In this article, we will explore Is it possible to automate Google Workspace Admin tasks? Google Workspace Admins regularly perform an array of tasks, but some of them end up feeling repetitive and time-consuming. Now, to resolve their peril, businesses can integrate automated solutions to streamline the work of their Workspace admins. Resultantly, firms end up saving time and resources that also enable them to utilize that in other areas to increase productivity.
Now, it is possible to automate Google Workspace Admin tasks. Google offers some REST APIs to automate the Admin tasks. Also, you can use third-party software like Foresight for this purpose. So, learn how to automate these tasks with Foresight and the REST APIs.
Some REST APIs to automate your Admin Console tasks
Google Admin configures several changes, data retrieval, or report generation about the users’ activity. They can perform these tasks manually from the Google Admin Console. But the processes are lengthy. Thus, Google offers some REST APIs to interact with the Admin Console programmatically to automate these tasks.
Now, what is REST API? The REST (Representational State Transfer) API helps a client send requests to retrieve some information in an application. Here, the client may be a person or a program, and the information is called a resource. The app uses a server to receive the requests from the client. After receiving the request, the server sends the resources as per the client’s requirement. Also, the client can edit and add items on the server using the REST API. But you need a little bit of programming knowledge to use the REST APIs.
- Admin Settings API
With the help of Admin Setting API, Google Admin can change the configuration of their domains in the form of Google Data API. The Admin Setting API imposes the protocol of Google Data API - Atom Publishing Protocol (AtomPub). The HTTP requests of this protocol use the RESTful (Representational Set Transfer) design approach for web services.
The Admin Setting API allows Google Admin to operate the following domain settings –
Single Sign-On (SSO) settings: The SAML-based SSO allows the end users to use the same login password for Google Workspace services and other services related to your organization. The hosted web application like Google Workspace redirects the users to the organization’s identity provider when you set up SSO for them. The identity provider authenticates users when they log in for a service. But you should provide the required information for the Google Workspace service when you configure SSO. This information is necessary for the identity provider that keeps your users’ login records and links set up for login, log-out, and password changing. The Admin Setting API enables updating and retrieving these configurations programmatically. To update these settings, Google uses your public key to verify the SSO request from your identity provider. Learn more about Generating Keys and Certificates for Google Workspace Single Sign-On Service.
Gateway and routing set up: The Gateway and routing set up allows Admin to control the email routing for their domains. It’s the same as the email routing of Admin Console’s Gmail settings. So, learn it from Email routing.
- Alert Center API
The Alert Center API allows you to manage security alerts for your domain. Google sends an alert when your domain is affected by potential security issues. These alerts include data like - name (of the alert), source (of the alert), time, and other specific data about that alert.
This API automates the retrieval of alert data and feedback for your apps. It also creates new alert feedback for the existing alerts. If a monitoring app utilizes this API, it can retrieve real-time alerts for a domain and prioritize them as per the severity of the issue. Then, it notifies the members of your OU accordingly. After getting the responses from your team, the app sends feedback depending on the alerts. But before using this API, you need to enable it and set up a new Cloud Platform project. Also, you should use a service account to access the API.
- Data Transfer API
You can transfer data from one user to another user within your domain with the help of Data Transfer API. When a user leaves your organization, you can transfer his files to another user in your domain. This API automates the process. The data transfer process requires knowing about the destination application and a DataTransfer resource to specify the source and destination users’ ID. Then, you need to initiate the data transfer process using the insert () method. Learn more from here.
- Cloud Identity API
The Cloud Identity API helps the Admin to manage and provision identity resources. The Cloud Identity manages the identity of users and groups of your organization. It’s an IdaaS (Identity as a Service) solution. With the help of this API, you can also manage identities between Google and other identity providers like Active Directory and Azure Active Directory.
Moreover, this API helps you increase control over your organization’s users' accounts. For example, members in your OU use personal accounts – Gmail accounts that you can’t control. But when you adopt the Cloud identity, you can control the access and security for these users. By using Cloud Identity, you can create Cloud Identity accounts for each user. Then, you can use IAM (Identity and Access Management) to manage Google Cloud resources access for each account.
- Reports API
The Reports API allows you to access the reports about the activities of your Google Workspace users. This API offers two types of reports - Activity reports and User reports. The activity reports enlisting the activities upon a specific Google Workspace app or service such as Google Drive. Here are some examples of Activity reports –
- Admin activity reports inform you about the administrative activities using Admin Console. Ex. You can get a list of times when admins change a user's name from the Admin Console.
- From Google Drive activity reports, you can know your domain users' activity in Drive, such as which users edit and view the Drive files.
- Login activity reports show when your domain users logged in and logged out from their accounts.
Usage reports provide data about Google Workspace events organized by your users. The Reports API also provides specific information about your users. Some examples of Usage reports are –
- The Customer usage reports provide details about apps and service activities in your Google Workspace accounts. This information contains specific data about the apps.
- You can find your account's user activities through the User's usage reports. Also, you can customize and filter out these reports to gain specific usage information.
Also, you can learn about other REST APIs from here.
Automate Google Admin mobile management tasks
Google Workspace Admin can set up rules to automate mobile device management tasks and receive security alerts. But you have to enable advanced mobile device management to set up these rules on your mobile devices. Also, you should remember that not every mobile device allows you to set up these rules. So, you should check the supported mobile devices.
How do these rules work?
You can trigger a device management rule by an event on your managed mobile device. The rule checks the conditions that you have specified after detecting an event. If these conditions become fulfilled, a mobile management action will continue.
Let's consider an example of blocking a device. You need to block a device when a user unregisters their account from the device because the account registration state changes to the unregistered form. Here, the event is the account registration state change. There are two conditions for this event – the device type is Android, and the users unregister their account. Thus, the action is blocking that device.
Also, you can set up rules for other common actions, such as – wiping, auto-approve device registration, etc., for mobile devices. So, you can use rule templates to configure common conditions and actions. Here, you can learn about some common rules –
- Blocking an account for multiple failed screens unlocks
This rule only works on Android devices. It blocks a device when more than 5 failed screen unlock attempts are performed on it. The rule prohibits the synchronization of a user's work data on that device.
- Wipe action on a suspicious event
This rule deletes corporate data from Android, iPhone, and iPad if any suspicious activity is found within them. For iPhone and iPad, wipe action happens when the Wi-Fi MAC address of the device has changed. For Android devices, the wipe action happens when serial number, Wi-Fi Mac address, IMEI number, etc.
- Automatically approve device registration
This rule allows you to automatically approve the device registrations when the users enroll the device for management. User's corporate data also syncs when they sign in to their account.
Automate Google Workspace Admin tasks with Foresight
Foresight is a reliable SaaS platform that allows Google Admin to automate their tasks without Admin Console. As an Admin, you don't need to run any automation script to automate your task with Foresight because it provides no-code automation. You need to work with some triggers and actions to create automation rules for Google Workspace tasks. Finally, you can verify the results from the Foresight logs page and Google Admin Console.
So, let's learn some automated Google Workspace Admin tasks with Foresight -
Some use cases of automating Google Admin tasks with Foresight
How to Export Google Workspace Licenses
Google Admin can automate the process of exporting their users' Google Workspace licenses with Foresight's help. To export Google Workspace licenses, you have to select the Manual Trigger. Then, you need to select the List user license assignments action. After that, you have to choose Product ID, User Primary Email, and SKU ID. Finally, create your rule, trigger it, and verify the result.
To perform this task, you need to prepare the CSV of your users’ email list. Then you should upload it on Foresight with the Data uploaded trigger. After that, you have to select the Get user info, Generate password, Reset user password, and Email action, respectively. After the remaining setups, you can verify the result through Gmail. 
2. How to Bulk Update Google Group Settings
First, you have to prepare the CSV about your group’s settings. Then, you have to upload the CSV using the Data uploaded trigger. After that, you have to select the Update group settings action. Now you have to select different settings options, such as – Group email, Group name, who can join the group, etc. Finally, you have to change the Include a custom footer setting. Then, create your rule and verify the result from Google Groups Console.
3. How To Bulk Rename Google Groups
You can export your Google Groups as a CSV file. The CSV must include group emails and new names. Then, upload it to Foresight with the Data uploaded trigger. Then, select the Rename group action. Then select Email in the Group email and Name in the New group name fields. Finally, create your rule and verify the result from the Admin Console.
Conclusion
Now you know that it’s possible to automate your Google Workspace Admin tasks easily. Automating your regular tasks reduces the cost of resources and increases your business turnover. Hence, you should try out the automated solutions from Foresight. Enable the 14-day free trial first and later upgrade the plan as you need. You may like more topics such as –
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