Tag Archives: Drive

Helping enterprises stay competitive with new updates in G Suite

In 1958, U.S. corporations remained on the S&P 500 index for an average of 61 years, according to the American Enterprise Foundation. Fast forward to today and companies are being replaced approximately every two weeks. In this rapidly changing market, traditional companies are looking for ways to stay competitive and more and more enterprises, including Nielsen, Colgate and Airbus, are turning to G Suite to help them reimagine how they work to keep pace.

We know that enterprises want to move to cloud-first collaboration to transform how they work, but, understandably, they have questions about how to make it work in a business of their size. What happens with email security? How can they manage their data? How does G Suite work with the tools and systems they already have in place?

Yesterday we announced new products to help businesses reimagine how they work, and today we’re sharing additional solutions we’ve built to address these concerns.

Here’s a snapshot of what we’re announcing today. Read on for more detail.

  • New Gmail (Redesigned security warnings, Snooze, Offline Access and more generally available for G Suite users)

  • Cloud Search (being deployed by an initial set of customers)

  • Google Voice for G Suite (available in our Early Adopter Program*)

  • Drive Enterprise Sku (available for purchase)

Keeping businesses (and emails) secure

Keeping your data secure is our top priority, which is why we use machine learning to analyze threat indicators across billions of messages in Gmail to help quickly identify potential security attacks in the making. Machine learning helps protect more than 1.4 billion active Gmail user accounts from nearly 10 million spam and malicious emails every minute.

Today, we’re making the new Gmail generally available to G Suite customers so that, in addition to these baked-in security features, more companies can take advantage of features like redesigned security warnings, snooze, offline access and more. You can learn more in this post.

Bringing the best of Google Search to enterprise data

Searching through your company’s data should be as easy as doing a web search. But the reality is most companies’ information is spread across different silos and systems that don’t talk to each other, which makes finding things a lengthy chore. We introduced Cloud Search last year to make it easy to find information across G Suite in a way that’s intuitive and assistive. Today, we are announcing new Cloud Search functionality to help companies intelligently and securely index their third-party data beyond G Suite, whether that data is stored in the cloud, or on-prem.

Companies, like Whirlpool Corporation, have started deploying Cloud Search’s new capabilities to unify search across multiple data sources. Using Cloud Search’s new SDKs, APIs and connectors for third-party connectivity, Whirlpool created a custom app called Whirlpool SearchPro that indexes more than 12 million documents across different on-prem and cloud systems and returns results in 100s of milliseconds on average. Moreover, search results reflect the specific permissions and access controls from each of the source systems to ensure that individuals only see the information they should.

Whirlpool Cloud Search - G Suite Next '18

Cloud Search’s new functionality will be available to G Suite Enterprise customers as well as  any company looking to power their enterprise search needs as a new standalone offering. We’re also pleased to offer qualifying Google Search Appliance customers an upgrade pathto Cloud Search. Cloud Search is currently being deployed by an initial set of customers, and we’re excited to have 15 launch partners on board, including SADA, Onix and Accenture. Learn more.

Enabling smarter and easier collaboration

We first introduced Hangouts Chat, Hangouts Meet and Hangouts Meet hardware last year to make it easier for employees to collaborate with colleagues across the globe, be it face-to-face or via chat. Aside from bringing the best of video conferencing to businesses, we also want to create better telephony solutions so that employees can be more productive over the phone. For close to a decade, millions of consumers have used Google Voice to connect with folks across the globe. Now we’re bringing an enterprise version of Voice to G Suite.

On top of the existing features that users love, Google Voice is tightly integrated with G Suite apps, like Hangouts Meet and Google Calendar, and provides administrator capabilities best suited for the enterprise. Admins can manage users, provision and port phone numbers, access detailed reports and set up call routing functionality. Voice also lets you deploy phone numbers to employees, or even entire departments, at once, and assigns a  number that’s not tied to a specific device. AI-powered features in Voice also help facilitate voicemail transcription and spam filtering, which helps eliminate disruptions for employees so they can focus on what’s important.

Google Voice quickly emerged as our preferred telephony solution for remote teams and frequent travelers. Kim Anstett
Chief Information Officer, Nielsen

We’ve been testing this enterprise version with key customers since last October. As a part of the Trusted Tester* program, Nielsen noticed major improvements in reliability and call quality compared to previous phone solutions. “Google Voice quickly emerged as our preferred telephony solution for remote teams and frequent travelers,” says Kim Anstett, Chief Information Officer at Nielsen. “In fact, we’re excited to announce plans to leverage Voice as the standard for remote work telephony at Nielsen.”


To try out Google Voice within your organization, you can sign up for the Early Adopter Program.

Making transitioning to the cloud simple

Lastly, we want to make it simpler for businesses to adopt and use G Suite, and a large part of this is ensuring a smooth transition off legacy enterprise content management (ECM) systems. To help, our customers will now be able to purchase Drive Enterprise as a standalone offering with usage-based pricing.


With Drive Enterprise, businesses can move their content to the cloud in Google Drive, and employees can create and collaborate securely with tools like Docs, Sheets and Slides without disrupting other legacy office productivity tools. More than 2 trillion files are stored in Google Drive to date, and most recently, Google was named a leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Content Collaboration Platforms (CCP) for the second year in a row. Learn more about the new Drive Enterprise.

Drive Sku - G Suite Next '18

We’ve also made a concerted effort to make it easier to use G Suite with existing legacy tools so that you can avoid interruptions at work. Whether it’s making sure your calendar details stay intact between Microsoft Exchange and Google Calendar, providing new ways to integrate Hangout Meet with existing hardware, making it easier to collaborate with teams outside of your domain and more, we’re focused on building solutions to make your work day easier. Read more about our latest interoperability capabilities in this post.

Try today

Visit the G Suite website to see how you can transform how your enterprise operates.

*The G Suite Trusted Tester and Early Adopter Programs will soon be renamed as Alpha and Beta, respectively. More details to come.

Helping enterprises stay competitive with new updates in G Suite

In 1958, U.S. corporations remained on the S&P 500 index for an average of 61 years, according to the American Enterprise Foundation. Fast forward to today and companies are being replaced approximately every two weeks. In this rapidly changing market, traditional companies are looking for ways to stay competitive and more and more enterprises, including Nielsen, Colgate and Airbus, are turning to G Suite to help them reimagine how they work to keep pace.

We know that enterprises want to move to cloud-first collaboration to transform how they work, but, understandably, they have questions about how to make it work in a business of their size. What happens with email security? How can they manage their data? How does G Suite work with the tools and systems they already have in place?

Yesterday we announced new products to help businesses reimagine how they work, and today we’re sharing additional solutions we’ve built to address these concerns.

Here’s a snapshot of what we’re announcing today. Read on for more detail.

  • New Gmail (Redesigned security warnings, Snooze, Offline Access and more generally available for G Suite users)

  • Cloud Search (being deployed by an initial set of customers)

  • Google Voice for G Suite (available in our Early Adopter Program*)

  • Drive Enterprise Sku (available for purchase)

Keeping businesses (and emails) secure

Keeping your data secure is our top priority, which is why we use machine learning to analyze threat indicators across billions of messages in Gmail to help quickly identify potential security attacks in the making. Machine learning helps protect more than 1.4 billion active Gmail user accounts from nearly 10 million spam and malicious emails every minute.

Today, we’re making the new Gmail generally available to G Suite customers so that, in addition to these baked-in security features, more companies can take advantage of features like redesigned security warnings, snooze, offline access and more. You can learn more in this post.

Bringing the best of Google Search to enterprise data

Searching through your company’s data should be as easy as doing a web search. But the reality is most companies’ information is spread across different silos and systems that don’t talk to each other, which makes finding things a lengthy chore. We introduced Cloud Search last year to make it easy to find information across G Suite in a way that’s intuitive and assistive. Today, we are announcing new Cloud Search functionality to help companies intelligently and securely index their third-party data beyond G Suite, whether that data is stored in the cloud, or on-prem.

Companies, like Whirlpool Corporation, have started deploying Cloud Search’s new capabilities to unify search across multiple data sources. Using Cloud Search’s new SDKs, APIs and connectors for third-party connectivity, Whirlpool created a custom app called Whirlpool SearchPro that indexes more than 12 million documents across different on-prem and cloud systems and returns results in 100s of milliseconds on average. Moreover, search results reflect the specific permissions and access controls from each of the source systems to ensure that individuals only see the information they should.

Whirlpool Cloud Search - G Suite Next '18

Cloud Search’s new functionality will be available to G Suite Enterprise customers as well as  any company looking to power their enterprise search needs as a new standalone offering. We’re also pleased to offer qualifying Google Search Appliance customers an upgrade pathto Cloud Search. Cloud Search is currently being deployed by an initial set of customers, and we’re excited to have 15 launch partners on board, including SADA, Onix and Accenture. Learn more.

Enabling smarter and easier collaboration

We first introduced Hangouts Chat, Hangouts Meet and Hangouts Meet hardware last year to make it easier for employees to collaborate with colleagues across the globe, be it face-to-face or via chat. Aside from bringing the best of video conferencing to businesses, we also want to create better telephony solutions so that employees can be more productive over the phone. For close to a decade, millions of consumers have used Google Voice to connect with folks across the globe. Now we’re bringing an enterprise version of Voice to G Suite.

On top of the existing features that users love, Google Voice is tightly integrated with G Suite apps, like Hangouts Meet and Google Calendar, and provides administrator capabilities best suited for the enterprise. Admins can manage users, provision and port phone numbers, access detailed reports and set up call routing functionality. Voice also lets you deploy phone numbers to employees, or even entire departments, at once, and assigns a  number that’s not tied to a specific device. AI-powered features in Voice also help facilitate voicemail transcription and spam filtering, which helps eliminate disruptions for employees so they can focus on what’s important.

Google Voice quickly emerged as our preferred telephony solution for remote teams and frequent travelers. Kim Anstett
Chief Information Officer, Nielsen

We’ve been testing this enterprise version with key customers since last October. As a part of the Trusted Tester* program, Nielsen noticed major improvements in reliability and call quality compared to previous phone solutions. “Google Voice quickly emerged as our preferred telephony solution for remote teams and frequent travelers,” says Kim Anstett, Chief Information Officer at Nielsen. “In fact, we’re excited to announce plans to leverage Voice as the standard for remote work telephony at Nielsen.”


To try out Google Voice within your organization, you can sign up for the Early Adopter Program.

Making transitioning to the cloud simple

Lastly, we want to make it simpler for businesses to adopt and use G Suite, and a large part of this is ensuring a smooth transition off legacy enterprise content management (ECM) systems. To help, our customers will now be able to purchase Drive Enterprise as a standalone offering with usage-based pricing.


With Drive Enterprise, businesses can move their content to the cloud in Google Drive, and employees can create and collaborate securely with tools like Docs, Sheets and Slides without disrupting other legacy office productivity tools. More than 2 trillion files are stored in Google Drive to date, and most recently, Google was named a leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Content Collaboration Platforms (CCP) for the second year in a row. Learn more about the new Drive Enterprise.

Drive Sku - G Suite Next '18

We’ve also made a concerted effort to make it easier to use G Suite with existing legacy tools so that you can avoid interruptions at work. Whether it’s making sure your calendar details stay intact between Microsoft Exchange and Google Calendar, providing new ways to integrate Hangout Meet with existing hardware, making it easier to collaborate with teams outside of your domain and more, we’re focused on building solutions to make your work day easier. Read more about our latest interoperability capabilities in this post.

Try today

Visit the G Suite website to see how you can transform how your enterprise operates.

*The G Suite Trusted Tester and Early Adopter Programs will soon be renamed as Alpha and Beta, respectively. More details to come.

Source: Drive


ICYMI in May: here’s what happened in G Suite

While Laurel vs. Yanny dominated office chatter this past month, businesses also got their first taste of working in the all-new Gmail. Packed with advanced security features, more integrations and new applications of Google’s artificial intelligence, Gmail is already receiving positive feedback like this, this and this from users.

To experiment with the new Gmail in your personal Gmail accounts, go to Settings in the top right of your inbox and select “Try the new Gmail.” It’s also available for G Suite businesses to use in the Early Adopter Program (EAP).

Subhead 1 ICYMI G Suite

We all have that one coworker who we rely on for tips on how to master spreadsheets, draft functions, organize email and more. We want to empower anyone who uses G Suite to become the go-to “pro” in the office. To help, we’re kicking off a bimonthly series called “G Suite Pro Tips.”

This month, a Google developer expert breaks down how to combine data from one spreadsheet into another spreadsheet in less than two minutes:

Import data from one spreadsheet to another
Subhead 2 ICYMI G Suite

→ Now you can work offline with ease in the new Gmail. Open Gmail in Chrome browser and search, write, delete or archive up to three months worth of messages.

→ We’ve made it easier for IT admins to export and download a copy of data securely from core services like Gmail, Google Docsand more. Navigate to the Tools section in the right-side slideout menu of the Admin console and select “Data Export.”

→ We made some minor changes to Drive’s user interface (UI), stuff like colors and fonts.

Drive UI change

→ We're rolling out Hangouts Meet to new regions. Welcome Colombia, Croatia, Lithuania and Portugal! We’re also automatically enabling Hangouts Meet (instead of Classic Hangouts) for all G Suite domains. Now, you’ll see Meet video meeting details in your Google Calendar events.

→ We’ve expanded Braille support for Sheets on Windows computers. Now you can use Braille on ChromeOS, Windows and Mac systems. Learn more.

→ Jamboard is now Bluetooth-enabled. Connect Bluetooth Conferencing devices (speaker and microphone combined) for your next jam session.

Check out a full recap of all product updates in May (PDF version).

Source: Drive


ICYMI in May: here’s what happened in G Suite

While Laurel vs. Yanny dominated office chatter this past month, businesses also got their first taste of working in the all-new Gmail. Packed with advanced security features, more integrations and new applications of Google’s artificial intelligence, Gmail is already receiving positive feedback like this, this and this from users.

To experiment with the new Gmail in your personal Gmail accounts, go to Settings in the top right of your inbox and select “Try the new Gmail.” It’s also available for G Suite businesses to use in the Early Adopter Program (EAP).

Subhead 1 ICYMI G Suite

We all have that one coworker who we rely on for tips on how to master spreadsheets, draft functions, organize email and more. We want to empower anyone who uses G Suite to become the go-to “pro” in the office. To help, we’re kicking off a bimonthly series called “G Suite Pro Tips.”

This month, a Google developer expert breaks down how to combine data from one spreadsheet into another spreadsheet in less than two minutes:

Import data from one spreadsheet to another
Subhead 2 ICYMI G Suite

→ Now you can work offline with ease in the new Gmail. Open Gmail in Chrome browser and search, write, delete or archive up to three months worth of messages.

→ We’ve made it easier for IT admins to export and download a copy of data securely from core services like Gmail, Google Docsand more. Navigate to the Tools section in the right-side slideout menu of the Admin console and select “Data Export.”

→ We made some minor changes to Drive’s user interface (UI), stuff like colors and fonts.

Drive UI change

→ We're rolling out Hangouts Meet to new regions. Welcome Colombia, Croatia, Lithuania and Portugal! We’re also automatically enabling Hangouts Meet (instead of Classic Hangouts) for all G Suite domains. Now, you’ll see Meet video meeting details in your Google Calendar events.

→ We’ve expanded Braille support for Sheets on Windows computers. Now you can use Braille on ChromeOS, Windows and Mac systems. Learn more.

→ Jamboard is now Bluetooth-enabled. Connect Bluetooth Conferencing devices (speaker and microphone combined) for your next jam session.


Check out a full recap of all product updates in May (PDF version).

Source: Drive


ICYMI in March: here’s what happened in G Suite

Just like that, another month down.

In March, we announced a slew of security updates to Google Cloud, including enhancements to G Suite. In a nutshell, G Suite companies can now use advanced configurations to help fend off phishing scams. These updates will continue to help businesses block (ph)ishy activity, like if an untrusted sender tries to share encrypted attachments or if someone tries to trick you by sending information from a domain that looks like yours.

With these protections in place, more than 99.9 percent of Business Email Compromise (BEC) scenarios—when someone impersonates an executive to get sensitive information—are automatically moved to spam or flagged to users as shifty. Sorry, Charlie.

We also automatically enabled basic device management for mobile devices that access G Suite. Now IT admins can better enforce pass codes, erase confidential data for Android and iOS devices with selective account wipe and more without users needing to install profiles. Lastly, we added IRM controls to Team Drives to prevent folks from printing, downloading or copying files they shouldn’t have access to.


Many of these protections are default-on, which means you don’t have to do a thing. Read up here, or get started using the security center for G Suite.
ICYMI 1
ICYMI 2

This one is so simple. Did you know that you can make a copy of a Google Doc or Sheet with a quick URL change? In the URL of your document, delete the information before the final backslash. In this case, change “edit” to “copy.” Done!

And since security should always be top of mind, brush up on how to manage your share settings in Docs or other apps on our Help Center.

ICYMI 2
People predictions

→Most of us track down files in Google Drive by searching for the name of the person who shared a file with us. Because of this, Drive is going to start intelligently organizing the “Shared with Me” section by listing names and the files that people have shared with you, so you can track down files faster.

→ Two-step verification is an easy and effective way to protect G Suite users, which is why we recommend that businesses use security keys. Moving forward, all G Suite admins—not just G Suite Business admins—will be able to manage the deployment of security keys and view usage reports. Learn more.

→ Now your jams in Jamboard will automatically save to Drive.

Here’s a full rundown of product updates in March (PDF version).

Source: Drive


ICYMI in March: here’s what happened in G Suite

Just like that, another month down.

In March, we announced a slew of security updates to Google Cloud, including enhancements to G Suite. In a nutshell, G Suite companies can now use advanced configurations to help fend off phishing scams. These updates will continue to help businesses block (ph)ishy activity, like if an untrusted sender tries to share encrypted attachments or if someone tries to trick you by sending information from a domain that looks like yours.

With these protections in place, more than 99.9 percent of Business Email Compromise (BEC) scenarios—when someone impersonates an executive to get sensitive information—are automatically moved to spam or flagged to users as shifty. Sorry, Charlie.

We also automatically enabled basic device management for mobile devices that access G Suite. Now IT admins can better enforce pass codes, erase confidential data for Android and iOS devices with selective account wipe and more without users needing to install profiles. Lastly, we added IRM controls to Team Drives to prevent folks from printing, downloading or copying files they shouldn’t have access to.


Many of these protections are default-on, which means you don’t have to do a thing. Read up here, or get started using the security center for G Suite.
ICYMI 1
ICYMI 2

This one is so simple. Did you know that you can make a copy of a Google Doc or Sheet with a quick URL change? In the URL of your document, delete the information before the final backslash. In this case, change “edit” to “copy.” Done!

And since security should always be top of mind, brush up on how to manage your share settings in Docs or other apps on our Help Center.

ICYMI 2
People predictions

→Most of us track down files in Google Drive by searching for the name of the person who shared a file with us. Because of this, Drive is going to start intelligently organizing the “Shared with Me” section by listing names and the files that people have shared with you, so you can track down files faster.

→ Two-step verification is an easy and effective way to protect G Suite users, which is why we recommend that businesses use security keys. Moving forward, all G Suite admins—not just G Suite Business admins—will be able to manage the deployment of security keys and view usage reports. Learn more.

→ Now your jams in Jamboard will automatically save to Drive.

Source: Google Cloud


ICYMI in February: here’s what happened in G Suite

While we all tuned in to see who would win gold at the Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, our teams multitasked and brought new updates to G Suite. Here’s a look at what happened in February (and okay, a final list of Olympic winners, too.).

We announced even more intelligent, connected tools

We can’t say it enough. To stay competitive, your business can’t afford to rely on decades-old legacy systems. SaaS tools—ahem, G Suite—make it easier for you to align teams, make decisions faster and to skip repetitive, manual tasks. And even better: you can do it all from one place.

This month, we highlighted new, intelligent updates in G Suite to help teams accomplish more: Hangouts Chat is available, Calendar will use artificial intelligence (AI) to suggest the best conference room for you and Quick Access in Docs will intelligently suggest files to help you build out more useful materials like it does in Drive.

ICYMI 1
Image 1 ICYMI

Now that Chat is available, you can start using it with your team to move projects forward. First thing’s first. Set up your notifications.

Go to the cog wheel at the top right of your Chat screen (chat.google.com) and select “Notification settings” to specify when and where you receive notifications on web and mobile. Choose the down arrows and select the option that’s right for you. In that same window, you can also decide whether you want to be notified by email. Once you’ve picked your preferred settings, click “ok.”

Here are more tips on how to use Chat.

ICYMI header 2

→ It’s now possible to comment on Microsoft Office files stored in Google Drive, just like you do in Docs. Comment, assign tasks or mention coworkers on Office files, PDFs and images within the Drive preview pane. Dive straight into collaborating with clients or coworkers in real-time, no matter the file.

Bloccos - Image 1

→ We’re making it easier for developers to create more engaging email experiences for their users using Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)—stuff like RSVPing to events, scheduling appointments or filling out questionnaires directly in email. Developers can sign up here for preview access.

→ Jamboard is coming to the European Union next month. Welcome to the Jam-fam, Republic of Ireland, The Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, France, Spain and Finland.

→ Speaking of jamming, we also added AI-powered AutoDraw to Jamboard. This new drawing tool auto-detects what you sketch in Jamboard and pairs it with suggested images. Great for creative teams or students (or if drawing isn’t your best talent).

Autodraw

→ Now you can email coworkers within Team Drives. Click the drop-down menu next to your Team Drives name and select “Email members.” Don’t worry, it’s easy to customize who gets your email and who can access what files. Learn more.


Here’s a full list of product news (PDF version). See you next month.

Source: Drive


ICYMI in February: here’s what happened in G Suite

While we all tuned in to see who would win gold at the Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, our teams multitasked and brought new updates to G Suite. Here’s a look at what happened in February (and okay, a final list of Olympic winners, too.).

We announced even more intelligent, connected tools

We can’t say it enough. To stay competitive, your business can’t afford to rely on decades-old legacy systems. SaaS tools—ahem, G Suite—make it easier for you to align teams, make decisions faster and to skip repetitive, manual tasks. And even better: you can do it all from one place.

This month, we highlighted new, intelligent updates in G Suite to help teams accomplish more: Hangouts Chat is available, Calendar will use artificial intelligence (AI) to suggest the best conference room for you and Quick Access in Docs will intelligently suggest files to help you build out more useful materials like it does in Drive.

ICYMI 1
Image 1 ICYMI

Now that Chat is available, you can start using it with your team to move projects forward. First thing’s first. Set up your notifications.

Go to the cog wheel at the top right of your Chat screen (chat.google.com) and select “Notification settings” to specify when and where you receive notifications on web and mobile. Choose the down arrows and select the option that’s right for you. In that same window, you can also decide whether you want to be notified by email. Once you’ve picked your preferred settings, click “ok.”

Here are more tips on how to use Chat.

ICYMI header 2

→ It’s now possible to comment on Microsoft Office files stored in Google Drive, just like you do in Docs. Comment, assign tasks or mention coworkers on Office files, PDFs and images within the Drive preview pane. Dive straight into collaborating with clients or coworkers in real-time, no matter the file.

Bloccos - Image 1

→ We’re making it easier for developers to create more engaging email experiences for their users using Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)—stuff like RSVPing to events, scheduling appointments or filling out questionnaires directly in email. Developers can sign up here for preview access.

→ Jamboard is coming to the European Union next month. Welcome to the Jam-fam, Republic of Ireland, The Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, France, Spain and Finland.

→ Speaking of jamming, we also added AI-powered AutoDraw to Jamboard. This new drawing tool auto-detects what you sketch in Jamboard and pairs it with suggested images. Great for creative teams or students (or if drawing isn’t your best talent).

Autodraw

→ Now you can email coworkers within Team Drives. Click the drop-down menu next to your Team Drives name and select “Email members.” Don’t worry, it’s easy to customize who gets your email and who can access what files. Learn more.


Here’s a full list of product news (PDF version). See you next month.

New ways to comment on Microsoft files (and more) in Google Drive

Google Drive makes it easy to store and share files in the cloud so you can collaborate securely with your teams and clients while on the go. And we understand that teams work with all kinds of files and tools to get things done. Starting today, we're making it possible to comment directly on more file types including Microsoft Office files, PDFs and images—without having to convert them into Docs, Sheets or Slides.

When you're collaborating with an external agency, negotiating a contract with a client or coordinating a sales agreement with a supplier, chances are you're dealing with multiple file formats. With this update, you can now comment on those files in Drive the way you're used to in Google Docs. In the Drive preview pane, comment, assign tasks, or mention coworkers and the people you work can reply back, even if they’re not using G Suite. Let’s say your coworker opens a file on her Windows laptop using MS Word, she will see your comment in the file and can reply right from there.

Bloccos - Image 1
Provide quick feedback on the most popular file formats, including Word, PowerPoint, Excel and PDF files, in the Drive preview pane.

With commenting in Drive preview, you won’t need to open up other tools to complete tasks. Instead, open Microsoft Office files, like Word, Excel and PowerPoint, in Drive preview and give feedback in comments then get back to work.

AODocs, a company that helps enterprises replace their legacy document management applications and automate business processes integrated with Drive, has been testing the new Drive commenting feature for the past few months. As AODocs helps companies transition from legacy systems, they often collaborate across various licensed software.

“We frequently use the comments feature in Google Docs and Slides when preparing specification documents, reviewing project proposals and creating marketing materials,” says Stéphane Donzé, chief executive officer and founder of AODocs. “With commenting in Drive Preview feature, we can now extend the same collaboration, review and validation processes to Microsoft Office Applications, images and PDFs.”

Bloccos - Image 2
Collaborate on Excel files—as well as other Microsoft files—all within Google Drive.

The ability to comment in Drive preview mode is just one example of interoperability between G Suite and Microsoft Office products. You can also use a Drive plug-in for Outlook to make it easier to insert files stored in Drive to an Outlook email and save incoming attachments to your Drive from Outlook. Our help center has more specifics on how to enable the plug-in for admins.

Of course, you can also convert Microsoft Office files into Docs, Sheets or Slides. In Google Drive, right click on an Office file and click Open. Then select Docs, Sheets or Slides. Lastly, you can choose to edit Microsoft files without converting them fully using Office Compatibility Mode (OCM).


With G Suite, you can work the way you’re used to working. Get started.

Source: Drive


New ways to comment on Microsoft files (and more) in Google Drive

Google Drive makes it easy to store and share files in the cloud so you can collaborate securely with your teams and clients while on the go. And we understand that teams work with all kinds of files and tools to get things done. Starting today, we're making it possible to comment directly on more file types including Microsoft Office files, PDFs and images—without having to convert them into Docs, Sheets or Slides.

When you're collaborating with an external agency, negotiating a contract with a client or coordinating a sales agreement with a supplier, chances are you're dealing with multiple file formats. With this update, you can now comment on those files in Drive the way you're used to in Google Docs. In the Drive preview pane, comment, assign tasks, or mention coworkers and the people you work can reply back, even if they’re not using G Suite. Let’s say your coworker opens a file on her Windows laptop using MS Word, she will see your comment in the file and can reply right from there.

Bloccos - Image 1
Provide quick feedback on the most popular file formats, including Word, PowerPoint, Excel and PDF files, in the Drive preview pane.

With commenting in Drive preview, you won’t need to open up other tools to complete tasks. Instead, open Microsoft Office files, like Word, Excel and PowerPoint, in Drive preview and give feedback in comments then get back to work.

AODocs, a company that helps enterprises replace their legacy document management applications and automate business processes integrated with Drive, has been testing the new Drive commenting feature for the past few months. As AODocs helps companies transition from legacy systems, they often collaborate across various licensed software.

“We frequently use the comments feature in Google Docs and Slides when preparing specification documents, reviewing project proposals and creating marketing materials,” says Stéphane Donzé, chief executive officer and founder of AODocs. “With commenting in Drive Preview feature, we can now extend the same collaboration, review and validation processes to Microsoft Office Applications, images and PDFs.”

Bloccos - Image 2
Collaborate on Excel files—as well as other Microsoft files—all within Google Drive.

The ability to comment in Drive preview mode is just one example of interoperability between G Suite and Microsoft Office products. You can also use a Drive plug-in for Outlook to make it easier to insert files stored in Drive to an Outlook email and save incoming attachments to your Drive from Outlook. Our help center has more specifics on how to enable the plug-in for admins.

Of course, you can also convert Microsoft Office files into Docs, Sheets or Slides. Click File > Download as and select the file type you need. Lastly, you can choose to edit Microsoft files without converting them fully using Office Compatibility Mode (OCM).


With G Suite, you can work the way you’re used to working. Get started.