How Greece Central School District Overcame Administrative Challenges in Their Google Admin Console
About
Greece Central School District (GCSD) is a K12 school district in Rochester, New York in the western portion of the state, just a few miles away from the shore of Lake Ontario.
Students
Over 10,000 students
Subscription Type
Lite Plan
Includes
Overview
Originally a Microsoft School, they migrated the student population to Google because of its strong educational features in both Google Docs, Meet, and Google Classroom. They found Google Workspace features in general to be more supportive of student learning. They are also a 1:1 Chromebook school.
Brian Palmer and Frank Porcella are part of a team of four Google Administrators for the district. They support the Google Workspace environment as well as security, email, and network management. The network team is the back engine of the IT department which supports the School District.
They understood they needed more control and automation than was available in Google’s Admin console, and initially, looked at the GAM command line tool, but found the interface to be cumbersome & specific script use too time-consuming for their need for a quick response to Google environmental management.
GAT had more extensive features and capabilities, they found it faster and easier to use on the fly. They saw the value in that and decided to give it a go. GAT and Google Workspace were rolled out across the domain simultaneously as a project from day one.
“Google recommended GAT to us and we saw the value in it over using the standard Google Workspace Admin Console. Google Workspace and GAT were rolled out together as a single project and GAT became our ‘go-to’ from then on”
Challenge
When users left the district or moved to another job and didn’t take their files with them, it was left to the IT team to remove access and reassign files to the next person taking up the role. That meant they had to first log in as the old user, find the files, and then change the required access to that new person taking over the role. It was time-consuming for an administrator as it wasn’t possible to do this from within the Admin Console. It was either this or trying to create a command line script on the fly each time.
Chat is disabled across the domain as it’s unmonitored, so students sometimes use collaborative documents as “chat spaces” to communicate inappropriately. The GAT tool supports quick detection and remediation of those situations, allowing the team to change ownership of such documents over to school administrators to deal with them appropriately. Student safety and well-being issues are managed in much the same way.
Calendar management (including access and delegated management) within the Admin Console is complicated and the team found it difficult to do. They needed a tool that was easier to navigate and less tedious to use.
Use Cases
Reassign Google Drive Documents in Bulk
With GAT, when a user leaves or changes role, the job of reassigning files is simplified into just a few clicks. There’s no need to log in as individual users to reassign files. GAT made it simple and quick for the IT team to get the job done, freeing their time to focus on other important tasks.
Find and block inappropriate content
“With GAT we can jump in, get the file ID, change the settings, and the relevant person has access right away. So it’s a very quick solution to immediately both provide and block access. With Google, it’s difficult to do, if not impossible. One of the pluses of having GAT is that we are starting to see a reduction in this type of activity due to our ability to quickly respond. and remediate.”
Monitor Suspicious Logins on Chromebooks
The IT team uses GAT’s Chromebook monitoring functionality daily to check and monitor users’ logins. They can see all the logins within their area, outside of their area, and also if there’s been an attempted login from outside the USA. They know that when that happens it’s an indication of an account compromise and they can act on it immediately, change the password, and block access. The Chromebook audit feature in GAT+ allows them to quickly find the exact dates and times of the logins, who has logged in or attempted to log in, and to which device. This gives an overview of
“We had an account recently where there was an attempted login from Australia about every 30 seconds. In that case, using GAT, I was able to bounce into Google, change the password, and block it within seconds.”
Search emails
Email Content Search is a live search of the entire domain allowing the Admins to search for any piece of text or any email in any inbox across the domain and is very useful when a Principal or Security Officer has a special request.
Calendar Management
GAT+ offers an extensive Google Calendar audit where Admins/Auditors can report and manage any calendar events, and calendar resources in the domain. The resources can be managed and changed individually or in bulk depending on their needs.
Block Ad-hoc Unauthorised Student Chat Rooms
With GAT, the IT team can quickly and easily find shared chat documents and share access with their teacher or the security officer. Being the security officers for the district, Frank and Brian typically get a request from a Principal or the Head of Security to find the document, report back about the creator and contributors, change ownership, and block access. GAT ships with a number of preset one-click reports, one of which identifies documents with lots of activity and this combined with an alert set to pick up keywords students typically use in a chat setting, makes unauthorised chat rooms easy to spot and mitigate.
Results
With GAT installed across the Google domain, Brian and Frank find it easier now to identify and stop inappropriate activity more efficiently. This means a safer online environment for students and staff and helps to prevent potential incidents from occurring. The use of GAT has also allowed for better file management and security, making it easier for them to manage files and access permissions. Overall, the impact has been very positive and has helped to create a more secure and productive learning environment in Greece Central.
The team has explored various ways of accomplishing their goals, and with the help of GAT, they have been able to minimize ad-hoc unapproved chat rooms and ensure better file and account security. Alerts are sent automatically if there are attempted logins from outside of their region and being able to act promptly removes account vulnerability.
The IT Team at Greece CSD has found GAT to be a valuable tool for managing their Google domain, and they use it daily. Although they cannot give a percentage, they confirm that it has made their workload much more manageable and made their tasks easier to accomplish.
“Something comes up every day where GAT makes it easier to get it done. We’re fully committed to keeping it in our toolbox. It gives us a different way of looking at data and also accessing the data we need to work with on a daily basis”
Brian Palmer and Frank Porcella – Network Administrator / Information Security Specialist
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