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Use cases → Admin and governance

Control third-party app access via Google Groups

Use Google Groups membership to dynamically gate which users can access a third-party app via domain-wide delegation.

Who it is forWorkspace administrators managing delegated access for external applications.
APIsAdmin SDK
Typical scopesadmin.directory.group.member.readonly

The problem

As user access requirements change, updating individual authorisations in third-party apps is error-prone and slow. Using Groups as the source of truth lets you manage eligibility from a single place, but the synchronisation between Groups and the app is not automatic.

How it works

  1. Configure a Google Group for each access cohort.
  2. Use domain-wide delegation to let a service account read group membership via the Admin SDK.
  3. Periodically sync the group membership list into the third-party app’s user store.
  4. Remove or provision access in the third-party app based on group membership changes.

What changes

Access to the third-party app tracks group membership without manual corrections, and onboarding or offboarding is done by updating the Group.

The trap in this one. Group membership changes can take several minutes to propagate through the Directory API, especially for large groups or nested memberships. If your sync job runs immediately after a change, it may operate on stale data and grant or revoke access incorrectly. Always account for propagation lag and never trigger a sync directly off an admin change notification.

Questions people ask

Can nested group members be included?

The Admin SDK's 'get group members' call does not expand nested groups by default. You must recursively resolve group membership or use the 'includeDerivedMembership' parameter.

How often should the sync job run?

No more frequently than every 10–15 minutes for large or complex groups, to minimise the risk of acting on stale membership data.

Want this built?

This is a pattern we run in production. We will set up the delegation and build this on top of it — $500 per hour, most of it working the same day.

Talk to us Or read the setup guide

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