Simply Sharing a Link

Introduction

Egnyte is often used as a central file storage and access platform for a whole company. For many communication or project management apps just letting users share links to files in Egnyte is a great first functionality to integrate.

Customers appreciate these integrations because they don't have to leave your application's context to create the link and copy-paste it.

File Picker Service is available. You can solve this use case with close to no development work.

Use this recipe if you:

want to let your users post links to files in your apps' content
want to control authentication and file picker (if not, see File Picker Service)
don't need to have your functionality available in Egnyte UI context menus.

Ingredients

Two tablespoons of understanding: Egnyte-specific terms
Authentication
Public API File System
- list folder
Public API Links
- create link
- link settings
JS SDK Filepicker

Steps

While you can use front-end only to build this integration, you'd have to authenticate the user again every time they open the file picker. You'll get better results if you add a pinch of back-end for authentication and store the token securely on your side.

Don't store access tokens in the browser. We had developers try that before. There's a certification step at the end of development to prevent listing an integration that would attempt such things.

Implement Auth - use the Enhanced Auth Service to receive OAuth2 code and exchange it for a token.
Include JavaScript SDK
Use JS SDK Filepicker and let user choose the file. Note you can configure many options about the filepicker like single/multi selection.
When user has made the choice, take the file group_id and use it for creating a link
Decide what kind of links you want to create: Link types or what choice to give users. Feel free to consult your choices with someone at Egnyte. We know how people use various kinds of links.
Implement creating links based on group_id
Bake your integration and send it for certification.