Overview
Sentinel maintains a roster of students it monitors. Students can enter that roster automatically as Sentinel encounters them in Google Workspace activity, or they can be added manually or in bulk ahead of time. This article explains all three methods and how student privacy is maintained throughout.
Method 1: Automatic Discovery
The most common way students appear in Sentinel is through automatic discovery. Every 15 minutes, Sentinel scans new content from your school's connected Google Workspace. When it encounters an email, document, or chat message from a student account it has not seen before, it automatically adds that student to the roster.
You do not need to do anything to enable this — it happens as a natural result of the monitoring activity. Students show up in the roster as soon as they appear in a scanned piece of content.
Display names from automatic discovery are set to the student's first name from the Google Workspace directory. If the directory lookup does not return a name, Shield uses a sanitized placeholder like "Student 042."
Method 2: Manual Addition
You can add an individual student manually before any signal is detected for them. This is useful when you want to pre-populate the roster for a new school year or ensure a specific student is visible even if they have not yet generated any activity.
To add a student manually:
- Go to the Students tab in the portal.
- Click Add Student.
- Enter the student's school email address, an optional display name, and an optional grade level.
- Save.
Sentinel immediately creates a roster entry for the student. Their timeline will be empty until a signal is detected.
Method 3: CSV Import from Google Workspace
For larger schools or at the start of a school year, your MSP can connect Sentinel directly to your Google Workspace directory to pull the student roster. This auto-discovery from the directory creates entries for all students in the Workspace before any signals fire, giving counselors a pre-populated list to work from.
Your MSP handles the directory sync as part of the initial Sentinel setup. Contact your MSP if you need the roster refreshed.
How Student Privacy Is Protected: The Hash System
Sentinel never stores student email addresses in plain text. Every student record is keyed on a SHA-256 hash — a one-way fingerprint of the student's school email address. This means:
- The database contains hashes, not emails
- Counselors see display names (first name or a placeholder), not email addresses
- Even if someone accessed the database directly, they could not reverse a hash back to an email address
- Two students with the same display name are distinguished by their unique hashes
This approach is called the "student hash privacy" model and it applies everywhere in Sentinel — in alert records, signal logs, parent links, and CSV imports.
What the Risk Score Means
Each student entry includes a risk score from 0 to 100. This score is calculated automatically from the severity and frequency of signals detected for that student over time. A score of 40 or above places the student on the at-risk dashboard.
The score goes up when new signals are detected. It is not manually editable. Higher scores do not automatically trigger new alerts — they are a trend indicator for counselors to use as context.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I see a student's email address anywhere in the portal?
No. Email addresses are never displayed in the portal. You see display names and, in some views, short hash prefixes as identifiers.
What if a student's display name is wrong?
Display names are pulled from the Google Workspace directory. If a name is wrong or missing, the correction needs to be made in Google Workspace and Sentinel will pick it up on the next sync.
What happens to a student's record if they transfer to another school?
When the student's Google Workspace account is deactivated or removed from the school's directory, Sentinel stops generating new signals for them. The historical record remains for the school's compliance purposes.
Can I delete a student from the roster?
Students can be opted out of monitoring (the FERPA opt-out flow), which stops new signals from being generated. The historical record is retained. Full deletion is not available because alert records reference the student hash for compliance purposes.