A Spreadsheet-Based Heuristic Approach to Bulk Identity and License Lifecycle Management in Google Workspace Environments

The bulk identity and license provisioning capabilities of Google Workspace spreadsheets is an interesting case study of how organizations will bridge the divide between administrative application programming interfaces and the boundaries of native graphical user interfaces. The problem space is expanding software as a service portfolios and their utilization gap, often on shadow information technology with the issues of budget inefficiency, and increased information security exposure. The Interface-as-Code concept is demonstrated through a case in which Google Sheets is used as the control plane for the Admin software development kit and Google Application Programming Interfaces for the G License Manager tool. It enables an administrator to externalize governance logic into an auditable, reproducible artifact. Using socio-technical systems (STS) theory and absorptive capacity theory, the study interprets the role of spreadsheet practices in the organization's learning, controlling and translating of policy intent into practice. The study contributes to global software engineering research by formalizing spreadsheet-based administrative work as an End-User Development (EUD) control mechanism: spreadsheet cells function as parameterized API invocations that instantiate an administrative REPL-like feedback cycle of state reading, interpretation, and change execution. This conceptualization reframes spreadsheet heuristics not as an implementation recipe but as a researchable unit, suggesting measurable constructs and testable propositions about cost, risk, and operational scalability in SaaSOps. The paper thus provides a foundation for subsequent empirical evaluation and cross-context generalization of Interface-as-Code approaches in enterprise SaaS administration.