Collaboration in AP Harvester

AP Harvester is a collaborative data collection project built to help newsrooms carry out data collection projects. To collaborate on a project in Harvester you first have to make sure the project is shared with the correct people.

Harvester determines who has access to a project by checking who has read access to the Google Sheet that defines it. Harvester attempts to mediate direct editing of the underlying sheet, so we use read permissions to let people enter data through Harvester without allowing them to edit the sheet directly. Users with more access (for example, edit permissions) are able to enter data as well.

There are two ways you can grant access: share the sheet with a specific user, or make the sheet available to anybody with the link. If a project is readable or editable by anybody with the link then anybody who comes to your Harvester project will be allowed to enter data whether they are signed in or not. If a project is not readable by anybody with the link then the project will only be available to users with whom the project has been explicitly shared.

Note that this access restriction is only available if you enabled authentication by setting up Google OAuth and configuring it when you set up your Harvester; otherwise all of your Harvester projects will be openly available.