How would you answer the question: “Who has access to my Google Drive files”? Tough one, right?
As a Google Workspace user you are used to sharing information with people inside and outside your organization with one, two clicks of your mouse. It’s super easy to give others access to the project budget, the output of your team’s workshop or the latest revenue stats.
So, we’re really good at sharing. But how about the tracking of what has been shared, and ultimately, the unsharing of data?
Most Google Workspace user’s agree that sending out data as email attachments isn’t the best way to share information. But are we also aware that sharing Google Drive files “forever” with others might also be a potential risk?
Is the information I shared two years ago with my customer XYZ still up to date? Has the customer maybe decided to employ the services of our competitor, but they are still accessing the information we provided them way back when?
The difficulty in answering the question “Who has access to my Google Drive files?” lies in the fact that we forget so easily.
Think about the last ten files you shared in the past days or weeks. With whom did you share them? Does this person still need access to that information? Will you remember to revoke that access in the future?
You are not the only Google Workspace user wanting to have more control over the information they share through Google Drive. This challenge is so crucial that Tricent, a Google Enterprise Partner based in Denmark, created a tool to help you solve this problem.
The Tricent Compliance Tool helps Google Workspace user’s manage the files they have shared. The tool gives each user a dashboard with insights into their sharing behaviour. The user receives email notifications on a regular basis concerning files that she or he should consider unsharing.
At saperis we have installed the Tricent Compliance Tool and have been testing it for a couple of weeks. So far we are really happy with the results: through the app we have discovered we are still sharing files we have long forgotten about!
The tool isn’t for free as it costs $15 per user annually for up to 500 users. But we think that’s a small amount compared to the extra security a company gets.
As more and more companies decide to adopt Google Workspace the topic of managing who has access to your Google Drive files will become more important. At saperis we are convinced that the Tricent Compliance Tool can help with this and have thus partnered with them to help you answer the question: “Who has access to my Google Drive files?”.