All devices with the Google Apps Device Policy will lose access during March 2023 if they have not already upgraded. Existing Google Apps Device Policy app users must switch to Android Device Policy before then to continue syncing work data. Note that, per our last update, the new user registration flow on the legacy Google Apps Device Policy will be blocked and users may see errors during the registration process as of January 2022. Admins can act directly from the alert in the Admin console to identify users who need to upgrade.




Visit the Help Center to learn more about migrating to Android Device Policy and our previous announcement for more information.


Getting started 


Rollout pace

  • Devices on the old agent will lose access during March 2023. 
  • Android Device Policy is available now and all users should upgrade to avoid disruption.  


Availability

  • This change impacts Google Workspace customers who use basic and advanced mobile management.


Resources


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Delegate access to a shared inbox using a group address 
You can now give an entire Google Group access to your Gmail account through mail delegation. With this feature, delegated users can read, send, and delete messages on the account owner's behalf. We hope this will enable teams to more effectively process incoming requests and tasks via a single shared email address. | Available to Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Fundamentals, Education Plus, Frontline, Nonprofits, and legacy G Suite Basic and Business customers only. | Learn more. 


Granular controls for app allowlisting in the Google Workspace Marketplace 
Admins can now choose which Google Workspace Marketplace apps are available to be installed by users in a particular department (OU) or group by managing Marketplace apps on their allowlist. Previously, admins could only manage the allowlist for an entire domain. Additionally, the Marketplace apps access settings, Allow all apps, Allow selected apps, and Block all apps, can now be set for your entire organization or for an OU or group. This new functionality provides a solution when only a subset of domain users need permissions to install certain Marketplace apps. Examples include Chat apps required for your Engineering organization and IT security group or Classroom add-ons required for high-school teachers. | Available to Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Fundamentals, Education Plus, Frontline, Nonprofits, and legacy G Suite Basic and Business customers only. | Learn more. 


Seamlessly delete subsets of Sites 
Site editors can now delete a page with subpages and delete pages that were copied into another site during a partial site copy. | Roll out to Rapid Release began August 8, 2022; launch to Scheduled Release planned for August 29, 2022. | 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.


Office Building support for Working Locations 
We’ve added the ability to select a specific office building as your working location. | Available to Google Workspace Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Fundamentals, Education Plus, Nonprofits, and legacy G Suite Business customers only. | Learn more. 


Improving data privacy with Client-side encryption for Google Meet 
We’ve added Workspace Client-side encryption to Google Meet, giving customers increased control over their data. | Available to Google Workspace Enterprise Plus, Education Standard, and Education Plus customers hosting client-side encrypted calls only. | Learn more. 


Stronger protection for sensitive Google Workspace account actions 
There are now stronger safeguards for sensitive actions taken in your Google Workspace account. These apply to actions that, when done by hijackers, can have far reaching consequences for the account owner or the organization it belongs to. | Learn more. 


The Google Meet and Google Duo app icons are changing, additional information for Google Workspace users 
As part of the announcement that we are upgrading the Duo experience to include all Google Meet features, users will now begin to see their app name and icon update to Google Meet. | Learn more. 


Better location context for events and RSVPs in Calendar 
We’ve made it even easier to use RSVPs in Google Calendar and let others know how you’re planning to join a meeting. | Available to Google Workspace Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Fundamentals, Education Plus, Education Standard, Teaching & Learning Upgrade, Nonprofits, and legacy G Suite Business customers only. | Learn more. 


Improved notifications when editing Microsoft Office files in Docs, Sheets, and Slides 
We’ve rolled out a series of improvements to the notifications you see when editing a Microsoft Office-formatted file with Office editing mode. | Learn more. 


Unified experience for Gmail logs in BigQuery, configure your existing Gmail logs to route to Workspace logs 
In the coming months, we will move the location of the existing Gmail logs in BigQuery to Google Workspace logs and reports in BigQuery. | Available to Google Workspace Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Plus, Education Standard customers only. | Learn more. 


Google Meet call control for USB peripheral devices
We've introduced additional call control for Google Meet which will allow you to toggle between mute and unmute using headsets, speaker microphones, and other USB peripheral devices. | Learn more. 


Control visibility of admin alerts with admin role privileges
There is a new control that allows super admins to create a custom rule which ensures only admins with the DLP privilege can see DLP alerts. | 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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Google will evaluate the session attempting the action, and if it’s deemed risky, it will be challenged with a “Verify it’s You” prompt. Through a second and trusted factor, such as a 2-step verification code, users can confirm the validity of the action. For example, if a malicious actor gains access to your account and attempts to change the name on your account, the action will be blocked until the true account owner can verify that this was intentional. 


Note that this feature only supports users that use Google as their identity provider and actions taken within Google products. SAML users are not supported at this time. See below for more information. 




Who’s impacted 

Admins and end users 


Why it matters 

This added layer of security helps to intercept bad actors who have gained access to a user's account, further protecting their data and your organization's sensitive information. Additionally, these challenge attempts will be logged as an audit event allowing for further admin investigation. 

Additional details 

In the Admin console under Users > “UserName” > Security, admins can toggle login challenges OFF for ten minutes if a user gets stuck behind a "verify it's you prompt". We strongly recommend only using this option if contact with the user is credibly established, such as via a video call. 

Getting started 


Rollout pace 


Availability 

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

Resources 



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Who’s impacted 

Admins, end users, and developers 


Why you’d use it 

When employees create a Google account using one of your organization’s domains to access Google services, this is known as an unmanaged account. Unmanaged accounts are not ideal for managing users and keeping their work data secure. 


Additionally, should an admin try to create a managed account with the same name, this conflict will prevent a managed account from being created. Using the UserInvitation API functionality, you can send a request to convert their personal account to a Google Workspace account. 


While the same action can be manually performed with the Transfer Tool, the API allows unmanaged accounts to be identified and remediated programmatically, using logic that best suits your needs.


Getting started 

  • Admins and Developers: 
  • End users: 
    • If you accept the request from your admin to transfer their account, your admin will be granted access to their data and the ability to manage your account. 
    • If you don’t accept the invitation, you will have to rename your account. Your administrator can create a new, managed account for you. 

Rollout pace 


Availability 

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

Resources 

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Find and insert GIFs faster on Google Chat on iOS Devices 
You can now easily browse, select and insert GIFs while using the Chat iOS mobile app. When enabled by your admin, select the “GIF” icon in the Google Chat compose bar. We hope this makes it easier for you to express yourself when interacting with your colleagues. | Learn more. 


Set a custom duration for "Do Not Disturb" in Google Chat on web and iOS devices 
You can now set the duration of your "Do Not Disturb" status to a specific date and time. We hope this feature gives you the flexibility to mute notifications the way it best suits you. This feature is now available on web, Android and iOS devices. | 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 admin controls for access to discoverable spaces in Google Chat 
We’ve added the ability for Admins to set the default for newly created spaces and enable sharing scoped to specific audiences. | Available to Google Workspace Business Plus, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Plus, and Education Standard customers only. | Learn more. 


Context-Aware Access remediator provides more context for access denials 
Admins using Context-Aware Access can now provide more information to end users when their access is blocked using the user remediation feature. | Available to Google Workspace Enterprise Plus, Education Plus, and Cloud Identity Premium customers only. | Learn more.


Mark your important tasks with a star in Google Tasks 
You can now mark important tasks with a star in Google Tasks. Additionally, you’ll be able to view or sort your starred items across various tasks lists in the new starred view. | 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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Who’s impacted 

Admins and end users 


Why it’s important 

Context-Aware Access allows admins to assign granular access control policies to apps based on attributes such as user identity, location, device security status, IP address, etc. When a user or device does not meet the requirements, they will be unable to access the respective apps. 


Currently, the only course of action for end users is to contact their admin for further support, which causes unnecessary delay, churn, and support calls. End user remediation will enable admins to provide their users with details about why their access has been denied and what steps need to be taken to restore access. 


Further, once an admin enables remediation, they’ll see a message in the Admin console noting whether remediation is enabled. Each remediation action corresponds to an attribute which is causing access to be denied. Visit the Help Center for a list of the possible remediation actions that may be shown to end users. 


Getting Started 

  • Admins: Admins can apply the new remediation messaging within the Context-aware Access section of the admin UI by navigating to Security > Context-Aware Access > User Message. Visit the Help Center to learn more about allowing users to unblock apps with remediation messages in Context Aware Access. 



  • End Users: End users will see the following message if they try to access a Google Workspace app when access is not allowed. 




Rollout pace 


Availability 

  • Available to Google Workspace Enterprise Plus, Education Plus, and Cloud Identity Premium 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 legacy G Suite Basic and Business customers 

Resources 

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Currently, you are able to configure SSO to send user attributes in the SAML response when a user logs in to an app using SAML SSO. With this launch, admins can configure SSO to send group membership information to the application. Apps can then use these attributes to assess user authorization and to implement other business logic. 

Getting started 






Rollout pace 


Availability 

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

Resources 

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New idle status in Google Chat 
In Google Chat on web and Chat in Gmail, you'll see an orange clock badge for users that were recently active in Chat, but aren't currently active. We hope this makes it easier to determine the best time to connect with your colleagues. Visit the Help Center to learn more about availability statuses in Google Chat. 





Changes to the default Host Management controls in Google Meet for users with personal accounts 
The default setting for Host Management controls is changing for users with personal Google accounts. Previously, Host Management controls were ON by default — going forward, this setting will be OFF by default for new meetings. There are no changes to the behavior for Google Workspace customers or Google Workspace Individual users.



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.


Improved user interface for sharing your working location in Google Calendar
This update improves the working location feature by offering the same functionality for easily entering and updating location information in a more compact format that uses screen space more efficiently. | Learn more here and here. 

Available to Google Workspace Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Plus, and Nonprofits, as well as G Suite Business customers. 


Easily search for Google Meet content in Google Drive
In Google Drive, you can now use app:”Google Meet” to easily find and organize Meet content such as Meet recordings, meeting transcripts, and more. | Learn more.


Import existing custom themes to new Google Sites
You can now import a custom theme from one new Google Site to another. | Learn more.


Create Spaces and Add Members with the Google Chat API, available in Developer Preview
Using the Google Chat API, you can now programmatically create new Spaces and add members to those Spaces. This functionality is available in preview – developers can apply for access through our Google Workspace Developer Preview Program. | Learn more.


Require email verification to book appointments in Google Calendar
When using appointment scheduling in Google Calendar, you can now opt to have users verify their email before booking an appointment. When enabled, the user must be signed into a Google account or validate their email address using a PIN code to complete the booking. | Learn more.

Available to Google Workspace Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Fundamentals, Education Standard, Education Plus, the Teaching and Learning Upgrade, and Nonprofits customers.


New delegated VirusTotal privilege in the Alert Center
In 2021, we announced an integration between the Alert Center and VirusTotal. At that time, any admin who had the Alert Center privilege could access all VirusTotal reports. Now, we’ve added the ability for admins to control who can view VirusTotal reports. | Learn more.

Available for Google Workspace Business Plus, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Standard and Education Plus.


Set up SSO profiles for multiple third-party identity providers with the Multi-IdP SSO beta launch
You can further customize authentication by setting up single sign-on (SSO) profiles for multiple identity providers and then configuring authentication for each group or OU. This feature is available beginning today as an open beta, which means you can use it without enrolling in a specific beta program. | 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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Now, you can further customize authentication by setting up single sign-on (SSO) profiles for multiple identity providers and then configuring authentication for each group or OU. This feature is available beginning today as an open beta, which means you can use it without enrolling in a specific beta program.


You can now set up SSO profiles for multiple third-party identity providers




Who’s impacted


Admins

Why you’d use it

Currently, you can configure SSO with a third-party identity provider to apply to your entire domain and then require a subset of your users, such as vendors or contractors, to authenticate with Google instead. However, if you have more than one identity provider, you might require greater customization of authentication options. For example, your company might be migrating from one provider to another, or it might have acquired another company that uses a different provider.


The Multi-IdP SSO beta lets you set up SSO profiles for each of your third-party identity providers, giving you the flexibility to specify the authentication method for various users in your organization as needed.

Getting started

  • Admins: In the Admin console, navigate to Security > Settings > Set up single sign-on (SSO) with a third party IdP > Manage SSO Profile assignments. Visit the Help Center to learn more about setting up SSO for your organization.


Go to the Security settings to set up SSO profiles for third-party identity providers

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

Rollout pace

  • This feature is available now for all users.


Availability

  • Available to Google Workspace Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Fundamentals, Education Plus, Frontline, and Nonprofits, as well as legacy G Suite Basic and Business customers
  • Available to all Cloud Identity customers
  • ​​Not available to Google Workspace Essentials customers
  • Not available to users with personal Google Accounts

Resources

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Update 
[2024]: We have completely rolled back this feature on web and there are no plans to relaunch this feature at this time. We will provide an update if and when one becomes available.
[February 2, 2022]: We have temporarily paused the rollout for this feature. We apologize for the delay and we will share an update once rollout resumes.

PPTX file limit increase in Google Slides 
You can now import PPTX files up to 300MB into Google Slides using Office Editing mode — previously, 100MB was the maximum. Once imported, you can save back your edits to the underlying PPTX file. | Available to all Google Workspace customers and users with personal Google accounts. | 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. 



Use a new enterprise certificate condition to set context-aware access rules for company-managed devices 
When configuring context-aware access rules, you can now use a new signal to determine whether a device is company-owned. | Available to Google Workspace Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Standard, Education Plus, and Cloud Identity Premium customers. | 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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admin console screen to configure context-aware access rules
The Admin console screen to configure context-aware access rules using enterprise certificate condition


Getting started 

Rollout pace 

  • This feature is now available for all eligible users. 

Availability 

  • Available to Google Workspace Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Standard, 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 legacy G Suite Basic and Business, and Cloud Identity Free customers 

Resources 

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Today we are further extending the functionality of dynamic groups in two important ways: 
  • First, dynamic groups can now be defined by querying custom user attributes. This functionality is available as an open beta (no sign up required). 
  • Second, dynamic groups can also be defined based on users’ membership in Organizational Units (OUs). This feature is now generally available. 

Who’s impacted 

Admins only 


Why you’d use it 

Dynamic groups can be used for email distribution lists, access control, group based policy, and more. Compared to regular Google Groups they have the added benefit that memberships are automatically kept up-to-date. Automating membership management increases security, reduces errors, and alleviates user frustration while minimizing the burden on admins. 

These new features expand the utility of dynamic groups for organizations that take advantage of custom user attributes and organizational units. They can further tailor dynamic groups to meet the specific needs of their organization. For example these organizations could now: 
  • Create a dynamic group for all users of a subsidiary (an organizational unit) based in a particular city or state. 
  • Create a dynamic group with all users with a custom attribute of a “job_skill” or “speciality”. 

Getting started 

  • Admins: To take advantage of this new dynamic group functionality, you will need to have already defined custom user fields or organizational units. 
    • Once this is in place you can test membership queries and then create / update dynamic groups to take advantage of them. 
      • To query a customer attribute “EmployeeNumber” (based on this sample schema): user.custom_schemas.employmentData.EmployeeNumber == '123456789' 
      • To query all direct members of an organizational unit: user.org_unit_id==orgUnitId('03ph8a2z1enx4lx') 
      • To query all direct and indirect members of an organizational unit: user.org_units.exists(org_unit, org_unit.org_unit_id==orgUnitId('03ph8a2z1khexns')) 
  • End users: Not available to end users. 

Rollout pace 

  • Custom user attribute queries are available now for all users in open beta (no sign up required) 
  • Organizational unit based dynamic group queries are now generally available for all users. 

Availability 

  • Available to Google Workspace Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, and Education Plus 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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Previously, the AdminSDK only allowed one customer level language setting that applied to all users, which could then be changed individually via the Admin console, or by the user. We hope this will make it easier to set up and manage your users at scale. 


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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Rollout pace


Availability


Resources


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Giving admins more control over how often users need to re-authenticate makes it more difficult for the wrong people to obtain that data if they gain unauthorized access to a device. 

Visit the Help Center for more information about mobile apps and third-party identity providers.

Getting started

  • Admins: This feature will be OFF by default and can be enabled at the OU level. You can find session length controls at Admin console > Security > Google Cloud session control. Visit the Help Center to learn more about how to set session length for Google Cloud services. 
  • End users: If a session ends, users will simply need to log in to their account again using the familiar Google login flow. 

Rollout pace


Availability

  • Available to all Google Workspace customers, as well as G Suite Basic and Business customers, and Google Cloud Identity Free and Premium customers


Resources


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Who’s impacted 

Admins 


Why you’d use it 

Currently, when you configure SSO with a third-party identity provider, the setting applies to your entire domain. However, there are some instances where you may want a subset of your users, such as vendors or contractors, to authenticate with Google instead. The Partial SSO beta gives you the flexibility to specify the authentication method for various users in your organization as needed.



Getting started

Image description: Within the Admin console, navigate to Security > Settings > Set up single sign-on (SSO) with a third party iDP > Manage SSO Profile assignments to specify a specific OU or Group who should identify using Google.

Rollout pace



Availability

  • Available to all Google Workspace and Cloud Identity 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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Unmanaged accounts are users with consumer Google accounts that share your organization's email address. The API will enable you to manage these accounts at scale, and automate sending of invites to these users to transfer their account to a managed state. to a managed state. 

The User Invitation API is initially available as an open beta, which means you can use it without enrolling in a specific beta program. See our documentation to learn more about how to use the API. 


Who’s impacted 

Admins 


Why you’d use it 

Unmanaged accounts occur when a user registers for a personal Google account using an email address that matches your domain. These accounts generally exist because a user has previously signed up for a personal Google Account using their work or educational email address. 

If your organization then signs up for Google Workspace or Cloud Identity and attempts to provision a managed account with the same primary email address, the conflict needs to be resolved. 

Previously, you could only manage these existing accounts via the Admin console. The User Invitation API provides another option which can help automate resolution of these conflicts, and can make it easier to manage these conflicts at scale. 


Getting started 

Rollout pace 

  • This feature is available now for all users in beta. 

Availability 

  • Available to all Google Workspace customers, G Suite Basic and Business customers, and Cloud Identity customers 

Resources 

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By automating membership management you can increase security, reduce errors, and alleviate user frustration while minimizing the burden on admins. 


See our beta announcement for more details and example use cases for dynamic groups. Note that at launch, you won’t be able to manage policies—like context-aware access policies—using dynamic groups. We are working on adding this functionality in the future, and will announce it on the Workspace Updates blog when it’s available. 


This joins our other recent announcements for features that make it easier to manage groups within your organization. You can now also assign groups as security groups, set group membership expiration, and see indirect membership visibility and membership hierarchies via API. We hope these features make it easier to use groups to meet the access, security, and communication needs of your organization. 


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, and Education Fundamentals, or G Suite Basic, Business, and Nonprofits customers 

Resources 

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