gControl gMail Block Settings

Corporate Google apps emails use the same URLs as the consumer Gmail. Hence it becomes difficult for the administrators to block the consumer gMail for the users. With gControl’s Gmail block setting administrators can achieve this.


Gmail block is a chrome extension built by Cloudcodes. Hence for this feature to work, user should be accessing the emails via chrome browser and they should have this extension applied on the browser. gControl provides 2 ways of applying extension. To manage the way extension gets applied, administrator can log into gControl control panel and select the “Setting” option from the quick links on right. In preference settings go to “Extension Setting” tab.

 


You will have 2 options.

  • User Managed: This is the default option. In Case of user managed user needs to install the extension himself. If the user in Gmail Block policy tries to login, he will not be allowed to log in until the user installs the extension. He will get a prompt in the login page to install extension and a link which will take him to the web store from where he can apply the extension on the browser.

  • Admin Managed: Admin can push the extension to users chrome browser. The instructions to push the extension are shown when the administrator selects the admin managed option as shown below

Note: For admin managed extension to take effect, the end user has to log into chrome at least once.


To get started with creation of Gmail block policy, get into gControl control panel. Select Control -> Consumer Gmail Block . You will see the following screen

 

Click on ADD POLICY to get started with policy creation.


Click on ADD POLICY to get started with policy creation. You will see following screen

 

Fill in the policy details.

  • Title: Name your policy to easily identify it later when you want to make changes.

  • Description: Short description for helping understand the policy if more than one admin is managing the account.

  • Enabled: For some reason if you want the policy to be disabled for some time and re enable it , you can do it using the “Enabled” option’s On and Off button as shown above.

  • Valid Always: You can decide the validity of the policy with Valid Always button. Toggling this you can say whether you want a policy for a stipulated time or a policy which is always applied.

  • Valid From and Valid To: If Valid Always is off, then you will have to provide the date range for which the policy needs to be applied. This way admin need not manually turn off the policy.

  • Message: This is the message user will see when he tries to log into the consumer Gmail.

  • Type: You need to select whether your policy is User based or Organization Unit Based. Based on the option selected, the add user section will allow you to add users to the policy. Please note a policy can either be user based or OU based. Once saved, type cannot be changed. And users cannot duplicate across policies.

  • Add User: In this section you can define the users on which this policy should be applied.

    • User Based: This will allow you to add individual users one by one or in bulk via csv. You can also chose all domain users option where all your users would be covered under the same policy.

Add User option will allow you to add users one by one (by providing their domain email id). Import csv will allow you to import a csv of users, so that you can add multiple users at the same time.

    • Organization Unit Based: Following image shows applying of the OU based policy.

All the OUs of your Google apps domain gets listed here and you can apply policy on any OU of your choice. The cross marks (stricken OU names) that you see on the OUs, depicts that these OUs are part of other policies. Hence as mentioned before, the system does not allow duplication of users/OUs.

  • All IP Addresses: This is the section where you need to provide the IP address on which Gmail should be blocked. If you checked All IP addresses check box, personal gmail will be blocked for all IP address. If All IP Addresses is not defined, consumer Gmail will not be blocked.


  • Notify in case of Violation: Whenever a user is found violating the policy, the user specified in this option would be notified.

    • Google Apps Administrator: Domain Administrator would be notified

    • Manager: If manager is defined for the users in Google apps, then on selecting this option, Manger of the user will be notified.

    • Individual User: You can also designate a user to receive these emails and specify the designated email IDs here in this potion.