Tag Archives: Admin Console

Google Workspace Updates Weekly Recap – September 8, 2023

5 New updates 

Unless otherwise indicated, the features below are available to all Google Workspace customers, and are fully launched or in the process of rolling out. Rollouts should take no more than 15 business days to complete if launching to both Rapid and Scheduled Release at the same time. If not, each stage of rollout should take no more than 15 business days to complete.


Expanding autocorrect to Google Chat on web 
Google Chat on web will now automatically correct misspelled words, making it easier to send messages without typos. Similar to functionality in Gmail and Google Docs, the corrected words are shown with a gray underline so you know when the auto-correction has occurred. | This feature is rolling out now to all English users.
Expanding autocorrect to Google Chat on web

Expanding streamlined file organization across Google Workspace 
Earlier this year, we introduced streamlined file organization with the new Google Drive location picker. As a follow up, we're expanding this updated visual experience to Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, Drawings, Sites and Gmail. Users will now have access to helpful suggestions when moving files, adding shortcuts to files, or creating copies of files. | Rolling out now to Rapid Release and Scheduled Release domains at an extended pace (potentially longer than 15 days for feature visibility). | Learn more about how to use Google Drive. 

Updated zoom in/out capabilities across Google Docs, Slides and Drawings
We’re introducing new zoom keyboard shortcuts in Google Docs and Slides on web to help you zoom in, zoom out, or scale to 100%. Additionally, you can now smoothly zoom in or out in Slides using the trackpad or mouse wheel with a modifier key (cmd/ctrl), making it easier to control your view of Slides. | Learn more about keyboard shortcuts for Docs and Slides. 

Expanded language support for captions in Google Meet 
Captions in Google Meet allow you to view captions as everyone speaks during a meeting. Over the course of the next several weeks, you’ll be able to use captions in more languages: 

Arabic (Arab Emirates) (Beta)

Arabic (Egypt) (Beta)

Arabic (Levant) (Beta)

Arabic (Maghrebi) (Beta)

Bengali (Bangladesh) (Beta)

Bulgarian (Bulgaria) (Beta)

Chinese (Simplified) (Beta)

Chinese, Mandarin (Traditional) (Beta)

English (UK) (Beta)

Gujarati (India) (Beta)

Hindi (Beta)

isiXhosa (South Africa) (Beta)

Kannada (India) (Beta)

Khmer (Cambodia) (Beta)

Kinyarwanda (Rwanda) (Beta)

Malayalam (India) (Beta)

Marathi (India) (Beta)

Northern Sotho (South Africa) (Beta)

Sesotho (South Africa) (Beta)

Swati (South Africa) (Beta)

Swedish (Sweden) (Beta)

Tshivenda (South Africa) (Beta)

Tswana (South Africa) (Beta)

Xitsonga (South Africa) (Beta)

Available now to all Google Workspace customers. | Visit the Help Center to learn more about using captions in Google Meet.

Dynamic groups now supports negation queries 
You can now create or edit dynamic groups to use negation in membership queries. For example, you can opt to create a dynamic group that excludes all users from a particular sub organization or specific job title. There are a few limitations, however — any query using the “exists” macro and using the AND (&) operator or queries where the NOT operator is used inside of the “exists” macro will not be supported. | Rolling out to Rapid Release and Scheduled Release domains at gradual pace (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting September 11, 2023. | Available to Google Workspace Frontline Standard, Enterprise Essentials Plus, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Standard, Education Plus and Cloud Identity Premium customers only. | Visit the Help Center to learn more about creating membership queries for dynamic groups and our Developer documentation for more information about formulating and testing a membership query. 
Dynamic groups now supports negation queries

Previous announcements

The announcements below were published on the Workspace Updates blog earlier this week. Please refer to the original blog posts for complete details.


Expanding branding and customization capabilities to Google Sites 
You can now easily and quickly create with high-quality, pre-designed themes for Google Sites. | Available to Business Plus, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Plus only. | Learn more about changing how your Google Site looks. 

Introducing a new ultra-low latency viewer experience for in-domain live streaming in Google Meet 
We are introducing a new ultra-low latency viewing experience for video meetings that are streamed within an organization. The new experience will be available to the first ten thousand viewers — all additional viewers will have the existing experience. | Learn more about in-domain live streaming in Google Meet. 

More Google Meet features for Google Workspace Individual users 
If you’re a Google Workspace Individual user, you can now take advantage of several new Meet features and enhancements. We hope these updates make it easier for you to connect and collaborate with your customers and stakeholders, continuing to drive your business forward. | Learn more about features for Google Workspace Individual users. 

Lock files more easily in Google Drive 
We’re adding the option to lock Drive files by right-clicking the file, selecting “File information”, and clicking “Lock”. Locking a file makes sure reviewers can’t change a file. Edits, comments and suggestions can't be added to locked documents. | Learn more about locking files in Drive.

Increased row limits in Connected Sheets for BigQuery 
We’re increasing the maximum number of rows of results returned from BigQuery for pivot tables and for data extracts. Pivot tables have been expanded to 50,000 rows (previously 30,000) and data extracts have been expanded to 50,000 rows (previously 25,000). | Learn more about Connected Sheets for BigQuery.


Track the carbon footprint associated with the usage of Google Workspace across your organization

This announcement was made at Google Cloud Next ‘23. Visit the Workspace Blog to learn more about the next wave of AI innovation in Workspace. 


What’s changing 

If you’re a Google Workspace admin, you can now track the carbon footprint and gross emissions of using Google Workspace. This means you can track the emissions impact of tools such as Google Meet, Gmail, Google Docs, and more.




Who’s impacted

Admins


Why it matters 

We’ve heard from our customers that it would be helpful to understand their organization’s carbon emissions from Google Workspace product usage. For many of our customers, sustainability has become an increasingly important factor for IT-related decision making and resource allocation. 


We’re making this information easily accessible to our customers in the Admin console. Using the Carbon Footprint reporting tool, you can:
  • View aggregated emission data for your organization over time, broken down by service. You’ll be able to sort this information, month over month as well. 
  • You can break down emission data by service, such as Gmail or Drive .


Additional details

At Google, we continue to make product and operational improvements to reduce environmental impact. Our goal is to run on carbon-free energy, 24/7, at all of our data centers and cloud regions by 2030. Plus, we’re sharing technology, methods, and funding to enable organizations around the world to transition to more carbon-free and sustainable systems — see here for more information about our sustainability commitments.


Google uses the Greenhouse Gas Protocol, the global standard for carbon accounting to generate the Carbon footprint reports. We recommend that admins familiarize themselves with the GHG terminology — you can find more information in our Help Center or the video below.


Getting started

  • Admins: You can find your Carbon Footprint report in the Admin console under Reporting > Carbon footprint. Visit the Help Center to learn more about the Workspace Carbon Footprint.


Rollout pace


Availability


Resources


Stronger protection for additional sensitive actions taken in Gmail

What’s changing 

Last year, we introduced stronger safeguards around sensitive actions taken in your Google Workspace accounts. We’re extending these protections to sensitive actions taken in Gmail, specifically actions related to: 
  • Filters: creating a new filter, editing an existing filter, or importing filters. 
  • Forwarding: Adding a new forwarding address from the Forwarding and POP/IMAP settings. 
  • IMAP access: Enabling the IMAP access status from the settings. (Workspace admins control whether this setting is visible to end users or not) 

When these actions are taken, Google will evaluate the session attempting the action, and if it’s deemed risky, it will be challenged with a “Verify it’s you” prompt. Through a second and trusted factor, such as a 2-step verification code, users can confirm the validity of the action. If a verification challenge is failed or not completed, users are sent a “Critical security alert” notification on trusted devices.

If a risky action is taken, you'll be prompted with a "Verify it's you" challenge.



Additional details

Note that this feature only supports users that use Google as their identity provider and actions taken within Google products. SAML users are not supported at this time. See below for more information.

Getting started

Rollout pace


Availability

  • Available to all Google Workspace customers and users with personal Google Accounts 

Resources

Resolve conflict accounts faster with the new Conflict Accounts Management tool

What’s changing 

We’re introducing an automated workflow to help reduce the manual effort needed to turn unmanaged accounts into managed accounts. Unmanaged accounts are users who independently created a Google account using one of your organization's domains. 




Admins can access the feature within the Admin console under Account settings > Conflicting accounts management. Here, they can specify their preferences for how to resolve unmanaged accounts when provisioning users for their domains. This preference will apply only when users are provisioned using the public Directory API with URL parameter resolveConflictAccount set to true. 

  • Automatically invite users to transfer unmanaged accounts 
    • Admins can specify how many daily follow-up messages should be sent.
    • If a user declines or does not accept the transfer invitation, admins can specify which next steps should be taken. 
    • Further, admins will have the option to take over the email address of users who decline or ignore the invite. 

  • Replace unmanaged accounts with managed ones 
    • Note that data owned by the account will not be imported.
    • The user will receive a temporary account address, which they’ll need to manually replace with a @gmail.com address of their choice. 
    • They’ll receive an email notification of this, and are informed they cannot use the original email any longer. 
    • Refer to this documentation for more information. 

  • Don’t create new accounts if unmanaged accounts exist.



Who’s impacted

Admins and end users


Why you’d use it 

Conflict accounts refer to personal Google accounts that get registered with a corporate email address. These accounts cannot be managed by admins, which is outside of the scope of protection admins can apply to keep work data secure. Further, reconciling conflicting accounts creates churn for admins and adds to the workload of onboarding users to Google Workspace & Google Cloud.


While admins can mitigate these accounts using the transfer tool or the “UserInvitation” API functionality, the Conflict Accounts Management tool is a scaled solution for larger customers, helping reduce time spent migrating to business accounts and accelerating adoption of Google Workspace and Google Cloud.

Getting started


  • Admins: 
    • Visit the Help Center to learn more about using the Conflict Accounts Management tool and unmanaged accounts.

  • End users: Depending on your admin configuration:
    • You’ll be invited to transfer your account — if accepted, your admin will have the ability to manage your account.
    • If you do not accept the request, your admin may replace your unmanaged account with a managed one. In that case, you’ll receive a new @gmail.com address and retain your content in this unmanaged, personal Google account.

Rollout pace



Availability

  • Available to all Google Workspace customers

Resources


Google Voice users can manage incoming calls across individuals and groups

What’s changing 

Admins can now designate specific Voice users as managers of a ring group, allowing them to make changes from voice.google.com instead of the Admin console. For example, ring group managers can view and modify: 
  • Ring group members, 
  • Call routing rules, 
  • Ring duration settings, 
  • Working hours and more. 

For large customers with many ring groups, delegating this responsibility to specific ring group members can help ease admin workloads, allowing them to focus on more critical tasks. 



Additional details 

Also, Google Voice users can now call and check with their transfer target before transferring a call. This helps create a better experience for the transfer target and the transferred call participant. 


Getting started


Rollout pace 

Ring group management: Available now 

Ask Before Transfer 
  • Rapid Release Domains: Extended rollout (potentially longer than 15 days for feature visibility) starting on August 16, 2023
  • Scheduled Release Domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) staring on September 6, 2023

Availability 

  • Ring groups are available to Google Voice Standard and Premier customers 
  • Ask before transfer is available to Google Voice Starter, Standard and Premier customers. 

Resources 

Set Context Aware Access policies for 1P & 3P applications to access Workspace APIs

What’s changing 

Admins can now use context-aware access to block users' access to Workspace Applications via other Google (1st party) & non Google (3rd party) applications. With context-aware access, you can set different access levels to Workspace applications based on a user’s identity and the context of the request (location, device security status, IP address). 




Why it’s important 

Context aware access for APIs will enable customer admins to extend existing user/device CAA context access controls to end users attempting to access Google Workspace Applications via other Google & Non Google applications. Extending these policies to APIs that request Google Workspace core data gives admins another layer of control and security and helps protect against data exfiltration. 


Getting started 


Rollout pace 

  • This feature is available now.

Availability 

  • Available to Google Workspace Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Standard, Education Plus, and Cloud Identity Premium customers 

Resources 

Updates for exporting your organization’s data

What’s changing 

We’re introducing updates around exporting user data for Google Workspace customers: 

First, all Google Workspace customers can choose to export the data of a specific user, rather than a customer’s full set of user generated content. 





Second, you’ll notice an improved user interface for the data export tool, which provides more detailed information about exports, records a longer history of exports, and offers more features (filtered takeout). 




Third, Google Workspace Enterprise Plus, Education Standard, Education Plus, and the Teaching and Learning Upgrade customers now have additional options for exporting data. If you’re using one of these editions, you can export content for a set of individual users. For example, you can choose to export all data for several specific users rather than all data for the entire domain. This option expands on the enhanced data export options that were released last year, which are: 
  • Export user generated content by organizational unit. 
  • Export user generated content by group. 

Who’s impacted 

Admins and end users 

Why it’s important 

Historically, data export has been limited to a customer’s full set of user generated content. However, customers experience many scenarios where exporting only a portion of user generated content is relevant. This provides customers with more granular controls, especially as their business and compliance needs continue to evolve. By providing more export options, customers can retrieve the specific data they need, when they need it. 

Getting started 


Rollout pace 


Availability 

  • Available to Google Workspace Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Starter, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Standard, Education Plus, and the Teaching and Learning Upgrade and Assured Controls customers 

Resources 

Sync users and groups from an Azure Active Directory using Directory Sync

What’s changing 

Google Workspace Admins can now use Directory Sync to sync users and groups from Azure Active Directory. Directory Sync is an alternative to Google Cloud Directory Sync (GCDS), which admins can use to synchronize user and group data with their Google Cloud directory without the need to manage on-prem hardware and deployments. 




Directory Sync is available in open beta, which means no beta sign-up or registration is required. Please read more about Directory Sync and its features to determine if it best suits your needs.


Additional details 

Admins can add up-to one Azure Directory connection to sync users and groups information to the Google Cloud Directory. On your Microsoft Azure Active Directory side, Global Administrator privileges are required for using this feature — this is so that full user profiles, groups, and group memberships can be “read” through in order to sync these objects into the Cloud Directory. 


Getting started 

  • Admins: 
    • To use the Directory Sync beta, go to Admin console > Home > Directory > Directory Sync. No beta sign up or registration is required. 
    • You can delegate the ability to manage Active Directory with the new Directory Sync admin user role. Use our Help Center to learn more about using the new Directory Sync. 
  • End users: No end user impact 

Rollout pace 


Availability 

  • Available to all Google Workspace customers and Cloud Identity customers

Resources

Sync users and groups from an Azure Active Directory using Directory Sync

What’s changing 

Google Workspace Admins can now use Directory Sync to sync users and groups from Azure Active Directory. Directory Sync is an alternative to Google Cloud Directory Sync (GCDS), which admins can use to synchronize user and group data with their Google Cloud directory without the need to manage on-prem hardware and deployments. 




Directory Sync is available in open beta, which means no beta sign-up or registration is required. Please read more about Directory Sync and its features to determine if it best suits your needs.


Additional details 

Admins can add up-to one Azure Directory connection to sync users and groups information to the Google Cloud Directory. On your Microsoft Azure Active Directory side, Global Administrator privileges are required for using this feature — this is so that full user profiles, groups, and group memberships can be “read” through in order to sync these objects into the Cloud Directory. 


Getting started 

  • Admins: 
    • To use the Directory Sync beta, go to Admin console > Home > Directory > Directory Sync. No beta sign up or registration is required. 
    • You can delegate the ability to manage Active Directory with the new Directory Sync admin user role. Use our Help Center to learn more about using the new Directory Sync. 
  • End users: No end user impact 

Rollout pace 


Availability 

  • Available to all Google Workspace customers and Cloud Identity customers

Resources

AppSheet Core licenses will be included by default for more Google Workspace editions, along with a new Admin security setting

What’s changing 

To bring the power of AppSheet to more users, AppSheet Core licenses will now be included for the following Google Workspace editions: 
  • Business Starter, Standard, and Plus 
  • Enterprise Starter and Standard 
  • Frontline Starter and Standard 
  • Non-profits 
  • Education Standard 


Note that AppSheet Core licenses are already included for domain-verified Google Workspace Enterprise Plus, Enterprise Essentials Plus, and Education Plus users. Your Google Workspace instance must be domain-verified to enjoy this feature. 


Along with expanding access, we’re giving Admins a new org-level setting, which controls how users are able to use their AppSheet Core licenses, including whether app data can be shared externally. See below for more information. 


Who’s impacted 

Admins and end users


Why it matters

AppSheet allows users to maximize Google Workspace by building custom applications on top of Google Workspace and other services in their environment, all without writing any code. For example, you can build apps that record facility inspections, document inventory, or manage approvals. 


You can take advantage of AppSheet features and integrations such as:
  • Creating AppSheet-powered no-code Chat apps for Google Workspace.
  • AppSheet databases make it easy for you to organize and manage the data that power your apps directly inside AppSheet. See our Developer Blog for more information. 
  • Building custom automations with email, chat, and push notifications that integrate into your workflows.

By including AppSheet Core licenses in more Google Workspace editions, the power of AppSheet is accessible to more users. Further, Admins will have the security features they need to ensure their users are using AppSheet appropriately in their organization. Visit our Help Center to learn more about getting started with AppSheet as well as our online community to collaborate with other AppSheet Creators.


Additional details

Admins can use the new “Core License Security Setting” in the Google Workspace Admin Console to control features related to whether app data can be shared externally. The setting will apply to the following functions for Google Workspace users using AppSheet Core:
  • Sharing with external app users
  • Connecting to external app data
  • Automation emails to external recipients

The setting applies to all AppSheet Core apps in your domain — for more granular governance, AppSheet Enterprise licenses are required.



  • For Admins with existing AppSheet usage, this setting will be OFF by default to ensure no existing apps are disrupted.
  • For Admins without existing AppSheet usage, the setting will be ON by default.


You’ll begin seeing the new setting in the coming weeks, see the "Rollout" section below for more details.


Getting started

Admins

  • If you’re currently paying for AppSheet Core licenses, they will have to be canceled manually. Impacted customers will receive a notification via email in the coming weeks with more information and next steps.
  • Before changing the Core License Security Setting, Admins should check with their AppSheet creators to ensure any active applications don’t rely on the features controlled by the Core License Security Setting. Admins can get a basic understanding of which users are using AppSheet by running a User Report in the Google Workspace Admin Console.

Partners 

End users 

Rollout pace


Availability

  • AppSheet Core licenses are already included for domain-verified Google Workspace Enterprise Plus, Enterprise Essentials Plus, and Education Plus users.
  • AppSheet Core licenses will now be included for domain-verified Google Workspace Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Starter, Enterprise Standard, Frontline Starter and Standard, Nonprofits, and Education Standard customers

  • Google Workspace for Education users designated as under the age of 18 are restricted from using AppSheet with their Google Workspace for Education accounts. For more information, use this article in our Help Center about controlling access to Google services by age.


Resources