Setting up SiteSync

Administration
1

Hi,

I am trying to get sitesync working but so far have been unable to do so. Just wondering if someone who is familiar with the topic could help out ?

Studio Setup
workstations (windows 10) with a shared mounted drive “G” . We create folders per project on G. This drive is accessible to all workstations.

Remote User / Freelancers
If an artist is remote, we cannot share our “G” drive with them. We were thinking that sitesync could help here syncing our data across.

Sync between studio drive & google drive
We have a syncing system in place which can sync between the studio drive and google drive (we have google drive for business). For each project we create a shared drive by the project name on google drive. The files being synced between the two has been verified.


* first you need to enable GDrive API: https://developers.google.com/drive/api/v3/enable-drive-api
* next you need to create user, choose **Service Account** (for basic configuration no roles for account are necessary)
* add new key for created account and download .json file with credentials
* share destination folder on the Google Drive with created account (directly in GDrive web application)
* add new site back in AYON Settings, name as you want, provider needs to be 'gdrive'
* distribute credentials file via shared mounted disk location
  • The above steps were followed.
  • The project google shared drive “ayon-test” has been added the service account.

On the project side under root we have the common folder setup

ayon-001
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Under sitesync we have the following settings. The JSON file is distributed to the remote artist and is verified in the location

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Below are the artist settings

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Observations

  • Artists working on the direct shared drive are able to work with each other (open publishes, etc)
  • The data is being synced to the shared folder on google drive (verified)
  • The remote artist is unable to access any files. They can see the database entry in the loader but next to active and Gdrive it shows 0%
    image

Thank you for the help,

2

I believe this is a TL;DR.

3

tl;dr: (most likely, but keep on reading)

  • Set both User Default * Site to studio - studio
  • Add studio as Alternative sites to gdrive-sitesync
  • It will apply only on newly published files

Can freelancer publish something to test that theirs connection to GDrive works? (They can use Publisher in Tray and just upload some image.) That file should physically appear on GDrive (and freelancer should see 100%, 100% in Loader - changing context might be necessary.)

How does Loader look like for artist in the studio? (I am guessing a bit different white icon in Active site column - with 100%, and 0% for Remote site)

I am not sure if configuration under Under sitesync we have the following settings. The JSON file is distributed to the remote artist and is verified in the location is what you want, that would force everyone, even artists in studio using GDrive, bypassing your G:\ayon_test .

(It actually tells Site Sync “Artists are using studio as their active site, eg. they are publishing to G:/ folder which is available to them because of mounted disc, AND they should upload that to gdrive-sitesync”. The issue is that synchronization is always between 2 sites, but no artist Tray is called studio, each Tray has funny looking name, mine is greedy-wig-of-exception, so no one is actually uploading it from G:/ to the cloud. Why it is working for them is just side effect of that all of them have that G:/ mounted on their machines and synchronization is provided by third party Google Drive for Desktop. I am assuming that G:/ is mounted GD disk via Google Drive for Desktop or whatever they are calling it now.)

You want defaults to be User Default Active Site - ‘studio’ and User Default Remote Site - studio AND only freelancers should be pointed to configure their Site settings as it is under Below are the artist settings that looks correct.

What you are missing is set studio as Alternative site (next in gdrive-sitesync in second screenshot, see Site Sync Admin Docs | AYON Docs).

With a combination of User Default * Site studio-studio it would mean that studio artists would publish to G:/ drive where upload to Google Drive is handled by synchronization tool provided by Google Drive for Desktop (skipping Ayon integration).
They should handle G:/ as regular shared studio drive (without Google Drive, just regular mounted NAS), Their Ayon Trays are not caring nor handling synchronization to Google Drive.

That Alternative site would mark published product to be on sites studio AND magically on gdrive-sitesync (which are actually both physically same location).

This should then show remote freelancers to have that products accessible on their Remote site (eg. 100% in that column in Loader.)

Here should be introduction to Site Sync (from Openpype, eg. differently looking Settings) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEJ3kCeggn0&ab_channel=Ynput-advanceyourcreativepipeline which could provide additional information.

I would also recommend to starting ayon_console.exe --debug which should provide more logging.

(Btw. if you have something already published and then you would set up Site Sync, it would manifest only for newly published products. I would need to provide you with some database query to bump all old published files to be also accessible on gdrive-sitesync, which they physically are, but Ayon Site Sync doesn’t now about it.)

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