Box

Owned by Andrea Harvey
Last updated: Oct 02, 2024
8 min read

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Overview

The Box connector in DryvIQ allows you to analyze, migrate, copy, and synchronize files to your Box account from cloud storage repositories and on-premise network file shares. The first step is to create the Box connection by providing the connection information required for DryvIQ to connect to the server. The connector can be created using a standard Box account or a Box Service Account.

 Please refer to Box Service Account for information regarding how to create a Box Service Account connection.

 

Even though simulation mode doesn’t move data, Box will identify activity on accounts during simulation mode. Therefore, your Box administrator should turn off Box security notifications when Box is the source connector on copy jobs or when Box is used in sync jobs. This prevents users from getting security notifications about activity on their accounts.

 

Creating a Connection

  1. Expand the Manage section in the left navigation menu.

  2. Click Connections.

  3. Click Add connection.

  4. Select Box as the platform on the Add connection modal.

  5. Enter the connection information. Reference the table below for details about each field.

  6. Click Sign in with Box.

  7. On the Box Customer Log In modal, enter the Email Address and Password required to log in to the Box account and click Authorize. 

  8. Click Grant access to Box when prompted to authorize the connection.

  9. You will see a green "Connected” message on the bottom of the modal when DryvIQ establishes connection. (If the connection fails, verify the information you entered.)

  10. Click Done to finish creating the connection. 

 

Add Connection Modal for Box

Field

Description

Required

Field

Description

Required

Display as

Enter the display name for the connection. If you will be creating multiple connections, ensure the name readily identifies the connection. The name displays in the application, and you can use it to search for the connection and filter lists.

If you do not add a display name, the connection will automatically be named using the account owner's name. For example, Box (John Doe). If it will be useful for you to reference the connection by account, you should use the default name. 

Optional

User type

Required

Connect as standard user

Select this option to create a standard connection to access a user's files and folders. This is the default selection.



Connect as account administrator

Select this option to create an administrator connection. This requires administrator privileges and grants access to all accounts within the organization. This option is often used along with impersonation to simplify transferring multiple user accounts. When connected as an administrator, the first level of folders will be user names.



Platform API client credentials

Required

Use the system default client credentials 

Select this option to use the default DryvIQ client application.



Use custom client credentials 

Select this option to use custom client credentials provided by your administrator. When selected, two additional fields will be available to enter the credentials. Your administrator can use the information provided in the following link to obtain the credentials: Box Documentation - Setting up a JWT app.



Client ID 

This field displays only when you select Use custom client credentials. This value will be provided by your administrator. Your administrator can use the information provided in the following link to obtain the credentials: Box Documentation - Setting up a JWT app.

Optional

Client Secret 

This field displays only when you select Use custom client credentials. This value will be provided by your administrator. Your administrator can use the information provided in the following link to obtain the credentials: Box Documentation - Setting up a JWT app.

Optional

Behavior When Deleting Items

Select the type of delete DryvIQ should perform when deleting items: Permanent or Soft. Soft delete is the default delete behavior; however, Permanent is the recommended behavior.

A soft delete marks items as a deleted. You can still access them to restore or permanently delete the items.

A permanent delete removes the items. This delete is not reversible.

Optional


Box Customer Log In 

 


Grant Access to Box 

Features and Limitations 

Platforms all have unique features and limitations. DryvIQ’s transfer engine manages these differences between platforms and allows you to configure actions based on Job Policies and Behaviors. Use the Platform Comparison tool to see how your integration platforms may interact regarding features and limitations. 

Supported Features  

Unsupported Features  

Other Features/Limitations  

Supported Features  

Unsupported Features  

Other Features/Limitations  

Version preservation

Restricted types

Invalid characters: \  /  

Timestamp preservation

 

File size maximum: Varies
(See below.)

Author/Owner preservation

 

Path length maximum: n/a

File lock propagation

 

Segment path length: 255

Mirror lock ownership

 

No leading spaces in file name/folder names

Account map

 

No trailing spaces in folder names, file names, or file extensions

Group map



No non-printable characters
Any non-printable ASCII characters will not be filtered by DryvIQ.

Permission preservation



Box has download limitations for the number of folders and files contained in one folder. Please consult Box documentation for further details.

User impersonation



Box accounts that do not have administrator-level access cannot remove group permissions on files during a job transfer.

Metadata map



Google document types natively created on Box can be moved and will maintain formatting. However, they will have the native Google file extensions (.gdoc, .gsheet, etc.).

Tags map



The maximum tag size in Box is 255 characters. You can enter more characters than the maximum, but Box will truncate it down to 255 characters.

Account Map

DryvIQ will use an account’s email address as its username so the account can be automatically mapped when selecting “map by username” during account map creation.

Box Comments

DryvIQ does not support transferring Box comments from folders and files. 

Box Notes

DryvIQ offers the option to convert Box Notes when migrating to other platforms. The Allow Rendition option can be enabled on the Behaviors page when creating a new job.  

  • When enabled, Box Notes will be transferred to the destination as .docx files.

  • When disabled, Box Notes will be transferred to the destination in .JSON format.

Job Behavior

The job will handle Box Notes in the following way to ensure job performance.

  • The first job run will pick up all box notes.

  • Delta job runs use Box native event detection to identify changes. Since Box doesn’t support native event detection for Box Notes, Box Notes files will be ignored. There may be exceptions where Box reports changes to Box Notes. When this occurs, the job will pick up the changes.

  • If you want to migrate updated Box Notes, you will need to perform a soft reset on the job. The job will perform a full crawl of the content, which will migrate the updated Box Notes. This is recommended at the end of a job to ensure all Box Notes updates are transferred.

Supported Box Notes Features

  • Heading 1

  • Heading 2

  • Heading 3

  • Body

  • Bold

  • Italics

  • Underline

  • Strikethrough

  • Font Sizes 9 thru 21

  • Text Color

  • Text Highlight

  • Alight Left, Center, Right and Justify

  • Check list

  • Bullet list

  • Numbered List

  • Uploaded image from computer

  • Image via Box link

  • Table

  • Divider Line

  • Code Block

  • Block Quote

 

Unsupported Box Notes Features

  • Preview image via link. Preview images are not supported when converting Box Notes to .docx files since there is not enough information available for DryvIQ to download the image.

  • Call Out

  • Table of Contents

  • Edits to the .docx file on the destination are not transferred to the original Box Note on the source for sync jobs.

Character Sanitization 

DryvIQ will sanitize file names that contain combined Unicode characters by replacing the characters with an underscore (_).

File Size Limits 

The maximum file size limit for uploads to Box can be between 250 MB to 150 GB depending on your Box account. There is no maximum file size limit coded with DryvIQ. Instead, DryvIQ will evaluate the user profile and retrieve the max_upload_size parameter when the Box connection is created. DryvIQ will respect the limit provided as the maximum file size for this connection. See Box's Understand the Maximum File Size You Can Upload to Box support document for more information. 

Folder Size Limits

Box limits folder contents to 15,000 files, but recommended no more than 10,000 files to ensure performance. DryvIQ follows the 10,000 file limit per folder. If a folder has more than 10,000 items, DryvIQ will flag it with the error, “The path exceeds the maximum number of 10,000 children.” Refer to the Box Support forum for more information about Box subfolder limits.

Group Maps 

When creating a group map where Box is the destination, you must provide the Box ID in order for the map to work.

Invalid Characters and Spaces 

DryvIQ verifies file and folder names to identify unsupported characters based on the platform. It then replaces invalid characters with an underscore (_) so the files and folders can be transferred. 

The logic includes leading and trailing spaces in file and folder names. DryvIQ replaces the space rather than trimming it because trimming the space could cause duplicate file names. Adding the underscore ensures the name remains unique.

Link Format for Link Remediation

When remediating links from Box, only links in the following format are supported:
<https://<tenant>>.app.box.com/file/<platform id>
<https://<tenant>>.app.box.com/folder/<platform id>
<https://<tenant>>.app.box.com/integrations/officeonline/openOfficeOnline?fileId=<platform Id>&sharedAccessCode=

Owner Permissions

DryvIQ doesn’t expose owner permissions when migrating from Box. When the account running the job is the owner of the content but the user map between that account and the destination account don’t match, DryvIQ won’t grant privileges to the audit trail creator, so the owner will not be able to access the content.

Path Lengths 

Box does not impose restrictions for the total path length.

Segment path lengths are limited to 255 character. Segments are delimited by a forward slash (/). For example, <max 255 characters>/<max 255 characters>.

Server System Clock

Your Box connection from DryvIQ will fail to make a successful connection if the DryvIQ server system clock time is ahead of the Box platform time because the access token will be expired by the time it is returned from Box. Therefore, you must ensure the time on the server running DryvIQ is set to the same time as the Box platform or, preferably, a minute or two behind.

The Box platform uses UNIX time; you can find the UNIX timestamp by visiting https://www.unixtimestamp.com/. Enter the current UTC time of the DryvIQ server on this site to get the UNIX time of Box and the application server.   

You can find the current UTC time by doing a simple Internet search for "current UTC time" or by visiting timeanddate.com.


UNIX Timestamp Converter

Shared Links

When transferring from Box, DryvIQ will filter out links shared to specific users and log an entry in the audit log that the shared links were not preserved due to the global sharing policy.

Version Preservation 

Each Box account type is limited to the maximum number of file versions that can be accessed. This means that while the UI shows as many versions as you upload, you can only access a certain number of versions. In addition to the default version maximum, account administrators can set the maximum number of file versions to save and track for the account. Both the default file version maximum and any custom version settings added to the Box account affect version transfers. Please refer to Box’s version history documentation to understand the version limitations of your account.

DryvIQ Platform Version: 5.9.2
Release Date: December 17, 2024