Google Docs Activity Dashboard is a wonderful feature that lets you view which one of your collaborators has opened your Google Docs file in your own Activity Dashboard.
Google Docs Activity Dashboard: View all the activities on your Google Docs file in one place.
If you’re working on an important document in Google Docs and waiting on some feedback, then you can just see the Activity Dashboard to find out whether changes or feedback have been given or not.
The Dashboard helps to keep track of who’s seen it, when they see it, and whether they made any changes when sharing a document. Basically, it helps you to view all the activities on your own Google Docs file.
Let’s dive deep into this article to learn what is Activity dashboard in Google Docs is, how to access Them, how to view the activity dashboard, the limitations of the activity dashboard in Google Docs, and how to resolve if the Activity Dashboard is not working.
Table Of Contents
What is Google Docs Activity Dashboard?
Activity Dashboard is a centralized place where the document owners and the editors can able to view how the other collaborators are getting engaged with their own content.
In simple words, the Activity Dashboard in Google Docs is a place in which all the information about who has viewed your shared document, when they viewed it, and more are saved.
Activity Dashboard lets you keep track of what are the changes that happened in your document and see in Google Docs see who has viewed your document.
How to access Google Docs Activity Dashboard?
There are two conditions that should be met to access the Activity Dashboard.
- Unfortunately, the Activity Dashboard isn’t available to everyone. To use the Activity Dashboard in Google Docs, your Google account must be part of an organization, like a business, or school.
- You need permission to edit the document when someone shares, and you must use the web browser version of Google Docs.
How to view Google Docs Activity Dashboard?
You can find the “Activity Dashboard” by clicking on the jagged arrow icon that is present next to the comments button in the top-right corner of your Google Docs document. Clicking on this icon, Activity Dashboard will open, there you can able to adjust your document settings and even the privacy settings.
Upon clicking, you get instant access to the Activity Dashboard information you’re seeking.
If you will mouse hover on the icon, you can able to see the detailed information that others can able to view about yourself at the Activity Dashboard.
Below are some of the information you can see with the Activity Dashboard:
- Shared with tab: People you’ve shared the file with.
- All viewers (organization) tab: People in your organization who have viewed the file.
- Viewer trend tab: A chart of viewers over time.
Limitations of Google Docs activity dashboard
Even though the dashboard is helpful in monitoring changes in your Google Docs document, it does have limitations. Some of them are
- It can be viewed only by Google accounts users.
- Anyone outside of your organization clicks a shareable link, they will not be listed.
- Users can hide their viewing Activities using options in the Privacy settings tab. Thus you can’t track those people using Activity Dashboard.
How to hide Google Docs view history?
If you don’t want your view history to appear in Activity Dashboard, you can hide it.
- To turn off view history for a specific shared file, navigate to the top menu bar, click “Tools Activity dashboard privacy” and turn off “Show my view history for this document”.
How to turn off Google Docs view history for all files?
- To turn off view history for all files, go to Google Docs home page, navigate to the top left side of your document, click Menu > Settings. Under “Activity dashboard,” turn off “Show your view history”
Google Docs Activity Dashboard missing
There are two possible reasons for your Activity Dashboard being missing:
- Administrators restrict the access
Administrators restrict the access
When a file is shared by a Google Business Account owner, administrators(Owner) can able to control if the users can able to see their file activity on the Activity dashboard. File activity contains the user names of those who have viewed the Google Docs and includes the viewing time.
Users must need to have “Edit” access to the file if they want to view your Activity dashboard for any of the shared files, and they must belong to the same domain as the owner of the file. The users can’t able to view the Activity dashboard for the files that are outside of their own domain.
If you wish to see the Activity Dashboard and you have a G Suite free edition, then you will have to upgrade to the Google Workspace to enjoy this specific feature.
Users restrict the access
The users have the provision to control if they want their file-viewing detail information is being displayed at the Activity dashboard. If they want they can change the privacy settings to hide the file-viewing detail information.
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Hope you have got an idea of what is Google Docs Activity Dashboard is, its benefits, and its limitations. You can start using this dashboard to find out how your collaborators are working on shared files!