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So what’s a Google Workspace Super Admin? A question that we get asked so often. It’s also an important question to start with when exploring your Google Workspace audit and security operations.
To start, think of your Google Workspace as a virtual business management space. You have different tools and levels of access, each requiring special administrative efforts and roles.
Naturally, you’ll need an administrative team to look after those admin tasks, right?
Well, it’s exactly the same with Google admin tasks. They can be quite overwhelming and usually require the input of more than one person to stay on top of everything in your Google domain.
That’s why such authority is usually assigned to an admin team typically composed of the Google Workspace Super Admin(s) and other Google Admin roles.
What are Google Workspace Admins?
Google Admins are privileged users who have access to the Google Admin console and Admin API: the tools used to perform administrative operations.
That level of access and authority depends on the type of each Admin role.
Before you dig further into your Google admin operations, it’s important to first understand the difference between a Google Super Admin and other Google Admin roles.
What’s a Google Workspace Super Admin?
As the word Super implies, the Google Workspace Super Admin is the top most powerful administrative role in your entire Google domain. You can think of it as the ‘leader role’ of your entire admin team.
Super Admins have access to every setting in the Google Workspace Admin Console. They can practically manage every aspect of your organization’s domain.
Super Admins also have EXCLUSIVE authority over the following:
- Creating or assigning administrator roles
- Resetting administrator passwords
- Setting up billing
- Performing license management
- Restoring deleted users
- Modifying an administrator’s settings
- Enabling or disabling contact sharing
As you can see, the Super Admin role is a crucial one. Not only do Super Admins hire other admins (creating and assigning admin roles), they also perform and control Super sensitive tasks that play a major role in protecting your Google domain from data security threats.
How many Google Workspace Super Admins do you need?
Every Google domain needs a minimum of one Super Admin, but we recommend two. That way if one is busy (or on vacation), the other can take on higher authority tasks.
P.S: Having more than two Super Admins, however, is not the best practice because of the authority level that comes with this role.
The Google Workspace Super Amin role is usually assigned to someone in the higher management line of an organization, or an IT head. That’s again because of the authority level this role entails.
Other Google Admin Roles:
So now we have the team leader (the Super Admin) and other Google admin roles of lesser authority assigned by the Super Admin.
Google has already created different pre-built admin roles based on its insight of common business tasks. However, you can always create custom Admin roles tailored to your own needs.
We believe the two most vital admin roles following the Super Admin are the Groups Admin and User Management Admin. Here’s why:
1. Groups Admin:
Google Groups improve communication and collaboration in your organization. They’re used to create mailing lists, web forums, collaborative inboxes, and to control access to documents and Google services.
Group admins have authority over Google Groups in the Google Workspace Admin Console. They can add or delete Google Groups in the Admin console, manage members and access settings within groups.
It’s very important for Group Admins to include the right people in each group, and apply the right settings so groups are secure and any sensitive data shared there is well-protected.
2. User Management Admin:
As the name suggests, user management admins control all actions for non-admin users.
This includes resetting passwords, monitoring service health, managing user accounts, service requests and onboarding and offboarding employees.
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- Gat Flow takes the pain out of repetitive user onboarding and offboarding tasks in Google Workspace. It covers everything; from welcome emails and email signatures, to pre-loading files, pre-populating contacts and much more using built workflows.
User management admins can’t delete a global admin, create other admin roles, or reset passwords for billing, global, and service admins. Only Super Admins can do that.
User management admin roles are usually assigned to members of the HR team.
Other Pre-set Google Workspace Admin Roles Created by Google:
- Help Desk Admin
- Services Admin
- Mobile Admin
- Google Voice Admin
- Reseller Admin (applies only to Google Workspace Authorized Resellers)
How Secure is Google Workspace?
Google Workspace offers incredible communication and collaboration capabilities for your business.
However, you need to fully secure your domain and learn how to harness its full resources to protect your data from things like malicious outsider threats, insider threats and human error — which can have catastrophic consequences for your business.
The Google Admin panel is a great place to start. It’s every admin’s first whisperer for early signs of trouble.
Admins should always adopt the best Google Workspace security practices and audit everything happening in their admin panel.
Checkout our Admin’s Google Drive Management Playbook for 2021 here.
Additional Google Workspace Security and Powerful Insights
Organizations also need to deploy the proper tools that offer additional layers of Google Workspace reporting and security.
That’s why Google Admins love GAT, the exclusive security and audit tool for Google Workspace.
GAT offers a suite of powerful tools that help Google domains grow safely and wisely by offering optimum Google Workspace security and detailed analysis, enabling admins to get granular, dig beyond the surface and take robust actions faster.
To learn more about our solutions and how GAT can help your business click here.
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