Chat log events

Track users conversation and space activity

Depending on your Google Workspace edition, you might have access to the security investigation tool, which has more advanced features. For example, super admins can identify, triage, and take action on security and privacy issues. Learn more

As your organization's administrator, you can run searches and take action on security issues related to Chat log events. For example, you can view a record of actions to monitor conversation and discussion activity in your organization. You can also see when a user starts a direct message or creates a space.

Before you begin

If you have Google Chat history turned off for your users, you won't see data for users who send direct messages, and you won't see data for the Direct message started event. To check your settings, go to Turn history on or off.

Run a search for log events

Your ability to run a search depends on your Google edition, your administrative privileges, and the data source. You can run a search on all users, regardless of their Google Workspace edition.

Audit and investigation tool

Security investigation tool

Supported editions for this feature: Frontline Standard; Enterprise Standard and Enterprise Plus; Education Standard and Education Plus; Enterprise Essentials Plus; Cloud Identity Premium. Compare your edition

To run a search in the security investigation tool, first choose a data source. Then, choose one or more conditions for your search. For each condition, choose an attribute, an operator, and a value.

Sign in with an administrator account to the Google Admin console.
If you aren’t using an administrator account, you can’t access the Admin console.
Go to Menu Security > Security center > Investigation tool.
Requires having the Security center administrator privilege.
Click Data source and select Chat log events.
Click Add Condition.
Tip: You can include one or more conditions in your search or customize your search with nested queries. For details, go to Customize your search with nested queries.
Click Attributeselect an option.
For a complete list of attributes, go to the Attribute descriptions section (later on this page).
Select an operator.
Enter a value or select a value from the list.
(Optional) To add more search conditions, repeat steps 4–7.
Click Search.
You can review the search results from the investigation tool in a table at the bottom of the page.
(Optional) To save your investigation, click Save enter a title and descriptionclick Save.

Notes

In the Condition builder tab, filters are represented as conditions with AND/OR operators. You can also use the Filter tab to include simple parameter and value pairs to filter the search results.
If you gave a user a new name, you will not see query results with the user's old name. For example, if you rename OldName@example.com to NewName@example.com, you will not see results for events related to OldName@example.com.

Attribute descriptions

For this data source, you can use the following attributes when searching log event data:

Attribute	Description
Actor	Email address of the user who performed the action
Actor group name	Group name of the actor. For more information, go to Filtering results by Google Group. To add a group to your filtering groups allowlist: Select Actor group name. Click Filtering groups. The Filtering groups page appears. Click Add Groups. 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. (Optional) To add another group, search for and select the group. When you finish selecting groups, click Add. (Optional) To remove a group, click Remove group . Click Save.
Actor organizational unit	Organizational unit of the actor
Actor type	Role of the user who performed the action, such as Admin or Non-admin
Attachment hash	SHA-256 hash of the chat attachment
Attachment name	Name of the attachment sent in a Chat message
Attachment status	Whether the message contains an attachment
Attachment URL	Download URL of the attachment sent in a Chat message
Conversation ownership	Whether the conversation is owned by the customer (internally owned) or by other customers (externally owned)
Conversation type	Type of conversation, such as: User to user direct message User to app direct message Group direct message Space
Data loss prevention scan status*	Using DLP for Chat , you can create data protection rules to prevent data leaks from Chat messages and attachments (uploaded files). DLP scan status includes values such as Failed, Partially scanned, and Scanned.
Date	Date and time of the event (displayed in your browser's default time zone)
Event	The logged event action, such as Message sent, Attachment uploaded, or Direct message started.
External room*	Whether members outside the organization can be added to the chat room
Message ID	ID of the Chat message
Message type	Type of message, such as: Voice message Video message Huddle Regular message
New role	New role type for recipients, such as Space manager or Member
Recipients*	Recipients of a chat message. This attribute is logged when the following events occur: An invite is sent. A user is blocked or unblocked. A user is added or removed to or from a space or a room. A message is reported. A direct message is sent, edited, deleted, or reacted.
Report ID	ID of the Chat message report
Reporting category*	Category of the Chat message report, such as Spam, Confidential Information or Sensitive Information
Room history setting	Whether Chat room history is turned on or off
Room ID	Chat room ID
Room name	Chat room name

* You cannot create reporting rules with these filters. Learn more about reporting rules versus activity rules.

Note: If you gave a user a new name, you will not see query results with the user's old name. For example, if you rename OldName@example.com to NewName@example.com, you will not see results for events related to OldName@example.com.