R shiny read/write capability from shared drive

This isn't so much a code question as it is a question about what R shiny can or cannot do.

I am hoping to write a shiny app for use in our company. When a user opens the shiny app link and clicks a "Run" button, I would like the app to do the following:

  1. Automatically grab an updated datafile from our shared server
  2. Conduct computations (to be exported) and display results (as plots)
  3. Write new files back to the shared drive for use by another dept.

I can handle #2 just fine, but how to complete #1 and #3? I really want to avoid fileInput and export buttons. In my ideal world, the only thing a user will do is click "Run" and the code itself is set up to go get the files it needs and export them where they are supposed to go.

The problem I keep running into is that it seems the app can only access the files I send with it to the shinyapps.io server, or it requires the user to manually upload the data to be processed each time the file changes (and this is a file that can change by the hour and returns many files to be exported to the shared drive which the user won't want to manually download each session).

Tagging @cpsievert based on a previous post

did you resolve this ? I am stuck to same issue. @tullock

Check this article about "persistent data storage" in shinyapps.io there are many ways to address this issue, you have to pick one.

https://shiny.rstudio.com/articles/persistent-data-storage.html