Deploy Safe Doc To Your Students’ Chrome browsers

This article is written for Google Workspace for Education Administrators.

Introduction

The article is a deployment guide of xFanatical Safe Doc, a chrome extension that helps school administrators manage inappropriate features in Google Workspace for Education that Google Admin Console doesn't provide. You can install xFanatical Safe Doc on managed Chrome devices (primarily Chromebooks) and desktop Chrome browsers.

Step 1: Prerequisites

• Your Google account must be a Super Admin role, to change a series of settings in the Google Admin Console.
• Make sure your school's technology environment meets the System Requirements for xFanatical Safe Doc.
• You need a trial license key to activate xFanatical Safe Doc. If you don't have a trial license key, apply for a 30-day trial key.

Step 2: Create a test Organization Unit (OU)

For the first time hands-on, we recommend you to explore and configure xFanatical Safe Doc in a test OU. This avoids unexpected disruption to your students' study environment in Google Workspace for Education. After you're more familiar with the xFanatical Safe Doc setup, it's easier and safer to copy the settings to your students' OU. Learn more about adding an organizational unit in Google Workspace.

In this article, we use a test OU xFanatical Edu Demo > Students > SafeDocTest in the rest of article for demonstration.

Step 3. Add test student accounts to the OU

Then add 2 test student user accounts to the test OU in Google Admin. 2 student user accounts are recommended for experimenting some policies. Learn more about adding a new user in Google Workspace.

Step 4: Customize User & Browser settings for the OU

To prevent xFanatical Safe Doc from being shut down or tampered by students, it's necessary to implement security policies. The following instructions are intended to disable the Chrome developer tools, disable incognito mode and whitelist our license server.

1. Sign into Google Admin Console.
2. Go to Devices > Chrome > Settings > User & browser settings.
3. In the Settings > Organization Units pane, select the test student OU.
4. In the User experience sections, click Developer Tools.
   
5. In Configuration,
   
   1. In Developer tools availability, select Never allow use of built-in developer tools.
   2. In Extensions page developer mode, select Do not allow use of developer tools on extensions page.
   3. Click Save.
6. Go back to the User & browser settings.
7. Click the Incognito mode.
   
8. In the Incognito mode > Configuration screen, select Disallow incognito mode.
   
9. (Optional) If your school uses Google Admin's web filter to allow or block access to websites, then go back to Users & browser settings and select URL blocking.
   
10. In the URL blocking > Configuration > Blocked URL exceptions, add a new line denali.xfanatical.com and click Save.
    

If your school uses third-party firewall or web filter solutions, whitelist denali.xfanatical.com. This is out of the tutorial's scopes. To verify that our license server is accessible, in the test student's device, go to https://denali.xfanatical.com, if the page displays Not Found, it indicates our licensing server is accessible.

Step 5: Install xFanatical Safe Doc on Students' Chrome browsers

xFanatical Safe Doc is installed remotely from Google Admin Console instead of physical installations on the students' devices. If you have never installed a chrome extension remotely, learn more about automatically install apps and extensions from Google Admin Console.

Follow this instruction to remotely install xFanatical Safe Doc.

1. Sign into Google Admin Console.
2. Go to Devices > Chrome > Apps & extensions > Users & browsers.
3. In the Apps & Extensions > Organizational Units pane, select the test organizational unit where xFanatical Safe Doc will be installed.
4. Hover on and click , which is to add an extension from Chrome Web Store.
   
5. In the opened Select an app from Chrome Web Store dialog,
   
   
   1. In the Search extensions and themes search field, enter "xFanatical Safe Doc".
   2. Click xFanatical Safe Doc.
   3. Click Select.
   4. xFanatical Safe Doc will display in the App list.
6. In the Installation policy, select Force install + Pin to browser toolbar.
   
7. Go to the xFanatical Safe Doc trial license email in your email inbox, and download the attached sample policy configuration file.
   
8. In the Policy for extensions, select the attachment policy file. The policy configuration will populate.
   
   
9. On the top right of screen, click Save.
10. The deployment of xFanatical Safe Doc is done.

Step 6: Validate the installation of xFanatical Safe Doc

Follow the instructions below to validate whether xFanatical Safe Doc is force-installed and activated on students' Chrome browsers properly.

1. Physically go to the test students' Chromebook, and sign into the test student account.
2. Open Chrome browser.
3. Wait for a few seconds to few minutes, xFanatical Safe Doc icon will displayed the browser toolbar, in , which indicates the extension functions properly.
4. If the icon is colored in grey , it indicates that xFanatical Safe Doc is installed but not activated. If the xFanatical Safe Doc icon does not show up or shows a grey umbrella, learn more to troubleshoot xFanatical Safe Doc common issues.

Check the xFanatical Safe Doc EnableDictionary policy that blocks the dictionary feature in Google Docs, Slides and Drawings.

1. Go to the student's device.
2. Open a Google Docs file.
3. Select the menu Tools > Dictionary. With xFanatical Safe Doc installed, students will not see this feature.

Step 7: Configure xFanatical Safe Doc

xFanatical Safe Doc offers dozens of policies for your school to manage features granularly in Google Workspace for Education. The sample policy configuration have most of the policies turned on for demonstration purposes. You would need to turn off some policies, to meet your school's requirements and improve the performance. Learn more about the complete policy list and configuration instructions in xFanatical Safe Doc configuration.

Step 8: Repeat the setup for the real student OU(s)

Once you finish the configuration of xFanatical Safe Doc, repeat the setup for the real organizational unit where students are located. Copy the policy configuration over, and save. It may take up to 24 hours for Google to propagate the changes to all your students' devices.

Optionally, you can set different policies for different student OUs.

Upgrade License

After you purchase an annual license, you will receive a new annual license key by email. Follow these steps to activate the new license key.

1. Sign into your Google Admin Console.
2. Go to the Devices > Chrome > Apps & extensions > Users & browsers page.
3. For your students' OU, select xFanatical Safe Doc.
4. In the Policy for extensions section, in the policy SafeDocLicenseKey, replace the existing trial license key with the new annual license key.
   
5. Click Save. It may take up to 24 hours for the new license key to be propagated to all your students' devices.

Uninstall Safe Doc

Follow the instructions to uninstall xFanatical Safe Doc from your students' Chrome devices. If you have installed xFanatical Safe Doc in different organizational units, uninstall them one-by-one.

1. Sign into your Google Admin Console.
2. Go to the Devices > Chrome > Apps & extensions > Users & browsers page.
3. For the students OU, select xFanatical Safe Doc.
4. On the right panel, click the button.
5. Click Save.
6. Your students' Chrome browsers will automatically unload the extension remotely.

Wrap up

Setting up xFanatical Safe Doc is straightforward, but it requires careful planning to avoid potential disruptions to students' workflows due to misconfiguration. By utilizing experimental organizational units, test user accounts, and test devices, the trial environment remains secure and controlled. If you have any doubts about the setup in this tutorial, please contact us and we will be happy to assist you.