G Suite Developers Blog

Google Apps Admin SDK: Introducing the Roles API

October 21, 2015

Posted by Rishi Dhand, Product Manager, Google Apps Admin SDK and Wesley Chun, Developer Advocate, Google AppsIn a Google Apps domain, Admin role management (i.e. create, assign, and update admin roles) is a critical function for super admins that helps them distribute admin responsibilities in a more secure manner. Until now, this functionality was only available via the Admin console UI.

This is what Role management looks like in the Admin console, but now you can also do this programmatically with the Roles API.
Today’s launch of the Roles API (one of the Admin SDK Directory APIs) enables developers to build admin tools that can perform role management programmatically.This new API will be useful to admins who have either built internal admin tools using the Admin SDK, or developers of third-party admin tools. Both can now use the Roles API to provide selective access to Delegated Admins (DAs) to specific admin capabilities within third-party applications.Here are some examples of use cases where the Roles API can be leveraged:

A third-party user management app that relies on the Admin SDK to perform various user related operations can now use the Roles API to selectively show the capabilities of User management DAs, such as creating/deleting users or resetting passwords.

A mobile device management (MDM) app developer looking to build a tool for access by Mobile Management DAs can use the Roles API to determine the privileges of the logged-in DA and selectively display MDM related admin functionality.

Admins (or admin tools) can now programmatically create reports on admin role assignments which can help super admins better manage access to DAs.

For more information and to get started, please check out the Roles API documentation. We look forward to helping more admins manage their domains in a more programmatic way so they can focus on more critical aspects of managing their corporate IT infrastructure.

Google Apps Script: An update to HtmlService

October 13, 2015

Posted by Saurabh Gupta, Product Manager, Google Apps ScriptBack in December 2014, we announced the IFRAME sandbox mode for HtmlService which has helped improve the speed of an application’s user interface (UI). It also gives users a choice of using a variety of JS libraries on the client. We have been working hard to improve IFRAME sandbox mode and have added many features since then, including: Firefox support, file uploads, top navigation support, and improved Google Picker API support. Since IFRAME sandbox provides faster UIs and has more capabilities than NATIVE and EMULATED modes, developers should only be using IFRAME sandbox mode moving forward.As of today, both EMULATED and NATIVE modes in HtmlService are deprecated. Over the next few months, we plan on sunsetting both EMULATED and NATIVE modes in stages to give you enough time to migrate your scripts.We have created a migration guide to help you with this transition. For many scripts, no changes will be needed, unless they use a small set of features described in the migration guide. The guide also describes a few potential breaking changes. It is important that you review all your scripts that use HtmlService to ensure that the switch to IFRAME sandbox mode does not cause them to fail.Here’s the timeline:In November 2015, all new scripts will default to IFRAME sandbox mode unless NATIVE mode is explicitly specified. For example, if you make a copy of an existing script, the new script will use IFRAME sandbox mode unless you have explicitly set the sandbox mode to NATIVE. In December 2015 (see sunset schedule for exact dates), EMULATED mode will be shutdown. Any scripts explicitly using EMULATED mode will default to IFRAME sandbox mode.On April 28th, 2016, all scripts will default to IFRAME sandbox unless you have explicitly specified NATIVE mode in your script. For example, if your script has not specified any mode, then it will change from using NATIVE mode to IFRAME sandbox mode. Please make sure that your UI works well in IFRAME sandbox mode.On June 30th 2016, NATIVE mode will be shutdown. All scripts explicitly using NATIVE mode will default to IFRAME sandbox mode.While deprecations may at times seem inconvenient, this staged deprecation should ease in the migration process. Our goal is to provide a modern and secure environment enabling developers to create great apps for their users with Google Apps Script.

(A day at the office) Automating YouTube stats with Google Apps Script

October 12, 2015

Originally posted on the Google Developer blog Posted by Wesley Chun, Developer Advocate, Google AppsHappy Monday! Have you ever been asked by your boss to do something simple (good) but long and tedious (bad)? Take for example, the simple task of counting up all of the YouTube views for your corporate videos and your competitors’. It doesn’t even have to be your boss. What if you and your gamer friends are competing to see whose gameplay clips are garnering the most attention? It’s easy to manually track ten videos, but how about 100 or even 1,000? While simple -- you can visit the YouTube to grab the view count for each video -- you know the real problem with a task like this is that you don’t scale with the amount of content, so it’s better to automate with a simple app instead. This is the exact scenario that my colleagues and I set out to address in the latest episode of the Launchpad Online, introducing users to a pair of Google developer tools that can help solve this particular problem:

The first developer tool covered is the YouTube Data API. You can access it like most modern Google APIs from your preferred programming environment using one of the Google APIs Client Libraries. However, this type of data generally lives in a spreadsheet, and if you’re using Google Sheets, you can instead write the app with Google Apps Script, a JavaScript environment running in Google’s cloud that, if authorized, can write that video information to the cells in your Sheet. YouTube is just one of the many supported services available to Apps Script developers.As with all my Launchpad Online episodes, I walk you through a short code snippet (only eight lines this time) that will get you started building your own custom solution. If you’re new to the developer series, we share technical content aimed at novice Google developers… current tools with a little bit of code to help you launch your next app. Please give us your feedback below and tell us what topics you would like to see in future episodes!

Google Apps: New Domain Management Features in the Admin SDK

October 5, 2015

Posted by Sushmit Goswami, Product Manager, Google Apps for Work and Wesley Chun, Developer Advocate, Google AppsTo provide developers and administrators with more fine-grained control, the Google Apps Admin SDK now includes new domain management features. These new APIs let you programmatically manage domains for your Google Apps account, similar to other RESTful resources like Users, Groups, etc., providing a superset of the domain management capabilities available on the Domains page in the admin console today. Change your primary domainThe Customers API gives enterprise developers and administrators the ability to swap the current primary domain with a selected secondary domain for a Google Apps installation. The “change primary” operation is essentially transparent to the user, but users moved to the secondary domain will be subject to certain restrictions (refer to Help Center article for details). Customers who want to rebrand their business with a new primary domain can follow this up by renaming users from the old (now secondary) to the new (now primary) domain using the Users API. Add and remove domains & aliasesThe Domains API lets developers create tools for administrators to add and remove domains, similar to the functionality available on the Domains page in the admin console. In addition, the API lets you programmatically add aliases for any domain, primary or secondary, but aliases for secondary domain can only be added via the API.