Security

Google's Official Security Page: please be familiar with this first!

Student Permissions (Important!)

It's recommended that your IT department set permissions for Google Meet so that students are not able to Record, Stream or do Video Calling. This means the students will not be able to create Google Meet sessions on their own; they will rely on joining an existing Meet instead. Your IT staff can do this via Organizational Units. Learn More

Nicknames

Nicknames are very important feature for Hangouts as they have 2 major features:

  1. They expire quickly: about 90 seconds after the last person leaves, the session expires. Teachers and accounts able to create Meets can still use the link or nickname and it will seamlessly re-create the Meet. If you are using a limited student account, then you can't re-create the Meet, so you have to wait for a teacher to do so. Basically, this ensures that the Meet is not accessible unless a teacher/adult is already in it.

  2. They are Domain-level only: No one can join your Nicknamed Meet without an account on your domain (ex: fdresa.org, myschoolsystem.edu). This is good and bad because while it blocks outside trolls, it also doesn't allow Mom & Dad. Use this to your advantage.

Creating Nicknamed Meets

Nicknamed Meets can be created in 3 ways:

  1. Manually: Simply go to http://meet.google.com and click Join/Create Meet. Type in a nickname of your choice or even use one already provided. If the Meet exists (someone has already started it) you will join. Otherwise, you will create it and join (assuming you have permission).

  2. By URL: you can create or join a Nicknamed meet by URL! This lets you promote a direct link to a nicknamed Meet in a post, email, etc. Just replace the ___ in the URL below with your nickname.

    1. http://g.co/meet/_____

    2. Example: http://g.co/meet/happyscrappyheropup

  3. Google Classroom: The link created in Google Classroom looks like a generic Meet code but they are actually Nicknamed. If you pay attention, you will see it doesn't follow the xxx-yyyy-zzz format. Learn More

Note that nicknames are Domain specific - That is, joining a nicknamed Meet creates a meet under your own domain. It may appear to work for people in other domains, but it just creates a different Meet with the same nickname in their domain. Thus "happyscrappyheropup" creates a different Meet for fdresa.org than bullochschools.org and so on.

Quick Access

To control access to their meetings, hosts can turn "Quick access" on or off. By default, this setting will be on.

When "Quick access" is on:

  • Participants in the same domain as the host do not need to "knock" to request to join the meeting.

  • Participants joining by phone do not need to knock to request to join the meeting.

  • Participants can dial-out from within the meeting.

When "Quick access" is turned off:

  • All users, including those in the same domain as the host, must knock to request to join the meeting unless they're on the calendar invite. This includes any users who are dialing in to the meeting by phone.

  • Any participants invited from within the meeting by anyone other than the host need to knock to request to join.

  • Only the host can dial-out from within the meeting.

Hosts can turn "Quick access" on or off as often as they wish from Google Meet on the web once the meeting has started. Note: Hosts will not see the option to change this setting on mobile devices.

Troubleshooting: If you're unable to turn the features on or off, it's possible that you have a Chrome extension for Meet which is preventing the features from working. To fix the issue, try turning your Meet Chrome extensions off.

Coming Soon

Google will be adding additional functionality to the "Quick access" setting. Stay tuned for the rollout timeline for those additional features:

  • When "Quick access" is off, the host must join the meeting first. Until the host joins, participants on the web will see the message: "Waiting for the Host to Join: The meeting will start as soon as the host has joined."

  • Hosts can turn "Quick access" on or off for meetings created in Google Calendar in addition to those created from Google Meet.

Meeting Ownership & Permissions

It's important to know who the Host (owner) of a Meet is. In general, the Host is the person who created the Meet link, whether manually or through Google Classroom. If the Meet link was created via Calendar, then the Host is the owner of the Calendar event. It's important that you Transfer Ownership of a Calendar event to the person you wish to host, if necessary.

Only the Host can:

  • Kick participants from the Meet: if kicked twice, the participant will not be able to join again unless you directly invite them within the Meet using the +Add People button (top right).

  • Mute participants: Once muted, only the participant can un-mute themselves

  • Approve people to join: If someone is "knocking" or requesting access, only the Host will see the pop-up. Most of the time this isn't an issue because you will be hosting for people in your domain. However, if you turn off Quick Access or invite outside participants, you will need to know who the Host is for approvals.

Learn more in the accompanying video.