Previously, forms creators had two sharing options: restrict responses to users within their domain (and trusted domains) or make forms public (i.e. anyone with the URL can respond). With this new option, form creators can limit response access to specific users, groups, or target audiences—similar to how file owners can restrict the sharing of Google Docs, Sheets, Slides or Sites in Drive.
Who’s impacted
Admins, end users and developers
Why you’d use it
This feature is useful in any scenario where you’d like to control who can respond to a form. For example, teachers can use this to ensure a quiz is only accessible to select students who receive the link. Similarly, business leaders can better collect feedback from specific organizational units and prevent the form from collecting email addresses or from being forwarded.
Getting started
Admins: For a limited time, you can sign your organization up for the beta using this form. Upon signing up, users within the Google group signed up for the beta should see the new feature within 2-3 weeks.
End users: All new forms created by users who are allowlisted will be enabled into this feature. Form creators must publish their form to enable responders to view the form or submit a response. Form creators can see who has access to the form and share response access to specific users, groups, or target audiences. Visit the Help Center to learn more about creating a form in Google Forms.
Users with personal Google Accounts or Workspace Individual subscribers can sign up using this form.
Availability
Available to all Google Workspace customers and users with personal Google Accounts
Note: The target audiences feature mentioned above is only available for the Google Drive and Docs and Google Chat services. Supported editions for this feature on Drive, Docs & Chat include: Business Plus, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Standard, Education Plus, Enterprise Essentials and Enterprise Essentials Plus. Supported editions for this feature on Drive & Docs only include: Business Standard, Nonprofits and G Suite Business.
This is available on the web initially, with support coming for mobile apps in the future.
Who’s impacted
Admins and end users
Why it matters
This feature is important for Google Workspace admins as it improves users compliance behavior without sacrificing productivity and increases control for admins implementing data control policies. It also includes improved audit logs, providing more detail for admins compiling regulatory compliance reports.
Workspace already uses the latest cryptographic standards to encrypt data by default, at rest and in transit between our facilities. Client-side encryption goes beyond this, giving organizations authoritative control and privacy as the sole owner of private encryption keys and the identity provider of the encryption keys. It gives organizations higher confidence that any third party, including Google and foreign governments, cannot access their confidential data. Users can continue to collaborate across their preferred apps in Workspace while IT and compliance teams can ensure that sensitive data stays compliant with regulations.
Getting started
Admins: This feature will be OFF by default and can be configured at the group or OU level. Visit the Help Center to learn more about client-side encryption.
Google Workspace Assured Controls is available as an add-on to Google Workspace Enterprise Plus customers only. For more information, contact your Google account representative.
In the “Exports” tab, Drive exports will be grouped with their corresponding Gmail export — you can select the arrow icon to open the collapsible menu.
Admins will be able to find their exported hyperlinked Drive content nested under the corresponding Gmail export in the “Export” tab. Vault admins can find the association between the Gmail export and Drive link export in the export file names and metadata.
Who’s impacted
Admins
Why it matters
Vault is critical for retaining, holding, searching, and exporting users’ Google Workspace data. This update reduces the need for admins to manually find and extract Drive files hyperlinked in Gmail messages.
Available to Google Workspace Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Essentials Plus, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Standard, Education Plus customers or customers with the Vault add-on license
Specifically, Chat will now highlight matching keywords in search results and show clear demarcation between results for easier browsing. The highlighted keywords could be an exact match to your search query or terms that are related to your search query.
Who’s impacted
End users
Why it matters
This update improves content discoverability by making it easier for you to browse and locate search results quickly in Chat.
Additional details
Search results are based on the exact query, as well as any additional queries that might have been triggered (secondary query, synonyms, spell corrections, etc).
Getting started
Admins: There is no admin control for this feature.
Upon typing a math equation that ends with “=” into your document, presentation, spreadsheet comments, or drawing, solutions will appear as grey text suggestions. This new seamless mathematical experience will increase productivity and accuracy when solving math equations across Workspace.
Getting started
Admins: There is no admin control for this feature.
End users: This feature will be ON by default and can be disabled by opening a file, clicking Tools > Preferences > deselect “Show Smart Compose suggestions”. Visit the Help Center to learn more about using Smart Compose and Smart Reply.
Rollout pace
Rapid Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on December 5, 2023
Scheduled Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on December 18, 2023
Availability
Available to Google Workspace Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Essentials Starter, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Essentials Plus, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Fundamentals, Education Standard, Education Plus, the Teaching and Learning Upgrade, and Nonprofits
Available to Google Workspace Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Essentials Plus, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Standard, Education Plus customers or customers with the Vault add-on license
New ways to use the Google Sheets app on iOS devices
You can now copy charts from the Google Sheets app on all iOS devices and paste them externally as images or within the same spreadsheet as a duplicate chart. In addition, you can modify text formatting using the contextual toolbar in Sheets when a keyboard is attached to iOS tablets. | Rolling out to Rapid Release and Scheduled Release domains now. | Available to all Google Workspace customers and users with personal Google Accounts. | Learn more about adding & editing a chart or graph and editing & formatting a spreadsheet.
Adding ‘Admin managed apps’ category to Google Workspace Marketplace
We’re excited to announce a new featured app category in the Marketplace: Admin managed. These Enterprise apps can be installed only by a Google Workspace administrator for their organization. | Available now to all Google Workspace customers. | Learn more about Featured app categories.
Bulk select in Gmail on Android and iOS devices
We’re introducing a feature that enables you to bulk select a batch of messages in the email threadlist with one tap using the Gmail app on Android and iOS devices. After clicking the select all icon, a batch of messages will be selected, enabling you to easily perform email actions such as deleting multiple messages or marking them as “read”. | This feature is available now on Android devices and is rolling out now to Rapid Release and Scheduled Release domains on iOS devices. | Available to all Google Workspace customers and users with personal Google Accounts.
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.
Create shareable video presentations in Google Slides
We’re introducing slides recordings, a new Google Slides feature that lets you easily record yourself presenting, and then share the presentation with others to view when it works for them. | Available to Google Workspace Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Starter, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Essentials Plus, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus and Education Plus only. | Learn more about slides recordings.
The next evolution of automated data entry in Google Sheets
Expanding message bubbles in Google Chat to iOS devices
In September, we introduced message bubbles in Google Chat on web and Android, enabling users to more easily differentiate incoming versus outgoing messages in the Chat message stream. This week, we’re excited to announce the expansion of message bubbles to iOS devices. | Learn more about message bubbles.
Updates to the Google Drive scanner on Android & iOS devices
We’re introducing additional enhancements to the Drive scanner on Android devices, which now powers the Google Pixel camera and includes improvements to the scanner experience when capturing content. We’re also expanding the Google Drive scanner and title suggestion feature to iOS devices. | Learn more about Drive scanner.
Introducing a new homepage view in Google Drive
We’ve added a new streamlined homepage for Drive called Home that makes it easier and faster for you to find files that matter most. | Learn more about Drive home.
Introducing a new mobile experience for Google Chat
Google Vault now supports Calendar, which means customers can take new actions around Calendar data. | Available to Google Workspace Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Essentials Plus, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Standard, Education Plus customers or customers with the Vault add-on license only. | Learn more about Vault supporting Calendar.
More insights to help admins troubleshoot Google Meet hardware issues
In 2022, we introduced several improvements for managing Google Meet hardware devices. These improvements included surfacing additional information about device issues, such as a description of the issue, when the issue was detected, and more. Now, we’re taking these improvements one step further by providing admins with even more data points. | Learn more about Google Meet hardware issues.
Monitor insider risk of Google Workspace data with Chronicle
Admins can now more seamlessly integrate their Google Workspace data with Chronicle (Google’s cloud-native Security Operations platform), to quickly detect, investigate and take action on risky activity and threats. | Available to Google Workspace Enterprise Standard and Enterprise Plus customers only. | Learn more about Chronicle.
Google Classroom now supports roster import from SIS partners
Educators can now easily import students from their student information system (SIS) to Google Classroom using OneRoster. This integration saves educators time and helps make class setup much quicker. | Available to Education Plus and the Teaching and Learning Upgrade only. | Learn more about roster import.
End users: If OneRoster is connected by your admin, you can import students by going to the People tab > “Invite Students” > “Import from SIS”. Visit the Help Center to learn more about using Classroom with your SIS.
Rollout pace
Rapid Release and Scheduled Release domains: Extended rollout (potentially longer than 15 days for feature visibility) starting on November 28, 2023 (with expected completion in March 2024)
Availability
Available to Education Plus and the Teaching and Learning Upgrade
As an admin, you can already use the Alert Center to view notifications and take action on potentially issues within your domain. Now you can take this a step further by using Chronicle, leveraging its rich risk management capabilities and recommendations:
Chronicle can help detect and investigate potential threats at every level of sophistication by monitoring your data in real time.
Data insights are available at your fingertips, with rich context and visualization alongside industry best recommendations, helping you make better decisions faster.
Further, you can deploy Chronicle’s out-of-the-box use cases, helping to cut down on time spent building rules and playbooks.
You can also build and automate repeatable playbooks with full-fledged security orchestration, automation and response capabilities (SOAR).
Issues: device health problems that are detected and persist over time. This is existing functionality and will continue to include the following issue types:
Device offline
Missing microphone
Missing speaker
Missing camera
Missing controller
Missing display
Missing default microphone
Missing default speaker
Missing default camera
Missing default whiteboard camera
Activities: records of how a hardware device is being used at any given time, including:
Events: any notable point-in-time occurrence that can be useful for admins looking to troubleshoot issues, including:
Operating system update
Feedback filed
Restart
Who’s impacted
Admins
Why it matters
The health and functionality of your Meet hardware fleet is critical for connection and collaboration. As such, it’s important that admins have the information and context they need to troubleshoot issues across their fleet. With these additional data points, admins will have even greater insight and context into issues, allowing them to troubleshoot and resolve them faster.
Additional details
Google Meet Hardware devices that do not run ChromeOS (such as Poly X30, X50, X70) will only support activity data for Meet calls at this time.
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.
