Group Policy Objects for administrators

A Group Policy Object (GPO) is a virtual collection of policy settings. A GPO indicates system behavior for a specified group of users. For example, it defines registry-based polices, security options, and software and maintenance options.

Administrators use GPOs for these purposes:

Purpose Description
Define or disable a shared folder Administrators set the location of the default Shared Folder.

With this setting enabled, administrators can set the URL for the Shared Folder from which users can insert web add-ins into their Microsoft Office documents. If the setting is not configured, users can set their own default Shared Folder location.
Disable Microsoft Office Store add-ins Administrators prevent users from using or inserting web add-ins from the Microsoft Office Store.

With this setting enabled, applications from the Store are blocked.
Disable web add-ins Administrators prevent users from using web add-ins.

If the setting is enabled, web add-ins are blocked and other policy settings in the Trusted Catalog folder are ignored.

To ensure that users do not use unauthorized add-ins, an administrator can disable the Shared Folder and Office Store for selected users. However, if the web add-ins are disabled, then centralized deployment provisioning is not possible.

To switch between test and production environments, users can use a Shared Folder.