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Google Chat Monitoring

Updated
Paola Rivera

With the recent removal of Google Hangouts from the Google Workspace environment, we have created a way to monitor the new Google Chat platform. Setting up Google Chat monitoring in this way will allow us to monitor the text in the chats as well as the media attachments (images and videos).

To monitor Google Chat, we will be using Google’s Third Party Archiving option within your Google Workspace account.

Get Started

Please follow this process for each student Organization Unit that you would like to monitor. We suggest not completing these steps on the top-level of your domain to avoid monitoring Organizational Units that you do not want to monitor. 

Instructions 

  1. From your Google Workspace Admin Dashboard navigate to the Google Chat settings by opening Apps, Google Workspace, and Google Chat from the drop-down menu on the left. 

      Screenshot

  2. Under Service Status ensure the student Organizational Units that you want to monitor are turned on.

  3. Turn on History for Chats, un-check the box "Allow users to change their history setting", and choose Save. 

    Screenshot


  4. 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.

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  5. Checkmark Archiving enabled and enter in chat@bark.school as the destination address. Set the Archival frequency to 1 hour and Save. 

    Screenshot

  6. Repeat the above for other OUs if needed.
Pro Tip: We suggest turning off the ability to chat with others outside of your domain. You can do this from the Google Chat settings under "External Chat Settings".

Congrats! 🎉

That's it! With these settings in place, we will be able to monitor student text messaging (including media attachments) on the new Google Chat platform.