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The “External” label will be visible on Gmail on the web and Android devices. We will provide an update when this feature becomes available on iOS. 




The external label and warning banner appears when interacting with individuals outside the domain.


Who’s impacted 

Admins and end users 


Why it’s important 

The “External” label and the reply warning banner and label are helpful reminders for users to treat external messages with caution. This can help avoid unintentionally sharing confidential information with recipients outside of their organization. 


Additional details 

Secondary and alias domains are exempted from being labeled as “External”. 


Getting started 

  • Admins: Visit the Help Center to learn more about turning external recipient warnings on or off in Gmail. Note: This setting controls both the “External” label and warning banner. 

  • End users: No action required. When enabled by your admin, you'll see "External" label and warning banner when interacting with or replying to email threads with recipients outside your organization or contacts.


Rollout pace 


Availability 

  • Available to all Google Workspace customers, as well as G Suite Basic and Business customers 


Resources 

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Applying context-aware access levels to mobile and desktop applications


Who’s impacted 

Admins and end users 



Why it’s important 

With context-aware access, you can set up different access levels based on a user’s identity and the context of the request (location, device security status, IP address). Expanding these policies to other Google Workspace entry points—such as the Google Drive for desktop app or using Gmail on a mobile browser—gives admins greater control over how, when, and where users can access Workspace resources. 



Getting started 


Rollout pace 

Availability 

  • Available to Google Workspace Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Plus, and Cloud Identity Premium customers
  • Not available to Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Education Fundamentals, Frontline, and Nonprofits, as well as G Suite Basic and Business customers

Resources 

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Who’s impacted

Admins

Why it matters

This provides you with expanded control over your organization’s data, and can help you meet regulatory or legal obligations for your Google Sites data.

If you have Drive retention rules set to purge data after a retention period, sites will be purged according to those rules.

Getting started

  • End users: There is no end user setting for this feature.

Rollout pace

Rapid Release and Scheduled Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on April 27.

Availability

  • Available to Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Fundamentals, Education Plus, and Nonprofits.
  • Not available to Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter and Business Standard customers, and G Suite Basic customers.

Resources

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  • No valid members in a ring group, 
  • No valid auto attendants or ring groups to forward the call to, 
  • No voicemail recipients. 


Getting started 

Rollout pace 


Availability 

  • Available to all Google Workspace and G Suite customers with Google Voice standard and premier licenses 

Resources 

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Getting started 

  • Admins: There is no admin control for this feature. 
  • End users: There is no end user setting for this feature. Visit the Help Center to learn more about editing tasks on the web. 

Rollout pace 


Availability 

  • Available to all Google Workspace customers, as well as G Suite Basic and Business customers 

Resources 

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Previous announcements 

The announcements below were published on the Workspace Updates blog earlier this week. Please refer to the original blog posts for complete details. 


More ways to work with and analyze BigQuery data using Connected Sheets 
We’re adding several new features that will give you more ways to work with, display, and organize your BigQuery data when using Connected Sheets. | Learn more. 


Use Google Maps in the quick access side panel 
You can now use Google Maps in the quick access side panel. With Maps in the side panel, you’ll be able to see more information without switching contexts or using multiple tabs. | Learn more. 


Reminder: Website creation in classic Google Sites will no longer be available starting May 15, 2021 
Starting May 15, 2021, users will no longer be able to create new websites in classic Google Sites. We recommend that you turn off site creation in classic Sites for your domain before May 15, 2021. | Learn more. | See more details on the classic Sites to new Sites migration timeline.


Google Meet now gives you more space for content and control over layouts for a more flexible experience. 
Inspired by your feedback, we’re rolling out a refreshed Google Meet desktop/laptop experience with updates to video feeds, the viewing and presenting experience, and the bottom bar. | Learn more.


Use Virtual Private Cloud Service Controls to create security perimeters around Google Cloud Search data 
We’re introducing support for Virtual Private Cloud Service Controls (VPC-SC) for Google Cloud Search. You can use these controls to define a service perimeter around Google Cloud Search resources and create policies to grant access based on contextual attributes. | Learn more.


Control your data usage and improve device performance with new data saver setting for Google Meet on mobile 
You can now limit Google Meet data usage on Android and iOS mobile devices. When enabled, this will help to limit data use, conserve data on your mobile plan, conserve battery power, and lower the demand on your phone’s CPU. | Learn more. 


For a recap of announcements in the past six months, check out What’s new in Google Workspace (recent releases).
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  • Limit data use, conserving data on your mobile plan
  • Conserve battery power
  • Lower the demand on your phone’s CPU

Who’s impacted

End users

Why you’d use it

Google Meet automatically adjusts to your device, network and set-up to provide the best possible meeting experience. However, you may want to adjust the quality of your meeting to reduce impact on your mobile device. The data saver setting can help:
  • Minimize cellular data usage
  • Maximize battery life
  • Free up your device's CPU and memory for other tasks

When needed, you can use Google Meet in higher quality by simply toggling the data saver setting off.

Getting started

Admins: There is no admin control for this feature.
End users: This feature will be OFF by default and can be enabled by the user. Visit the Help Center to learn more about turning Meet saver mode on or off for your account.

Turning on Limit data usage in Google Meet Settings on Android

Rollout pace


Availability

  • Available to Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Frontline, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Fundamentals, Education Plus, Nonprofits, Cloud Identity Free, Cloud Identity Premium. Available to all Google Workspace customers, as well as G Suite Basic and Business customers

Resources

Google Meet Help: Meet saver mode
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  • IP Address: You can grant an access level based on the IP address of the originating request 
  • Device type and operating system: You can grant an access level based on user devices, including operating system and version 
  • User Identity: You can grant an access level based on the user identity 
This ensures that:
  • Resources within a perimeter are accessed only from users with authorized VPC networks.
  • Clients with access to resources within a perimeter don't have access to resources outside that perimeter.
  • Data cannot be copied to unauthorized resources outside the perimeter.
  • Internet access to resources within a perimeter are restricted using allowlisted IPv4 and IPv6 ranges.
For more information, see this overview of the VPC Service Controls.


Who’s impacted

Admins and end users


Why you’d use it

Data security is paramount for every enterprise.. VPC Service Controls help you restrict public network access to your sensitive data while using Google Cloud Search’s fully managed document indexing and search capabilities. 

With this managed service, you can configure private communication between cloud resources and hybrid VPC networks. By expanding perimeter security from on-premise networks to data stored on Google Cloud Search, you can feel confident indexing and using sensitive data on Cloud Search. 


Getting started


Rollout pace


Availability

  • Available to Google Cloud Search customers and Google Workspace Enterprise Plus
  • Not available to Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, Education Fundamentals, Education Plus, Frontline, and Nonprofits, as well as G Suite Basic and Business customers


Resources


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What’s changing

Inspired by your feedback, we’re rolling out a refreshed Google Meet desktop/laptop experience with updates to video feeds, the viewing and presenting experience, and the bottom bar.

Video feeds

Viewing and presenting experience

Bottom bar

Other visual updates include




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Hide your own self-feed

Who’s impacted

End users


Why you’d use it

Enjoy a simpler, more flexible experience that lets you participate with confidence in Google Meet calls as a presenter, attendee, teacher or student, knowing you have more control over your video feed, layouts, and content.


Additional details


Getting started

Admins: There is no admin control for this feature.
End users: This feature will be ON for everyone.


Rollout pace



Availability


Resources

Google Meet Help (with an enterprise or education account)
Google Meet Help (with a personal account)
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We’d like to remind you that starting May 15, 2021, users will no longer be able to create new websites in classic Google Sites. We recommend that you turn off site creation in classic Sites for your domain before May 15, 2021. 


Note that the timeline for this transition varies for users with personal Google accounts — see the “Getting Started” section below for more details.


Who’s impacted 

Admins and end users 


Why it’s important 

If you haven’t already, we strongly recommend enabling new Sites creation for your users today, to ensure all newly-created websites use the new Google Sites. If you want your organization’s classic Sites content to continue to be viewable without interruption, make sure all of your existing classic Sites are migrated by December 31, 2021.


Admins should also review the remaining transition timeline and take any necessary action: 

We anticipate the transition process for all remaining classic Sites that starts January 1, 2022 will take one to three months to complete. You’ll receive a notification once this is completed for your domain. During the transition period, you and your users will still be able to take action on remaining classic Sites. Visit the Help Center for more details on the Classic Sites migration. 


If you don’t take any action, the changes outlined in the transition timeline above will automatically be applied to your domain. Use our Help Center to learn more about the transition from classic Sites to new Sites.


Getting started 

  • Admins: Follow the disable creating classic Sites instructions to turn off site creation in classic Sites before May 15, 2021. This change will help ensure all newly-created websites are using the new Google Sites experience. 

    • Use the Classic Sites Manager to help your users make the transition. Using this console, admins can: 
      • View all classic Sites in your domain with the option to export to Google Sites for project management. 
      • Convert, archive, or delete your websites. 
      • Bulk delete and restore sites.
      • Bulk update ownership of sites.

  • Google Workspace end users: Users need to transition from classic to new Sites according to the timeline outlined above. Learn more about how to use the Classic Sites Manager tool, or visit our Help Center to learn how to convert a classic Site to a new Site. 

Availability 

  • Available to all Google Workspace customers, as well as G Suite Basic and Business customers.
  • Available to users with personal Google accounts.

Resources 

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  • See place details such as location, opening hours, and user reviews. 
  • Make sure you’re adding the correct location to a Calendar event. 
  • Get travel times and directions to plan ahead your trip to an upcoming event location. You can add trips to your Calendar to help arrive on time by knowing when to leave. Predicted traffic and transit at the future time of the event is used for a better estimate of travel time. 
The quick access side panel can already help you view your Calendar while in other Google Workspace apps, take notes, manage your tasks, and more. With Maps in the side panel, you’ll be able to see more information without switching contexts or using multiple tabs. This will make it easier to plan and participate in timely events. 


Getting started 

  • Admins: This feature will be on by default for all users with Calendar and Maps enabled. If Maps is disabled for a user, there will be no change to their experience and they will not see Maps in the side panel. Visit the Help Center to learn more about turning services on or off for your users. 
  • End users: If your admin has enabled Maps for your domain, click on the location of any Calendar event to start using this feature. Visit the Help Center to learn more about using the side panel. 

Rollout pace 

Availability 

  • Available to all Google Workspace customers, as well as G Suite Basic and Business customers 

Resources 

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  • Column stats 
  • Filter by value 
  • Calculated fields for pivot tables 
  • Pivot table grouping 
  • Slicers 
See below for more details on these features. If you’re new to BigQuery and Connected Sheets, check out this video demo. 

Who’s impacted 

Admins and End users 

Why you’d use it 

Column stats 
This new feature allows easy access to aggregated insights about the data in any column of your BigQuery table. These insights help you understand the shape of your data and include sum, average, median, unique count, max, min, list of most and least frequent values and distribution of the values in the column. 



Filter by value 
In addition to the ability to filter a column “by condition”, you can now filter a column “by value”. Connected Sheets will retrieve the list of values for any column that you can access for your analysis. Use the Help Center to learn more about filtering columns by value when using Connected Sheets. 



Calculated fields in pivot tables 
Calculated fields for pivot tables allow for custom aggregation of formulas in pivot table buckets. Use the Help Center to learn more about how to use calculated fields. 

Pivot table grouping 
You can now group numeric values from your source data into buckets of equal size in Connected Sheets pivot tables. This is useful when you’re working with a pivot table with numerous unique values—grouping can better narrow down your data by a minimum, maximum, and interval. Use the Help Center to learn more about using pivot table grouping in Google Sheets. 



Slicers for Connected Sheets 
You can also use a slicer to filter your Connected Sheets tables, charts, and pivot tables. A slicer is based on a column/field from the BigQuery data source. The slicer influences all the Connected Sheets charts, extracts and pivot tables in the same tab. Use the Help Center to learn more about using slicers with Connected Sheets. 

Additional details 

In the coming weeks, we will introduce improvements for scheduled refresh, allowing you to automate refresh at a specified frequency with more granular scheduling options. These options include: 
  • Hourly refreshes 
  • Specific start dates 
  • Frequency options such as every five days, every two months, etc. 



When this feature becomes available, we’ll provide an update on the Workspace Updates Blog. 

Getting started 

Rollout pace 


Availability 

  • Available to Google Workspace Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, and Education Plus customers 
  • Not available to Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Education Fundamentals, Frontline, and Nonprofits, as well as G Suite Basic and Business customers 

Resources 

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Improved suggestions when inserting links in Google Docs
Now when you insert a link to selected text, you’ll see intelligent suggestions for Drive files, section headings, and bookmarks within your document based on the context of your selection. This makes it easier to link to the most relevant content faster, without switching applications.

Q&A and polls now available for Google Meet on mobile devices and tablets
Meeting participants can now see and respond to Q&A and polls on their Android and iOS devices. Q&A and polls are already launched on the web. | Learn more about Q&A and Polls in Meet.

Adding present and chat Meet safety locks for education users on mobile
We’re giving hosts Google Workspace education meetings new meeting safety controls on Android to manage who can share their screen and who can send chat messages within the meeting. These controls were previously available on the web. | Available to Google Workspace Education Fundamentals and Education Plus customers only. | Learn more.

Previous announcements

The announcements below were published on the Workspace Updates blog earlier this week. Please refer to the original blog posts for complete details.

New Google Meet Hardware Admin console features: peripheral status, default volume, and static URLs
We’re adding three new features to the Google Meet Hardware section of the Admin console: peripheral status, default volume, and static URLs | Learn more.

New Rules homepage in the Admin console makes security simpler
We're making some updates to how you create, view, and manage rules in the Admin console. We hope this information makes it easier for admins to decide which rules to proactively implement, easier to maintain with centralized management, and easier to investigate with direct Investigation tool integration. | Learn more.

School matches are available in originality reports for Education customers
In addition to checking student work for matches across billions of web pages and books, originality reports can now check for matches against a repository of student work within your domain. | Available to Google Workspace Education Plus customers. Also available with the Teaching and Learning Upgrade only. | Learn more.

For a recap of announcements in the past six months, check out What’s new in Google Workspace (recent releases).

 

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Once school matches are enabled by your admin, submitted assignments will automatically be added to your school-owned private repository after an originality report is run. If a match is detected amongst other documents in the repository, the match is included as a flagged passage for the educator to review. This can make it easier for instructors to evaluate the academic integrity of the student’s work and provide them with constructive feedback. 




Who’s impacted 

Admins and end users 



Why it’s important 

School matches allow educators to compare student work within their school without compromising student privacy--with originality reports, you own your school’s repository of papers. Admins can also manually add or remove work from their school’s repository. 



Getting started 




Rollout pace 




Availability 

  • Available to Education Plus customers. Also available with the Teaching and Learning Upgrade. 
  • Not available to Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Fundamentals, Frontline and Nonprofits, as well as G Suite Basic and Business customers 


Resources 

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The new Rules homepage in the Admin console

See below for more information.



Who’s impacted

Admins



Why you’d use it

We hope this information makes it easier for admins to decide which rules to proactively implement, easier to maintain with centralized management, and easier to investigate with direct Investigation tool integration.


Additional details


On the new Rules homepage, admins can find information about:
  • The benefits of enabling rules with use-case based guidance for managing alerts and email notifications for Google-provided rules. 
  • The benefits of creating custom rules for other use cases including defining alerts for specific audit log events, protecting sensitive content, automating actions on specific activities, and securing devices. 
For Enterprise Standard and Enterprise Plus admins:
We’re introducing a new Rules Templates page. You can customize these pre-made templates to quickly set up rules for common use cases based on best practices. This includes scenarios such as preventing the sharing of sensitive personal, financial, or health information.

For Enterprise Plus customers, we’ve enabled one-click rule analysis of activity and data protection rules with investigation tool integration directly from the list view.



Rollout pace


Availability

New Rules homepage 
  • Available to all Google Workspace customers, as well as G Suite Basic and Business customers

Data protection
  • Available to Google Workspace Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Fundamentals, Education Standard, and Education Plus customers
  • Not available to Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Frontline, and Nonprofits customers
Device management rules
  • Available to Google Workspace Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Standard, Education Plus
  • Not available to Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Education Fundamentals, Frontline, and Nonprofits customers

Activity Rules
  • Available to Google Workspace Enterprise Plus, Education Standard, and Education Plus customers
  • Not available to Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, Education Fundamentals, Frontline, and Nonprofits, as well as G Suite Basic and Business customers
Investigation tool integration
  • Available to Google Workspace Enterprise Plus, Education Standard, and Education Plus customers
  • Not available to Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, Education Fundamentals, Frontline, and Nonprofits, as well as G Suite Basic and Business customers


Resources


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Peripheral status: 
In addition to the “Device status” column on the Device list page, we’ve added columns for connection status and peripheral status. These new columns will help you filter your device list in order to easily discover and troubleshoot issues, and identify devices with missing peripherals. 

Additionally, there is a new column management widget which you can use to quickly create customized views and sort through your devices faster. 



Default Volume: 
There are two new options for setting the default volume behavior on Meet Hardware devices: 
  • Preset volume mode: You can set a numerical value between 0 and 100 that devices will automatically use at the beginning of every call. 
  • Smart volume mode: This mode will automatically determine the best volume for the room by averaging the volume set by users in the five most recent calls. 
The default volume behavior for a single device can be set on its Device detail page. For a group of devices, use the bulk action option from the Device list page. 

Note that end users can still modify the volume on a device according to their preference regardless of the default volume selection. 



Static Device list URLs: 
Device list filters will now be uniquely encoded into the page’s URL. This makes it easy for admins who are responsible for specific organizational units or devices to bookmark a customized view or share it among team members. 

Getting started 

  • Admins: You’ll see these updates in the Admin console under Devices > Google Meet Hardware. 
  • End users: No action required 

Rollout pace 

Peripheral status and Default volume 
Static Device list URLs 

Availability 

  • Available to all Google Workspace customers in organizations with Google Meet Hardware
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Who’s impacted 

Admins and end users

Why it’s important 

This new setting adds another layer of protection over your Workspace and end user data. Not every third party application has robust security measures in place or conforms to your security policy — by restricting third-party APIs from requesting sensitive information, such as login or email scopes, you can ensure your data and user data stays secure.

When all third party API access is blocked, an app will not be able to access any Workspace user date, across web and mobile. If users try to authorize an untrusted app, they’ll see an authorization error message. Admins can customize this error message if they choose.

Getting started 

Rollout pace 

Availability 

  • Available to all Google Workspace customers, as well as G Suite Basic and Business customers

Resources 


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What’s changing

We’re extending the previously announced timeframe for upcoming changes to the Google Workspace storage policy. The updated timeline is:

  • June 1, 2021: High-quality photos will count towards Drive quota beginning June 1, 2021. There is no change to this timeline.
  • May 2, 2022: Any newly created Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, Drawings, Forms, or Jamboard files will count toward storage. Existing files within these products will not count toward storage, unless they’re modified on or after May 2, 2022. Read more in our Help Center.

Note that there are no changes to the previously announced dates for personal Google accounts.

Who’s impacted

Admins and end users. Storage limits differ across Google Workspace and G Suite editions, but we estimate that the majority of users will not be affected by these changes. See “Getting Started” below for more information on determining storage usage across your organization.

Why it’s important

People are uploading more content than ever before—in fact, more than 4.3 million GB are added across Gmail, Drive, and Photos every day. These changes to our storage policy are necessary to provide our users with a great experience and to keep pace with the growing demand.



We recently announced changes to the pooled storage policy for Workspace for Education customers. As a part of these updates, to empower Google Workspace admins to adapt to this model and optimize their storage, we will provide new admin tools to identify and manage how storage is used and allocated before the policy goes into effect. We’ve decided to delay the count of Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, Drawings, Forms, or Jamboard files count toward storage quotas until that tooling is in place.

Getting started


Rollout pace

High-quality photos
Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, Drawings, Forms, and Jamboard

Availability

  • These changes will apply to all customers with Google Workspace and G Suite licenses.

Resources

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This beta is only available to Google Workspace for Education customers. Admins can use this form to express interest in participating in the beta. 



Who’s impacted 

Admins and end users 

Why it’s important 

With this new feature, you won't have to start over if you can't complete a form or quiz in one sitting, if you want to switch between multiple devices, or if your internet connection cuts out before your answers have been submitted. 

Additional details 

Note that during the beta, Forms will only automatically save your progress as a draft for users in your domain when they’re signed in to their Google Workspace for Education account. 


Data location requirements 
In order to participate in the beta, your domain cannot have data location requirements. To determine if you have data regions, use this Help Center article regarding geographic location for your data. 


Feature availability 
While this beta is only available for Google Workspace for Education customers, this feature will be made available to all Google Workspace customers later this year. We’ll provide an update on the Workspace Updates blog when this feature becomes generally available. 

Getting started 

  • Admins: Google Workspace for Education admins can use this form to express interest in joining the beta. You’ll be notified via email once accepted into the beta and when the beta becomes available. 
  • End users: No action required. Once the beta starts, your draft responses will automatically be saved when logged in to your Google account. To view your drafted responses, simply reopen the form link when logged in to your Google account. 

Availability 

  • Available to Google Workspace for Education Fundamentals, Education Plus, Education Standard, and Teaching and Learning Upgrade customers 
  • Not available to Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, and Enterprise Plus, as well as G Suite Basic, Business, Frontline, and Nonprofits customers 

Resources 

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