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Google Apps recently updated its policy controls, if it had any to speak of in the first place. This was understandably also one of the main features requested by Google Apps users. Google Apps now allows the administrator to create different groups, and set separate policy controls for each group. Different groups can now have access to different Google Apps modules - GMail, Google Docs, Google Voices, Google Pages etc, rather than all groups having access to all modules like earlier. The administrator simply needs to go to a simple dashboard and toggle modules ON or OFF for that group. This makes a lot of sense in a business context - the management may want mobile workers to have access to Google Voice, but not its production staff and so on. But still, Google Apps falls short in terms of policy controls when compared to other online document management systems. For example HyperOffice has offered fine tuned policy controls for years. Users can create an unlimited number of "profiles" within HyperOffice. A "profile" determines which group desktop a particular user will land at (as you know, one can created unlimited group workspaces within HyperOffice, which consists of a group desktop, and group collaboration modules), the collaboration modules that will be available to a user with that profile (calendars, contacts, tasks, shared documents, wikis, polls, forums etc), whether or not a user in that profile has access to "my workspace" (every user by default has a personal workspace with personal versions of collaboration modules - my calendars, my tasks, my mail, my reminders etc) and what collaboration modules are available in "my workspace". You can add users to "profiles" as you wish. As you can see, profiles allow you to manage how different users will interact with the portal and what modules and information will be available to them. You can even use profiles to differentiate what different users can see even within the same group. For example, you can create a group extranet1 where users will land on your customer extranet group and have access to calendars, documents and wikis. You can create a profile "extranet2" where users will land on the customer extranet group but have access to contacts, forums and wikis to reflect their unique relationship with the company. If you wouldn't like such finely tuned controls, there's always "group workspace" creation and administration tools which let you create as many group workspaces as you like, and determine what collaboration modules that workspace will have, and add users as you like.
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