How to check which students signed into a Chromebook and when

The frustration: "recent users" in Google Admin Console doesn't tell the whole story

It's a common experience in K-12: a Chromebook comes in for repair in a state of disrepair. So we want to check who used the Chromebook recently and might know what happened.

First stop: Google Admin Console, where you can look up a device and see the list of recent users. But when did they use it? What time period does this list cover? When exactly did they sign in? If the Chromebook was damaged in the last week, we want to focus on the right time period in the log.

NEWThere's an easy way to check this now

With Instinctive, you can easily check the full login history for a device. Just search for the device and click the clock icon at the start of the recent user list. You'll see the full history of logins with timestamps so you can track things down.

You can also start from a user and check which Chromebooks they've logged into. Each of the Chromebook serials is a link, so you can click through to explore further.

This is completely free for schools as part of Instinctive Starter.

No Chrome extension needed

It used to be that you'd need a separate Chrome extension (and usually a paid service) to do proper usage tracking on school Chromebooks, but not anymore. Just make sure you've enabled the ReportDeviceUsers setting, or better yet the whole category for device reporting to ensure you stay on top of your devices.