Simplify management of student tech and Google Workspace

EDITOR’S NOTE: THIS IS AN UPDATE FROM A JULY 2024 POST

Today’s students and educators – some 150 million of them around the world – use student technology, Chromebooks as endpoints, and Google Workspace for Education SaaS apps. While these SaaS apps bring massive opportunities, it creates significant IT challenges. Managing security, bulk user lifecycle management, and constantly changing permissions and groups for hundreds or thousands of IDs at a time are a few reasons why IT needs to simplify Google Workspace for Education admin. One way is using third-party software tools like a unified SaaS lifecycle platform.

More than 150 million educators and students now use Google Workspace for Education, including Gmail, Drive, and others

Read on to learn how a platform like BetterCloud helps IT with its easier Google Workspace for Education admin console. It also offers advanced functionality, like automated bulk actions and content scanning, and can improve student safety and IT efficiency.

Streamline IT operations with an easier Google Workspace for Education admin console

In the native Google Workspace for Education admin interface, making user profile changes is a long, slow slog. Now using a third-party tool, you can simplify calendar and group membership management in bulk in a tool by using automation.

Using a powerful, all-in-one admin console in an end-to-end SaaS management platform, you can add and store essential information in users’ profiles, such as multiple phone numbers or email addresses, department and manager info, all at once. Gone are the days of making individual changes within each user profile. Once this is done, there’s a whole new world of automated options for IT teams  at educational institutions.

More possibilities to simplify Google Workspace for Education admin

There are other popular use cases for automating bulk changes in Google Workspace for Education, as well. With completed user profiles, it’s easier to automate:

• Onboarding and offboarding: Quickly create or disable user accounts, add them to relevant groups, and assign licenses in bulk.
• License management: Assign or revoke licenses for Google Workspace for Education apps in bulk as students’ needs change and never waste precious budget dollars on unused licences again.

Integrate and manage student tech together with Google Workspace for Education 

Using a third-party replacement tool for a more streamlined Google Workspace admin console also helps meet any custom needs your school, college, or university might have in your Google Workspace or student tech stack. 

Let’s take an example.

Say you want to integrate your Salesforce containing your student enrollment data with the Google Workspace for Education apps that students and educators use daily. This way, teachers can make sure students are properly participating in classroom activities.

To do this, you’ll need to make sure you have access to a full library of Google events, conditions and actions in a no-code workflow builder. This way, you’ll be able to easily combine them with actions for other integrated apps such as Salesforce, thus enabling cross-platform automation.

For a full list of available Google Workspace for Education events, conditions and actions, read more about what they do .

However, the benefits for managing your student tech and Google Workspace instance in an end-to-end SaaS management platform don’t end there. There’s other important benefits that come with using an easier Google Workspace for Education admin console – security and student safety.

The fog of cloud file storage monitoring

Monitoring student technology use, especially cloud storage and shared drives, seems straightforward, but limited visibility within various cloud storage platforms like Dropbox, Box, Google MyDrive, or Google shared drives, creates a huge blind spot. Native admin consoles, like the native Google Workspace Admin console, offer limited insight into their own storage, leaving IT admins at schools, colleges, and universities guessing about potential risks. This lack of awareness can lead to security incidents escalating before they’re addressed.

To bridge this gap, cloud storage monitoring solutions (like an end-to-end SaaS management platform) can provide a centralized platform for IT admins to gain comprehensive oversight of student activity across all cloud storage and student tech SaaS applications. These solutions aggregate data from various platforms, offering real-time insights into user behavior, application usage, and potential security threats. This allows IT teams to proactively identify and address issues before they become major problems.

Shining a light with BetterCloud

BetterCloud empowers educational IT professionals with a comprehensive view of their cloud environment, including Google Workspace for Education. This powerful platform automates tasks, streamlines workflows, and provides real-time insights – all crucial for proactive management.

One of BetterCloud’s standout features that is particularly beneficial to schools and universities is its robust content scanning. This technology scans files, identifying potential threats that you can pre-define, like cyberbullying, self-harm ideation, or the inappropriate sharing of sensitive data like a university confidential research project or PII. 

BetterCloud enforces your school’s data security policies by automatically taking action on files that don’t meet your documented security policy or compliance standards. This might involve restricting access to the file and notifying relevant individuals.

Student safety at the forefront

BetterCloud goes beyond just spotting pre-programmed keywords. You can configure BetterCloud to identify signs of distress in student communications by scanning for your organization’s specific expressions related to self-harm and violence. 

This customization empowers you to tailor detection to the unique language used by your students, potentially including slang, abbreviations, or the latest terminology from social media. By identifying concerning behaviors early on, BetterCloud allows for swift intervention and support for students in need.

Institutional reputation protection

Schools dread being in the news for accidental data leaks or student actions that could hurt their reputation. BetterCloud helps prevent these issues by finding potential privacy violations and stopping any bad publicity that might come from them.

With BetterCloud, IT staff have granular control over what users can do, like who they can share files with. For instance, if a student shares a file with the public that has something inappropriate in it, BetterCloud can automatically make it private again and let both the student and the school administration know about what happened.

BetterCloud: The one-stop shop for managing student tech and Google Workspace in your school

BetterCloud empowers IT teams in schools worldwide to operate efficiently and gain the much-needed visibility to ensure an efficient, safe and secure learning environment.

Don’t be left in the dark. BetterCloud empowers schools to accomplish more IT tasks while proactively monitoring student activity and creating a safe digital learning environment.

Learn why hundreds of schools and secondary education providers rely on BetterCloud to bolster their IT departments, simplify Google Workspace for Education admin, and protect students. Book a demo today!