SUMMARY

Using Auto Share saves you the hassle (and potential mistakes) of sharing docs manually and dramatically reduces the amount of time those requesting access will need to wait to access docs.

You can control which documents are shared with which users and whether they should be given ‘View’ or ‘Edit’ access by creating rules.

For example, you might create a rule to automatically give ‘View’ access to any users with an ‘@example.com’ domain requesting access to spreadsheets with ‘ Example | Public’ in the title.

HOW DOES IT WORK

When Auto Share runs (each hour and whenever you manually trigger it), it will examine the unprocessed requests you have received (i.e. emails with the title ‘Share request for …’ from Google). For each, Auto Share will examine the user, the domain of that user, the type of the document and the title to see if the request matches any of the rules you have set up. 

If there is a match, Auto Share will do the following:
Mark the email as read
Give the requester access
Add labels showing the level of access granted and marking the email as processed

If there is not a match, Auto Share will do the following:
Mark the email as unread
Add labels marking the email as processed and unshared

If a request matches a rule giving Edit access and a rule giving View access then Edit access will be given.

HOW TO CREATE A RULE 

The ‘Create a New Rule’ view has six options.

Rule Name: the name used to identify the rule
User: either a specific email address to match one user or ‘*’ to match all users. For example, jo@example.com. 
Domain: either a specific domain to match only user from that domain or ‘*’ to match all domains. For example, ‘@example.com’.
Title contains: either some text which to match docs which contain that text in the title or ‘*’ to match all titles. For example, ‘ | Public’.
Document type: which document types the rule should match with.
Access Type: whether to give View access or Edit access

User and domain are case insensitive; title is case sensitive.

Remember, a doc will only be shared if the request fully matches the rule.

So if you create this rule:
Rule Name: example rule
User: jo@example.com
Domain: *
Title: Public
Document Type: Spreadsheets
Access Type: View

And this request is received:
jo@example has requested access to the Spreadsheet ‘Example’ 

Then the doc would not be shared as the doc does not have ‘Public’ in the title.


HOW TO VIEW AND REMOVE CURRENT RULES

You can view rules by selecting ‘View Rules’ from the main menu.

Each rule has a ‘Remove’ button attached.


FAQ
What if multiple rules match?
If the rules have the same access level then the doc will be shared with that access level. If they have different access levels then the higher one (i.e. Edit) will be used.

What if there is an error?
If for some reason a request cannot be processed then the email will be left unread and the label ‘auto-share-error’ will be added.

Will the app start as soon as I install it?
No, Auto Share will only process emails if at least one rule exists.

Can I stop the app without uninstalling it?
If you can remove all of the rules.

How can I see which emails were processed?
Auto Share will add labels starting with ‘Auto Share’ to all emails which are processed. For example, the label ‘auto-share-edit’ will be added if Edit access was given.