Tag Archives: Google Vault

Better preservation in Google Apps Vault

Creating a hold in Google Apps Vault allows you to preserve your employees’ Gmail messages indefinitely, in order to meet legal or preservation obligations. Today, we’re introducing several improvements to the existing holds system that will help you better meet those obligations. The key enhancements include:
  • Create and manage holds for organizational units (OUs) - Previously, you could create holds for specific users or entire domains. With this launch, you can create holds for specific OUs. In addition, delegated admins can create and manage holds for those OUs (or the individual employees within those OUs) that they have delegated administration over.
  • More intuitive hold functionality - Prior to this launch, when no users were specified for a hold, Vault would default to holding all users in that domain. That meant that if all users in a user-specific hold were removed, that hold would suddenly apply to all users in the associated domain. With this launch, that hold will apply to no users, as is likely the intention.
  • Enhanced user interface - The language and interface for applying holds has been improved and is now more similar to the recently updated retention flow.

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

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

Impact:
Admins only

Action:
Admin action suggested/FYI

More Information
Help Center

Note: all launches are applicable to all Google Apps editions unless otherwise noted

Launch release calendar
Launch detail categories
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Changing how Google Apps admins set new retention rules in Google Apps Vault

Starting today, we are changing the way Google Apps Vault admins set up new retention rules in Google Apps Vault. This change will not impact any current retention settings—existing rules will continue to retain and delete messages according to their original configuration. Going forward, admins will be prompted to select one of the following options when setting up a new rule:
  • Retention rule applies to deleted messages only - If an admin selects this option, the rule will only affect messages that have been deleted by individual employees. This is the default option for new rules and is equivalent to adding label:^deleted to a custom retention rule. 
  • Retention rule applies to deleted messages and messages in user mailboxes - If an admin selects this option, the rule will apply to all messages—except those that meet any custom rules or holds the admin specifies. If an admin opens an existing custom retention rule that uses label:^deleted, it will have this option selected. The custom rule, however, will continue to work according to its original configuration and override that option, and only deleted messages will be affected.

Remember—Vault is fully integrated with Gmail, and there is no separate archive. If an admin chooses the second option above, it means that they want the rule to apply to all messages, whether employees have marked the messages for deletion or not. This could potentially delete messages that employees expect to keep. For example, if an admin sets a default retention rule to retain messages for 365 days and selects the option to apply to all messages—and there are no custom rules or holds in place—Vault will delete every message in that admin’s domain that is older than one year.

Setting up the retention policies that your organization needs can be complicated, so we've put together this article to help.

Launch Details [learn more]
Release track:
Launching to both Rapid release and Scheduled release

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

Impact:
Admins only

Action:
Admin action suggested

More Information
Help Center

Note: all launches are applicable to all Google Apps editions unless otherwise noted

New admin policy and compliance controls for Google Hangouts chat

Google Hangouts provides an end-to-end chat solution for Google Apps customers, allowing people within an organization to securely communicate with one another across all devices and platforms. 

Today we’re adding two new policy options for Apps admins to give them greater control of how Hangouts chat is used in their domains, as well as introducing Google Apps Vault for Hangouts.

New chat policy options
Admins will now see two new options in the Hangouts chat settings in the Admin console, allowing them to: 
  • Force Hangouts chat history to be on or off
  • Require only Hangouts chat to be used
chat-controls.png
While admins could previously default all Hangouts chat conversation history to on or off, chat participants could change this on a per-conversation basis. With this new feature, admins can ensure chat participants cannot change this setting for new conversations. This also means that participants with Hangouts chat history forced on will not be able to communicate with participants with chat history forced off.

To enforce the Hangouts chat history policy, the new Hangouts chat only option must be selected. Please note that chat within Docs and Hangouts video calls will not be available for those customers who select the Hangouts chat only option. In addition, third party chat clients will not work with the Hangouts chat only option enabled. 

Vault for Hangouts
Google Apps Vault lets you retain, archive, search, and export user data for your eDiscovery and compliance needs. With today’s launch, we’ll now extend Vault to support Hangouts chat history. For customers already using Vault, full chat retention for all messages will start automatically once chat history is forced on using the new setting.

Release track:
Rapid release and Scheduled release

For more information:
Help Center: New chat policies
Help Center: Vault for Hangouts
Google for Work blog post


Note: all launches are applicable to all Google Apps editions unless otherwise noted

Launch release calendar
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Google Apps Vault added to all Google Apps for Education accounts

In September 2014, we announced that Google Apps Vault would be added to all Google Apps for Education accounts at no charge. 

As of yesterday, all new Google Apps for Education customers will receive Vault as part of their Google Apps for Education suite. Existing Google Apps for Education customers who do not already have Vault enabled will now see it added to their account (note: these customers will first have to set up retention policies for archiving to begin). Existing Google Apps for Education customers who already have Vault enabled will not see any changes.

Release track:
Rapid release and Scheduled release

For more information:
Help Center

Note: all launches are applicable to all Google Apps editions unless otherwise noted

whatsnew.googleapps.com
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Gmail labels in Google Vault email search results

To make it easier for Google Apps admins to locate specific emails in Google Vault search, Gmail labels are now included in search results. Admins can now view both system labels―i.e. the status of the message as viewed by the user - Unread, Inbox, Spam, Sent, etc―and user-applied labels:
vault_gmail_labels.png
To view Gmail labels and basic header information for a message, click show details in your Vault search results.

Gmail user label metadata will also now be included in XML file exports to aid with deeper analysis.

Release track:
Rapid release and Scheduled release

For more information:
Help Center


Note: all launches are applicable to all Google Apps editions unless otherwise noted

whatsnew.googleapps.com
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Introducing Google Apps Vault for Drive

Vault’s robust functionality now includes another data source—Drive—so that organizations can find even more business-critical content. Vault for Drive comes at no additional cost for Vault customers and works with existing Drive content in users’ accounts. Postini customers transitioning to Vault will also be able to use Vault for Drive at no additional cost once the transition is complete.

With Vault for Drive, organizations can search for specific users’ Drive files (including both Google documents and other stored files), preview search results in Vault to make sure customers find just what they need and create copies of search results and export them for future use.

Setting retention policies, creating holds, and conducting domain-wide searches for Drive content are not available at this time.

Release track:
Rapid release and Scheduled release

For more information:
https://support.google.com/vault/answer/6049740

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Exclude email drafts from Google Vault search with one click

Admins can now more easily exclude email drafts from searches in Google Vault. Simply check the Exclude drafts checkbox in the search panel to exclude draft emails from your search.

Release Track:
Rapid release and Scheduled release

For more information:
https://support.google.com/vault/answer/4388708

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Assign Vault privileges based on organizational unit

The Manage Exports and Manage Searches privileges in Google Vault can now be granted to a user for an entire organization, or only for specific organizational units (OUs). For example, you can assign a Vault administrator the Manage Searches privilege for your whole organization and the Manage Exports privilege for one OU. Privileges are still assigned in the Admin console by your Google Apps administrator.


Release Track:
Rapid release and Scheduled release
For more information:
https://support.google.com/vault/answer/2799699

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Improved options for setting default and custom retention periods in Google Vault

The options for setting or modifying a retention period--the length of time your company's messages are archived in Google Vault--are now more clear, and we’ve added safeguards when setting a retention period for a specified number of days.

Release Track:
Rapid release and Scheduled release

Editions included:
Google Apps for Business and Education

For more information:
https://support.google.com/vault/answer/2584132?hl=en

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Organizational unit-based search in Google Vault

Vault users can now search for data within a specific organizational unit (OU), in addition to searching the entire domain or searching by user account. Searching within an OU reduces the number of irrelevant search results that a domain-wide search can produce, and eliminates the need to specify individual accounts. When performing a search within a matter, select Organization then select the OU you want to search. Accounts cannot be included in an OU-based search, but you can still optionally specify a date range and search terms.

Release Track:
Rapid release and Scheduled release

Editions included: 
Google Apps for Business, Education and Government

For more information:
https://support.google.com/vault/answer/2462480

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