Integrating users' Dropbox files within my SaaS

[DeanPerry]

Hi all

Long time Dropbox user, but new to Dropbox integration and the possibilities therein.

My company is creating a SaaS platform for catalog and product management. I would like users to be able to share their (selected) Dropbox content with us (in particular images in a specific folder) to enable us to complete various aspects of our workflow.

We would need to copy these images to our (PHP/Laravel) server and then run various scripts/conversions to output the images for our WordPress integration and to create different types of catalog content.

I don't yet understand the best way for us to gain authorization to access a folder within a user/company's Dropbox account and monitor this on a very regular basis. Dealing with file changes (additions, updates, deletes) is a huge part of the catalog workflow process.

I would be very grateful if a suitably experienced user herein could share with me how this should work according to best-practice techniques supported/approved by Dropbox.

I'd prefer that a user doesn't have to reauthenticate every 72 hours or have other stumbling blocks to having a great information management workflow.

Any tips gratefully received 🙂

[Greg-DB]

Thanks for reaching out! Dropbox does offer an API you can use for listing, uploading, and downloading files, among other operations. You can find everything you need to get started with the Dropbox API, including documentation, tutorials, and SDKs here:

https://www.dropbox.com/developers

To get familiar with the API, I recommend reviewing the Getting Started Guide:

https://www.dropbox.com/developers/reference/getting-started

For an overview of how the authorization process works, I check out the OAuth Guide:

https://www.dropbox.com/developers/reference/oauth-guide

The result of the authorization process is an access token that doesn't expire by default.

And for information on how to find files and stay up to date, check out the Content Access Guide:

https://www.dropbox.com/developers/reference/content-access-guide

Hope this helps, and let us know if you have any questions.