Dropbox gave developers another toy today, unveiling a new API to go with a new “groups” feature it has just formally introduced into its Dropbox for Business service.
The groups feature allows users to create of lists of users that get access to a set of files. Dropbox insists this makes for more efficient sharing with coworkers and is “especially great” with training new employees. It explains the feature this way:
Using groups, you can create and manage lists of members to share information directly with the group instead of adding each person individually. Any new member you add to a group will be automatically added to all shared folders that the group has been invited to. You can also manage the entire group’s permissions to what you’re sharing by granting editing or view-only access.
Dropbox said the groups feature was the function most requested by business customers. It’s been in beta testing since November, when over 12,000 customers signed up for early access.
The groups API lets developers build the feature into their applications. Several Dropbox partners like CloudLock, Bitium, and Okta—which offer various combinations of security and user-identity management services—got early access to the API so as to extend their security options to ad-hoc groups of users.
It wasn’t entirely clear what other features developers might implement using the groups API.
Photo by Joris Louwes
