Google Workspace 04: Groups and Access Control
Google Groups, access control and communication groups.
04. Groups & Access Control
Implemented Google Groups for organisational communication, collaboration and access control.
Groups were configured to support role-based access control (RBAC), enabling scalable permission management and simplified administration.
Group Configuration (Access Control)
Groups were configured with different access types based on purpose:
Public (internal) – Open collaboration across the organisation
Team – Department-level communication
Announcement-only – Controlled messaging from leadership
Restricted – Sensitive or privileged groups
This ensures a balance between usability and security.
Membership Management
Users were assigned to groups based on department and role.
The All Staff group includes all users, enabling organisation-wide communication and announcements.
Membership can be managed manually or dynamically expanded to include all current and future users.
Groups Overview
The following groups were created to represent organisational structure and communication needs:
All Staff
Announcements
HR Team
IT Admins
IT Helpdesk
Management
Sales Team
Access Design (RBAC Support)
Groups were used as an access control layer to simplify permission management across the environment.
This allows:
Assigning permissions to groups instead of individual users
Managing access centrally
Reducing administrative overhead
Examples
HR Team → Restricted due to sensitive employee data
IT Admins → Highly restricted for privileged access
Announcements → One-way communication from leadership
All Staff → Organisation-wide messaging
Design Approach
This implementation ensures:
Scalable access control
Centralised permission management
Separation between communication and security roles
Alignment with organisational structure
Summary
Evidence covered:
Use of Google Groups for communication and collaboration
Implementation of group-based access control (RBAC support)
Assignment of users based on roles and departments
Application of security-focused group configurations
Groups provide a flexible and scalable mechanism for managing access and communication within the organisation.