Odd console behavior WRT custom domains

[Jeff Schnitzer]

This looks like some sort of bug:

OwnerA added customdomain1 to TheProject

OwnerB added customdomain2 to TheProject

When OwnerA looks at the Custom Domains page for TheProject in the console, he sees customdomain1 only.

When OwnerB looks at the Custom Domains page for TheProject in the console, he sees customdomain2 only.

Oddly, both custom domains seem to work.

I would expect that all app owners see all custom domains for TheProject in the console. Am I missing something?

Thanks,

Jeff

[Nick (Cloud Platform Support)]

Hey Jeff,

As of now, the Developers Console only shows domains verified by you. We've an internal request to make this information available to all owners/developers of app. In the meantime, other owners can use Google Apps control panel to view this information, if these domains are managed by Google Apps. You can also add other owners of this project as owners in Webmaster tools for the domain. This will enable them to view custom domain mappings in the Developers Console.

Regards,

Nick

[Jeff Schnitzer]

Yes, please make this a single place where all administrators can manage the domains pointing at an app. We're running a whitelabel service which will eventually have thousands of entries and management of domains can't be tied to specific user accounts. This is going to be really confusing.

Thanks,

Jeff

[Nick (Cloud Platform Support)]

Hey Jeff,

I'd recommend that you get in touch with sales and check the terms of service, to ensure that everything's good. There's also a public issue tracker feature request open for a Custom Domains API, which you should star to register interest and lend weight to. Finally, I'm not sure if you've already checked this out, but there's a Domains API for Google+ that might fill some needs for you.

Best wishes,

Nick

[Jeff Schnitzer]

Now you have me even more confused ;-)

Is there anything in the TOS that I should pay particular attention to? I just re-read it and don't see anything unusual. My application is an ecommerce site serving a particular niche; partners set up shops in our application using their own domain. Something like Shopify.

Our onboarding process is fairly high-touch so going through the domain verification process manually is not prohibitive. However, not having a coherent view of what domains are mapped to our application could be a serious problem. The domains will not be Google Apps domains.

It sounds like, for now, the only way to get "the truth" from the Custom Domains page is to always have all domains added/removed by a single Google user account, and only look at that page from that account. Right? It seems crazy but ok. Would it help if I opened a public issue to track this, or is the internal issue enough?

I read the documentation for the Google+ Domains API and I am only more confused - it does not seem relevant to my application. Am I missing something?

Yep, had that issue starred for years... long enough to see the major progress you guys have made separating GAE from Google Apps. I know you get a lot of flak for the slow progress, but I do appreciate that the current situation is vastly better than it was in 2012. Fortunately I wasn't trying to run a whitelabel service in 2012 :)

Thanks,

Jeff

[Nick (Cloud Platform Support)]

Hi Jeff,

I had just linked the TOS since it depends in what manner you mean "whitelabel" to perhaps activate clauses related to reselling, although I'm not a lawyer, so don't take anything as binding, and just based on a layman's reading of the terms, it seems the "whitelabel" is being pasted-over your own service that you'll build, so it should be okay (although once again, I'm not a lawyer). 

As far as seeing all domains without needing to use a single account, adding the other admins as Owners of the domain using webmaster tools is probably the best way to go, although for the minimum friction I suppose you could create an account with a shared secret password, making it an Owner on your project, and simply use that to add and view domains. This issue is already known, as you confirm, so it's probably not necessary to make a public issue tracker thread.

Finally, I linked the Google+ Domains API just out of potential interest, not sure if it will meet any need for you :)

[Jason Collins]

It sounds like, for now, the only way to get "the truth" from the Custom
Domains page is to always have all domains added/removed by a single Google
user account, and only look at that page from that account. Right? It seems
crazy but ok. 

This is right. And yes it seems crazy.

[Jeff Schnitzer]

Gotcha. Yeah, I think we're well within Google's TOS - we want to whitelabel our own service, not Google's :)

We will use the single-account trick until this issue gets fixed. Thanks.

Jeff