Submitting to a Google Classroom = "Externally Visible"

[smackall]

Just wondering if anyone knows of any documentation that can confirm this is the case. As background, our school does not allow external users to be members of our classrooms . . . . except the one domain that we've allow-listed.

Google's documentation for what is included in their external shares report is a bit vague,* but they do mention that "a file is marked as an External share if a user shares that file to a group that allows external members, even if there are no external members in the group."  Ergo, anytime a student submits a file to google classroom it is shared with the class' teacher group, and that group can technically include someone from that allow-listed domain, and so it shows up in the external sharing reports on the Admin Console. 

If this is accurate, does anyone know if there is any way to modify this report* so that classroom-related events aren't counted in the number? It seems to be inflating the reports quite a bit. 

Curious and Grateful. 

*The link is for the security report, but actually the report I'm talking about is just the generic one found in Reporting ⟶ Apps Reports ⟶ Drive  in the Admin Console. I couldn't find a support page for that at all, but I'm assuming the same details apply. 

[Kim_Nilsson · Accepted solution]

Short answer. No.

Longer answer.

Groups in Classroom are considered "external" also because you have absolutely no control over them. They are automatically created and managed by Classroom.

This is the same with groups created when sharing content in a Chat Spaces. Those groups are also inaccessible and unmanageable. Hence "external".

Despite you actually being able to decide whether both Classroom and Chat Spaces are allowed to have external members.

Oh, still No.

[smackall]

Thanks! That explanation makes more sense. I'll definitely submit some feedback – it's really unhelpful to include classroom shares as external shares in these reports. 

[Kim_Nilsson]

I AGREE! 🙂

[Kim_Nilsson]

Separate answer.

Always give Google direct feedback about things that are weird or not working as expected. They do read it, and if enough people agree with you, they are more likely to change it.

If we don't tell them, they will never know.