access requests, permission groups, and more

Posted by Mike Yerou, Software Engineer, Google Play

User management is an important responsibility for businesses of all sizes. It is important to ensure that each team member has access to the correct permissions in order to fulfil their duties, while not exposing any other business data.

Over the years, you’ve asked us for better user and permission management tools in Play Console to help you handle growth efficiently and with confidence. We did that with our redesigned Google Play Console. The interface was simplified to make it more easy to find the information you need, as well as new features that will help you to manage your team.

To make it simpler for administrators to manage their teams, the permissions and users pages have been revamped.

Permission names and descriptions were rewritten to make it easier to understand what you are — and aren’t — allowing users to do. You’ll also see clearer differentiation between account and app-level permissions.

You can quickly search for, filter, or batch edit a user to view their actions and make them known.

Finally, for developers who have an account, we offer a CSV export function. This makes auditing much easier.

New access requests

While admins generally set permissions for users, you told us it would be helpful to allow users to request permissions as they figure out what’s required for their workflow. They can now. Although admins must approve each request, admins can give users the ability to specify the permissions required.

In Play Console, users will now see a “Request access” button next to each action that is supported but not enabled due to missing permissions. Users must explain their request to admins in order to obtain permission. Administrators will receive an Inbox notification. They can either grant permission to the user or app individually, reject the request once or refuse it forever. This prevents users from misusing this feature. This function currently only supports app permissions.

Now team members can ask for permissions that they are interested in.

New permission groups

When companies reach a certain size, it’s not uncommon for more than one person to have the same role, such as project managers or designers. Administrators might find that they are assigning the exact same permissions repeatedly when this happens.

Permission groups were recently implemented to help save time. Administrators have the ability to create permission groups with specific permissions. Users who are added to these groups will automatically inherit their permissions. The permissions can be set to expire at a specific date. You can place users in more than one group. These groups may have different permissions. We hope you’ll be able to use permission groups to improve your own working practices and encourage greater delegation and ease of user management.

This new feature will allow you to be more productive as an administrator and enable your team to get the best out of Play console. Our Help Center has more information about permission management.