the user or their group access to documents. If you have an ACL for your documents and choose to use your ACL, you can then also choose to turn on Amazon Kendra’s identity crawler to configure user context filtering of search results. Otherwise, if identity crawler is turned off, all documents can be publicly searched. If you want to use access control for your documents and identity crawler is turned off, you can alternatively use the PutPrincipalMapping API to upload user and group access information for user context filtering.

    6. IAM role—Choose an existing IAM role or create a new IAM role to access your repository credentials and index content.

      Note

      IAM roles used for indexes cannot be used for data sources. If you are unsure if an existing role is used for an index or FAQ, choose Create a new role to avoid errors.

    7. Choose Next.

  7. On the Configure sync settings page, enter the following information:

    1. Sync contents—Select which options or the content that you want to crawl. You can choose to crawl My Drive (personal folders), Shared Drive (folders shared with you), or both. You can also include file comments.

    2. In Additional configuration - optional You can also enter the following optional information:

      1. Maximum file size—Set the maximum size limit in MBs of files to crawl.

      2. User email—Add user emails that you want to include or exclude.

      3. Shared drives—Add the shared drive names that you want to include or exclude.

      4. Mime types—Add MIME types that you want to include or exclude.

      5. Entity regex patterns—Add regular expression patterns to include or exclude certain attachments for all supported entities. You can add up to 100 patterns.

        You can configure include/exclude regex patterns for File name, File type, and File path.

        • File name – The name of the file to include or exclude. For example, to index a file with name teamroster.txt, provide teamroster.

        • File type – The type of the file to include or exclude. For example, .pdf .txt .docx.

        • File path – The path of the file to include or exclude. For example, to index files only inside the folder Products list of a drive, provide /Products list.

    3. Sync mode—Choose how you want to update your index when your data source content changes. When you sync your data source with Amazon Kendra for the first time, all content is crawled and indexed by default. You must run a full sync of your data if your initial sync failed, even if you don't choose full sync as your sync mode option.

      • Full sync: Freshly index all content, replacing existing content each time your data source syncs with your index.

      • New, modified sync: Index only new and modified content each time your data source syncs with your index. Amazon Kendra can use your data source's mechanism for tracking content changes and index content that changed since the last sync.

      • New, modified, deleted sync: Index only new, modified, and deleted content each time your data source syncs with your index. Amazon Kendra can use your data source's mechanism for tracking content changes and index content that changed since the last sync.

      Important

      Google Drive API does not support retrieving comments from a permanently deleted file. Comments from trashed files are retrievable. When a file is trashed, the connector will delete comments from the Amazon Kendra index.

    4. In Sync run schedule, for Frequency—choose how often to sync your data source content and update your index.

    5. In Sync run history, choose to store auto-generated reports in an Amazon S3 when syncing your data source. This is useful for tracking issues when sycning your data source.

    6. Choose Next.

  8. On the Set field mappings page, enter the following information:

    1. For Files—Select from the Amazon Kendra generated default data source fields that you want to map to your index.

      Note

      Google Drive API does not support creating custom fields. Custom field mapping is not available for the Google Drive connector.

    2. Choose Next.

  9. On the Review and create page, check that the information you have entered is correct and then select Add data source. You can also choose to edit your information from this page. Your data source will appear on the Data sources page after the data source has been added successfully.

API

To connect Amazon Kendra to Google Drive

You must specify a JSON of the data source schema using the TemplateConfiguration API. You must provide the following information:

  • Data source—Specify the data source type as GOOGLEDRIVEV2 when you use the TemplateConfiguration JSON schema. Also specify the data source as TEMPLATE when you call the CreateDataSource API.

  • Authentication type—Specify whether to use service account authentication or OAuth 2.0 authentication.

  • Sync mode—Specify how Amazon Kendra should update your index when your data source content changes. When you sync your data source with Amazon Kendra for the first time, all content is crawled and indexed by default. You must run a full sync of your data if your initial sync failed, even if you don't choose full sync as your sync mode option. You can choose between:

    • FORCED_FULL_CRAWL to freshly index all content, replacing existing content each time your data source syncs with your index.

    • FULL_CRAWL to index only new, modified, and deleted content each time your data source syncs with your index. Amazon Kendra can use your data source’s mechanism for tracking content changes and index content that changed since the last sync.

    • CHANGE_LOG to index only new and modified content each time your data source syncs with your index. Amazon Kendra can use your data source’s mechanism for tracking content changes and index content that changed since the last sync.

    Important

    Google Drive API does not support retrieving comments from a permanently deleted file. Comments from trashed files are retrievable. When a file is trashed, the connector will delete comments from the Amazon Kendra index.

  • Secret Amazon Resource Name (ARN)—Provide the Amazon Resource Name (ARN) of a Secrets Manager secret that contains the authentication credentials you created in your Google Drive account. If you use Google service account authentication, the secret is stored in a JSON structure with the following keys: 

    {
    "clientEmail": "user account email",
    "adminAccountEmail": "service account email",
    "privateKey": "private key"
}

    If you use OAuth 2.0 authentication, the secret is stored in a JSON structure with the following keys:

    {
    "clientID": "OAuth client ID",
    "clientSecret": "client secret",
    "refreshToken": "refresh token"
}

  • IAM role—Specify RoleArn when you call CreateDataSource to provide an IAM role with permissions to access your Secrets Manager secret and to call the required public APIs for the Google Drive connector and Amazon Kendra. For more information, see IAM roles for Google Drive data sources.

You can also add the following optional features:

  • Virtual Private Cloud (VPC)—Specify VpcConfiguration when you call CreateDataSource. For more information, see Configuring Amazon Kendra to use an Amazon VPC.

  • My Drives, Shared Drives, Comments—You can specify whether to crawl these types of content.

  • Inclusion and exclusion filters—You can specify whether to include or exclude certain user accounts, shared drives, and MIME types.

    Note

    Most data sources use regular expression patterns, which are inclusion or exclusion patterns referred to as filters. If you specify an inclusion filter, only content that matches the inclusion filter is indexed. Any document that doesn’t match the inclusion filter isn’t indexed. If you specify an inclusion and exclusion filter, documents that match the exclusion filter are not indexed, even if they match the inclusion filter.

  • Access control list (ACL)—Specify whether to crawl ACL information for your documents, if you have an ACL and want to use it for access control. The ACL specifies which documents that users and groups can access. The ACL information is used to filter search results based on the user or their group access to documents. For more information, see User context filtering.

  • Identity crawler—Specify whether to turn on Amazon Kendra’s identity crawler. The identity crawler uses the access control list (ACL) information for your documents to filter search results based on the user or their group access to documents. If you have an ACL for your documents and choose to use your ACL, you can then also choose to turn on Amazon Kendra’s identity crawler to configure user context filtering of search results. Otherwise, if identity crawler is turned off, all documents can be publicly searched. If you want to use access control for your documents and identity crawler is turned off, you can alternatively use the PutPrincipalMapping API to upload user and group access information for user context filtering.

  • Field mappings—Choose to map your Google Drive data source fields to your Amazon Kendra index fields. For more information, see Mapping data source fields.

    Note

    The document body field or the document body equivalent for your documents is required in order for Amazon Kendra to search your documents. You must map your document body field name in your data source to the index field name _document_body. All other fields are optional.

For a list of other important JSON keys to configure, see Google Drive template schema.

Notes

  • Custom field mapping is not available for Google Drive connector as the Google Drive UI does not support creating custom fields.

  • Google Drive API does not support retrieving comments from a permamently deleted file. Comments are retrievable, however, for trashed files. When a file is trashed, the Amazon Kendra connector will delete comments from the Amazon Kendra index.

  • Google Drive API does not return comments present in a .docx file.

  • If permission for a particular Google document (document, spreadsheet, slide, etc) is set to General access: Anyone with the link or Shared to your specific company domain, the document will not be visible to Amazon Kendra search users until the user making the query has accessed the document.