Use this guide to set up Google Chat monitoring for your students through Google’s Third-Party Archiving settings. This setup enables Bark to monitor individual chat messages and media attachments.
Note: Google Chat Spaces are not yet supported. Support for monitoring Spaces is planned for a future update. We also recommend turning off external chats outside of your org due to those not being supported either.
Perform this process for each student Organizational Unit you intend to monitor. We recommend against applying it at the domain’s top level, as this may monitor OUs you do not intend to include.
From your Google Workspace Admin Dashboard navigate to the Google Chat settings (Apps > Google Workspace > Google Chat).
Under External Chat Settings, make sure to turn off chats with users outside of your organization.
Under Service Status, ensure the student Organizational Units that you want to monitor are turned on.
Turn on "History for Chats," un-check the box "Allow users to change their history setting," and Save.
Go into the Third Party Archiving Settings and select the first Organizational Unit that you want to set up — keep in mind that the top-level OU will force those related sub-OU's to inherit the extension.
Checkmark Archiving enabled and enter in [email protected] as the destination address. Set the Archival frequency to 1 hour and Save.
Repeat the above for other OUs (if needed).