G Suite Update Alerts

Google’s Contacts app (v2.1) now available for more Android devices

8/23/2017

Google’s Contacts app is now available for any device running Android 5.0 (Lollipop) or higher, including Samsung, LG, Motorola, and others.

Android users in your organization can now download version 2.1 of the Contacts app from the Play Store. This version features:

A simple way to move contacts from a device’s storage into a Google Account, so the contacts are safely backed up and available on all devices.
Clear separation between work and personal contacts.
Suggestions for adding new contacts, cleaning up duplicates, and more.

For more information on using the Contacts app on Android devices, 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:
All end users

Action:
Change management suggested/FYI

More Information
Help Center: Sync all contact data to your mobile device

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Jamboard now available for purchase in Canada

8/22/2017

Back in May we announced that Jamboard, our cloud-based, collaborative whiteboard, was available for purchase in the United States. Starting today, we’re bringing Jamboard to Canada*, with more countries to follow.

G Suite customers in Canada can now purchase Jamboard for $6,949 (CAD), which includes two styluses, an eraser, and a wall mount. We’re also running a promotion—if you order on or before December 31, 2017, you’ll receive a discount off of the annual management and support fee, as well as a discount on the optional rolling stand. See the table below for pricing and promotion details.

Keep in mind that a G Suite license is required to use Jamboard so that you can access files from Drive, use them in your brainstorms and come back to your work later.

Canada-based G Suite customers can contact their Google Cloud sales rep or fill out an interest form to learn more about how to start jamming with colleagues today.

Additional info for G Suite admins
In addition to the Jamboard device, the Jamboard app is available on Android and iOS for all G Suite customers. When used on a tablet, the Jamboard app allows users to experience similar features as they would on the Jamboard device. On a smartphone, the app functions as a companion for the Jamboard device.

Usage of the Jamboard app is controlled by a service on/off switch in the Admin console, and is off by default.

Check out the Help Center for more information, including an FAQ section.

*Jamboard is coming to the following Canadian provinces: Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Prince Edward Island, and Saskatchewan.

Launch Details
Release track:
Jamboard devices now available for purchase in Canada.

Editions:
G Suite Basic, Business, Enterprise, and Education** customers.

**G Suite for Education customers will need to satisfy certain requirements in order to purchase Jamboard devices. See the Help Center FAQ for more information.

Impact:
Admins only

Action:
Admin action suggested/FYI

More Information
Help Center
FAQ

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Map your site to a custom URL in the new Google Sites

8/21/2017

As a professional organization, it’s often important that you host both internal and external info at a well-known URL. Already supported in the classic Google Sites, this is now available in the new Google Sites as well. For more information on how to set up web address mapping in the Admin console, check out the Help Center.

Web address mapping settings in the Admin console

Users in domains with web address mapping set up will see a similar message when publishing sites

Important notes

For sites that are viewable within your organization only, the link is redirected to the Google Sites URL (such as http://sites.google.com/example.com/mysite).
New Sites address mappings automatically provision domain-validated SSL certificates for secure connections. You cannot use other certificates.
You may need to wait up to 24 hours to see your changes reflected. This feature is not available for trial domains.

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 and end users

Action:
Admin action suggested/FYI

More Information
Help Center: Change a site URL

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Find content and communities from all across Google+ with the new Discover stream

8/16/2017

To help people using Google+ find the most relevant and useful conversations happening inside their companies, today we’re introducing a new Discover tab on iOS devices and the web.

Here they’ll find personalized recommendations of posts to see, people to know, and communities to join -- helping them stay in the loop on information being shared within your company.

Based on user feedback, we’ve also simplified tab navigation. With the addition of the Profile tab on mobile, it’s easier for people to reach their profile pages, where they can then quickly access their communities and collections. With this launch, we aim to make it easy for people to focus on what they’re interested in.

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

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Get on the same page: new Google Docs features help power team collaboration

8/16/2017

(Cross-posted from The Keyword, with some additional details)

Getting people on the same page for a project can be tough. It requires managing a ton of opinions and suggestions. The last thing you should have to worry about is making sure your team is literally working on the same document. That’s why we built our powerful real-time editing tools to help with this—Google Docs, Sheets and Slides—so that teams can work together at the same time, using the most up-to-date version.

Today, we're introducing new updates to better help with "version control," to customize tools for your workflows, and to help teams locate information when they need it.

Track changes, make progress

It can take dozens of edits to make a document just right—especially a legal agreement, project proposal or research paper. These new updates in Docs let you more easily track your team’s changes. Now, your team can:

1. Name versions of a Doc, Sheet or Slide on the web.
Being able to assign custom names to versions of your document is a great way to keep a historical record of your team's progress. It's also helpful for communicating when a document is actually final. You can organize and track your team’s changes in one place under “Version history” (formerly known as “Revision history”) on the web. Select File > Version history > Name current version. For even quicker recall, there’s an option to select “Only show named versions” in Docs, Sheets or Slides.

2. Preview “clean versions” of Docs on the web to see what your Doc looks like without comments or suggested edits.
Select Tools > Review suggested edits > Preview accept all OR Preview reject all.

3. Accept or reject all edit suggestions at once in your Doc so your team doesn’t have to review every single punctuation mark or formatting update.
Select Tools > Review suggested edits > Accept all OR Reject all.

4. Suggest changes in a Doc from an Android, iPhone or iPad device.
Click the three dots menu in the top right of your Doc screen to suggest edits on the go. Turn on the “Suggest changes” toggle and start typing in “suggestion mode.”

5. Compare documents and review redlines instantly with Litera Change-Pro or Workshare Add-ons in Docs.

Here’s a quick way to preview and accept all changes (or reject them) and name versions of your document.

Use new templates, add-on time-saving functionality

Teams use templates in Docs and Sheets to save time on formatting. At the same time, developers are building add-ons to customize functionality. We thought, why not bring these two together? That’s why today, we’re introducing new templates with built-in add-ons and the ability to create your own, so your templates not only look good—but they make sure the work gets done.

These templates allow you to customize and deploy tools specific to your organization’s workflows. We’ve launched five examples of this in the general template gallery, like the new Mutual Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) template from LegalZoom and DocuSign. With this template, businesses can quickly create an NDA and collect signatures using the DocuSign Add-on for Docs. Bonus: it also automatically detects the required signature fields on the template, which saves even more time when you request signatures. This is just one of a few new templates—we’ve also worked with Lucidchart to create a business process manual, PandaDoc for a consulting agreement, Supermetrics for a website paid traffic report, and EasyBib for an MLA report. Each should help you save time and maximize efficiency throughout your team’s workflows.

In addition, you can create your very own template with built-in add-on customized to your company’s workflows. For example, create a Sheets template paired with an add-on to gather internal approvals or an invoice template in Docs (paired with an add-on) that pulls information from your CRM system.

Admins, if you don’t currently allow your users to install add-ons, you can still use these new templates by deploying specific add-ons only. Or, if you’d prefer to allow your users to install only certain add-ons, you can block specific third-party OAuth scopes and whitelist only those add-ons you trust.

Note that templates paired with add-ons abide by the same Admin console settings as all other templates and are available in English only.

The new Mutual NDA template from LegalZoom and DocuSign lets you collect NDA approvals stat.

Find the information you need, when you need it

Sometimes the hardest part of creating a proposal or client presentation is tracking down the information you need to include in it. Starting today for G Suite Business and Enterprise customers, Google Cloud Search will integrate with Docs and Slides via the Explore feature. Using Machine Intelligence, Cloud Search surfaces relevant information to help you work more efficiently throughout your day.

To get started, open the Explore tab in Docs or Slides and type what you’re looking for. Cloud Search will show you important details from your information across your G Suite apps including Gmail, Drive, Calendar, Sites and more, to help you create top-notch Docs and presentations.

Now you can use Google Cloud Search through the Explore feature in Docs and Slides.

Teams are using Docs to collaborate in creative ways. Check out this post for inspiration, or visit the Docs site to get started.

Launch Details
Release track:

Versions and Cloud Search in Explore

Launching to Rapid Release, with Scheduled Release coming in two weeks

Suggestions

Mobile features launching to both Rapid Release and Scheduled Release
Web features launching to Rapid Release, with Scheduled Release coming in two weeks

Templates

Launching to Rapid Release, with Scheduled Release coming in two weeks*

*Templates created by our partners will appear immediately in all template galleries, but the add-on functionality associated with them will launch only to domains on the Rapid Release track. Domains on the Scheduled Release track will see add-on functionality in two weeks.

Editions:

Versions, Suggestions, and Templates

Available to all G Suite editions

Cloud Search in Explore

Available to G Suite Business and Enterprise editions with Cloud Search enabled only

Rollout pace:

Versions, Suggestions, and Templates

Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility)

Cloud Search in Explore

Extended rollout (potentially longer than 15 days for feature visibility)

Impact:

Versions and Suggestions

All end users

Templates and Cloud Search in Explore

Admins and end users

Action:

Versions and Suggestions

Change management suggested/FYI

Templates and Cloud Search in Explore

Admin action suggested/FYI

More Information

Versions

Help Center: See what’s changed in a file

Suggestions

Help Center: Suggest edits in Google Docs

Templates

Help Center: Create a file from a template
Help Center: Enable add-ons in Google Docs editors
Help Center: Whitelisting connected apps
Help Center: Manage templates for Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Forms

Cloud Search in Explore

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Check out the most recent G Suite launches

8/16/2017

In June, we introduced a new resource for admins: What’s new in G Suite? Don’t forget to visit the page regularly for a list of the most recent launches across G Suite.

Feedback? Let us know.

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Anti-phishing security checks in the Gmail app for iOS

8/10/2017

In May of this year, we introduced anti-phishing security checks in the Gmail Android app. We’re now bringing similar checks to the Gmail app on your iOS device. Going forward, when you click on a suspicious link in a Gmail message on your iPhone or iPad, we’ll show the warning below. We recommend that you use caution before proceeding, because the link is likely unsafe. Only proceed if you’re confident there’s no risk.

If you click on a link we know to be dangerous, we’ll show you a page like the one below and warn you against visiting the original URL.

These warnings are intended to prevent harmful phishing attacks and help you keep your account safe.

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:
All end users

Action:
Change management suggested/FYI

More Information
Help Center: Avoid and report phishing emails

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Making it easier to join meetings from third-party clients

8/10/2017

Starting today, whenever someone uses a third-party CalDAV-based calendaring client to access an event on Google Calendar, we will add automatically generated text to the event’s description. This text will include instructions on how to join the event through Meet or Hangouts.

With this launch, people using the CalDAV API, such as those on Apple's calendar clients, no longer need to go to Google Calendar on the web to join their meetings.

Launch Details
Release track:
Launching to Rapid Release on August 10th, 2017, with Scheduled Release coming two weeks later

Editions:
Available to all G Suite editions

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

Impact:
All end users using third-party CalDAV-based Google Calendar clients

Action:

Change management suggested/FYI

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Recognized handwriting editing, GIF support, and more with the latest Jamboard release

8/09/2017

More and more G Suite customers like Instrument are using Jamboard to generate and share creative ideas. The latest Jamboard release brings several new features―to both devices and the Jamboard app―to help people create and iterate on their ideas more quickly. We’re also making it easier for admins to monitor their Jamboard devices.

Edit recognized handwriting
People can now edit their recognized handwritten text with the stylus, allowing for the quick deletion, insertion, and merging of text. To delete, simply strike over the letter(s) you would like to remove from a word. To insert letter(s), write these either above or below the word and draw a small arrow to insert them. To merge, select a text object and drag it to another text object.

Text Deletion

Text Insertion

Merging Text

GIF support
Jamboard now supports adding GIF images via Google Drive, so you can create rich, dynamic images as part of your jam session.

Moving objects to adjacent jam frames
By popular demand, objects can now be moved to adjacent jam frames/pages by selecting and sliding them towards the left or right edge of the screen.

Additional reporting in the Jamboard Admin console
Jamboard admins can now see historical data for Wi-Fi network strength (RSSI), Wi-Fi network speed, and board online/offline status in the Jamboard Admin console.

For a full list of new features and improvements from this month’s release, check out the What’s New in Jamboard page in the Help Center.

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

Editions:
Available to all G Suite Basic, Business, Enterprise, and Education* customers

*G Suite for Education customers will need to satisfy certain requirements in order to purchase Jamboard devices. See the Help Center FAQ for more information.

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

Impact:
All end users

Action:
Change management suggested/FYI

More Information
Help Center

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Better manage large events in Google Calendar

8/08/2017

Organizing an event with a lot of attendees can be complicated. It’s critical that you allocate the right space for the event, understand how many people will attend, and even check if some specific people, like executives or important clients, will be there. That’s why we’re making it easier to effectively manage events of any size in Google Calendar.

Starting today, event organizers working on large events (200 or more guests) can:

Use Google Sheets to more easily see who is attending: With this launch, organizers of large events can now use Calendar on the web to export guest lists to Google Sheets, and can also view the total number of attendees.
Invite large group mailing lists reliably: Previously, invites that included large group mailing lists wouldn’t update if membership in those groups changed. Going forward, if a group mailing list has been invited to a newly-created event, Calendar will automatically invite any new group members who join after the invite was sent and automatically remove members who leave. In addition, for existing, recurring large events, organizers who would like to make the event dynamic can do so via the steps outlined in this Help Center article.

We hope these feature additions help your organization successfully host and manage events of any size.

Launch Details
Release track:
Launching to Rapid Release, with Scheduled Release coming in 2 weeks

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: Invite people to your Calendar event
Help Center: Invite groups to calendar events

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Data Loss Prevention now available in Team Drives

8/08/2017

Protecting your company’s confidential data is critical, regardless of where it’s stored. In January of this year, we announced Data Loss Prevention (DLP) for Google Drive, giving G Suite Enterprise edition customers more control over how data is shared beyond their company. Today, we’re bringing DLP to content stored in Team Drives.

DLP analyzes the files in your organization’s Team Drives for sensitive content. You can set up policy-based actions that will be triggered when any sensitive content is detected. G Suite admins will be able to control what content members of the team can share externally using easily configured rules and easily enforced policies.

Important notes about Team Drives:

Because Team Drives are owned by the domain, rather than individuals, existing DLP rules applied at the domain level will apply to Team Drives.
If a DLP rule is assigned to an organizational unit or a group, then that rule will not apply to Team Drives.
When files stored in a Team Drive are flagged by DLP rules, users outside of your organization will lose access to these files.

For detailed instructions on how to set up these rules and policies, visit the Help Center.

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:
Admins only

Action:
Admin action suggested/FYI

More Information
Help Center: Scan and protect Drive files using DLP rules

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Easily create, delete, and rotate the X.509 certificates used with your SAML apps

8/02/2017

SAML uses X.509 certificates to ensure the authenticity and integrity of messages shared between an Identity Provider (IdP) and Service Provider (SP). These certificates are associated with your SAML applications when you first install them via the Admin console and have a five-year lifetime. When a certificate expires, a user can’t sign in to the associated application using SAML-based SSO.

To change an application’s existing certificate (e.g. because it’s about to expire or has been compromised in some way), an admin needs to “rotate” it. Traditionally, you could do this with help from Google Support. Today, we’re giving you the ability to do so on your own in the Admin console, where you can easily view certificates in use, identify those about to expire, create new ones, and assign them to applications.

Please note that only super admins will be able to view the expiration status of SAML certificates and take action on them.

To learn more about SAML certificate rotation and how to manage certificates, please visit the Help Center.

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
Help Center: Maintain SAML certificates

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What's New in G Suite - July 2017

8/01/2017

Check out the latest "What's New in G Suite" launch recap [pdf] for a roundup of all G Suite launches from July 2017.

Archive & Translated Versions (coming soon for July issue)

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Find exactly what you want in Google+ with new search options and filters

7/31/2017

Today we’re rolling out a few updates to Google+ to help your users find the content they’re looking for. From an updated look of the search interface to search suggestions and domain-only filters, these new experiences can make users confident that the content they see is the content they want. Read on for more information.

Suggested and recent searches before users start typing
Before a user begins typing in the search box, we'll show them Communities they may be looking for, as well as recent terms they've searched.

Improved Autocomplete
As the user types, autocomplete results will be shown from Topics, Collections, Communities, and People/Pages.

Filter results by content type using the new tabbed interface
On the search results page, users can now filter content by five categories: “All,” “Posts,” “Communities,” “Collections,” and “People & Pages.”

A popular ask from admins, the “Posts” tab allows users to sort results by new/top posts, as well as by the source of the post (from just you, from people you follow, or from everyone).

Restrict search results and home stream to show only content from within your domain
While offering a mix of external and domain-restricted content can be a valuable aspect of Google+, showing content from people outside of your domain (especially those sourced from users’ personal contacts) can lead to user confusion. That’s why we’re introducing the ability to toggle between showing domain-only content vs. public content in search suggestions, search results, and the Google+ home stream. This feature is currently available on the web only.

With this toggle, users can enjoy the benefits of mixed content while also being able to focus on company-specific info when appropriate. Filtering out external content can increase users’ confidence that they won’t accidentally leak information by commenting on externally visible posts.

We hope that this new experience will make it easier for your users to locate and engage with their Google+ content and Communities.

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

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Improvements to Google Calendar Interop for Microsoft Exchange, with real time data, logging, and simpler setup

7/31/2017

Today we’re making it easier to manage the coexistence of Google Calendar and Microsoft Exchange Server (including Office 365) within your organization. We’re starting by supporting real-time free/busy lookups between the two systems within the same organization on both mobile and web. This has been a popular feature request from customers with hybrid G Suite - Microsoft Exchange environments.

Making collaboration between your users simpler
Once Calendar Interop is set up for your domain, end users will be able to see each other’s free/busy information across the two systems. This information will be available to users in Google Calendar’s Find a Time and Microsoft Outlook’s Scheduling Assistant. Calendar Interop works in real time and is supported on Google Calendar for Android, iOS and web.

Easy setup and troubleshooting
As G Suite admins, you can enable user availability lookups by visiting Apps > G Suite > Settings for Calendar in the Admin console and selecting Calendar Interop management.

From there, you can set up interoperability between Google Calendar and Microsoft Exchange using our robust setup guide in the Help Center.

In addition, to help you set up and maintain interoperability, we are providing you with two new tools:

We’ve built a new interoperability troubleshooting tool that allows administrators to understand the status of the setup with one click. If everything’s working as expected, the tool will let you know. If something’s amiss, it will display a detailed human-readable error to help you pinpoint the root cause of the issue.
We’re also exposing interoperability-related logs in the reporting section in Admin console so that admins can track interoperability-related successes and failures for each user separately.

Admins who have already set up Calendar interoperability will want to migrate to this new setup. Check out the Help Center for detailed steps on how to migrate.

For more information on Calendar Interop and how to get started, visit 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:

Admins only

Action:

Admin action suggested/FYI

More Information

Help Center

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Changing the default order of apps in the Google app launcher

7/25/2017

The app launcher in the Google Bar makes it easy for users to quickly access Google apps like Drive, Gmail, and Calendar. Savvy users can even customize the launcher to place the apps they use most at the top and they apps they visit less often at the bottom.

We want to make the app launcher more convenient for new users and those who don’t take the time to customize it. To do this, we’re introducing a new default order for apps in the launcher, which will more prominently feature commonly used apps like Gmail, Drive, and Docs. This new order will appear on Tuesday, August 1st.

Current layout

New layout

This new layout will only go into effect for new users and those who haven’t already customized their app launcher. If a user has already reordered the apps in their launcher, he or she won’t see any changes to the apps’ order on Tuesday, August 1st.

Launch Details
Release track:
Launching to both Rapid Release and Scheduled Release on August 1st, 2017

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: Use the Google bar

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Manage legal matters and holds programmatically with the Google Vault API

7/24/2017

Google Vault can help your organization meet its legal needs by offering an easy way to preserve and retrieve user data. To harness the full potential of Vault, however, you may need to integrate its functionality with other tools and processes that your business employs. Today, we’re making that possible with the Google Vault API.

The Vault API will allow you to programmatically manage legal matters and holds. This means that you will be able to create, list, update, and delete matters and holds related to data supported by Vault.

For more information on the Vault API, check out the Developer’s Guide. We’ll add more features to the API in the future, so stay tuned.

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

Editions:
Available to all G Suite Business, Education, and Enterprise editions, as well as any G Suite users with the Vault add-on license

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

Impact:
Admins, developers, and users with the Vault add-on license

Action:
Admin action suggested/FYI

More Information
Google Vault API Developers Site

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Making two-step verification (2SV) deployment easier

7/20/2017

Security Key Enforcement was launched in January 2017 and allows a G Suite Enterprise domain admin to enforce the use of security keys as a two-factor authentication option to protect users against phishing. In addition to security key enforcement, G Suite domain admins also have the options of other 2SV methods such as the Google Authenticator app, text message, or phone call. To make 2SV deployment easier at your domain, we've added two new options in the Admin console:

Admin-led security key enrollment for end-users: Admins can now enroll security keys on behalf of their users. After navigating to the User page from Admin console, click ADD NEW KEY, and you can add a new security using the standard security key enrollment process.

2SV enrollment periods: Currently, whenever a new user is created in an organizational unit where two-step verification (2SV) is enforced, that user has to use 2SV from his or her first login. From administrator feedback, we found that enrollment periods would help onboarding users to 2SV more efficiently.

Going forward, administrators can now specify an enrollment period from the Admin console, during which newly created users can sign in with just their passwords and complete their 2SV setup.
To learn more, check out our updated Set up 2-Step Verification guide in the Help Center.

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

Editions:
2SV enrollment periods are available to all G Suite edition domains
Security key enrollment improvements are available to all G Suite Enterprise edition domains

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

Impact:
Admins only

Action:
Admin action suggested/FYI

More Information
Help Center

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An improved third-party sharing experience in Google Drive

7/19/2017

We know that many of your organizations work with contractors, vendors, and other third parties who don’t have Google accounts, and we recognize that it’s crucial you’re empowered to share information with them in a quick, easy, and secure way. That’s why, in response to your feedback, we’ll soon make changes to the experience users have when sharing Google files with non-Google accounts.

Current sharing experience
Today, if you allow users to share files outside of your domain and send sharing invitations to non-Google accounts, an employee can share a file stored in Google Drive with any non-Google user. If you allow external users to preview files, that non-Google user can view the file for 14 days. If you require Google sign-in for external users, that non-Google user is prompted to create a Google account within 14 days in order to view the file. Some third parties, however, don’t have permission to create such accounts or don’t do so in time, meaning your employee’s information doesn’t get to their intended recipient.

Of course, if you also allow users to publish files on the web, your employee has another option—he or she can simply share the public link. Unfortunately, many users don’t take advantage of this option, because it’s not clearly surfaced as part of the sharing flow.

Future sharing experience
To make this process easier and more effective for both G Suite and non-Google users alike, we’ll soon add an option to the sharing dialogue for users to let anyone with the link view the file.

This option will only appear if ALL of the following are true of your sharing settings (Apps > G Suite > Drive and Docs > Sharing settings):

You allow users to share files outside of your domain.
You allow users to send sharing invitations to non-Google accounts.
You allow users to publish files on the web.
You do NOT have “Recipients only” selected in your Access Checker settings.

An example of the new dialogue that will appear when an employee shares a file with a non-Google account, provided the conditions above are met.

If an employee selects this option to “Send the link,” link sharing will be turned on for that file and anyone with the link will be able to view the file. This will allow third parties to access important content with no deadline and no need to create a Google account.

Note that the option to “Send an invitation” will remain the default selection for other files.

These changes will go into effect on July 26th for domains on the Rapid Release track and two weeks later for domains on the Scheduled Release track.

Launch Details
Release track:
Launching to Rapid Release on July 26th, 2017, with Scheduled Release coming two weeks later

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: Set file sharing permissions

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Object duplication, faster sharing, and more with the latest Jamboard release

7/19/2017

Following its official launch back in May, Jamboard is helping businesses collaborate more efficiently by bringing the power of the cloud into their team brainstorms. Starting today, we’re adding several helpful features to both the Jamboard device and app to make this experience even more productive.

Object duplication
Users can now duplicate objects - on both their Jamboard device and app - by selecting an object and clicking on the duplicate icon in the upper right-hand corner.

Smoother typing
A new keyboard on the Jamboard device allows users to input text using Glide Typing, in addition to regular typing.

Easier object selection
The functionality of the Lasso selection tool has been expanded, allowing users to select both drawings and objects like post-its, stickers, and images and easily move or resize them.

Faster sharing
The “Add people” dialog in the Jamboard app now auto-suggests contacts based on history, matching address book contacts, and the user’s email domain.

For a full list of new features and improvements from this month’s release, check out the What’s New in Jamboard page in the Help Center. These features will roll out gradually over the coming week.

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

Editions:
Available to all G Suite Basic, Business, Enterprise, and Education* customers

*G Suite for Education customers will need to satisfy certain requirements in order to purchase Jamboard devices. See the Help Center FAQ for more information.

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

Impact:
All end users Action: Change management suggested/FYI

More Information
Help Center

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Google introduces Hire, a new recruiting app that integrates with G Suite

7/18/2017

(Cross-posted from The Keyword)

Posted by Berit Johnson, Senior Product Manager, Google Cloud

It’s no secret that attracting top talent is a key driver of business success. But whether you’re looking to recruit a business analyst, bring on an assistant or hire an experienced auto mechanic, building the right teams with the right talent takes time and money.

According to a study by Bersin by Deloitte, it takes an average of 52 days to fill an open position and costs about $4,000 to interview, schedule and assess each candidate. At the end of the day, that adds up. Now, Hire–an app designed to help small and medium businesses recruit more effectively–can help.

Recruit better using Hire and G Suite
Hire makes it easy for you to identify talent, build strong candidate relationships and efficiently manage the interview process end-to-end. It integrates seamlessly with G Suite apps like Gmail and Google Calendar, which more than 3 million businesses use, many of them to drive recruiting efforts. With the introduction of Hire, customers now have a hiring app alongside G Suite’s familiar, easy-to-use tools that can help them run an efficient recruiting process.

Hire and G Suite are made to work well together so recruiting team members can focus on their top priorities instead of wasting time copy-pasting across tools. For example, you can:

Communicate with candidates in Gmail or Hire and your emails will sync automatically in both.
Schedule interviews in Hire with visibility into an interviewer's schedule from Calendar. Hire also automatically includes important details in Calendar invites, like contact information, the full interview schedule and what questions each interviewer should focus on.
Track candidate pipeline in Hire, and then analyze and visualize the data in Sheets.

Making intuitive recruiting software for your business
A lot of tools that employees rely on at work are clunky, unintuitive and hard to learn—endless configuration options, tables and lists and mind-numbing data entry. The Hire product team set out to change that. With a mindset of “less is more,” the team conducted hundreds of user-testing sessions and worked with early adopter customers for more than a year to simplify and optimize every aspect of the user experience.

How Hire makes it easy for Brad’s Deals to recruit
Brad’s Deals is a free service that compares online prices to help consumers find the best deals. As a growing organization, recruiting is a top priority for the company. With more than 260 active candidates in their pipeline, Brad’s Deals uses Hire to share candidate information, capture feedback from the interviewing team in one place and track interview progress.

“Hire’s intuitive and simple UI makes it easy for recruiters, hiring managers or even interviewers to take an active part in the recruiting process,” says Jessica Adams, vice president of Human Resources at Brad’s Deals. “The app’s integration with G Suite enables us to quickly access all candidate communications in one place, efficiently schedule interviews and collaborate to reach a hiring decision quickly."

Try Hire today
Hire is the latest product offering from Google to address the talent marketplace. In May, we unveiled Google for Jobs, our initiative that's focused on helping both job seekers and employers, across our products and through deep collaboration with the job matching industry. Google Search connects jobseekers to job opportunities from the open and broad ecosystem of providers, including employer listings as well as LinkedIn, Monster, WayUp, DirectEmployers, CareerBuilder, Glassdoor and Facebook. Hire addresses the needs of our G Suite customers—making it easier to hire the right people.

Now, all U.S.-based businesses under 1,000 employees that use G Suite can purchase Hire to land the best talent. To learn more, visit http://hire.google.com or request a demo at http://hire.google.com/request-demo/.

Launch Details
Editions:
Available for purchase by G Suite Basic, Business, and Enterprise edition domains in the US with fewer than 1,000 G Suite seats. Hire is not a core G Suite service.

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

Impact:
G Suite admins and HR decision-makers

Action:
Action suggested/FYI

More Information
Hire website
Request a demo

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Send and receive chat messages in Hangouts Meet

7/17/2017

Sharing written communication is a critical part of successful meetings. Meeting participants may want to share links, chime in when they can't speak, or contribute to the conversation without interrupting the speaker. This chat functionality has been a top feature request in Meet since we launched earlier this year and that’s why, today, we’re bringing it to all G Suite users.

Going forward, meeting attendees will be able to send text and links, all in real time. The chat history will be available for the duration of the meeting.

This feature is available across Meet platforms: chat messages can be sent and received on web and mobile (versions 4.5 and above), and received on Chromebox for Meetings. All users can send and receive messages while in Meet, including those not signed in with Google accounts.

Launch Details
Release track:
Launching to Rapid release, with Scheduled release coming in 2 weeks

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: Chat with Meeting Participants

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Better experience for SMS 2-Step Verification users with Google prompt

7/13/2017

In February 2017, we revamped Google prompt for 2-Step Verification (2-SV), giving users a better option to keep their accounts safe. In addition to offering 2-SV over an encrypted connection, Google prompt also allows users to block unauthorized access to their account with real-time security information about the login attempt.

Starting next week, 2-SV SMS users will see an invitation to try Google prompts when they sign in. The invitation will give users a way to preview the new Google prompts sign in flow instead of SMS, and, afterward, choose whether to keep it enabled or opt-out.

Overall, this is being done because SMS text message verifications and one-time codes are more susceptible to phishing attempts by attackers. By relying on account authentication instead of SMS, administrators can be sure that their mobile policies will be enforced on the device and authentication is happening through an encrypted connection.
Notes:

The notifications to test Google prompts will be shown only to 2-SV SMS users. Security key users are unaffected by this change.
A data connection is required to use Google prompt.
iOS users will need the Google Search app installed on their phone to use Google prompt.
Enterprise edition domains also have the ability to enforce security keys for more advanced security requirements.
While users may opt out of using phone prompts when shown the promotion, users will receive follow-up notifications to switch after 6 months.

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

Editions:
Available to all G Suite editions

Rollout pace:
Gradual rollout (potentially longer than 3 days for feature visibility)

Impact:
All end users

Action:
Change management suggested/FYI

More Information
Help Center: Sign in faster with 2-Step Verification phone prompts

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Set automated rules for mobile devices to protect your data

7/12/2017

Protecting your organization’s data should be easy, regardless of what device your employees use. This is especially true if many of them use mobile devices at work. Today, we’re introducing new device rules for Mobile Management that provide better proactive management of mobile devices within your domain.

G Suite admins can now define custom rules that trigger on device events, and have associated actions. When an event specified in a rule occurs on a device within your organization with a G Suite Enterprise license, the corresponding action you have set will automatically be executed by Mobile Management.

Some examples of event/action-based rules you can set include:

Approve select mobile devices at the time of device enrollment.
Block access to corporate data if user installs a specific app.
Block access to/Account wipe the device if user has more than five failed screen unlock attempts.
Block access to/Account wipe the device if there is suspicious activity found on the device.

If you’re looking for a device rule that isn’t covered in an existing template, you can customize your own rule. Previously, you would have needed to create a custom script and leverage our APIs to automate any mobile device actions.

Our goal with this launch is to automate the manual, repetitive tasks you often execute as mobile administrators while also keeping your organization’s data protected. Get started today with the instructions in this Help Center article.

Launch Details

Release track:
Launching to both Rapid Release and Scheduled Release

Editions:
Available to G Suite Enterprise editions only

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

Impact:
Admins only

Action:
Admin action suggested/FYI

More Information
Help Center: Automate Mobile Management tasks with rules

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Adding new Google+ metrics to the Admin console and Reports API to better track usage and adoption at the user level

7/11/2017

From sharing updates with teams to offering advice between offices, more and more organizations are adopting Google+ to transform the way they work. In April of this year, we added aggregated Google+ user activity to the Admin console and Reports API, allowing you to track user signups, posts and comments created, and more. Today, we’re bringing you even more usage reporting so that you can better understand Google+ adoption and engagement in your organization.

Audit Google+ user activity for your organization

To help you get a better sense of the total usage of the product within your organization, we’ve added Google+ user activity data to the auditing section of the Admin console, as well as to the Reports API.

Now, G Suite admins will be able to see when the following events are performed in Google+ in their organization right in the audit logs:

Post created
Post edited
Post deleted
Comment created
Comment edited
Comment deleted
+1 added to a post
+1 added to a comment
+1 removed from a post
+1 removed from a comment
Poll vote added
Poll vote removed

Better understand how your users are engaging with Google+ and see which users are most active

Going forward, you can also track the following metrics in the apps usage activity report and aggregate reports in the Admin console or via the Reports API:

Number of activities performed per day by each individual user
Number of communities where at least one of the community owners is within your domain
Number of collections within your organization

These metrics, as well as user-level metrics for all G Suite apps, can now also be viewed for a chosen date in the past.

In the future, we’ll continue to bring even more tools to help you manage Google+ usage within your organization. We’re always working to provide admins with the visibility they need, so please let us know what you think and stay tuned for more updates.

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: Google+ audit log
Help Center: Apps usage activity reports
Help Center: Aggregate reports
Help Center: Account activity reports
Help Center: Security reports

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Updates

Google’s Contacts app (v2.1) now available for more Android devices

Jamboard now available for purchase in Canada

Map your site to a custom URL in the new Google Sites

Find content and communities from all across Google+ with the new Discover stream

Get on the same page: new Google Docs features help power team collaboration

Check out the most recent G Suite launches

Anti-phishing security checks in the Gmail app for iOS

Making it easier to join meetings from third-party clients

Recognized handwriting editing, GIF support, and more with the latest Jamboard release

Better manage large events in Google Calendar

Data Loss Prevention now available in Team Drives

Easily create, delete, and rotate the X.509 certificates used with your SAML apps

What's New in G Suite - July 2017

Find exactly what you want in Google+ with new search options and filters

Improvements to Google Calendar Interop for Microsoft Exchange, with real time data, logging, and simpler setup

Changing the default order of apps in the Google app launcher

Manage legal matters and holds programmatically with the Google Vault API

Making two-step verification (2SV) deployment easier

An improved third-party sharing experience in Google Drive

Object duplication, faster sharing, and more with the latest Jamboard release

Google introduces Hire, a new recruiting app that integrates with G Suite

Send and receive chat messages in Hangouts Meet

Better experience for SMS 2-Step Verification users with Google prompt

Set automated rules for mobile devices to protect your data

Adding new Google+ metrics to the Admin console and Reports API to better track usage and adoption at the user level

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