Dropbox - Amazon Kendra
Supported featuresPrerequisitesConnection instructionsLearn more

Dropbox

Dropbox is a file hosting service that offers cloud storage, document organization, and document templating services. If you are a Dropbox user, you can use Amazon Kendra to index your Dropbox files, Dropbox Paper, Dropbox Paper Templates, and stored shortcuts to web pages. You can also configure Amazon Kendra to index specific Dropbox files, Dropbox Paper, Dropbox Paper Templates, and stored shortcuts to web pages.

Amazon Kendra supports both Dropbox and Dropbox Advanced for Dropbox Business.

You can connect Amazon Kendra to your Dropbox data source using the Amazon Kendra console and the TemplateConfiguration API.

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

Supported features

Amazon Kendra Dropbox data source connector supports the following features:

  • Change log

  • Field mappings

  • User context filtering

  • Inclusion/exclusion filters

  • Virtual private cloud (VPC)

Prerequisites

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

In Dropbox, make sure you have:

  • Created a Dropbox Advanced account and set up an admin user.

  • Created a Dropbox app with a unique App name, activated Scoped Access. See Dropbox documentation on creating an app.

  • Activated Full Dropbox permissions on the Dropbox console and added the following permissions:

    • files.content.read

    • files.metadata.read

    • sharing.read

    • file_requests.read

    • groups.read

    • team_info.read

    • team_data.content.read

  • Noted your Dropbox app key, Dropbox app secret, and Dropbox access token for basic authentication credentials.

  • Generated and copied a temporary Oauth 2.0 access token for your Dropbox app. This token is temporary and expires after 4 hours. See Dropbox documentation on OAuth authentication.

    Note

    It is recommended that you create a Dropbox refresh access token that never expires, rather that relying on a one-time access token that expires after 4 hours. A refresh access token is permanent and never expires so that you can continue to sync your data source in the future.

  • Recommended: Configured a Dropbox permanent refresh token that never expires to allow Amazon Kendra to continue to sync your data source without any disruptions. See Dropbox documentation on refresh tokens.

  • Checked each document is unique in Dropbox 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 Dropbox 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 Dropbox 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 Dropbox data source, you must provide the necessary details of your Dropbox data source so that Amazon Kendra can access your data. If you have not yet configured Dropbox for Amazon Kendra, see Prerequisites.

Console

To connect Amazon Kendra to Dropbox

  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 Dropbox connector, and then choose Add data source.

  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 Language, for Default language—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—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. Type of authentication token—Choose between Permanent Token (recommended) and Access Token (temporary use) based on your use case.

    2. AWS Secrets Manager secret—Choose an existing secret or create a new Secrets Manager secret to store your Dropbox authentication credentials. If you choose to create a new secret an AWS Secrets Manager secret window opens.

      1. Enter following information in the Create an AWS Secrets Manager secret window:

        1. Secret name—A name for your secret. The prefix ‘AmazonKendra-Dropbox-’ is automatically added to your secret name.

        2. For App key, App secret, and token information (permanent or temporary)—Enter the authentication credential values you generated from your Dropbox account.

      2. Choose Save.

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

    4. 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.

    5. Choose Next.

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

    1. For Select entities or content types—Choose entities or content types you want to crawl.

    2. Change log mode—Choose to update your index instead of syncing all files.

    3. In Additional configuration for Regex patterns—Add regular expression patterns to include or exclude certain files.

    4. In Sync run schedule, for Frequency— Choose how often Amazon Kendra will sync with your data source.

    5. Choose Next.

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

    1. Files, Dropbox Paper, and Dropbox Paper templates—Select from the Amazon Kendra generated default data source fields you want to map to your index.

    2. Add field—To add custom data source fields to create an index field name to map to and the field data type.

    3. 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 Dropbox

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

  • Data source—You must specify the data source as DROPBOX.

  • Type—Specify TEMPLATE as the Type when you call CreateDataSource.

  • Secret Amazon Resource Name (ARN)—Provide the Amazon Resource Name (ARN) of a Secrets Manager secret that contains the authentication credentials for your Dropbox account. The secret is stored in a JSON structure with the following keys:

    {
    "appKey": "Dropbox app key",
    "appSecret": "Dropbox app secret",
    "accesstoken": "temporary access token or refresh access token"
}
    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).

  • 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 Dropbox connector and Amazon Kendra. For more information, see IAM roles for Dropbox 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.

  • Change log—Whether Amazon Kendra should use the Dropbox data source change log mechanism to determine if a document must be added, updated, or deleted in the index.

    Note

    Use the change log if you don’t want Amazon Kendra to scan all of the documents. If your change log is large, it might take Amazon Kendra less time to scan the documents in the Dropbox data source than to process the change log. If you are syncing your Dropbox data source with your index for the first time, all documents are scanned.

  • Inclusion and exclusion filters—Specify whether to include or exclude certain files.

    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.

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

  • User context filtering—Amazon Kendra crawls the access control list (ACL) for your data source by default. 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 for Dropbox data sources.

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

Learn more

To learn more about integrating Amazon Kendra with your Dropbox data source, see: