I need help with automating document permissions in Google Workspace. Right now I have to manually share spreadsheets with different people every few months when our team changes.
Here’s my situation: I maintain a main tracking spreadsheet that contains employee information and their current assignments. We also have separate project sheets that need to be shared with specific team members. When people switch projects (which happens every quarter), I have to go through each sheet individually and update the sharing permissions by adding and removing email addresses.
This process takes forever and I keep making mistakes. I’m wondering if there’s a way to use Google Apps Script to automatically update the sharing permissions on multiple Google Sheets based on email addresses stored in my main spreadsheet.
Is this something that can be done with the current Google Apps Script API? I’ve looked around but haven’t found a clear solution for bulk updating sheet permissions programmatically.
Indeed, it is possible to automate the sharing permissions for your Google Sheets using Apps Script. I have implemented a similar solution for managing project assignments. You can use DriveApp.getFileById() to access your sheets, and then apply addEditor() or addViewer() methods for permission handling. Extract email addresses from your main spreadsheet using getRange().getValues() and loop through your project sheets to update the access lists. A crucial tip is to ensure you call removeEditor() before adding new email addresses to avoid clutter in permissions. Additionally, consider incorporating error handling in your script to manage issues with invalid email addresses or access denials, especially for users who’ve left your organization. Time-based triggers can be very useful for scheduling this process automatically.
definitely doable! i’ve been doing this for about 6 months. the trick is using getAccess() first to check current permissions before making changes - saves api calls and stops duplicate sharing emails. watch out for users who’ve left the company tho. your script will crash if u don’t handle those cases.
Automating permission updates for your Google Sheets with Apps Script is indeed feasible. Based on my experience, it’s efficient to structure your main spreadsheet to include employee emails alongside their respective project assignments and desired permission levels. By utilizing methods such as getEditors() and getViewers() from the Drive API, you can retrieve current permissions and compare them with the values in your main spreadsheet. I recommend using batch operations for implementing changes to avoid hitting API rate limits, as it significantly enhances performance. Additionally, implementing logging is crucial for tracking permission updates, making it easier to diagnose issues later. The time taken for execution will depend on the number of sheets and users involved, but the upfront setup is definitely worthwhile.