SFU Surge: Check-in Server

Node.js and Express web backend server to receive and process event check-ins.

Usage

Google Sheets

Follow these instructions to create a new Google Cloud Platform project and enable the Google Sheets API.

Download the Client JSON file and rename it to credentials.json. Place it in this directory (it will be ignored by Git).

Server

Start the server with one of the following commands:

npm start

node app.js

Google will guide you through a process to authenticate the server. This will only occur the first time.

Sending a Request

The official API specification is located here.

To send a request using a shell script, see the sample scripts here.

Deployment (Heroku)

After creating the Google Cloud Platform project in Setup above, create a new set of credentials for the Service Account. Download the secret file and keep it safe.

Create a Heroku application with whichever method you prefer. In your deployment environment, set the following environment variables using values from the secret file:

Environment Variable	Value from Service Account Credentials
GOOGLE_CLIENT_EMAIL	client_email
GOOGLE_PRIVATE_KEY	private_key

Ensure that the client email has access to the Sheet; share access to it manually if necessary.