Google Workspace Updates

Improved user management in the Admin console

Tuesday, April 10, 2018

User information. View and edit the user’s contact information and see custom attributes.
Security. Control the user’s security settings, like 2-step verification and security keys.
Groups. See the user’s group memberships and roles, and manage their roles in those groups.
Admin roles and privileges. See and change admin controls granted to the user.
Apps. View apps the user has installed on a managed device.
Managed devices. View and manage the devices associated with the user.
Licenses. See licenses granted to the user and control individual user licenses. See more below.
Team Drives. See the user’s Team Drives memberships and manage Team Drive settings.

New license management functions

One of the new cards is a Licenses card which will help improve visibility and management of licences within your organization. It features:

Improved license states to provide a better understanding of a user’s license assignment.
Separate view mode and edit modes to aid decision making for license management.
Improved error handling and messaging to help admins.

Launch Details
Release track:
Launching to both Rapid Release and Scheduled Release

Editions:
Available to all G Suite editions

Rollout pace:
Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility)

Impact:
Admins only Action: Admin action suggested/FYI

More Information
Help Center: Add users
Help Center: Manage user accounts
Help Center: Manage passwords
Help Center: Grant administrator privileges
Help Center: Apply policies to different users

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We’re updating the interface you use when you manage your organization’s users in the Admin console. These changes will make it easier to find and control user information and settings. For more information, see our Help Center topic on how to add and manage users.

New quick actions panel

When you click into an individual user, you’ll see a user information panel, which allows you to quickly see and edit basic information about the user.

Category cards provide more detailed user management

When you’re looking at an individual user, you’ll also see cards with summarized information that will give you a quick overview of the most important information in several categories. Click on the cards to view the settings in detail or to quickly edit information related to that user. Depending on the user’s account and your administrator privileges, you’ll see some or all of these cards:

User information. View and edit the user’s contact information and see custom attributes.
Security. Control the user’s security settings, like 2-step verification and security keys.
Groups. See the user’s group memberships and roles, and manage their roles in those groups.
Admin roles and privileges. See and change admin controls granted to the user.
Apps. View apps the user has installed on a managed device.
Managed devices. View and manage the devices associated with the user.
Licenses. See licenses granted to the user and control individual user licenses. See more below.
Team Drives. See the user’s Team Drives memberships and manage Team Drive settings.

New license management functions

One of the new cards is a Licenses card which will help improve visibility and management of licences within your organization. It features:

Improved license states to provide a better understanding of a user’s license assignment.
Separate view mode and edit modes to aid decision making for license management.
Improved error handling and messaging to help admins.

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Group users into multiple directories in G Suite

Tuesday, April 10, 2018

Admins can configure these visibility rules in the Admin console under Apps > G Suite > Settings for Directory.

For more information on configuring Directory settings, check out this Help Center article.

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)

Impact:
Admins only

Action:
Admin action suggested/FYI

More Information
Help Center: Create custom directories

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The G Suite Directory surfaces profile information to users in your organization, allowing them to easily find and learn about one another while they work in G Suite apps. For instance, autocomplete in Gmail makes it easy for users to find their coworkers’ email addresses and quickly send them a message.

Previously, we allowed one directory per domain, which meant G Suite admins could only enable or disable contact visibility for their entire domain and couldn’t specify who saw what information. We’re now making it possible for G Suite admins to cluster users in separate directories with custom visibility rules for each organizational unit (OU). For example, a company might give full-time employees access to a global directory, because they want them to be able to find other full-time employees and temps. At the same time, they might not want temps to be able to find full-time employees, so they’ll limit them to a custom directory with restrictions applied.

Admins can configure these visibility rules in the Admin console under Apps > G Suite > Settings for Directory.

Dial into Hangouts Meet from six additional markets

Tuesday, April 10, 2018

Dominican Republic (DO)
Estonia (EE)
Greece (GR)
Hungary (HU)
Latvia (LV)
Luxembourg (LU)

For a complete list of currently supported countries, visit this Help Center article.

Launch Details
Release track:
Launching to both Rapid Release and Scheduled Release

Editions:
Available to G Suite Enterprise edition only

Rollout pace:
Full rollout (1–3 days for feature visibility)

Impact:
All end users

Action:
Change management suggested/FYI

More Information
Help Center: Dial in from a phone
Help Center: Join a video meeting

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In October 2017, we announced the rollout of international Hangouts Meet dial-in phone numbers for G Suite Enterprise domains. This option helps your team to stay connected, wherever they are. We’ve added this functionality for six additional countries (with more to come!):

Dominican Republic (DO)
Estonia (EE)
Greece (GR)
Hungary (HU)
Latvia (LV)
Luxembourg (LU)

For a complete list of currently supported countries, visit this Help Center article.

Smarter sharing of files with updated Google Drive Access checker

Monday, April 2, 2018

Make it easier to see who needs access. You’ll now see the names or email addresses that don’t currently have access to the file in the Access checker interface.
Support more file types in Drive. Access checker will now support files in a Team Drive.
Share directly with those who need access. Access checker will anticipate who needs access to a file and intelligently default to sharing with those recipients only.

The updated Access checker interface looks like this:

You can share with these intelligent default settings in just one click, or choose a different sharing option for the file. Before, the default share option was “turn link sharing on.” We hope this change makes it easier for you to ensure that only the right people have permission to access your files.

Note that all sharing settings configured for your domain (or OUs) will remain the same. This launch respects the settings you’ve already chosen for Sharing outside your domain, Access Checker, and Link Sharing Defaults. If you’ve chosen to limit Access Checker to Recipients only, link sharing will not be suggested.

These updates are based on your feedback, and we hope they deliver a sharing experience that is simple, secure, and anticipates your users’ needs.

Admin controls for Access checker

As a G Suite admin, you can control how Access checker works for your organization. Specifically, you can select the sharing options that are available to your users. You can choose if your users see the option to:

Share with recipients (default), share link within your organization, share link with anyone (no Google account required).
Share with recipients (default), share link within your organization.
Share with recipients (default).

See our Help Center to find out more about how to configure Access checker for your organization.

Launch Details
Release track:
Launching to Rapid Release, with Scheduled Release coming in three weeks

Editions:
Available to all G Suite editions

Rollout pace:
Extended rollout (potentially longer than 15 days for feature visibility). Rollout to scheduled release domains will begin one week after rollout to rapid release domains is complete.

Impact:
Admins and end users

Action:
Admin action suggested/FYI and change management suggested/FYI

More Information
Help Center: Set file sharing permissions for your organization
Help Center: Share files from Google Drive

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Google Drive makes it easy to share files through Gmail, Calendar, and other apps with a feature called “Access checker.” When you send an email, calendar invite, or other communication that includes a Drive file, Access checker automatically looks to see if the people you’re sending the message to have permissions to view the file. If they don’t, Access checker asks if you want to change the permissions before you share the file.

We’re updating Access checker to:

Make it easier to see who needs access. You’ll now see the names or email addresses that don’t currently have access to the file in the Access checker interface.
Support more file types in Drive. Access checker will now support files in a Team Drive.
Share directly with those who need access. Access checker will anticipate who needs access to a file and intelligently default to sharing with those recipients only.

The updated Access checker interface looks like this:

Share with recipients (default), share link within your organization, share link with anyone (no Google account required).
Share with recipients (default), share link within your organization.
Share with recipients (default).

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Call a US or Canadian phone number for free from Hangouts Meet

Monday, April 2, 2018

All G Suite domains call a US or Canadian phone number for free from Hangouts Meet.
With easy-to-join video calls, Meet helps your team stay connected. Sometimes, you may want to add participants to your meeting without needing to send them a link, like when you want to connect folks who are already dialed into a conference bridge, or if a team member is running late and is still on their commute. That’s why you can now call US or Canadian phone numbers, directly from your meeting, for free.

With this launch, G Suite users who are in the same domain as the event organizer, and who are accessing Meet through their web browser, can add someone by phone using the instructions in the Help Center.

To give their users access to this feature, G Suite admins will first need to enable Google Voice in the Admin console.

Please note, this feature is currently supported from specific countries only. Please reference this Help Center article for a list of countries that are currently eligible to use this feature.

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)

Impact:
All end users

Action:
Admin action suggested/FYI

More Information
Help Center: Add someone by phone to a video meeting
Help Center: Let users add people by phone to meetings
Help Center: Enable Google Voice

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Update (May 15, 2018): It is no longer necessary to enable Google Voice for users to access to this feature.

What's New in G Suite - March 2018

Monday, April 2, 2018

Check out the latest "What's New in G Suite" launch recap (pdf) for a roundup of all G Suite launches from March 2018.

Archive and translated versions (coming soon for March issue)

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Twenty three third-party applications added to the G Suite pre-integrated SAML apps catalog

Thursday, March 29, 2018

With Single Sign-On (SSO), users can access all of their enterprise cloud applications—including the Admin console for admins—after signing in just once. Google supports the two most popular enterprise SSO standards, OpenID Connect and SAML, and there are many applications with pre-integrated SSO support in our third-party apps catalog already.

Building on other recent launches (February 27th, March 12th), we’re adding SAML integration for 23 additional applications:

Adaptive Insights
Buildkite
Citrix ShareFile
CrashPlan
Fuze
HappyFox
Huddle
Image Relay
itsLearning
Jobvite
Klipfolio
Mimecast
Mozy Enterprise
Periscope Data
Pipedrive
Pritunl
Qubole
Runscope
Saba
Solium Shareworks
Spotinst
VictorOps
Zuora

You can find our full list of pre-integrated applications, as well as instructions for installing them, in the Help Center.

Note that apart from the pre-integrated SAML applications, G Suite also supports installing “Custom SAML Applications,” which means that admins can install any third-party application that supports SAML. The advantage of a pre-integrated app is that the installation is much easier. You can learn more about installing Custom SAML Applications in this Help Center article.

Launch Details
Release track:
Launching to both Rapid Release and Scheduled Release

Editions:
Available to all G Suite editions

Rollout pace:
Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility)

Impact:
Admins only

Action:
Admin action suggested/FYI

More Information
Help Center: Using SAML to set up federated SSO

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Control session length for Google services on the web

Tuesday, March 27, 2018

These settings apply to all desktop web sessions, as well as some mobile browser sessions. Native mobile apps, like Gmail for Android and iOS, aren’t impacted by these settings. These settings also only apply to domains where Google is responsible for the login (i.e. where Google is the Identity Provider), and not to domains that federate to another Identity Provider using SAML. Support for these domains will be added in the future.

For more information on specifying session duration for Google services, please see the Help Center.

2-step verification (2SV) frequency

When a user logs into their G Suite account today, they’re given an option to “Remember this computer.” When this box is checked, they’re not prompted for their second factor—even if they log out of their Google session and log back in.

As part of this launch, we’re giving all admins the option to show their users this checkbox or have them presented with a 2SV challenge every time they enter their password.

When “Allow the user to trust the device at 2-step verification” is selected, the checkbox will be displayed. This is the default. When “Do not allow the user to trust the device at 2-step verification” is selected, the user will be forced to undergo a 2SV challenge every time they sign in. These settings can be found in the Admin console under Security > Basic settings > Go to advanced settings to enforce 2-step verification. They have no impact on users who aren’t enrolled in 2SV.

For more information on setting 2SV frequency, please see the Help Center.

Launch Details
Release track:
Launching to both Rapid Release and Scheduled Release

Editions:
Session duration controls available to G Suite Business, Enterprise, and Education editions only; 2SV frequency controls available to all G Suite editions

Rollout pace:
Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility)

Impact:
Admins only

Action:
Admin action suggested/FYI

More Information
Help Center: Set up session length for Google services

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To protect your organization’s data, we automatically sign any G Suite user out of Google services they’re using on the web (like Gmail and Drive) after two weeks. We’ve heard, however, that some organizations need different durations for different use cases. For instance, if users access work data outside their corporate network, a shorter session length may be warranted. In other cases, a longer session length may be appropriate, and not requiring users to continually enter their password makes for a much better experience.

That’s why we’re giving G Suite Business, Enterprise, and Education admins the ability to specify the duration of web sessions for Google services (e.g. four hours, seven days, or infinite). Unless a user logs out on their own beforehand, they’ll be automatically signed out at the end of that duration and prompted to re-enter their login credentials.

As part of this launch, we’re giving all admins the option to show their users this checkbox or have them presented with a 2SV challenge every time they enter their password.

Jamboard files now appear in Google Drive

Monday, March 26, 2018

With this launch you can:

Share jam files directly from Drive.
Open jam files from Drive in the Jamboard web and mobile applications.
Search for jam files in Drive (by entering “type:jam” in the Drive search bar).

For more information on using Jamboard, 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)

Impact:
All end users

Action:
Change management suggested/FYI

More Information
Help Center: Jamboard and Google Drive

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With Jamboard, it’s easy to enrich your team brainstorms with the power of G Suite. For example, you can grab images and content from the web and bring them straight into your “jam,” pull in work from Google Docs, Sheets and Slides, or add photos stored in Drive.

To make the Jamboard experience even more integrated with G Suite, the jam files you own will now appear in your Drive folder. This means you can easily open, copy, and share jam files from My Drive, and save jam files from Jamboard to My Drive.

With this launch you can:

Share jam files directly from Drive.
Open jam files from Drive in the Jamboard web and mobile applications.
Search for jam files in Drive (by entering “type:jam” in the Drive search bar).

Subscribe to Highlights notifications for Google+ communities and collections

Monday, March 26, 2018

Learn more about Google+ settings in 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)

Impact:
All end users

Action:
Change management suggested/FYI

More Information
Help Center: Google+ settings

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Google+ communities and collections help people connect around the things they’re interested in. To help you stay on top of these connections, we're adding more options for how often you're notified about new posts in the Google+ communities and collections to which you subscribe. Instead of getting all or no notifications, you can now opt to get "highlights" only.

When the highlights option is selected, we will send you a digest notification of the top posts from across all of your G+ communities and collections. This will help save you time and ensure you’re seeing the posts that matter most.

Useful Links

Join the official community for Google Workspace administrators

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.

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Learn about more Google Workspace launches

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.

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Updates

Improved user management in the Admin console

Group users into multiple directories in G Suite

Dial into Hangouts Meet from six additional markets

Smarter sharing of files with updated Google Drive Access checker

Call a US or Canadian phone number for free from Hangouts Meet

What's New in G Suite - March 2018

Twenty three third-party applications added to the G Suite pre-integrated SAML apps catalog

Control session length for Google services on the web

Jamboard files now appear in Google Drive

Subscribe to Highlights notifications for Google+ communities and collections

Filter by product

Filter by date

Subscribe by feed

Subscribe by email

Localized Google Workspace Updates

Useful Links

Join the official community for Google Workspace administrators

Learn about more Google Workspace launches