About the Google Cloud projects used by Chat apps

Every AppSheet app that is used to build a Chat app requires a Google Cloud project to function. Your Cloud project can be automatically or manually configured. With automatic configuration, the Cloud project is created as you step through the wizard on the Chat Setup tab in the app editor.

Automatic configuration is recommended for ease-of-use with setup. Manual configuration is available if your organization restricts certain Google Cloud functionality.

See also: Choose the configuration mode

Automatic projects

If you use automatic configuration to configure your Chat app, a Cloud project ("automatic project") is created automatically for you in your organization. Note the following about automatic projects:

• You never need to view or manage this automatic project. AppSheet handles the necessary interactions with Google Cloud. For example, if you change a slash command name, it is automatically synchronized with the project.
• Only organization admins have access to the project in the Google Cloud console.
• If your organization has policy restrictions on Google Cloud (for example, prohibiting an out-of-organization service account), you may need to use manual configuration instead.

By default, Cloud projects have an Identity and Access Management (IAM) policy with two entries: 

1. Google service account that acts as the owner of the automatic project: appsheet-workspace-server@system.gserviceaccount.com
2. Lower-permission service account ending in either @appsheet-prod-service-accounts or  @appsheet-prod-eu-saccts.iam.gserviceaccount.com

View or update automatic projects

Unless you are an admin, you can’t directly locate, view, or edit automatic projects in the Cloud console. If you're an admin, you can access the projects under the following folder: Organization root > system-gsuite > appsheet

Project IDs will be prefixed by app-. 

Delete automatic projects

If you're an admin, you can delete automatic projects as you would standard Cloud projects. See Shutting down (deleting) projects.

If you're not an admin, you can't delete automatic projects directly. However, AppSheet deletes automatic projects in the following scenarios:

• If you delete the app configured with an automatic project, AppSheet deletes the project attached to the script along with any settings or information it contains.
• If the automatic project is unused for at least 180 days, your project may be deleted.

Manual project

If you use manual configuration to configure your Chat app, the Cloud project ("manual project") is linked and supports all of the same behaviors described in Creating or maintaining a Cloud Project. In this case, each time the app configuration is changed, the user must manually sync their settings in the Cloud Console project.