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How to change Google Docs permissions in bulk

Managing your organization’s Google Apps domain can consist of managing document permissions, users and access rights, finding and securing sensitive data, transferring ownership, and controlling exposure.

When it comes to managing your Google Apps domain, ask yourself the following:

  • How many of these data management tasks are tedious and manual?
  • Which admin tasks are streamlined and repeatable?
  • Is there an audit trail of all the actions performed by admins?

CloudLock gives you the ability to perform the following operations that are secure, repeatable, and captured in a tamper-proof audit log:

  • Remove/ add collaborators
  • Remove public exposure
  • Transfer data ownership

All the above operations can be done in the following four steps:

Step #1 – Perform a keyword search for relevant documents

Using CloudLock’s exclusive keyword and meta-data search to find documents that match your criteria, including specific keywords, owners, collaborators, last access, type, and edit dates. CloudLock’s search is unique in its ability to return documents even when you are not shared on them.

Bulk Operations For Google Docs

Step #2 – Select documents

Choose some or all of the documents you would like to perform the operation on.

Step #3 – Invoke the bulk operation

Choose the operation from the actions drop down menu and specify whether you want to add collaborators, remove collaborators, or remove public sharing.

Step #4 – Perform an audit

All operations performed by CloudLock (including the operations that are done in bulk on a selection of documents) are recorded and saved in a tamper-proof audit log.

Using CloudLock’s Bulk Operations For Google Apps

Here are some examples that utilize CloudLock’s bulk operation features to streamline data management in Google Apps.
Google Apps domain administrators are often asked to add a user or users to a collection of documents, or to prevent certain users from viewing or collaborating on specific documents.

Some frequent events:

  • Role changes in the organization – in cases of new hires or a new team or project member, IT is typically asked to duplicate user permissions and grant the new user access to the documents they need.
  • Remove permissions for internal users – this is typically triggered by internal organizational changes or compartmentalization. For example, when an employee is moving to another department (ex: switching from the HR department to a position in another department)Another common case is project teams. When a project ends or when a project participant is no longer assigned to the team, her access to project documents should be removed.
  • Remove permissions for external users – when working with contractors, 3rd party vendors and partners, once the engagement or project is over, best practices suggest removing them from being shared on these documents.
Tip:
Since permissions can be assigned either via group membership (implicitly) or directly to collections and documents (explicitly), it is important to:
  1. Remove the user from the Organizational Unit he or she is no longer a member of
  2. Check that the user does not have any explicit permissions to documents he or she should no longer have access to.
  3. Use CloudLock’s bulk operations to remove all explicit permissions on the selected documents