Google apps are unusual in that many Google services overlap with each other. If you are trying to enable Google Classroom, Google Drive, or Google Hangouts, please use the guide below to get yourself up and running with these services.
Allowing Google Classrooms, Drive (Docs, Sheets, etc.), or Hangouts for a profile
- Open the profile for which you'd like to enable Google Classroom.
- Tap Filters.
- At the top, select either Teen or Adult as the filter level. (The Kid filter level is too restrictive to allow these services.)
- Then, scroll down to the filter categories below and ensure that Science & Technology, Business, Chats & Forums, and Education are set to either Allowed or Unmanaged.
- Finally, review the other Apps, Websites, and Categories in this family member's Filter settings and ensure that everything else is still set as expected.
For some more assistance on how to change Filter settings, check out our Filters Feature Guide.
Why are these steps necessary?
It may not seem intuitive to you that these steps would be required, so we we'd like to offer a bit more explanation for what is happening here.
These Google services utilize a wide variety of underlying tools in order to make them work. For example, the Google Classrooms service shares the same resources as Google's video chat service, but each of these is classified by Circle in a different way. To allow one, the other must be allowed as well.
If your kids aren't yet Teens and you're worried this filter level is too open, you can always customize the Teen profile filter level to be more restrictive by setting other categories, apps, or websites to Not Allowed. Just make sure Chat and Forums is set to allowed if you want your kids to be able to use Google Docs, Drive, or Classroom!
Setting up additional Custom Filters
Want to make sure all Google Docs, Hangouts, Meet, or Classroom or links work to load? You may need to add the additional domains as Allowed / Unmanaged using a Custom Filter.
- meet.google.com
- classroom.google.com
- hangouts.google.com
- googlevideo.com
- docs.google.com
- googledocs.com
- forms.google.com
- edu.google.com
- accounts.google.com
You can also use Custom Filters to make sure other sites load correctly by tapping on the site in History >> Visited or Filtered and selecting Set as Allowed or Set as Unmanaged.
Last Resort
As a last resort you can set up google.com as a Custom Filter that is Unmanaged. This will make sure any websites that use the top level domain of google.com (meet.google.com, classroom.google.com, etc.) will always be available, even during a Bed Time, Off Time, Time Limit being reached, etc. To do so:
- Open the Circle app and then tap on the profile you'd like to create that Custom Filter for.
- Tap on Filter.
- Tap on the Custom Filter icon in the top right corner of the app.
- Add google.com as url.
- Tap on Allowed twice to switch it to Unmanaged.
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