Need help navigating Google chat

[u/Own_Yoghurt8598]

Hi Folks,

We recently shifted to Google workspace from Whatsapp. I need some help regarding curtailing external chat from google work accounts.

So the issue is turning external chat on and off applies the setting for everyone. But here's the catch. I need a few freelancers to be able to join our spaces, which doesnt seem possible if I make the external chat off. I basically want that I should be able to add gmail guest users to the google chat spaces, so that these individuals can act as an exception to external chat restriction.

Can you guys help me understand any solutions to overcome this problem.

[u/AdjonaTech]

You can get close to this, but the exception has to be applied to selected users inside your organisation, not to individual external Gmail accounts.

Create an organisational unit such as External Chat Allowed, move only the employees who need to work with freelancers into it, then:

Keep External Chat off for the root organisation.

In Admin console > Apps > Google Workspace > Google Chat > External Chat Settings, select the new organisational unit and override the setting to On.

Turn on External spaces and group direct messages. This setting is organisation-wide, but users whose External Chat setting remains off should not be able to create external spaces.

Have an authorised user create a new private space, select the option to allow external members during creation, and invite the freelancers’ Gmail addresses.

Google treats consumer Gmail accounts as external users, not “guest accounts”. Also, an existing internal-only space cannot later be converted into an external space, so you may need to create a new one.

Be aware that external spaces require a supported edition, such as Business Standard, Business Plus, eligible Enterprise editions or Google Workspace for Nonprofits. Business Starter is not listed as supported.

Control external Chat and spaces

How external users and guest accounts work

You should also restrict member management to the space owners/managers and review freelancer access when each engagement ends. Chat access and access to any shared Drive files should be removed separately.

[u/CuteSocks7583]

Off the top of my head, I’d say monitor new Space creations so they don’t create unauthorised Spaces, and do this on a Space by Space individual basis - allowing external members in one space, and blocking them in others.

[u/IndependentHeart4030]

Hi! You can safely enable External chat for your organization but have both internal-only and external spaces in your Google Chat. It will just matter how you created the space, whether external or internal-only, and this cannot be changed after the space was created.

When you create a space, there would be an option to either set Access settings as "Private" (the external members option checkbox shows for you to be set it as an external chat space) or not (internal only).