One of the main arguments presented against Google Apps in the enterprise is a lack of the ability to implement policy controls and fine grained permissions to data. And to a certain extent, this holds true. For example, you cannot share contacts with specific groups, Google Apps Sync does not allow you shared group calendars within Outlook, there are no shared tasks and so on.

But in its continuing effort to make its suite more robust, and incorporate feedback, Google just introduced new sharing options within Google Docs. The new options are as follows:-

Improved Sharing Options: Google Docs can now be given three new sharing levels – private, anyone with a link, or public on the web. Private documents are available for access only to the people you explicitly allow access to. Anyone with a link allows any Google Apps user within your domain with the link to your document to view and edit it. Public to the web allows you to share documents with users ouside your system through a public link. You can even apply bulk settings to multiple documents.

Better Visibility: Sharing options appear right next to your documents next to your documents list. 

The bulk share option is a great help for organizations which may wish to share specific documents with a large number of people.

As posted at the official Google Docs blog, Gavin Haslam, IT manager at Rentokil Initial, said

The new sharing settings………will save us huge amounts of time when rolled out across our 35,000 users on Google Apps.