Google Apps Manager
GAM is a command line tool that allows Super Administrators to perform all kinds of tasks in their G Suite environment.
Here are just a few examples specific to Users:
- Creating a User
- Update and Rename a User
- Setting User Profile Details at Create or Update
- Setting Custom User Schema Fields at Create or Update
- Get User Info
- Delete a User
- Undelete a User
- Transfer Drive Documents
Super Administrators can work with Users, Groups, Gmail Settings, Calendar, and much more.
Change your Primary Domain
A common request from clients is a Primary Domain name change. The organization might be rebranding, had a change in ownership, or a change in structure. There are all kinds of reasons why a Primary Domain might change. Google has made this much easier than it was in the past. But if there are dozens, hundreds, or thousands of employees; changing everyone’s username would normally require editing each user individually. Enter GAM.
Renaming Users
Super Admins will be familiar with the processing of ‘Renaming a User‘ in the Control Panel. When we have many users, GAM is a much better option.
To perform bulk actions, we’ll create a .csv file with our data.
Here is an example GAM command. You would remove the quotes and rename those sections to match your .csv filename and the headers of your two columns of data.
gam csv “new_usernames.csv” gam update user “~current_username” username “~new_username”
Our .csv file has two columns, one for current usernames and one for new usernames. Using this method we can rename thousands of users in less than a minute. Pretty slick.
Getting started with GAM
You can find GAM setup instructions here. Don’t worry if you haven’t worked from the command line before. Using GAM is easier than you think. Give it a try today!
If you’re working to improve your use of Google’s services, let us help! Google incentivizes us to help organizations of all shapes and sizes.
