Control which data is available in Work Insights

Supported editions for this feature: Enterprise Plus; Enterprise Essentials Plus. Compare your edition

As an administrator, you can specify which users' Google Workspace usage data is available on the Work Insights dashboard. Only users with the appropriate privileges can access the dashboard. 

Before you begin

Decide which data to make available in Work Insights

To make users' data available on the Work Insights dashboard, you need to ensure Work Insights data collection is turned on for those users. By default, Work Insights is turned on for your entire organization; however, you can choose which specific data you want to collect for the dashboard:

• Turn Work Insights off or on for specific organizational units. If Work Insights is turned on for an organizational unit, its users' data is available on the Work Insights dashboard. Learn more about organizational units.

• Turn on Work Insights for specific groups. You need to do this only if you want to filter data by a specific group in the Work Insights dashboard and all of the group's members aren't already in an organizational unit for which Work Insights is turned on.

Important:

• Data is aggregated—All users' data is aggregated into teams on the Work Insights dashboard. You can't view an individual user's data.

• Groups take precedence over organizational units—For example, if users are in an organizational unit for which Work Insights is turned off but also in a group for which it's turned on, those users' data will be available in Work Insights.

• Data collection for users with non-Enterprise licenses can't be turned off—If you turn off Work Insights for an organizational unit that contains users with licenses other than Google Workspace Enterprise, Work Insights will continue to collect data for the non-Enterprise users. On the Work Insights dashboard, this data will appear for any organizational units above the one you turned off.

• Turning on Work Insights doesn't provide access—If you turn on Work Insights for an organizational unit or group, you make its members' data available in Work Insights. To provide personnel with access to Work Insights, you need to assign privileges to them.

Decide how you want to filter data in Work Insights

After you've chosen which users' data to make available in Work Insights, you can chose how you want filter the data on the dashboard. You can filter data by the following types of teams:

• Organizational units for which you've turned on Work Insights
• Managers' teams that are defined according to users' profiles in the Admin console 
• Groups you've allowed in the Admin console

Note: You can provide other personnel with privileges to filter data by specific types of teams. For details, go to Grant access to Work Insights.

Understand minimum team size for filtering

You can filter a team's data separately on the Work Insights dashboard only if it has at least 10 members. The minimum team size helps to prevent an individual user's data from being identified. If a team doesn't meet the minimum, it won't appear in the team filter on the Work Insights dashboard. However, that team's data is included in the aggregated data for any teams above it in your organizational structure.

Example: Assume you have an organizational unit called Sales, which has 20 users. Sales has a child organizational unit called West Coast, which has 9 users. You won't see the West Coast organization in the team filter, but its data will be included in metrics for the Sales organizational unit.

Step 1: Turn Work Insights on or off for organizational units

1. Sign in to your Google Admin console.

   Sign in using your administrator account (does not end in @gmail.com).

2. From the Admin console, go to AppsGoogle WorkspaceWork Insights. 

   At the top right of the gray box, click Edit Service .

3. (Optional) To turn a service on or off for an organizational unit:

   1. At the left, select the organizational unit.
   2. To change the Service status, select On or Off.
   3. Choose one:
      • If the Service status is set to Inherited and you want to keep the updated setting, even if the parent setting changes, click Override.
      • If the Service status is set to Overridden, either click Inherit to revert to the same setting as its parent, or click Save to keep the new setting, even if the parent setting changes.
        Note: Learn more about organizational structure.

Note: It can take up to 72 hours for organizational units to appear on the Work Insights dashboard.

Step 2: (Optional) Turn Work Insights on for groups

Important: You need to do this step only if you want to filter data by a specific group in the Work Insights dashboard and all of the group's member aren't already in an organizational unit for which Work Insights is turned on.

You can't turn off Work Insights for groups. However, if you turn on Work Insights for a group, you can remove, or unset, its "on" status.

1. Sign in to your Google Admin console.

   Sign in using your administrator account (does not end in @gmail.com).

2. From the Admin console, go to AppsGoogle WorkspaceWork Insights. 

3. At the top right of the gray box, click Edit Service .

4. At the left, under Groups, search for or select a group.
5. On the right, next to Service status, check the On box.

   Or, to remove the "on" status for the group, clear the On box.

6. Click Save.

Step 3: (Optional) Set up groups filtering

To filter data by groups in the Work Insights dashboard, you need to allow them first.

To allow groups in Work Insights:

Filtering audit logs using a Google Group can help build statistics and improve performance since only the selected groups are tracked. You must explicitly add the groups to your filtering groups allowlist because the results can include sensitive information such as religion, gender, and other data. 

Results can only be returned for the filtering group starting when the group is added until it is removed. Audit logs and events created before the group was added cannot be filtered using the group.

Manage your filtering groups allowlist

1. Sign in to your Google Admin console.

   Sign in using your administrator account (does not end in @gmail.com).

2. From the Admin console, go to the Filtering groups page.
3. Click Add Groups.
4. Search for a group by entering the first few characters of its name or email address. When you see the group you want, select it.
5. (Optional) To add another group, search for and select the group.
6. When you finish selecting groups, click Add.
7. (Optional) To remove a group, click Remove group .
8. Click Save.

Work Insights calculates data for group members from the day you add the group, but it can take up to 12 hours for the data to appear on the Work Insights dashboard.

Step 4: (Optional) Define managers' teams

If you want to filter data by one or more managers' teams, make sure your management reporting structure is defined in the Admin console. This structure is based on the Manager email field in each user's user's profile.

If your reporting structure isn't already defined in the Admin console, do either of the following:

• In the Manager email field in each user's profile, enter their manager's email address.
• If you've defined your users' managers in Microsoft Active Directory or other LDAP server, use Google Cloud Directory Sync to populate the Manager email field for each user.

Next steps

After you turn on Work Insights: Grant access to the Work Insights dashboard