Keep every file in one place with Drive

Crewtavo - Drive puts every file in Crewtavo in one place. Your company’s own papers go in folders: forms, price sheets, insurance papers. Every plan, spec and permit on a client’s property, request, quote or job shows up there too, grouped by client. You can open PDFs, Word documents and photos right in Crewtavo, mark them up and edit them, and every save is kept as a new version.

It costs nothing extra, and your files stay in your own Crewtavo.

Install it

An owner, or an admin who can connect apps, does this once.

1. Open Apps (in the menu on a computer, or under More on a phone) and choose Crewtavo - Drive, under Built into Crewtavo.
2. Click Install.

Drive shows up in the menu, after Invoices, for owners, admins, office staff and estimators. Crews don’t see Drive. They see the files marked for them on their visits (see Who sees what).

The app’s page then says Drive is on, with buttons to Open Drive, the Trash, the Storage limit and, on Railway, Where files are stored. It also says whether Import from Google Drive is set up (see below).

On Railway, Install makes a bucket first

On Railway, Drive keeps photos and files in a Railway storage bucket rather than on the storage volume. A bucket grows as it fills, so Drive never runs out of room, and it costs a tenth as much per GB. So Install first makes a bucket called files in your Railway project, using Crewtavo’s connection to Railway. Then it starts moving your photos and files into it. Drive is ready straight away, and the files keep copying in the background. Settings → Hosting, under Files storage, shows how far along they are. See Move files to a bucket for what that costs, and how Railway backs up buckets.

If Crewtavo can’t make the bucket, Drive isn’t installed. The page says what to do, with a link to Settings → Hosting. Then press Install again:

• Railway isn’t connected. Drive needs Crewtavo’s Railway connection to make the bucket. Connect it in Settings → Hosting. See Connecting Railway.
• Railway won’t let Crewtavo make the bucket. The page lists the steps to do yourself: open your project in Railway, press Create, choose Bucket, and name it files (in the region your services run in, as the page says). Then press Deploy. Railway’s Limited Trial doesn’t include buckets, so on it, choose a plan on Railway first.
• Railway said: Bad Access. Railway doesn’t let a project token make or read buckets. Choose Remove access at the bottom of Settings → Hosting, then Log in with Railway, and install Drive again.
• The bucket is made but not deployed. Open your project in Railway, check the changes waiting there, and press Deploy.
• Files are moving back to the volume. Wait until Settings → Hosting shows the move back has finished.

If your files are already in a bucket, Install doesn’t need to do anything first. With Docker, or anywhere else that isn’t Railway, files stay where your Crewtavo already keeps them.

Uninstall it

Choose Uninstall on the app’s page. Drive leaves the menu for everyone, but no files are deleted. Files stay on their clients and jobs, and your company folders come back if you install Drive again. The Trash keeps working either way.

Find your way around

Drive has these tabs:

• Company files: your company’s own folders, for anything that isn’t for a client. Choose New folder to make one, and open a folder to make folders inside it.
• Clients: every client that has files. Find a client narrows the list. Open a client to see their files grouped by property, then by the request, quote or job each file is on. Open client takes you to the client.
• Recent: files added anywhere in Crewtavo, newest first.
• Trash: everything deleted in the last 30 days. See The Trash.

To find a file, type in Search every file at the top, and the results open in a Search tab. It finds files by name, revision, notes, client or job number, and folders by name.

Under the page title, a bar shows how much of your company’s storage is used, like “4.2 GB of 45 GB used”. If you have a limit of your own, it shows that too. Owners and admins who can change settings also get a Storage settings link. See Manage storage space.

Add files

Choose Upload, or drag files onto the page. They go into the folder you’re looking at. On Recent or Search, they go into Company files. On a client, drop them on one of their properties, or choose Upload on that property’s card.

Each file can be up to 200 MB. A file goes up in small pieces, so a big plan set gets through even when the connection is slow or patchy. If the connection drops, the upload carries on where it stopped. If a file fails, add the same file again within a day and it picks up from there. (On a Crewtavo set up before October 2026, it’s within an hour.) The Stop button next to a file stops its upload.

A file you add to Company files is for the office. A file you add on a client’s property shows to the crew unless you make it office only.

Open and edit files

Click a file to open it in Crewtavo:

• PDFs: read every page and zoom in. Choose Edit to mark one up with Highlight, Text and Draw, in a choice of colors, or to fill in a PDF’s form.
• Word documents (.docx): read them, or choose Edit to change them in a Word-style editor.
• Photos and pictures: zoom in and drag to look around.
• Text files show as they are. Anything else can be downloaded with Download.

When you’re done editing, choose Save as new version. Nothing is ever written over. The edit becomes the newest version, and the one you opened stays in the file’s history. If someone else adds a newer version while you’re editing, Crewtavo doesn’t save over theirs. It says so, keeps your changes on screen, and offers Download a copy of them.

An older version, or an archived file, opens to look at only.

Versions

When a file changes, like when a contractor sends revised sheets, open the file’s ⋯ menu and choose Upload a new version. The new file becomes the current one, and saving an edit does the same.

Versions, in the same menu, lists every version, newest first, with who added it and when. Choose Open to see an old one, or download it. If a version was added by mistake, choose Move version 3 to Trash (or whichever number is newest), and the one before it becomes the current one again.

Rename changes a file’s name and its Revision, like “Rev B”. Move to folder (or Put in a folder) moves it between folders. Moving a file moves all its versions with it.

Put a file on a client’s work

A file can be on a client’s property, request, quote or job, as well as in a folder.

1. Open the file’s ⋯ menu and choose Attach to….
2. Search for a client, an address, a request, a quote or a job, or pick one from Recently opened. If you pick a client, choose Which property?.
3. Choose whether The crew can see it.
4. Choose Attach.

The file stays in its folder too. It also shows on that record’s Plans and files card (see Upload and manage plans for a job). When it’s put on a job with The crew can see it on, the crew on the job’s upcoming visits gets a notification.

A file is on one request, one quote and one job at a time, at one property. If attaching it would take it off something else, the dialog says so, like “It comes off Job #12”, and the button says Move here. On now at the top of the dialog shows where the file is, with a button to take it off each one.

Who sees what

• Owners, admins, office staff and estimators see everything in Drive.
• Crew leads and crews never open Drive. They see the current version of the files marked for the crew on the work they’re doing, like on a visit’s Plans (see Who sees what for plans).

To change whether the crew sees a file on a client’s work, open its ⋯ menu and choose Show it to the crew or Make it office only. A file on a client’s work that the crew can’t see shows an Office only tag. Files you add to Company files start as the office’s.

The Trash

Whatever someone deletes in Crewtavo goes to the Trash for 30 days, not just files from Drive. That includes plans, visit and quote photos, receipts, sub paperwork, résumés, guide covers, and equipment and ticket photos. Nobody can delete a stored file straight away by mistake.

Open it from Drive’s Trash tab, from the Drive app’s page, or by searching for “Trash”. It works whether or not Drive is installed, for everyone on your team except subcontractors.

• The office sees everything deleted from Drive. Everyone else sees what they moved there themselves. Receipts show to whoever deleted them or can see job costs. Sub paperwork only shows to office staff who manage subcontractors, and résumés only to those who manage hiring.
• Restore puts something back where it was. If where it was is gone, like a photo whose visit was deleted, the office gets a copy in Company files, under Restored files. Sub paperwork, résumés and receipts never go into Drive. When their place is gone, they get a Download button instead.
• Each item says when it was deleted, by whom, and when it Deletes on. After 30 days, it’s deleted for good overnight.
• Only the owner can delete things sooner. Delete forever is in an item’s menu. Empty Trash deletes everything at once: type empty to confirm.

Files in the Trash still take up storage space until they’re deleted for good. See Manage storage space.

Import from Google Drive

Import from Google Drive copies files from someone’s own Google Drive into Crewtavo. It’s in Drive’s header (just Import on a phone), and Import is on each property card under a client. It shows once your Crewtavo has been set up for it (see Set it up).

1. Choose Import from Google Drive. If a client has more than one property, pick which one.
2. Sign in to Google if it asks, then pick the files. You can pick up to 20 at a time.
3. The files are copied into the folder or property you started from. Each shows Copying from Google Drive… while it goes, and you can stop after the current file.

Google Docs come in as Word documents, Sheets as Excel files, Slides as PDFs and Drawings as PNG pictures. Google converts files up to 10 MB each. Your Crewtavo can only read the files you pick. It doesn’t keep your Google sign-in, and nothing of your Google account is stored.

Imported files count toward your storage like any other upload. If your storage is full, the ones that don’t fit are skipped, and Crewtavo says so.

Set it up

Whoever runs your Crewtavo does this once in Google Cloud. If you’ve set up Google sign-in for Google Calendar, use the same project and client. If not, make a project and a Web application client first, as in steps 1 to 3 of Google Calendar. You only need the Google Calendar API and its scopes for Google Calendar itself.

1. In APIs & Services → Library, turn on the Google Picker API and the Google Drive API.
2. In Google Auth Platform → Clients, open the Web application client. Under Authorized JavaScript origins, add every address people open Crewtavo at, like https://crm.yourbusiness.com, and your *.up.railway.app address if people use it. Import doesn’t need a redirect address.
3. In Data Access, add the scope https://www.googleapis.com/auth/drive.file. Google calls it non-sensitive, so there’s no security review. Publish the app under Audience, or choose Internal on Google Workspace. While it’s in Testing, only its test users can sign in.
4. In APIs & Services → Credentials, choose Create credentials → API key. Under Application restrictions, choose Websites. Add https://your-domain/* and https://docs.google.com/*, because the picker says the key is invalid without the second one. Under API restrictions, choose the Google Picker API.
5. Add the variables to Crewtavo: GOOGLE_CLIENT_ID (the client’s ID) and GOOGLE_PICKER_API_KEY (the key from step 4). Import doesn’t need the client’s secret. On Railway, add them to the crewtavo service’s Variables. With Docker, add them to .env.instance. See Optional settings.

Once they’re in, the Drive app’s page says Importing from Google Drive is ready.