gPanel Automation Overview and Quick Start Guide

Contents 

Being efficient in your work environment is always a top priority and that's where the gPanel Automation module comes in. The automation features in gPanel help you stay on top of daily tasks while the rest of your jobs are completed behind the scenes, hands-free.

The Automation module is gPanel’s secret sauce to help you stay on top of your daily tasks! This guide is going to give you an overview of each section of the gPanel Automation module so you can become an automation expert. 

Rules Engine

First in the gPanel Automation module is Rules Engine. It is a framework for enterprise tier. It allows you to create dynamic workflows that trigger automatically when specific conditions are met, such as instantly suspending a user and notifying security if they delete a high volume of sensitive documents. Beyond security, it is commonly used for automated lifecycle management, where changes to a user's role or department in the directory automatically update their group memberships, email signatures, and app permissions across the entire organization.

Policies

First in the gPanel Automation module is Policies. Think of policies as custom automatic jobs. Policies can be used to automatically remove or add users to groups, change Gmail settings, or move users into different organizational units.

Additionally, you can have policies run on specific users. You can run policies on all users who are members of a group, all users in an organizational unit, or users in a specific gPanel role.

Signature Templates

Next in the gPanel Automation module is Signature Templates. This feature allows you to create and customize templates for the Gmail signatures of your users.

You are able to create and edit very elaborate signatures using the information from users profiles as well as images. You can also set a schedule with templates to run on multiple users daily in case you have a rogue employee that likes to get a little too creative with their signature. Signature Templates is one of the most popular features of gPanel.

While the Signature Template tool is located in gPanel's Automation module, it is still largely a Gmail management function. For that resource, our resources on this tool are in the Gmail management section of our Knowledge Base.

Decommissioning

Next, you’ll find Decommissioning. Decommissioning is an automatic, nightly process that allows you to run a variety of pre-configured tasks on a suspended users account at a specified date. It allows you to set tasks to run on suspended users to prepare their accounts for eventual deletion.

When a decommissioning process runs, all users in the targeted organizational unit that are suspended on that day and thereafter will have the defined tasks run on them. This process runs automatically each night, but you do have the option to manually start the process.

Contact Sync

From here you have the ability to sync a group of contacts from one source user to another user, organizational unit, group, or even domain.

When creating a Contact Sync, A contacts sync will require you to select a source user and a contact group. A contacts sync searches through all of the contacts in your directory, hidden or not, and syncs them to a destination user.

Additionally, any adds, changes, and deletions to the source group will be reflected to all of the destination groups, keeping everything in sync.