Use cases → Documents and Drive
Alert on sensitive document access in real time
Send immediate alerts when flagged Drive documents are accessed, leveraging delegated monitoring for high-risk files.
| Who it is for | Security and compliance teams monitoring access to confidential documents. |
|---|---|
| APIs | Drive API, Admin SDK |
| Typical scopes | drive, admin.reports.audit.readonly |
The problem
Sensitive documents in shared Drives or folders are accessed without oversight, and manual audits happen too late to contain a leak or mistake.
How it works
- Identify sensitive documents by ID and keep a reference list.
- Poll the Admin SDK Reports API for new drive.audit events related to those documents.
- Filter for access events (view, download, share) by unauthorised or unexpected users.
- Trigger an alert (email, chat, incident) with relevant context as soon as a match is found.
What changes
Security receives near real-time notifications when high-risk files are accessed, enabling immediate response or escalation.
Watch it explained
“Auto-Access & Smart Alerts in Space & Sheets:Free Apps Script with Triggers & AutoRemoval Explained!” — Outright Systems on YouTube. Third-party video, included because it covers this ground well. We are not affiliated with the channel.
Questions people ask
Can I get alerts truly in real time?
No, the Reports API is not instantaneous; expect a delay of up to several minutes. Design your workflow with this latency in mind.
How do I avoid duplicate alerts?
Persist the latest processed event ID and check against it on each poll. Be ready to deduplicate if events arrive out of order.
Want this built?
This is a pattern we run in production. We will set up the delegation and build this on top of it — $500 per hour, most of it working the same day.
Talk to us Or read the setup guideRelated use cases
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