Google Workspace Updates: September 2020

Dynamic groups beta enables automatic group membership management

Wednesday, September 30, 2020

What’s changing Dynamic groups let you create a group with membership that is automatically kept up to date with a membership query. Dynamic groups can be based on one or many user attributes, including addresses, locations, organizations, and relations. You can manage dynamic groups in the Cloud Identity Groups API and the Admin console.
Dynamic groups is currently available as an open beta, which means you can use it without enrolling in a specific beta program.

Who’s impacted Admins and developers with group create and user read privileges.

Why you’d use it Dynamic groups work the same as other Google Groups with the added benefit that their memberships are automatically kept up-to-date. This means you can use them for the same functions, including for distribution lists, access-control list (ACL) management, and more. By automating membership management you can increase security, reduce errors, and alleviate user frustration while minimizing the burden on admins.
Here are some examples of how you can use dynamic groups. You can create groups of:

All users based in your New York office, which you can then use for email communications related to that office ___location.
All engineers, which you can then use to provide access to specific tools.

Additional details At launch, you won’t be able to manage policies such as context-aware access policies using dynamic groups. Once available, you will be able to create a dynamic group which you could then use to manage specific context-aware access policies. We are working on adding this functionality in the future, and will announce it on the G Suite Updates blog when it’s available.

Getting started

Admins: The dynamic groups beta will be available to all eligible users with group create and user read privileges. To get started, go to Admin console > Directory > Groups or use the Cloud Identity API. Read our documentation to learn more about managing dynamic groups.
End users: Not available to end users.

Rollout pace

This feature is available now for all eligible users.

Availability

Available to G Suite Enterprise, G Suite Enterprise for Education, and Cloud Identity Premium customers
Not available to G Suite Essentials, G Suite Basic, G Suite Business, G Suite for Education, G Suite for Nonprofits, and Cloud Identity Free customers

Resources

Group membership expiration available in beta

Wednesday, September 30, 2020

What’s changing We’re adding the ability to set expirations for group memberships using the Cloud Identity Groups API. This enables admins to set an amount of time that users are members of a group. Once the specified time has passed, users will be removed from the group automatically.
Membership expiry is currently available as an open beta, which means you can use it without enrolling in a specific beta program.

Who’s impacted Admins and developers

Why it’s important Groups are a powerful way to manage permissions and access control in your organization.In many cases,, there’s a known amount of time that a user should be a member of a group. This can make managing membership time consuming, and increases the possibility that a user has overly-broad access.
Automatic membership expiration can help reduce the administrative overhead for managing groups, and can help ensure group membership is limited to the members that need access. This can help:

Increase security by ensuring users do not have long lived membership in groups, and that your group memberships don’t become too expansive.
Manage security groups by using group membership with our recent launch of security groups.
Reduce admin time and administration costs by automating some group management tasks

Getting started

Admins: Membership expiry is available to use for new and existing groups. Admins with permissions to modify groups memberships can set expiration. To get started, use the Cloud Identity Groups API.
End users: Group owners and managers can set expiration. To get started, use the Cloud Identity Groups API.

Rollout pace

This feature is available now for all users.

Availability

Available to G Suite Enterprise, G Suite Enterprise for Education, and Cloud Identity Premium customers
Not available to G Suite Basic, G Suite Business, G Suite for Education, G Suite for Nonprofits, G Suite Essentials, and Cloud Identity Free customers

Resources

Cloud Identity API: Membership expiration

New features to help improve and analyze data in Google Sheets

Tuesday, September 29, 2020

What’s changing We’re launching Sheets Smart Cleanup, two features that will make it easier to prepare and analyze data in Sheets:

Cleanup suggestions, which helps ensure your data is accurate by identifying and suggesting fixes for common data errors.
Column stats, which provides automated insights about the values within a column, so you can identify outliers and quickly get a sense of what your data looks like.

We previously announced that Sheets Smart Cleanup was coming soon. See more details below.

Who’s impacted End users

Why it’s important These features assist in the identification of possible cleanup actions, and help you be more confident that your data isn’t distorted by simple errors. It will also enable quicker analysis by generating intelligent views that can help surface insights, which you can then choose to look into more closely.

Additional details Cleanup suggestions Before analyzing and making decisions based on data in your sheets, it’s important to clean up your data by rectifying errors and improving data consistency. Cleanup suggestions will help you do this by surfacing intelligent suggestions in the side panel. These suggestions may include removing extra spaces, removing duplicate rows, adding number formatting, identifying anomalies, fixing inconsistent data, and more. This can help make data cleanup faster and more accurate.

Column stats Column stats can help you quickly get a sense for your data by automatically generating visualizations and key stats that provide insight into the data in a specific column. These insights can include count and distribution charts, frequency tables, and summary statistics. This can help you quickly catch potential outliers and confidently move on to deeper analysis.

Getting started

Rollout pace

Rapid Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on September 29, 2020
Scheduled Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on October 13, 2020

Availability

Available to all G Suite customers and users with personal Google Accounts

Resources

Google Help: Use Sheets Smart Cleanup to prepare your data for analysis
Cloud Blog: Analyzing petabytes of data just got easier, with Google Sheets

Service accounts in Google Groups and with Groups API now generally available

Tuesday, September 29, 2020

Quick launch summary We recently announced betas for two new features related to service accounts. Now, these features are generally available:

Support for service accounts in Google Groups, which makes it easier to use service accounts with groups while increasing security and transparency. Learn more.
Use service accounts with Google Groups APIs without ___domain-wide delegation, which enables service accounts to perform critical business processes without compromising your strong security and compliance posture. Learn more.

Groups are a critical tool for customers to manage their G Suite deployment. Many customers use service accounts with Groups to automate user management, manage migrations, and integrate G Suite with other apps, tools, and services. Use the announcements linked above to learn more about the features and how you can use them.
Learn more about these and other launches in our Security Blog post highlighting 10 new security and management controls for security at scale.

Service accounts in Google Groups
Getting started

Rollout pace

Rapid and Scheduled Release domains: These features are available now for all users.

Availability

Available to all G Suite customers

Resources

Filter out disruptive noise in Google Meet, now on mobile

Monday, September 28, 2020

Quick launch summaryGoogle Meet can now intelligently filter out background noise on Android and iOS. This means Meet will automatically remove distracting sounds from your mobile device’s audio input while still letting your voice through.
This feature was already available on the web.
Getting startedAdmins: There is no admin control for this feature.
End users: This feature is OFF by default. Visit our Help Center to learn more about how to filter out noise from your video conference on Google Meet.
Rollout pace

Rapid and Scheduled Release domains: Full rollout (1–3 days for feature visibility) starting on September 28, 2020

Availability

Available to G Suite Enterprise, G Suite Enterprise for Education customers
Not available to G Suite Basic, G Suite Business, G Suite for Education, and G Suite for Nonprofits customers
Not currently available in some countries (currently including South Africa, the UAE, and surrounding locales). See our Help Center for more availability details.

Resources

Google Help: Filter out noise from your video conference on Google Meet

Roadmap

This feature was listed as an upcoming G Suite release.

Google Meet attendance reports available now for education meetings

Monday, September 28, 2020

What’s changing Organizers of G Suite Enterprise for Education meetings will now receive an attendance report via email once the meeting is over. Attendance reports will be generated for web or mobile meetings with at least five (and no more than 250) participants and will contain the following information for each:

Participant’s name
Participant’s email
Length of time a participant was on the call, including when they joined and exited

Once a meeting is finished, you’ll receive an attendance report via email.

The attendance report contains the names, email addresses, and duration of time participants were in the meeting.

Students who have the ability to create meetings will receive attendance reports as well.
Who’s impacted End users
Why you’d use it We hope attendance reports will help meeting organizers keep track of who attended their meetings and for how long, which can be challenging during larger meetings or while presenting.
Additional details Recording attendance for ejected or dial-in participants We’ll record the attendance of any participants who chose to dial in. The obfuscated phone number and name displayed during the meeting will appear in the attendance report.
If a meeting participant is ejected and re-admitted to the meeting, you’ll see the time they first joined and the time they last left. The total duration of their attendance will be a sum of their sessions.
Getting started

Rollout pace

Rapid and Scheduled Release domains: Full rollout (1-3 days for feature visibility) starting on September 28, 2020

Availability

Available to G Suite Enterprise for Education customers only at this time.
Not available to G Suite Essentials, G Suite Basic, G Suite Business, G Suite for Education, G Suite Enterprise, and G Suite for Nonprofits customers. Stay tuned to the G Suite Updates blog for information when this launches to additional customers.

Resources

Google Help: Track attendance in Google Meet

See which apps are Google verified in the Admin console

Monday, September 28, 2020

Quick launch summary With this launch, we’ll show whether apps are Google verified in the Admin console on the app details page and the App Access Control summary page. We hope this visibility will make it easier to make informed decisions about access to G Suite data within your organization.
Apps often require access to G Suite data to help your users get work done. Google works with app developers to make sure that third-party apps comply with Google privacy and security requirements.
If apps meet certain verification requirements, they are considered “Google verified”. If they don’t complete the verification process, they are considered “unverified” and might be subject to restrictions. You can control which apps can access sensitive G Suite data via App access control, and choose to authorize unverified apps if you want.

Getting started

Admins: Verification status will show for all apps. Use our Help Center to learn more about app verification requirements, how to manage which apps access G Suite data, and how to authorize unverified apps.
End users: No end user impact.

Rollout pace

Rapid and Scheduled Release domains: Full rollout (1–3 days for feature visibility starting on September 28, 2020

Availability

Available to all G Suite and Cloud Identity customers

Resources

G Suite Admin Help: Control which third-party & internal apps access G Suite data
Google Cloud Platform Console Help: OAuth API verification FAQs
G Suite Admin Help: Authorize unverified third-party apps

Dark theme now available for Docs, Sheets, and Slides on iOS

Monday, September 28, 2020

Quick launch summary You can now use Dark theme with Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides on iOS devices. Dark theme is already available for Android users.

Dark theme in Google Docs, Slides, and Sheets on iOS.
You can also preview how your document will look in light theme for collaborators and viewers by selecting the three-dot “More” menu and toggling the “view in light theme” option.
Getting started

Admins: No action is required.
End users: This feature will automatically respect the iOS system settings. Dark theme can be enabled or disabled in the Docs, Sheets, or Slides app individually by going to Menu > Settings > Theme. Visit the Help Center to learn more about using Dark theme in Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides on iOS.

Rollout pace

Rapid Release and Scheduled Release domains: This feature is available now with the latest version of Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides in the App Store.

Availability

Available to all G Suite customers and users with personal Google Accounts

Resources

Google Help: Use Dark Theme in Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides

See apps installed on managed Windows 10 devices

Thursday, September 24, 2020

Quick launch summary You can now view a list of all apps installed on Windows 10 devices that you manage with Windows device management. The list includes when the app was first installed, the current version, and the publisher. You can use this information to identify devices that have malicious or untrusted apps on them.
Note that this feature requires the device to be enrolled in Windows device management. Learn more about our enhanced security for Windows or how to view Windows device details in the Admin console.

See apps installed on managed Windows 10 devices

Getting started

Rollout pace

Rapid and Scheduled Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on September 24, 2020

Availability

Available to G Suite Enterprise, G Suite Enterprise for Education, and Cloud Identity Premium customers
Not available to G Suite Basic, G Suite Business, G Suite for Education, G Suite for Nonprofits, G Suite Essentials, and Cloud Identity Free customers

Resources

Migrate users and data between G Suite environments more easily

Thursday, September 24, 2020

Quick launch summary G Suite Migrate, currently available in beta, helps admins assess, plan, and migrate large amounts of content directly into G Suite. It already supports Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft SharePoint, Microsoft OneDrive, file shares, and Box migrations. With this launch, you can now also migrate between G Suite environments. Specifically, you can:

Selectively migrate Gmail, Calendar, Drive, and more data between G Suite environments.
Choose to migrate all users from one environment to another.
Selectively migrate specific user data (organizational units, users, or subsets of data) between G Suite environments.

Getting started

Admins: Visit the Help Center to learn more about G Suite Migrate and migrating between G Suite environments.
End users: No end user impact.

Rollout pace

Rapid and Scheduled Release domains: This feature is available now for all users.

Availability

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

Resources

Easily add and manage citations in Google Docs

Wednesday, September 23, 2020

Quick launch summary We’re launching a new feature to help you add, manage, and format academic citations in Google Docs. This will make writing academic papers easier since you won’t have to use add-ons, or copy citations from other tools.
Using this feature, you can easily insert in-text citations and create a bibliography in the MLA, APA, or Chicago (author-date) styles. Sources types supported include books, book sections, websites, journal articles and newspaper articles.

Citations tool in Google Docs
Getting started

Admins: There is no admin control for this feature.
End users: Find and use the citations tool in the Tools menu. Visit the Help Center to learn more about Citations in Google Docs.

Rollout pace

Availability

Available to all G Suite customers

Resources

Host collaborative brainstorms with new digital whiteboarding integration in Google Meet

Tuesday, September 22, 2020

Quick launch summaryWith the new Google Jamboard and Google Meet integration, you can now create or open an existing jam while on a Meet video call. This digital whiteboarding integration means you can use the Jamboard virtually to host collaborative brainstorming sessions with your coworkers or students in real-time, even when you can’t be in the same room.

You’ll also be able to save, share and continue the whiteboard at any time with Jamboard.
Note, you can only start or open a Jamboard during a Meet call if you joined the call on a computer. Video call participants on a mobile device or tablet will get a link to a Jamboard file and be directed to the Jamboard app.
Getting startedAdmins: This feature will be ON by default for all domains with Jamboard enabled. Visit the Help Center to learn more about turning Jamboard on or off for your organization.
End users: There is no end user setting for this feature. Visit the Help Center to learn more about whiteboarding in Meet.
Rollout pace

Rapid and Scheduled Release domains: Extended rollout (potentially longer than 15 days for feature visibility) starting on September 22, 2020

Availability

Available to all G Suite customers and users with personal Google accounts.

Resources

Google Help: Whiteboarding with Google Meet

Roadmap

This feature was listed as an upcoming G Suite release.

Updated interface for managing Google Groups in the Admin console

Thursday, September 17, 2020

Quick launch summary We’re updating the interface admins use to manage Google Groups for Business in their organizations. Google Groups for Business settings let admins control how Google Groups can be created and used within their domains. All the same settings will be available in the new interface, but the structure will be revamped to make it easier to find and change settings.
In addition, we’re adding Groups information to the Admin audit log, which will enable admins to see when and by whom settings were changed.
A new look for Groups for Business settings
Groups information is now in the admin audit log

Getting started

Admins: You’ll see the new interface by default when you go to Admin console > Apps > G Suite > Groups for Business. Visit the Help Center to learn more about managing Groups for your organization.
End users: No end-user impact.

Rollout pace

Rapid and Scheduled Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on September 17, 2020

Availability

Available to all G Suite customers

Resources

Roadmap

This feature was listed as an upcoming G Suite release.

Folder sharing in shared drives now generally available

Wednesday, September 16, 2020

Quick launch summary You can now share folders in shared drives. Previously, this feature was available in beta.
Shared drives empower teams and organizations to store, access, and collaborate on files. With this launch, you can share a specific folder with other users, or upgrade member access to provide users with additional permissions on specific folders within shared drives.
At launch, the feature is available via Drive on the web, the Drive API, Drive File Stream (v. 42+) and the latest Google Drive apps for iOS (v. 4.2020.36202+) and Android (v. 2.20.321+). It will be available through the native file system on ChromeOS with an upcoming release.
See our beta announcement for more details and examples of how you could use the feature.
Some updates and reminders from the beta post:

Commenter role available in My Drive: In order to align My Drive and shared drives, ‘Commenter’ roles will now be available for folders in My Drive. Previously, only Viewer and Editor were available.
Manager role required to move folders between shared drives: As explained in our previous post, moving folders between shared drives are only allowed for users who are managers on both the original as well as the target ___location.

Getting started

Rollout pace

Rapid Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on September 16, 2020
Scheduled Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on October 6, 2020

Availability

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

Resources

Roadmap

This feature was listed as an upcoming G Suite release.

Google Device Policy app ending support for iOS 10 soon

Wednesday, September 16, 2020

Quick launch summary The Google Device Policy app won’t support mobile devices running iOS version 10 or lower after the end of 2020. If your organization has advanced mobile device management (MDM) enabled, users must upgrade to iOS version 11 or higher to access new MDM features or to download the Device Policy app for the first time.
We will remove support for iOS 10 in the first release of the Device Policy app in 2021. Therefore please ensure your users upgrade their devices before the end of the year to avoid any disruption to their work.
Use our Help Center to find more information on minimum device requirements for Google mobile management.

See up to 49 people, including yourself, in Google Meet

Tuesday, September 15, 2020

What’s changing You can now see up to 49 people at the same time in the auto and tiled layout options in Google Meet.
In addition, we’ve added the ability to see yourself as a tile on the call. When you hover over your thumbnail in the top right corner, you’ll now see the option to add or remove yourself from the grid. These changes are only visible to you.

See up to 49 participant tiles in Google Meet

Who’s impacted End users

Why you’d use it Seeing more people at the same time can improve the dynamics of larger group meetings and classes. Whether it's seeing everyone's reactions to what's being discussed, or more easily tracking multiple speakers, it can help virtual meetings feel more like in-person meetings and encourage participation. Additionally, adding yourself as a full tile let’s you see yourself better. This can make you feel more like part of the larger group, especially when taking screenshots or photos.
We hope that this helps individuals and teams feel more connected while apart.

Additional details This feature is only available in Meet on the web. By default, the maximum number of tiles you’ll see in auto layouts is 9, and in tiled layouts is 16.
With this launch, you’ll also be able to use a slider to adjust the number of tiles you see. You may want to increase the maximum when you have a large group, or reduce the number of tiles if you have a weak internet connection. Note that the slider adjustments are specific to each meeting, it will reset between each meeting and you can then customize each time. You may also see fewer tiles depending on your window size, as the tiles available will adjust to fit your screen.
Getting started

Admins: There is no admin control for this feature.
End users: These features will be OFF by default. To change your layout, go to Settings > Change layout. Visit our Help Center to learn how to see yourself in a meeting.

Rollout pace 49-tile view

Self view

This feature is available now for all users.

Availability

Available to all G Suite customers and users with personal Google Accounts

Resources

Google Help: View yourself in a video meeting

Blur your background in Google Meet

Tuesday, September 15, 2020

Quick launch summary To help limit distractions during meetings, you can now blur the background of your video in Google Meet. When it’s turned on, Meet will intelligently separate you from the background, blurring your surroundings while keeping you clear and in focus.
We recently also launched the ability to filter out disruptive background noise in Google Meet. Together, these features reduce audio and visual distractions, and help ensure more productive meetings.
Background blur works directly within your browser and does not require an extension or any additional software. At launch, it will work on the Chrome browser on Windows and Mac desktop devices. Support for ChromeOS and Meet mobile apps will be coming soon, we’ll announce on the G Suite Updates blog when it’s available on those devices.

Getting started

Admins: There is no admin control for this feature.
End users: This feature is OFF by default. Visit our Help Center to learn more about how to blur your background on Google Meet.

Rollout pace

Rapid Release domains: Gradual rollout to eligible devices (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on September 15, 2020
Scheduled Release domains: Gradual rollout to eligible devices (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on September 28, 2020

Availability

Available to all G Suite customers and users with personal Google accounts.

Resources

Google Help: Blur your background in a video meeting

Roadmap

This feature was listed as an upcoming G Suite release.

Google Drive trash items will be automatically deleted after 30 days starting on October 13, 2020

Tuesday, September 15, 2020

What’s changing Starting October 13, 2020, we’re changing the retention policies for items in the Trash in Google Drive. With this new policy, any file that is put into a Google Drive trash will be automatically deleted after 30 days. Previously, trashed items would be retained indefinitely until the trash was emptied by the user.
Any files already in a user’s trash on October 13, 2020 will remain there for 30 days. After the 30-day period, files that have been in the trash for longer than 30 days will begin to be automatically deleted.

Who’s impacted End users

Why it’s important This change matches the policies of other G Suite products and services, such as Gmail. This will help ensure behavior is consistent and predictable for users across G Suite products, and will help make sure that items users trash are actually deleted as expected.

Additional details Policy change notes

In-app notification for users As this policy takes effect, we will show a banner to users with details of the change. The policy change will take effect regardless of whether a user sees or acknowledges the banner. We will be showing in-app notifications in Drive starting today and in our Editors products (e.g., Google Docs and Google Forms) starting September 29.

Getting started

Rollout pace

Rapid Release and Scheduled Release domains: Extended rollout (potentially longer than 15 days for feature visibility)] starting on October 13, 2020

Availability

Applicable to all G Suite customers

Resources

Introducing the Google Meet hardware Series One room kit

Tuesday, September 15, 2020

What’s changingWe just announced the next generation of meeting room hardware—Series One room kits for Google Meet.

Our new Series One room kits for Google Meet
Who’s impactedAdmins and end users
Why you’d use itEmployees are holding more video meetings than ever these days. We’ve developed the Series One kits to help your organization stay even more connected with features like:

Onboard AI with Google Edge TPUs in the smart audio bar and Meet compute system.
TrueVoice® proprietary voice isolation and multi-channel noise cancellation.
Power-over-ethernet for single cable installation.
New 4K smart cameras, equipped with high-resolution and large image sensors that can zoom in on and automatically frame meeting participants for better visibility.
Chrome OS for easy setup, along with automatic security and feature upgrades.

Additional detailsCheck out our announcement on the Cloud Blog to learn more about Series One and the research and technology that went into its development.
These kits will be available in the coming months. Contact Lenovo for purchasing information.
Getting started

Admins: Contact Lenovo for purchasing information.

Resources

More Google Meet participant controls for education meetings

Monday, September 14, 2020

What's changing

We’re giving hosts (meeting creators and calendar owners) of G Suite for Education meetings new meeting safety controls to manage who can join their meetings.

Who's impactedEnd users
Additional details

Manage meeting attendees

To control access to their meetings, hosts can turn "Quick access" on or off. By default, this setting will be on.

When "Quick access" is on:

Participants in the same ___domain as the host do not need to knock to request to join the meeting.
Participants joining by phone do not need to knock to request to join the meeting.
Participants can dial-out from within the meeting.

When "Quick access" is turned off:

All users, including those in the same ___domain as the host, must knock to request to join the meeting unless they're on the calendar invite. This includes any users who are dialing in to the meeting by phone.
Any participants invited from within the meeting by anyone other than the host need to knock to request to join.
Only the host can dial-out from within the meeting.

Hosts can turn "Quick access" on or off as often as they wish from Google Meet on the web once the meeting has started. Note: Hosts will not see the option to change this setting on mobile devices.

If you're unable to turn the features on or off, it's possible that you have a Chrome extension for Meet which is preventing the features from working. To fix the issue, try turning your Meet Chrome extensions off.

Soon we'll be adding additional functionality to the "Quick access" setting. Stay tuned to the G Suite Updates blog for the rollout timeline for those additional features:

When "Quick access" is off, the host must join the meeting first. Until the host joins, participants on the web will see the message: "Waiting for the Host to Join: The meeting will start as soon as the host has joined."
Hosts can turn "Quick access" on or off for meetings created in Google Calendar in addition to those created from Google Meet.

Getting started

Admins: There are no admin controls for these features.

End users: "Quick access" will be on by default and can be turned on or off by the host during each meeting. Visit the Help Center to learn more about turning these features on or off in your meetings.

Rollout pace

Rapid and Scheduled Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility)

Availability

Available to all G Suite for Education and G Suite Enterprise for Education customers
Not available to G Suite Essentials, G Suite Basic, G Suite Business, G Suite Enterprise, and G Suite for Nonprofits customers

Resources

G Suite Admin Help: Set up Meet for distance learning
Google Help: Start a video meeting for education

Roadmap

This feature was listed as an upcoming G Suite release.

New APIs to sign out users and control 2-Step Verification

Monday, September 14, 2020

Quick launch summary We’re adding two new APIs to the Admin SDK Directory API:

Sign user out of all sessions This new endpoint allows an admin to programmatically sign a user out of all web and device sessions. This can help manage account access when users leave an organization, if a device is lost or misplaced, or if a user forgot to sign out of a shared device. We do not recommend using this to sign users out and force a sign-in periodically; you can explore the Google web session control feature for that use case.

Turn off 2-Step Verification This new endpoint allows an admin to turn 2-Step Verification (2SV) off programmatically. This action also removes all 2SV methods on the account. Note that in some cases, 2SV cannot be turned off for a user due to other policies that may be in effect. For example, a user may be enrolled in the Advanced Protection Program, or “2SV enforced” is turned on; in such cases the API will fail with an appropriate error code and message.
Note that both of these actions can already be performed via the Admin console. The current launch makes them accessible via API as well so they can be integrated into automated offboarding workflows.

Getting started

Rollout pace

Rapid and Scheduled Release domains: This feature is available now for all users.

Availability

Available to all G Suite customers

Resources

New look and feel for Google Meet mobile apps

Friday, September 11, 2020

Quick launch summaryWe’re updating the user interface (UI) of the Google Meet mobile apps for Android and iOS. The new mobile UI will have the same look and feel as that of the meeting experience in the Gmail app.

A new look and feel for Google Meet mobile apps
In addition to the revamped design, you’ll now see a New Meeting button. When you tap on this button, you’ll see three options:

Get meeting joining info to share with others.
Start a Meet call instantly.
Schedule a new meeting in Google Calendar.

New options for new meetings in Google Meet mobile apps
This new UI is rolling out on iOS now; check back for an update on this post when the rollout to Android begins.
Getting started

Admins: There is no admin control for this feature.
End users: This new UI will appear by default once you’ve upgraded your Meet iOS app to version 45 or above.

Rollout paceiOS

Rapid and Scheduled Release domains: This feature is available on iOS now.

Android

Rapid and Scheduled Release domains: Coming soon. Check back for an update on this post when the rollout to Android begins.

Availability

Available to all G Suite customers and users with personal Google Accounts

Resources

Google Help: Join a video meeting

New Google Groups becoming the default for all users on September 15, 2020

Friday, September 11, 2020

What’s changing Earlier this year, we made the new Google Groups generally available. Since then, it’s been the default version of Groups, but admins could turn off the new interface for their users via an Admin console setting.
Starting on September 15, 2020, we will make new Groups the default for all users. When this happens:

The Admin console setting to turn off new Groups for your users will be removed.
Any users who were using classic Groups will start to see new Groups instead.
Individual users can still choose to use the classic Groups interface by clicking Settings > Return to classic Google Groups.

Visit our Help Center for more information on new Groups and the transition from classic Groups.

Who’s impacted Admins and end users

Why it’s important New Groups has a more efficient and streamlined user interface, which makes it easier for users to create and manage groups. See our previous announcement for a full overview of the new Groups experience. In that announcement, we noted that some features in classic Groups were not yet available in new Groups. Since then, we’ve listened to your feedback and recently launched several highly requested features, including:

We’re working to add more soon. See the Help Center for the full list of features we’re planning to launch, and follow the G Suite Updates blog for launch announcements.

Additional details Planning for a complete migration to new Groups
We’re planning to migrate all users to new Groups at a future date. At that time, classic Groups will no longer be available. We’ll announce this change on the G Suite Updates blog at least three weeks before it takes place. Note that you can use the Help Center to see a list of the features that we don’t plan to add to new Groups before this migration.

Getting started

Admins: The Admin console setting to turn off new Groups for your users will be removed. There will no longer be a way for you to require your users to use classic Groups. Visit the Help Center to learn more about new Groups and the transition from classic Groups.
End users: End users will see new Groups by default when they go to groups.google.com, but can revert to classic Groups at any time. Visit the Help Center to learn how to go back to classic Groups. If users were already using new Groups there will be no change to their experience with this change.

Rollout pace

Rapid and Scheduled Release domains: Full rollout (1-3 days for feature visibility) starting on September 15, 2020

Availability

Available to all G Suite customers

Resources

Filter audit logs and usage reports by groups

Thursday, September 10, 2020

Quick launch summary You can now filter audit logs and usage reports by specific groups. When you add a new or existing group to an allow list, you can then filter to see log events or usage reports by that specific group.
This can make it more efficient to find log entries, and allow you to more quickly and easily focus in on a specific target audience to better understand user account information, apps usage, and security.

Getting started

Rollout pace

Rapid and Scheduled Release domains: Full rollout (1-3 days for feature visibility) starting on September 10, 2020.

Availability

Available to all G Suite customers

Resources

Office editing on Android brings G Suite collaboration to Microsoft Office files

Tuesday, September 8, 2020

Quick launch summary We’re making Office editing available on Android. This feature brings the collaborative and assistive features of G Suite to your Microsoft Office files when you’re using your Android device. Already available on the web, it:

Allows you to edit, comment, and collaborate on Microsoft Office files using Google Docs’, Sheets’, and Slides’ powerful real-time collaboration tools.
Improves sharing options, improves sharing controls, and reduces the need to download and email file attachments.
Streamlines workflows by reducing the need to convert file types.

Office editing will replace QuickOffice (sometimes known as Office Compatibility Mode), which has more limited functionality and collaboration capabilities. See more about Office editing in our announcement for the feature on the web.

Getting started

Rollout pace

Rapid and Scheduled Release domains: Extended rollout (potentially longer than 15 days for feature visibility) starting on September 8, 2020

Availability

Available to all G Suite customers and users with personal Google Accounts

Resources

Google Docs line spacing will now adjust based on font

Tuesday, September 8, 2020

Quick launch summary We will now adjust line spacing in Google Docs based on the font used. Previously, line spacing was based only on the font size and line spacing you chose. Now, the font you choose will also be a factor in the spacing.
This will increase consistency in document length between Google Docs and other word processing programs, and help make sure converted Microsoft Word documents retain a similar length. It will be particularly useful for education and enterprise users, who may have documents with specific length requirements based on specific formatting combinations.

Line spacing will adjust based on the font used
Getting started

Rollout pace

Rapid and Scheduled Release domains: Full rollout (1–3 days for feature visibility) starting on September 8, 2020.

Availability

Available to all G Suite customers and users with personal accounts.

Resources

Google Help: Change how paragraphs & fonts look

Updates

Dynamic groups beta enables automatic group membership management

Group membership expiration available in beta

New features to help improve and analyze data in Google Sheets

Service accounts in Google Groups and with Groups API now generally available

Filter out disruptive noise in Google Meet, now on mobile

Google Meet attendance reports available now for education meetings

See which apps are Google verified in the Admin console

Dark theme now available for Docs, Sheets, and Slides on iOS

See apps installed on managed Windows 10 devices

Migrate users and data between G Suite environments more easily

Easily add and manage citations in Google Docs

Host collaborative brainstorms with new digital whiteboarding integration in Google Meet

Updated interface for managing Google Groups in the Admin console

Folder sharing in shared drives now generally available

Google Device Policy app ending support for iOS 10 soon

See up to 49 people, including yourself, in Google Meet

Blur your background in Google Meet

Google Drive trash items will be automatically deleted after 30 days starting on October 13, 2020

Introducing the Google Meet hardware Series One room kit

More Google Meet participant controls for education meetings

New APIs to sign out users and control 2-Step Verification

New look and feel for Google Meet mobile apps

New Google Groups becoming the default for all users on September 15, 2020

Filter audit logs and usage reports by groups

Office editing on Android brings G Suite collaboration to Microsoft Office files

Google Docs line spacing will now adjust based on font

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