Through the Jamboard Early Adopter Program (EAP), we’ve been hard at work gathering and implementing feedback from G Suite customers to make Jamboard the ultimate free-form collaboration experience. Today, at Google Cloud Next, we announced that Jamboard will be available for purchase starting in May 2017, with a retail price of $4,999, plus a $600 annual management and support fee (discounted to $300 for your first year if you purchase by Sept. 30, 2017).
While we’re no longer accepting applications for the EAP, customers can visit the Jamboard website to express interest in purchasing devices. Jamboard will be available for purchase with shipping to locations in the US in May.
Team Drives: work confidently together in the cloud
Most file storage solutions weren’t built to handle the explosion of files that are now created and shared in the cloud — because they were initially designed for individuals, not teams. With this amount of shared data, admins need more controls to keep their data safe and teams need to feel confident working together. Team Drives deliver the security, structure and ease-of-use enterprises need by making it easy to:
Add new team members. You can manage team members individually or with Google Groups and give them instant access to relevant Team Drives.
Keep track of your files if a team member leaves. Team Drives are jointly owned by the team, which means that anything added to Team Drives stays there no matter who comes or goes. Whirlpool Corporation, for example, uses Team Drives to manage file access. Says Troy McKim, Collaboration Principle at Whirlpool Corporation, “If you place files for a project in Team Drives, you don’t have to worry about losing them or moving them when files are re-owned.”
Understand and manage sharing permissions. Team members automatically see the same files regardless of who adds or reorganizes them. You can also manage share permissions by defining the restrictions for editing, commenting, reorganizing or deleting files.
Manage and view Team Drives as an admin. Admins can see Team Drives for a user and add new members if necessary: “Team Drives also ease the speed at which a team member can onboard and become effective in their new role,” says McKim.
Team Drives are generally available to all of our G Suite Business, Education, Nonprofits, and Enterprise customers starting today. Set up Team Drives for your organization.
Additional info for G Suite admins
You will need to enable the creation of Team Drives in the Admin console (Apps > G Suite > Drive and Docs > Sharing settings > Team Drive creation) before anyone in your organization can create Team Drives. You will have the option to enable Team Drives creation for your entire domain or for specific OUs. We recommend using this option to deploy Team Drives to your users in the manner most appropriate for your organization.
If you disable Team Drives creation but allow users to receive files from outside your organization, your users can still be added to Team Drives created by users in other organizations. They will be able to view those Team Drives in Drive and access the files in them.
NOTE: We plan to automatically enable Team Drives creation for all eligible G Suite customers no earlier than January 1st, 2018. We will update you in advance of that change.
Launch details Release track: Launching to both Rapid release and Scheduled release
Editions: Available to G Suite Business, Education, Nonprofits, and Enterprise editions only
Rollout pace: Gradual rollout (potentially longer than 3 days for feature visibility)
Google Vault for Drive: new, advanced admin controls for data compliance
Managing the data lifecycle of your files (like which files you keep or delete) is complicated and time-consuming. But ensuring compliance with your company’s data policies is essential and mistakes can lead to expensive legal costs. That’s why today we’re adding on to Google Vault for Drive, which already offers search and export capabilities.
The new Google Vault for Drive capabilities give admins the governance controls they need to manage and secure all their files, both in employee Drives as well as in Team Drives. These new features let admins set retention policies that automatically keep what they need and get rid of what they don't. For example, you might need to place a legal hold on files that are critical to a certain legal case.
With powerful data protection tools, Google Vault for Drive ensures your admins have full control of your company data in the cloud. Google Vault for Drive is generally available to all of our G Suite Business, Education, and Enterprise customers today.
Additional info for G Suite admins
See our dedicated post for more information about the Vault for Drive features launching today.
AppBridge: moving to the cloud made easy
Migrating to the cloud can be complex. It's not just your files that need to be moved; permissions also need to map correctly; content likely needs to be reorganized, and some data probably needs to be archived. To address that challenge, today we are announcing the acquisition of AppBridge, an enterprise-grade, G Suite migration tool that helps organizations seamlessly migrate from their on-prem, cloud-based and hybrid solutions to Google Drive.
With AppBridge, your organization can migrate files effortlessly to G Suite from your existing file servers or content management systems like SharePoint, or from many other cloud platforms you might be using. File permissions are also brought over when you migrate, which means your team's file access remains unchanged and your data stays safe. We’re working together with AppBridge to bring them into the G Suite team. Stay tuned for more information in the near future.
Drive File Stream: work without breaking your business processes
After you migrate to the cloud, you should be able to easily access all your content using your existing tools and processes. While other cloud-based solutions use traditional, time-consuming (and hard drive-consuming) syncs, Drive File Stream, now available in the Early Adopter Program (EAP), allows teams to quickly stream files directly from the cloud to their computer. This means that all of your company data can be accessed directly from your laptop, even if you don’t have much space left on your hard drive.
Drive File Stream lets you:
Access, search and manage files on-demand from your computer in seconds.
Get just the files you need and make certain files available for offline use later.
Access your work even quicker, as your most-used files become available in the background intelligently.
Avoid the risk of users downloading all of your company data to their hard drives.
Say goodbye to time-consuming file syncing and any concerns about disk space. With Drive File Stream, all your files are always ready for you and your colleagues. Sign up for the EAP of Drive File Stream today.
Quick Access for teams: make the most of your content with machine intelligence
You’ve migrated all of your data to the cloud. Now, it’s time to make the power of the cloud work for you. Quick Access in Drive now works with Team Drives on iOS and Android devices, and is coming soon to the web. Quick Access is powered by Google's machine intelligence, the same technology used in Gmail’s Smart Reply and Google Sheets Explore, which means that teams can save time and make smarter decisions because the right knowledge will surface to the right employees at the right time. Quick Access intelligently predicts and surfaces files based on:
Who specific files are frequently shared with
When relevant meetings occur
What files are used at specific times during the day
And many others
Additional info for G Suite admins
Available in the Drive Android app since September, Quick Access can now be used on iOS devices as well.
Launch details Release track: Launching to both Rapid release and Scheduled release
Editions: Available to all G Suite editions
Rollout pace: Full rollout (1–3 days for feature visibility)
Place legal holds on Google Drive files In addition to setting retention policies, you can now place legal holds on your employees' Google Drive and Team Drives files, whether they are Google files or non-Google files (as long as they are owned by users in your domain). Doing so will preserve all files that are owned by or shared with the user on hold, regardless of whether that user deletes those files. If a user on hold deletes a file, it will appear as deleted for him or her—but it will be available in Vault until the hold is removed. Remember that holds always take precedence over retention rules.
Note that both the retention policy and legal holds features are not yet available for Apps Script.
Export point-in-time Google Drive files Vault now also allows you to export revisions of your employees’ Drive and Team Drive files from a specific point in time (this applies to Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Drawings files). This can be done by simply specifying the desired Version Date in the search form.
Note that this feature is not yet available for Google Forms, Apps Script, or any non-Google document types.
Use Vault for Google Groups Finally, Vault now works with Groups, meaning you can search, export, and set retention policies and place legal holds on your employees’ Groups content. Groups can be used for email lists, forums, and shared or collaborative inboxes, and now you can apply the same retention and eDiscovery programs that you use in Gmail for content stored in Groups archives.
To learn more about how Vault's support for Drive, Team Drives, and Groups can help your organization meet its legal obligations and archiving needs, check out the Vault Help Center.
Launch Details Release track: Launching to both Rapid release and Scheduled release
Editions: Available to G Suite Business, Enterprise, and Education editions, as well as G Suite Basic users with add-on Vault licenses
Rollout pace: Gradual rollout (potentially longer than 3 days for feature visibility)
You can find this information in the Admin console under Device Management > Chrome devices for meetings > View and manage Chrome devices for meetings. From there, select the specific device in question. On the device screen, there will be a set of icons that identify the peripheral’s status:
A grayed out icon means the peripheral is not online.
To learn more about supported peripherals, peripheral status monitoring, device health, and diagnostics, please check out the Help Center.
Launch Details Release track: Launching to both Rapid release and Scheduled release
Editions: Available to all G Suite editions
Rollout pace: Full rollout (1–3 days for feature visibility)
In the Google Cloud Community, connect with Googlers and other Google Workspace admins like yourself. Participate in product discussions, check out the Community Articles, and learn tips and tricks that will make your work and life easier. Be the first to know what's happening with Google Workspace.
On the “What’s new in Google Workspace?” Help Center page, learn about new products and features launching in Google Workspace, including smaller changes that haven’t been announced on the Google Workspace Updates blog.
