G Suite Updates Blog

New email alerts and location for easier alert center management

April 19, 2019

What’s changing

We’re making some improvements to the alert center for G Suite. Specifically we’re:

Moving the location of alert management for predefined admin alerts in the Admin console to the system defined rules section.
Adding optional email notifications for more alerts.

Who’s impacted

Admins only

Why you’d use it

We hope that this will help you identify and take action to resolve potential issues affecting your domain. To get the most out of the alert center, you could also sign up for our recently announced beta, which will help you collaborate and track the status of alerts within your domain, as well as triage faster with insights from related alerts.

How to get started

Admins:

To see predefined admin alerts, go to Admin console > Security > Alert center > Settings (gear icon), or directly access the new System defined rules section.
Use our Help Center to find out how to set up and configure administrator email alerts.

End users: No action needed.

Additional details

Moving alert management location

The alert management controls for predefined alerts could previously be found at Admin console > Reporting > Alerts. They will now be at Admin console > Security > Alert center > Settings (gear icon).
These predefined admin alerts include:

User granted Admin privilege
New user added
Email settings changed
And other administrator email alerts

There will be no change to any settings (whether email alerts are on or off, or the email subscriber list for any alerts) or the content of the alerts. We’re just moving where you should go to manage them. There will also be no change to the location of custom alerts. For the moment, they will still be at Admin console > Reporting > Alerts.

Email notification options for more alerts

We’re adding an option to get email notifications for several existing alerts that previously didn’t have the option to receive emails.
These alerts include:

Domain data export initiated
Phishing message detected post-delivery
Spike in user-reported spam, and others

For each alert, you can choose whether to turn them on or off, and to specify which email address the alerts should go to.
The email alerts will be on by default. To change or turn off email alerts, they can be adjusted at Admin console > Security > Alert center (gear icon), or directly access the new System defined rules section.

Helpful links

Help Center: About the Alert Center
Help Center: Turn Alert Center alerts on or off
Help Center: Configure Alert Center email configurations
Admin console: Access System defined rules section
Sign up page for Alert Center beta

Availability

Rollout details

Rapid Release domains: These features are already available for all domains.
Scheduled Release domains: These features are already available for all domains.

G Suite editions
Available to all G Suite editions.

On/off by default?
These features will be ON by default.

Stay up to date with G Suite launches

Duplicate larger sites in new Google Sites

April 19, 2019

Quick launch summary

Previously, we made it possible to copy a site in new Google Sites. Based on user feedback, we’re improving site copy by making it easy to copy much larger sites — see here for supported sizes. We hope this feature helps site editors with large sites efficiently copy their existing sites, allowing them to back up their work, iterate on previous sites, or create ‘templates’ to start new sites.

To make a copy with the improved site copy, open a site in the new Google Sites, click the More menu > Duplicate site. See our Help Center to learn more about copying a site.

Availability

Rollout details

Rapid Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on April 17, 2019.
Scheduled Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on April 17, 2019.

G Suite editions

Available to all G Suite editions.

On/off by default?

This feature will be ON by default.

Stay up to date with G Suite launches

Work smarter in Sheets with several new features for objects

April 18, 2019

What’s changing

We’re launching several new features and tools that will help you create more compelling and stylized reports in Sheets:

Guides
Multi-Selecting Objects
Enhanced Pivot Table Insertion
Copy and paste images into Sheets
Formula backed charts inserted from Answers

Who’s impacted

End users

Why you’d use it

We hope these tools will help you make more engaging and informative reports by making it easier and faster to format charts, pivot tables, images, and more.

How to get started

Admins: No action required.
End users: See below for how to use each new feature in Sheets.

Additional details

Guides

You can use guides to help you align, size, and position various objects within your sheets. Guides are also helpful in making sure multiple objects within the same sheet are in proportion to one another.

Multi-selecting objects

To select multiple charts, drawings, and images to move, resize, or delete in bulk, hold down the Control or Shift key and select.

Enhanced pivot table insertion

When adding a new pivot table, you’ll now have the option to either place it in a new sheet or in a custom location on an existing sheet.

To create a new pivot table, go to Data > Pivot Table and select a data range.
In the dialogue box, under Insert to, select New sheet or Existing sheet, and click Create. Note that if you select existing sheet, you’ll have to select a specific cell location for the pivot table.

Copy and paste images into Sheets

Recently, we made it easier to add images to your spreadsheet by inserting images into cells. Now, you can copy images from other websites and paste them directly into your sheet.

Simply right click on an image and hit copy, then in Sheets right click and hit Paste to insert the image over the grid.

Formula backed charts inserted from Answers

Now, when you use Sheets Explore to create charts, the charts you insert from the Q&A feature (Answers) will be backed by formulas. This means that charts will automatically update if the underlying data changes, ensuring you always have a fresh chart with the latest information.

Helpful links

To learn more about charts and graphs in Sheets, see here.
To learn about adding and editing a chart or graph, see here.
To learn about adding an image to a spreadsheet, see here.
To learn about creating and using a pivot table in Sheets, see here.
To learn about editing and formatting a spreadsheet, see here.

Availability

Rollout details

G Suite editions

Available to all G Suite editions.

On/off by default?

These features will be ON by default.

Stay up to date with G Suite launches

Save time with new scheduling features in Calendar

April 16, 2019

What’s changing

We’re updating the creation flow for meetings in Calendar to help you save time with an easier way to schedule.
You’ll see several changes when creating a meeting such as:

Peek at calendars and automatically add guests: Now, when you add a calendar in the “Search for people” box, you can temporarily view coworkers’ calendars. Creating a new event then automatically adds those people as guests to your meeting and might suggest a title for the meeting.
More fields in the creation pop-up dialog: The Guests, Rooms, Location, Conferencing, and Description fields are now editable directly in the meeting creation pop-up dialog. Once you add your coworkers’ calendars, they’ll load right in the background, making it even easier and faster to find an available time for everyone.

Who’s impacted

End users

Why you’d use it

People-first scheduling makes it quick and easy to find time with others. You can add rooms, a location, a video conference and add a meeting description without having to click into “More options.”

How to get started

Admins: No action required.
End users: No action required. This new creation flow will automatically appear in Calendar on the web.

Helpful links

Help Center: Create an event

Availability

Rollout details

G Suite editions
Available to all G Suite editions

On/off by default?
This feature will be ON by default.

Stay up to date with G Suite launches

Improvements to organizing and finding Team Drives

April 16, 2019

What’s changing

As a result of your feedback, we are introducing improvements to how you organize and find files in Team Drives. These improvements include the ability to:

Hide Team Drives on web and mobile
Search by Team Drive file creator

Who’s impacted

End users

Why you’d use it

These improvements allow you to quickly access the Team Drives or files within Team Drives that are most important to you by:

Slimming down your list of Team Drives by hiding and unhiding as needed.
Searching for items that have been created by a user in a Team Drive, similar to the search by owner in My Drive.

How to get started

Admins: No action needed.
End users:

Hiding Team Drives

See our Help Center for details on how to hide and unhide Team Drives
You can select more than one Team Drive to hide on web

Search by Team Drive file creator

On the web: to search for files originally created in a Team Drive by a specific user, use “creator: email address.”

Additional details

Streamline your list of Team Drives by hiding inactive or irrelevant Team Drives
You may have a long list of Team Drives in your Drive left hand panel. Now, you can hide a Team Drive for a completed project or that isn’t relevant to you. Hide individual Team Drives as needed, or select multiple Team Drives and hide all at once. Hiding Team Drives is available on web and mobile.

Search for files located in a Team Drive

People can search for My Drive files by owner, but Team Drive files are owned by the team. This makes them harder to search for. Now, you can search by “creator” for files located in a Team Drive.

Often you remember the name of the person that created the content, instead of where it might be located. Search by “creator” will fulfill this need. To learn more about finding files in Google Drive, see here.

Helpful links

To learn more about finding files in Google Drive, see here.
To learn more about sharing files with Team Drives, see here.
To learn more about Team Drives limits, see here.
To learn more about known issues with Team Drives, see here.

Availability

Rollout details

Rapid Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 7 days for feature visibility) beginning on April 16, 2019.
Scheduled Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) beginning on April 22, 2019.

G Suite editions

Available to G Suite Business, G Suite Enterprise, G Suite Enterprise for Education and G Suite for Nonprofits.
Not available to G Suite Basic.

On/off by default?

These features will be ON by default

Stay up to date with G Suite launches

Avoid double-booking rooms in Calendar

April 15, 2019

What’s changing

Rooms will no longer accept two Calendar events that overlap in time.

Previously, if an event was created directly on a room’s calendar by someone with manage permissions for the resource, the room would accept this meeting even if another event had already added this room for that same time period.

Now, if the room has already accepted another meeting, creating a new event at the same time directly on the room’s calendar will result in a room decline of this conflicting meeting.

Who’s impacted

End users

Why this matters

This means that you’ll no longer have to scramble to find an alternative room if your meeting room was double-booked.

How to get started

Admins: No action required.
End users: No action required, this behavior will happen automatically. For situations where you’d like a long room hold (such as an all day event) where you’d like to schedule individual sessions in the same room, we recommend the following work around:

Create a long hold booking of the desired room.
Create the individual sessions, where you write in the location field or description the room location; for example. “Room A [Separate room hold].”

Manually overwrite the Hangout information for the individual sessions with the Hangout ID of the long hold.

Additional details

This change in behavior only impacts future room bookings. Existing events will not be impacted.

Availability

Rollout details

Rapid Release domains: Full rollout (1–3 days for feature visibility) starting on April 15, 2019
Scheduled Release domains: Full rollout (1–3 days for feature visibility) starting on April 15, 2019

G Suite editions
Available to all G Suite editions.

On/off by default?
This feature will be ON by default.

Stay up to date with G Suite launches

Easily customize theme colors in Slides

April 15, 2019

Quick launch summary

You can now edit the theme colors for your presentations in Slides, making it easier to set up a new theme, or apply bulk color changes to existing presentations. Previously, we only supported custom colors that were not linked to the presentation theme.

Now, users can easily customize the color palette associated with a theme. To do this, go to any color picker dropdown and click the edit button for your Theme color palette. In the Theme color sidebar, select a color from the dropdown to begin editing.

Note: These changes will only apply to the current theme and will not create a new theme.

We hope this new feature will help you customize your presentations in Slides, especially when it comes to incorporating your company’s brand colors.

Availability

Rollout details

G Suite editions

Available to all G Suite editions.

On/off by default?

This feature will be ON by default.

Stay up to date with G Suite launches

Summary: Next 2019 announcements

April 11, 2019

Google Cloud Next 2019 is happening now in San Francisco. To learn more about the event and tune into sessions, click here.

For a summary of the announcements from the event, see our Cloud blog posts about how we’re helping businesses work faster, smarter and more collaboratively in G Suite, and increasing trust in Google Cloud with visibility, control and automation.

For details of the announcements, see the posts on this blog:

Keep an eye on the G Suite Updates blog for more announcements throughout the event.

More collaboration insights in the Activity dashboard

April 11, 2019

This announcement was made at Google Cloud Next ‘19 in San Francisco. Check out Next OnAir to tune into the livestream or watch session recordings following the event.

Quick Launch Summary

We’re introducing two new features to the Activity dashboard in Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides:

Sharing history
Sharing history provides users with granular visibility into how your document is being shared with others across your organization and elsewhere. You’ll now see who shared access with who and what level editing access they’ve been granted.

Comment trend
Comment trend will help users visualize the conversations in a particular document, showing the number of comments, suggestions, and replies created per day. A graph will display the number of new comment threads, replies, and unresolved comments over the lifetime of a document.

These updates add more context to the Activity dashboard, a feature we launched last year to help users see who’s viewed a particular document and viewer trends. These additions will further flesh out the Activity dashboard, making it a centralized hub where document owners and editors can see how other collaborators are engaging with their content.

Availability

Rollout details

G Suite editions

Available to all G Suite editions.

On/off by default?

This feature will be ON by default.

Stay up to date with G Suite launches

New security assessment program for apps on G Suite Marketplace

April 10, 2019

This announcement was made at Google Cloud Next ‘19 in San Francisco. Check out Next OnAir to tune into the livestream or watch session recordings following the event.

What’s changing

We’re starting the G Suite Marketplace (GSM) security assessment program, which will enable developers to optionally submit their GSM apps for review by a third-party security firm. The assessment includes penetration tests, a deployment review, and a policy and procedure review. Apps that pass the security assessment will display a security badge on their Marketplace listing.

You may notice:

A “Security Assessment’ badge on marketplace listings.
A “Security Assessment” badge on app detail pages.
A “Security Assessment” section on the app detail page.

We’re opening the program for developer submissions now. Monitor the G Suite Updates blog for ongoing updates on the program. Find out more about the security assessment program here.

Who’s impacted

Admins and end users

Why you’d use it

By highlighting apps that have been assessed to meet certain security standards, we hope it will be easier for you to find apps that may meet your specific organizational policies. This means you can more quickly identify and assess apps that you can whitelist for your users to help them be productive.

How to get started

Admins: Find out more about the program and what to look for here.
End users: No action needed

Helpful links

Availability

We’re opening the program for developer submissions now. Monitor the G Suite Updates blog for more details on the program. Find out more about the security assessment program here.

The “Security Assessment” badge will indicate apps that have passed the assessment

Stay up to date with G Suite launches

Gmail making email more secure with MTA-STS standard

April 10, 2019

What’s changing

SMTP MTA Strict Transport Security (MTA-STS) is a new internet standard that improves email security by requiring authentication checks and good encryption for email in transit.

Gmail will start enforcing this standard in beta, which you can read more about on the Google Security blog. For G Suite admins:

Security health within the security center for G Suite will start including recommendations about MTA-STS policies for your domain.
G Suite admins can choose to set up MTA-STS policies and reporting for incoming mail in their DNS server. While admins could do this previously, it will become more impactful now that Gmail is enforcing the MTA-STS policies.

Use our Help Center to learn more about how to use the MTA-STS standard.

Who’s impacted

Admins only

Why you’d use it

MTA-STS is a new internet standard that will increase email security by acting as a deterrent against pervasive monitoring of email traffic and protecting against man-in-the-middle attacks. You can make your email communications more secure by setting MTA-STS policies and ask the organizations with which you communicate to also set MTA-STS policies for their mail servers.

How to get started

Admins: Use our Help Center to define MTA-STS policies for your domain.
End users: No action required.

Additional details

Option to set up a MTA-STS policy
G Suite admins can choose to set up a policy for incoming mail with their DNS server. See the Help Center for details and instructions on how to set up an MTA-STS policy for your domain.

Possible email bouncebacks
While we don’t anticipate significant increase in bouncebacks, there are two aspects of the new standard which could result in bouncebacks:

TLS enforcement with certificate validation will prevent bad actors from intercepting emails in transit just like HTTPS does it for web traffic.If a bad actor tries to intercept the email, as Gmail enforces MTA-STS, it will now bounceback, preventing the intercept.
As Gmail will honor policies set by servers you are sending mail to, there’s a possibility that they have misconfigured policies or their servers, and that we will not deliver emails as a result. In this case, users will get an email bounceback with details.

New security center MTA-STS recommendations for your domain
If you go to the security health section of the security center for G Suite (Admin Console > Security > Security Health, available to G Suite Enterprise and Enterprise for Education domains only) you’ll see a new “MTA-STA” suggestion. It will tell you whether you have a policy set up, as well as highlighting misconfigurations in policies.

Helpful links

Help Center: About MTA-STS

Availability

Rollout details

G Suite editions

All G Suite customers can define MTA-STS policies.
MTA-STS policy suggestions in the security center are available to G Suite Enterprise and G Suite Enterprise for Education customers only.

On/off by default?

MTA-STS policies for your domain will be OFF by default and can be enabled at the domain level.
MTA-STS policy suggestions in the security center will be ON by default.

Stay up to date with G Suite launches

Get more done in less time with G Suite Add-ons beta

April 10, 2019

This announcement was made at Google Cloud Next ‘19 in San Francisco. Check out Next OnAir to tune into the livestream or watch session recordings following the event.

What’s changing

We’re announcing G Suite Add-ons, a new cross-suite platform that connects G Suite to your favorite workplace apps, in a beta program.

Last year we announced a new feature that gives users quick access to Calendar, Hangouts, and Keep from an embedded side panel in G Suite. Today we’re announcing that the side panel is now open for third-party developers.

Who’s impacted

Admins and end users

Why you’d use it

Add-ons help you complete tasks directly from the G Suite app you're using, rather than needing to toggle from one app to another.

G Suite Add-ons also surface relevant information and suggest actions based on what you’re working on. For example, a salesperson can find customer info from their CRM tool while drafting a strategy in Docs, an engineer can add tasks to their project management app directly from Gmail, and a recruiter can consult their hiring pipeline while scheduling interviews in Calendar. Once enrolled in the beta, users in the domain will have access to new add-ons from Copper, Box, Workfront, Asana, Evernote, and Cisco, among others.

How to get started

Admins: Express interest in the G Suite Add-ons beta. Once your organization joins the beta program, you can also install chosen G Suite Add-ons for your entire domain via the G Suite Marketplace.

End users: Once your organization is in the beta program, you’ll be able to install G Suite Add-ons from the “+” button in the G Suite quick access side panel.The G Suite Add-ons you install will appear in the side panel across G Suite apps and help you complete entire workflows without the need to switch back and forth between multiple apps.

Helpful links

Availability

G Suite editions

All G Suite editions are welcome to apply to this program.

Stay up to date with G Suite launches

Increase trust in cloud data security with Access Transparency

April 10, 2019

This announcement was made at Google Cloud Next ‘19 in San Francisco. Check out Next OnAir to tune into the livestream or watch session recordings following the event.

What’s changing

We’re making Access Transparency for G Suite generally available. Access Transparency enables you to get more visibility into actions taken by Google staff related to your data. You can view the reason for each access, including references to specific support tickets where relevant, which may help you support your audit requirements.

Access Transparency is available to G Suite Enterprise and G Suite Enterprise for Education customers only.

Who’s impacted

Admins only

Why you’d use it

At G Suite, we work hard to earn and maintain trust with our customers. Access Transparency supports this commitment to customer trust by giving you fine grained logs of actions taken by Google staff and the reason for each access, including references to specific support tickets where relevant.

Access Transparency may help you:

Verify why Google is accessing your data, such as fixing a fault or attending to your requests.
Bring your audit controls closer to what you can expect on premise.

How to get started

Admins: Admins with the Reports privilege can go to Admin Console > Reports > Access Transparency. Use our Help Center to learn more about Access Transparency.
End users: No action required

A Sample view of the new report for G Suite Access Transparency

Additional details

Access Transparency will allow admins to:

View the reason for data access, including references to specific support tickets where relevant.
Verify why Google staff is accessing your data, such as fixing a fault or attending to your requests.
View and download logs to help you support your regulatory audits or data archival needs, showing extensive information such as accessor location, access justification, and the action taken on a specific resource.

Helpful links

Help Center: About Access Transparency
Google Cloud Blog: Increasing trust in Google Cloud: visibility, control and automation

Availability

Rollout details

G Suite editions

Available to G Suite Enterprise and G Suite Enterprise for Education edition only.
Not available to G Suite Basic, G Suite Business, G Suite for Education, and G Suite for Nonprofits

On/off by default?

This feature will be ON by default.

Stay up to date with G Suite launches

Google Voice for G Suite: Cloud telephony with the intelligence and security of Google Cloud

April 10, 2019

This announcement was made at Google Cloud Next ‘19 in San Francisco. Check out Next OnAir to tune into the livestream or watch session recordings following the event.

What’s changing

Google Voice is now generally available as an add-on to G Suite. Voice for G Suite is a cloud-based phone system that’s optimized for businesses of all sizes. G Suite customers can use it to deploy and manage phone numbers at scale with the intelligence and security of Google Cloud. Google Voice offers:

Smart cloud telephony for end users
Simple provisioning and management for admins
Easy adoption and migration at scale

Google Voice is available to all G Suite customers through an additional licence. Find more information about Google Voice availability and pricing here.

Who’s impacted

Admins only

Why you’d use it

Google Voice integrates with Hangouts Chat and Hangouts Meet to provide a complete solution for communication with colleagues, customers, and partners from anywhere at any time. Specifically, Google Voice adds:

Smart cloud telephony for end users

Get a phone number that works from anywhere, on any device, so you can place and receive calls wherever you’re doing work.
Use intelligent capabilities to transcribe voicemails and block spam calls to help minimize unwanted distractions.
Increase efficiency through integrations with other G Suite products, like Calendar, Contacts, Hangouts Chat, and Hangouts Meet.

Simple management for admins

Use one place - the Admin console - to manage Voice global users, numbers, porting, and billing.
Set up new phone numbers as easily as adding a user to G Suite.
Easily provision and deploy via simple administration tools

Scalable adoption and migration

Migrate smoothly with integrated number porting to help prevent interruption of key business processes.
Leverage Google’s text-to-speech technology to automatically create call menus in nine languages to manage and route callers without worrying about recordings or translations.
Give users permission to choose a number and set up their service independently without admin involvement.

How to get started

Availability

Google Voice is available to all G Suite customers through an additional licence. Find more information about Google Voice availability and pricing here.

Stay up to date with G Suite launches

Live captions in Hangouts Meet

April 10, 2019

This announcement was made at Google Cloud Next ‘19 in San Francisco. Check out Next OnAir to tune into the livestream or watch session recordings following the event.

What’s changing

We’re making meetings more accessible for deaf and hard-of-hearing users by launching live captions in Hangouts Meet.

Who’s impacted

End users

Why you’d use it

Live captions help make your meetings more accessible by reducing barriers to holding meetings between users of different hearing abilities, regardless of whether they are participating remotely or in person.

How to get started

Admins: No action required.
End users:

On the web and on Chromebase for meetings touchscreen devices, navigate to the triple-dot menu at the bottom right corner of your screen and select the option to turn on captions.
On devices with a Mimo touchscreen and Chromebox for meetings with the remote, you can find the toggle to turn on captions in the Settings menu.

Additional details

Live captions is available across different Hangouts Meet-compatible platforms, such as on the web, devices with a Mimo touchscreen, Chromebox for meetings with the remote, and on Chromebase for meetings touchscreen devices.

When you turn on captions, they will be visible on that particular device. In order for other participants in the meeting to see captions, they’ll have to turn it on for their devices as well.

Currently, live captions is only available in English. Additionally, captions will not appear in a recording of a meeting.

Helpful links

Help Center: Use captions in a video meeting

Availability

Rollout details

Rapid Release domains: Extended rollout (potentially longer than 15 days for feature visibility) starting on April 10, 2019
Scheduled Release domains: Extended rollout (potentially longer than 15 days for feature visibility) starting on April 10, 2019

G Suite editions
Available to all G Suite editions

On/off by default?
This feature will be ON by default.

Stay up to date with G Suite launches

Apply to be a part of the Hangouts Chat Accelerated Transition Program

April 10, 2019

This announcement was made at Google Cloud Next ‘19 in San Francisco. Check out Next OnAir to tune into the livestream or watch session recordings following the event.

What’s changing

We’re announcing an Accelerated Transition Program to give a first wave of organizations a head start on migrating to Hangouts Chat and get early access to new features.

Additionally, we've heard your feedback, and we want to give you early access and more time before the general availability of these features. Therefore, we’re extending the previously announced timelines to give you more time to manage change in your organization. See below for more information.

Who’s impacted

Admins only

Why you should apply to the Accelerated Transition Program

Simplify communications by disabling classic Hangouts apps and migrating all users to the newest enterprise-grade Chat product on a faster timeline. As a part of this program, you’ll receive early access to new Chat features such as Chat integration with Gmail and the ability to chat with external users.

For more information about the additional benefits of this program, check out the Acceleration Transition Program Help Center.

How to get started

Upcoming changes to the Chat and Vault transition schedule

Some changes originally scheduled to happen starting on April 16, 2019, such as Chat retention rules and holds applying to your messages in Hangouts Classic, and enabling Chat for all users that are using classic Hangouts, will now take place over the next few months. We'll also be giving you more time before we transition all domains from classic Hangouts to Chat. More notices and details will be shared on the G Suite Updates blog as they approach.

Note: If you are a Google Vault customer, you still must set Chat retention rules and holds before April 16, 2019. You must continue to create new holds in both Mail and Hangouts Chat if you need to preserve chat messages during this migration period.

Helpful links

Availability

G Suite editions

All G Suite editions are welcome to apply to this program.

Stay up to date with G Suite launches

Introducing Currents, the newest G Suite app

April 10, 2019

This announcement was made at Google Cloud Next ‘19 in San Francisco. Check out Next OnAir to tune into the livestream or watch session recordings following the event.

What’s changing

Launching first to beta, Currents is a G Suite app that enables people to have meaningful discussions and interactions across your organization, helping keep everyone in the know and giving leaders the opportunity to connect with their employees.

Currents is replacing Google+ for G Suite, and has a new look, feel, and set of features. All of your organization’s existing Google+ content will automatically transfer to Currents once you are enrolled in the beta.

Who’s impacted

Admins and end users.

Why you’d use it

Exchange ideas at scale:
Currents makes it easy to have meaningful discussions by enabling leaders and employees to exchange ideas across the organization and gather valuable feedback and input from others — without flooding inboxes.

Currents features a streamlined experience for composing content — users can easily tag their posts and attach relevant attachments or images.

Once a user posts, others can comment, give feedback, and ask questions all in the same place.
Individual users can also track analytics for their posts.

Currents also gives leaders a way to engage with their employees more directly, allowing them to take the pulse of their organization and understand what’s important.

Posts from leadership can be given priority in the home stream, improving visibility across the organization to drive alignment.

Connect people to content:
Currents connects employees to useful and timely content that is personalized to their role and interests. Giving employees access to relevant content keeps them connected to the organization and creates more learning opportunities:

Content remains on Currents over time, so users can revisit and engage at a later date.
Tags and streams make it easy to find and discover content of interest.
Content in the home stream is ordered by relevance so it’s prioritized for what is most important to that individual, or users can choose to sort it chronologically.

Manage and curate with ease:
Admins can shape the discussion in the organization by creating custom streams to promote specific content to a targeted set of employees or the entire company. Additionally, admins can measure engagement across the platform with metrics to track usage and understand what content is resonating across the organization.

Admins can delegate content management responsibilities to a new role called Content Administrator.
These Content Admins can easily create custom streams, manage tags, define leaders, moderate content, and track usage and engagement with metrics.

How to get started

Admins: To request access to the beta program for your organization, please email CurrentsBeta@google.com.
End users: No action required.

Helpful links

To request access to the beta program for your organization, please email CurrentsBeta@google.com.
To learn more about the sunsetting of Google+ for consumers.
To learn more about new enterprise-grade features for Google+.

Availability

G Suite editions

Available to all G Suite editions.

Stay up to date with G Suite launches

Work with billions of rows of BigQuery data with connected sheets, launching in beta

April 10, 2019

This announcement was made at Google Cloud Next ‘19 in San Francisco. Check out Next OnAir to tune into the livestream or watch session recordings following the event.

What’s changing

We’re introducing connected sheets in beta (coming soon). This new type of spreadsheet activates when using the Sheets data connector and will allow users to access, analyze, visualize, and collaborate on up to 10 billion rows of BigQuery data without the need for SQL scripts.

With connected sheets, it’s easier for users to surface insights in Sheets and make sense of that data using tools and features already familiar to them — like formulas, Explore, pivot tables, and charts.

Admins can learn more about the beta here.

Who’s impacted

Admins

Why you’d use it

Connected sheets makes it easier to do the following:

Access and refresh large volumes of connected data without CSVs or SQL scripts
Streamline reporting workflows and easily build data driven reports
Simplify collaboration with other analysts and stakeholders.

How to get started

Admins: To learn more and apply to the connected sheets beta, see here.
End users: No action required.

Additional details

Users can refresh their data which in turn will refresh any associated data within a chart, pivot table, function or table.

Data can also be set to refresh automatically, making it even easier to stay up to date on the latest and greatest data.

Helpful links

To learn more about connected sheets, see here.
To apply for the connected sheets beta, see here.

Availability

G Suite editions

Available to G Suite Business, G Suite Enterprise, G Suite for Education, G Suite Enterprise for Education, and G Suite for Nonprofits
Not available to G Suite Basic.

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Office editing makes it easier to work with Office files in Docs, Sheets, and Slides

April 10, 2019

This announcement was made at Google Cloud Next ‘19 in San Francisco. Check out Next OnAir to tune into the livestream or watch session recordings following the event.

What’s changing

With Office editing, you can now edit, comment, and collaborate on Microsoft Office files using Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides. This feature brings the collaboration benefits of G Suite to Office files while streamlining workflows by eliminating the need to convert file types.

Who’s impacted

End users

Why you’d use it

Office editing will make it easy for G Suite users to open and edit Microsoft Office files that have been shared by partners, vendors or other teams. In cases where some members of your organization use Office while others use G Suite, this ensures seamless collaboration and eliminates the need to consider or convert file types.

Office editing brings everyone the benefits of G Suite’s real time collaboration tools and intelligence features to Office files.

How to get started

Admins: If your organization uses the Office compatibility app in Chrome, you may experience issues using this feature. To learn more about disabling this app for your domain or having users remove it, see here.

End users:

In Google Drive, double-click your Office file. This will open a preview of the file.
At the top, click Open in Google Docs, Sheets, or Slides.
From here, you can edit, share, view version history, collaborate in real-time with others, and more.
All changes you make will be saved to the original Office file.

Additional details

The following Office file types are supported:

Word files: .doc, .docx, .dot
Excel files: .xls, .xlsx, .xlsm (macro enabled Excel files), .xlt
Powerpoint files: .ppt, .pptx, .pps, .pot

Note: If you edit Word, Excel, or PowerPoint documents older than Office 2007, files will be saved to a newer format when editing using Office editing.

Helpful links

To learn more about working with Office files using Office editing, see here.

To learn more about removing the Office compatibility app, see here.

Availability

Rollout details

G Suite editions

Available to all G Suite editions

On/off by default?

This feature will be ON by default.

Stay up to date with G Suite launches

Get extra visibility and control over how Drive File Stream is used in your organization

April 10, 2019

This announcement was made at Google Cloud Next ‘19 in San Francisco. Check out Next OnAir to tune into the livestream or watch session recordings following the event.

What’s changing

We’re giving admins more control over their corporate data by integrating controls for Drive File Stream into Google’s device management interface. Drive File Stream streams data between devices and the cloud to ensure users can access the files they need safely and efficiently whether they’re online or offline. Device management helps you easily manage and protect corporate data on devices.
This integration will allow admins to:

Control which devices can use Drive File Stream by restricting use to company-owned devices only.
See the status of Drive File Stream on a device (size of the offline content cache, software version, time of last sync etc.).
Remotely block the device and wipe the account specific offline content cache from a machine should it become lost or they no longer want Drive File Stream to be used on the device.

Who’s impacted

Admins only

Why you’d use it

Drive File Stream is a simple and efficient way for users to access Drive data on Windows and Mac devices. This integration provides tools for administrators to gain extra visibility into how it’s used in their organization, and ensure corporate data is protected by controlling which devices can be used to access Drive File Stream. With the ability to block or wipe drive cache with a few clicks, admins have more control on over remediation activities.

How to get started

Admins:

To see the Drive File Stream information for specific devices in the Admin console at Admin console > Device Management > Devices.
To restrict Drive File Stream to company owned devices, go to Admin console > Apps > G Suite > Drive and Docs > Features and Applications > Drive File Stream > Only allow Drive File Stream on authorized devices.
To manually approve new Drive File Stream installations, go to Admin console > Device management > Setup > Device Approvals > Requires Admin approval

End users: No action needed. Notifications are sent to the user when a device is blocked, account is wiped, or if a device is pending approval.

Additional details

Control which devices can use Drive File Stream
If you do not choose to manually approve devices before they can use Drive File Stream (see above), there will be no change to how your users set up Drive File Stream today unless the device also has a pending admin approval for Endpoint Verification. However, you will still be able to block and wipe Drive File Stream data from the devices. If you activate the “Requires Admin approval” setting, devices with Drive File Stream already installed will be grandfathered to continue working, unless the device also has a pending admin approval for endpoint verification.

See the status of Drive File Stream on devices
With the new integration, you can see and manage the Drive File Stream information for specific devices in the Admin console at Admin console > Device Management > Devices. You’ll be able to see information such as the Drive File Stream offline content cache size, when Drive File Stream last synced, the device model, OS and more.

Remotely block the device and wipe the Drive File Stream data
If a device is lost or you don’t want Drive File Stream to be used on a device, you can block the device. If you do this, all Drive File Stream data will be wiped, and the device will not be able to re-login and access Drive File Stream again.

You can see and manage Drive File Stream information in the Devices section of the Admin console.

New admin policies to control the use of Drive File Stream

Helpful links

G Suite Updates blog: Control access to corporate data on Chrome, Mac, and Windows devices with endpoint verification
Help Center: Deploy Endpoint Verification

Availability

Rollout details

Rapid Release domains: Extended rollout (potentially more than 15 days for feature visibility) starting on April 10, 2019.
Scheduled Release domains: Extended rollout (potentially more than 15 days for feature visibility) starting on April 10, 2019.

G Suite editions

Available to all G Suite editions.

On/off by default?

By default, devices will be able to use Drive File Stream without specific approval. You can require manual approval by adjusting the endpoint verification setting as described here.
Devices already using Drive File Stream will be grandfathered to continue working with Drive File Stream, unless the device also has a pending admin approval for Endpoint Verification.
The setting to only allow Drive File Stream on company-owned devices will be OFF by default.

Stay up to date with G Suite launches

Set, structure, and search metadata in Drive launching in beta

April 10, 2019

This announcement was made at Google Cloud Next ‘19 in San Francisco. Check out Next OnAir to tune into the livestream or watch session recordings following the event.

Quick Launch Summary

We’re launching the beta of metadata in Drive. This beta will allow users to add structured metadata to all their files in Drive, making it easier to search and organize based on that information. Admins and end users can use metadata to ensure their content stays organized and accessible, helping them streamline their work.

Admins for Drive Enterprise, G Suite Business, Enterprise, Education, Enterprise for Education, and Nonprofits can learn more and apply for the beta here.

Here are some ways you can use metadata in Drive:

Create common file categories for your domain

Admins can create metadata categories like “contract” or “engineering design” that consist of the properties that are relevant to these categories. End-users can apply them to all files that they can edit.

Organize team content

Team Drive managers can create categories for their Team Drives or select which existing categories to enable for their Team Drives.

Curate and find files faster

End-users can select the suitable categories for their files and folders. The new advanced search methods allow for searching over categories and properties to enable queries like “all contracts that need to be signed by next week.”

Helpful links

To learn more about and apply for the metadata in Drive beta, click here.
To learn more about metadata in Drive, see here.
Add metadata to files in Google Drive.

Availability

G Suite editions Available to G Suite Business, G Suite Enterprise, Drive Enterprise, G Suite for Education, G Suite Enterprise for Education, and G Suite for Nonprofits.
Not available to G Suite Basic.

On/off by default?

This feature will be OFF by default and can be enabled at the domain level.

Stay up to date with G Suite launches

Useful Links

Updates

New email alerts and location for easier alert center management

Duplicate larger sites in new Google Sites

Work smarter in Sheets with several new features for objects

Save time with new scheduling features in Calendar

Improvements to organizing and finding Team Drives

Avoid double-booking rooms in Calendar

Easily customize theme colors in Slides

Summary: Next 2019 announcements

More collaboration insights in the Activity dashboard

New security assessment program for apps on G Suite Marketplace

Gmail making email more secure with MTA-STS standard

Get more done in less time with G Suite Add-ons beta

Increase trust in cloud data security with Access Transparency

Google Voice for G Suite: Cloud telephony with the intelligence and security of Google Cloud

Live captions in Hangouts Meet

Apply to be a part of the Hangouts Chat Accelerated Transition Program

Introducing Currents, the newest G Suite app

Work with billions of rows of BigQuery data with connected sheets, launching in beta

Office editing makes it easier to work with Office files in Docs, Sheets, and Slides

Get extra visibility and control over how Drive File Stream is used in your organization

Set, structure, and search metadata in Drive launching in beta

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