You can easily collapse the navigation bar by selecting the menu icon at the top left when you need more space on the page to complete tasks.
We hope the updated navigation experience, along with other recent upgrades, makes it faster for admins to navigate within the Admin console, allowing them to manage their users, domains, and policies with ease.
Getting started
Admins: This feature will be available by default.
With visitor sharing, you can share items with non-Google accounts, enabling them to view, comment on, or edit content in Google Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Sites using a secure pincode.
Getting started
Admins:
Sharing outside of your organization to users with non-Google accounts will be ON by default if you currently allow users in your organization to send sharing invitations to people outside your organization who are not using a Google account.
Available to Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Fundamentals, Education Plus, Frontline, and Nonprofits, as well as G Suite Business customers
Not available to G Suite Basic, Cloud Identity customers, or users with personal accounts
Slash Commands for Google Chat bots: Slash commands enable users to simply type “/” in the message line to reveal a list of functions offered by available bots. This makes it much easier to discover and use Chat bot functions that are available to you.
Dialogs for Google Chat bots: Dialogs allow developers to build user interfaces to create visual interfaces to gather inputs from users in a structured format. By guiding users to enter information in the right format, developers can be more confident of getting the specific data in the right formats to make their bots as useful as possible.
Slash commands make it easier to discover Chat bot functions
Dialogs help users input structured information to make Chat bots more useful
Getting started
Admins: Slash commands will be available by default for all users with Chat bots available. Dialogs will be available by default if developers implement them for their bots. Visit the Help Center to learn more about managing Chat bots for your organization.
End users: Slash commands will be available by default for all users with Chat bots available. Dialogs will be available by default if developers implement them for their bots. Visit the Help Center to learn more about both in Google Chat.
Rollout pace
Available now for all users.
Availability
Available to all Google Workspace customers, as well as G Suite Basic and Business customers
BIMI aims to increase the adoption of strong authentication in the email ecosystem for those who have implemented Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance (DMARC). For senders that have adopted DMARC and have validated their imagery, Gmail will display the validated logos in the avatar slots, increasing confidence in the source of emails for recipients.
Before and after BIMI: Validated logos display on authenticated emails.
See below for more information, as well as the Cloud Blog for more information on BIMI for Gmail.
Who’s impacted
Admins
Why it matters
BIMI promotes another layer of security to Gmail by requiring strong authentication and verification of logos before they’re displayed in the Gmail avatar slot. Strong authentication increases confidence in the source of emails and provides recipients with a more immersive experience. Further, this helps email security systems filter spoofed, phishing emails from legitimate messages.
To take advantage of BIMI for your outgoing emails to Gmail and other platforms, ensure that your organization has adopted DMARC, and that you have validated your logo with a VMC, issued by a Certification Authority such as Entrust or DigiCert.
We also mentioned in this announcement that Google Workspace customers with Backup and Sync users would need to transition these users to Drive for desktop. Now, we want to provide a more detailed timeline for this transition:
Starting July 19, 2021: Backup and Sync will support a guided flow to help users transition onto Drive for desktop.
Starting August 18, 2021: Any users still on Backup and Sync will start to receive in-product notifications prompting them to transition to Drive for desktop.
Starting October 1, 2021: Any users still on Backup and Sync after that point will no longer be able to sign in to Backup and Sync. To continue syncing with Drive and/or Google Photos, users will need to transition to Drive for desktop.
Users can easily see which files and folders are synced using Drive for desktop
Who’s impacted
Admins and end users
Why it’s important
Drive for desktop is a unified sync client that provides a consistent experience for anyone who uses Drive, whether for business, education or personal purposes. It enables you to quickly sync and access content directly from Mac or PC, which can save you time by helping you access files and folders in a familiar location. Drive for desktop also automatically syncs local files to the cloud in the background, which minimizes the time you need to spend waiting for files to sync while also freeing up your disk space and saving network bandwidth
Starting July 19, 2021: Backup and Sync will support a guided flow to help users transition onto Drive for desktop.
Starting August 18, 2021: Any users still on Backup and Sync will start to receive in-product notifications prompting them to transition to Drive for desktop.
Starting October 1, 2021: Any users still on Backup and Sync after that point will no longer be able to sign in to Backup and Sync. To continue syncing with Drive and/or Google Photos, users will need to transition to Drive for desktop.
Applicability
Applicable to Backup & Sync users at all Google Workspace customers, as well as G Suite Basic and Business customers. This is also applicable to users with personal Google Accounts, and these users can learn more in this Keyword blog post.
Add a background image to Google Keep notes on mobile You can now customize your Google Keep notes on Android and iOS by choosing a background from a set of designer-created images — simply open a note, select the palette icon, and select a background. | Available to all Google Workspace customers and users with personal Google Accounts. | Learn more.
Allow Users to receive shared calendars on mobile Users can now share their calendar with another user on their mobile device without fear of spam attacks. Once a user shares a calendar with a recipient, the recipient receives an email notification with a link “Add this calendar.” The recipient must explicitly click on the link to add the calendar to their account.
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.
Indicate whether you’ll join a meeting virtually or in person on Google Calendar To make Google Calendar more flexible in the hybrid workplace, we're introducing new RSVP options for Calendar invitations. With this update, you can indicate how you plan to join a meeting - in the meeting room, or virtually. | Learn more.
Scheduled refresh improvements for Connected Sheets now generally available Today, several improvements for scheduled refresh are now available: hourly refreshes, specific start dates, and frequency options such as every five days, every two months, etc. | Available to Google Workspace Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Plus, and Education Standard customers. | Learn more.
We hope these additional options make it easier to automate data refreshing at a specified frequency with more granular scheduling options, giving you more flexibility when working with your data.
Getting started
Admins: Connected Sheets will be ON by default. To use it, you must have set up BigQuery for your organization, and users must have access to tables or views in BigQuery. Use our Help Center to learn more about how to set up Connected Sheets.
Available to Google Workspace Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Plus, and Education Standard 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
Then, both the organizer and guests will be able to see how attendees are planning to attend the meeting in the event detail. This will help meeting attendees know what to expect when joining a meeting, and prepare accordingly.
Note that if you select the new RSVP options, the join method details (e.g. “joining virtually”) are not shared with contacts on other platforms, such as Microsoft Outlook. The new RSVP options will initially be available on Google Calendar, and will be coming to calendar invitations in Gmail soon. We’ll announce on the Workspace Updates blog when it’s available.
Getting started
Admins: There is no admin control for this feature.
Autocorrect helps you compose documents quickly and with confidence. Misspelled words will automatically be corrected while typing and denoted with a grey dashed underline. This feature is already available in Docs.
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.
Google Chat will automatically suggest group chats based on your Google Calendar
Admins can view more information about apps in the Google Workspace Marketplace before deploying to their users
In the Google Workspace Marketplace, you’ll now see more information about apps available in the Marketplace. Specifically, you’ll see the following information regarding the app developer, their privacy policy, terms of service, app permissions, and more. | Available to Google Workspace Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Fundamentals, Education Plus, and Nonprofits, as well as G Suite Basic and Business customers only. | Learn more.
Enhancing live streams in Google Meet with captions and cross-domain live streams
We’re improving live streams for Google Meet with two new features: cross-domain livestreams and captions in live streams.| Available to Google Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Teaching and Learning Upgrade, and Education Plus customers only. | Learn more.
Cross-domain live streams. Previously, only guests in your organization could view a live stream. Now, admins can designate trusted Google Workspace domains for Google Meet live streams. Once added, you can also invite users in those trusted domains to view live streams hosted by your organization.
Captions in live streams. Now, a user has the option of enabling captions when starting a live stream. At launch, captions for live streams will be available in English, German, French, Spanish and Portuguese. Note that captions are already available for Google Meet video calls.
Who’s impacted
Admins and end users
Why it matters
Many companies have important meetings that require delivering a message to large groups of people, like a company-wide all-hands or onboarding training. With live streaming for Google Meet, up to 100,000 users (or 10,000 in some editions) can watch the meeting from the web or their mobile device.
Cross-domain live streams allows you to extend the viewership of the live streams not only to the guests within your organization, but also to guests in another trusted Workspace domain.
Captions in live streams can help make meetings more accessible for deaf and hard-of-hearing users, and can help other users who have a preference for reading text rather than listening get more out of the meeting.
Captions enable users to read what’s being said in the live stream
Note that you can add any Workspace domain to the trusted domain list, but we recommend that you only add domains that you own (such as subsidiary companies or schools in your school district), as adding domains can potentially give access to livestreams to anyone who has an account in those trusted domains.
Captions in live streams: There is no admin control for this feature.
Captions in live streams: The feature is available by default for all users with live streams available. To use live stream captions in a specific meeting, meeting participants should first turn on live stream captions from the main meeting. Use our Help Center to learn more about using captions with a live stream. Visit our Help Center to learn more about live streaming video meetings.
Rollout pace
Cross-domain live streams
Rapid Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on June 30, 2021
Scheduled Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on July 12, 2021
Captions in live streams
Rapid Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on June 30, 2021
Scheduled Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on July 12, 2021
Availability
Available to Google Workspace Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Teaching and Learning Upgrade, 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
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.