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Last updated
March 3rd, 2026

Google Drive activity is one of the most reliable indicators of focused work. WorkSights ingests Drive metadata through Google’s Admin Audit logs to reflect when users view, edit, create, rename, download, or share files. These signals help teams understand where concentrated effort is happening, while preserving full documented privacy.

What WorkSights Receives

WorkSights processes Drive activity as metadata about user actions. This includes:

  • File viewed
  • File edited
  • File created
  • File renamed
  • Sharing settings changed
  • File downloaded

Google provides only the file title and activity type.

WorkSights does not receive file contents, document bodies comments, revision history, collaboration participants, or attachment data.

How Drive Activity Appears in WorkSights

Drive activity as color-coded entries on the user’s daily timeline:

  • Each event represents a discrete interaction (e.g., view, edit, rename)
  • The file title is shown for context
  • File events default to a five-minute duration estimate

Continuous editing behavior

When Google detects ongoing editing, it sends audit notifications at most every five minutes.

Rather than displaying every event individually, WorkSights applies intelligent processing:

  • Multiple Drive events for the same file are compacted into a single block
  • The block reflects the time between the first and last interaction
  • This provides a realistic representation of focused work without unnecessary noise

Example

If a user edits a document for one hour, Google may send 10-12 events. WorkSights condenses them into one editing block with the correct total duration.

Data Notes

Drive activity appears only after Google emits audit logs; processing is near real time.

WorkSights shows only the file title; no content or preview data is ingested.

Collaboration is not inferred — WorkSights does not receive information about other users in the file.

Multiple interactions on the same file may be compacted automatically during WorkSights's nightly processing.

Privacy

WorkSights's Google Drive integration is strictly metadata-only:

  • No document contents or revisions
  • No comments, suggestions, or inline chat
  • No file bodies or attachments
  • No participant information

All Drive events are read-only signals describing when a user interacted with a file, not what they changed.

Setup

Google Drive becomes available automatically for all users connected through Google Workspace Setup.

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