Tag Archives: Groups

Security groups now generally available

Quick launch summary 

We’re making security groups generally available. Security groups help you easily regulate, audit, and monitor groups used for permission and access control purposes by simply adding the security label. See our beta announcement for more details and use cases for security groups. 

We’ve recently announced several other features that can help you better manage groups in your organization and improve your security posture. These include group membership expiration and the indirect membership visibility and membership hierarchy APIs. 


Getting started 

Rollout pace 

Availability 

  • Available to Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Standard and Enterprise Plus customers, as well as G Suite Basic, Business, Education, Enterprise for Education and Nonprofits customers 

Resources 

Group membership expiration now generally available

Quick launch summary 

The Cloud Identity Groups API feature that enables you to set expirations for group memberships is now generally available. It was previously available in beta. 


This enables admins to set an amount of time that users and service accounts are members of a group. Once the specified time has passed, users will be removed from the group automatically. 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 launch is another enhancement to the Cloud Identity Groups API. We recently also made the indirect membership visibility and membership hierarchy APIs generally available. Together, these make it easier to manage permissions and access control in your organization. 


Getting started 

Rollout pace 

Availability 

  • Available to Google Workspace Enterprise Standard and Enterprise Plus, as well as G Suite Enterprise for Education and Cloud Identity Premium customers 
  • Not available to Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, and Enterprise Essentials, as well as G Suite Basic, Business, Education, and Nonprofits customers 

Resources 

Indirect membership visibility and membership hierarchy APIs now generally available

Quick launch summary 

We’re making it easier to identify, audit, and understand indirect group membership via the Cloud Identity Groups API. Specifically, we’re making the membership visibility and membership hierarchy APIs generally available. These were previously available in beta. 

Using “nested” groups to manage access to content and resources can help decrease duplication, simplify administration, and centralize access management. However, nested groups can create a complex hierarchy that can make it hard to understand who ultimately has access and why. These APIs help provide all of the information you need to understand complex group structures and hierarchies, and can help you make decisions about who to add to or remove from your groups. 

See our beta announcement for more information and use cases for the APIs. 


Getting started 


Rollout pace 


Availability 

  • Available to Google Workspace Enterprise Standard and Enterprise Plus, as well as G Suite Enterprise for Education and Cloud Identity Premium customers. 
  • Not available to Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, and Enterprise Essentials, as well as G Suite Basic, Business, Education, and Nonprofits customers 

Resources 

Custom roles now available in new Groups

Quick launch summary 

Permissions in Google Groups help control who can view, post, and moderate content in your groups, as well as determine who can manage members and other group settings. You can assign a set of permissions to users in your groups using roles—roles available by default include owner, manager, and member. 


With this launch, you can now create a custom role that allows admins to assign a specific set of viewing, posting, and moderation permissions for users within a given group. By adding this to new Groups, we hope to make it quicker and easier to manage group permissions at scale while ensuring all users have the right permissions for your groups. 


Note that custom roles were previously available in classic Groups. All custom roles created in classic Groups will continue to work and be available to use in new Groups as well. 


Getting started 

Rollout pace 

Availability 

  • Available to Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, and Enterprise Plus, as well as G Suite Basic, Business, Education, Enterprise for Education, and Nonprofits customers 

Resources 

New Groups will become the only user experience beginning November 2, 2020

Quick launch summary 

In May 2020, we launched new Google Groups to provide a modern experience that matches Gmail and other Google services. In September, we made new Groups the default experience for all users, but allowed individual users to choose to use the classic Groups interface. 


Starting on November 2, 2020 for Rapid Release domains and on November 9, 2020 for Scheduled Release domains, classic Groups will be turned off completely. After that date, there will be no option to use the old version (previously at Settings > Return to classic Google Groups). Users within your organization who were already using new Groups will not notice a change, but users who had chosen to use old Groups will be moved to the new interface. 


Getting started 

Rollout pace 

Availability 

  • Applicable to Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education, Enterprise for Education, and Nonprofits, and users with personal accounts. 

Resources 

New Groups will become the only user experience beginning November 2, 2020

Quick launch summary 

In May 2020, we launched new Google Groups to provide a modern experience that matches Gmail and other Google services. In September, we made new Groups the default experience for all users, but allowed individual users to choose to use the classic Groups interface. 


Starting on November 2, 2020 for Rapid Release domains and on November 9, 2020 for Scheduled Release domains, classic Groups will be turned off completely. After that date, there will be no option to use the old version (previously at Settings > Return to classic Google Groups). Users within your organization who were already using new Groups will not notice a change, but users who had chosen to use old Groups will be moved to the new interface. 


Getting started 

Rollout pace 

Availability 

  • Applicable to Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education, Enterprise for Education, and Nonprofits, and users with personal accounts. 

Resources 

Use new APIs to understand and audit group memberships

What’s changing 

We’re launching new APIs in beta to help better identify, audit, and understand indirect group membership (also known as ‘transitive’ or ‘nested’ group membership, see explanation below). The indirect membership visibility, membership hierarchy, and check APIs are part of the Cloud Identity Groups API and enable you to: 
These APIs are currently available as an open beta, which means you can use it without enrolling in a specific beta program. Use our API documentation to learn more. 



Who’s impacted 

Admins and developers 



Why it’s important 

These features will help provide all of the information you need to create visualization of complex group structures and hierarchies. Having this kind of membership visibility can help you make decisions about who to add to or remove from your groups. 


Customers often use groups to manage access to content and resources within their organization. Using ‘nested’ groups is common as it can decrease duplication, simplify administration, and centralize access management. 


However, nested groups can create a complex hierarchy that can make it hard to understand who ultimately has access to content or resources and why they have access. These APIs simplify finding out these answers by making it easier to identify the direct and indirect members for a group. Some use cases include: 
  • A security team can quickly identify all group memberships and associated nested memberships when a bad actor account is identified. 
  • An admin could perform a deep-dive on group structure for audit and compliance. By using the APIs to list and validate direct and indirect members for groups with many nested groups. 
  • A developer could extract group information via the API and feed it to a visualization tool that supports DOT format to make auditing and visualizing complex nested structures easier. 


Additional details 

Indirect memberships, also known as transitive memberships, come from ‘nested’ groups. Nested groups refer to situations where groups are members of other groups. As a result, users in the sub-group are members of both groups. For example, group Y is a member of group X. Users in group Y are direct members of group Y and indirect members of group X. 


Getting started 

Rollout pace 

  • This feature is available now for all users in beta. 

Availability 

  • Available to Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Enterprise for Education, and Cloud Identity Premium customers 
  • Not available to Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Education, Nonprofits, and Cloud Identity Free customers 

Resources 

Use new APIs to understand and audit group memberships

What’s changing 

We’re launching new APIs in beta to help better identify, audit, and understand indirect group membership (also known as ‘transitive’ or ‘nested’ group membership, see explanation below). The indirect membership visibility, membership hierarchy, and check APIs are part of the Cloud Identity Groups API and enable you to: 
These APIs are currently available as an open beta, which means you can use it without enrolling in a specific beta program. Use our API documentation to learn more. 



Who’s impacted 

Admins and developers 



Why it’s important 

These features will help provide all of the information you need to create visualization of complex group structures and hierarchies. Having this kind of membership visibility can help you make decisions about who to add to or remove from your groups. 


Customers often use groups to manage access to content and resources within their organization. Using ‘nested’ groups is common as it can decrease duplication, simplify administration, and centralize access management. 


However, nested groups can create a complex hierarchy that can make it hard to understand who ultimately has access to content or resources and why they have access. These APIs simplify finding out these answers by making it easier to identify the direct and indirect members for a group. Some use cases include: 
  • A security team can quickly identify all group memberships and associated nested memberships when a bad actor account is identified. 
  • An admin could perform a deep-dive on group structure for audit and compliance. By using the APIs to list and validate direct and indirect members for groups with many nested groups. 
  • A developer could extract group information via the API and feed it to a visualization tool that supports DOT format to make auditing and visualizing complex nested structures easier. 


Additional details 

Indirect memberships, also known as transitive memberships, come from ‘nested’ groups. Nested groups refer to situations where groups are members of other groups. As a result, users in the sub-group are members of both groups. For example, group Y is a member of group X. Users in group Y are direct members of group Y and indirect members of group X. 


Getting started 

Rollout pace 

  • This feature is available now for all users in beta. 

Availability 

  • Available to Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Enterprise for Education, and Cloud Identity Premium customers 
  • Not available to Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Education, Nonprofits, and Cloud Identity Free customers 

Resources 

Star favorite conversations in Google Groups

Quick launch summary 

You can now mark conversations as favorites in new Google Groups. To mark an item as a favorite, simply click the star icon. You can access starred conversations from the left-hand navigation menu, making them quick and easy to find. When you star an item, it appears as a favorite in your account only. It doesn't appear as a favorite for anyone else. 

This feature was available in classic Groups, but until now it was not available in new Groups. Learn more about new Groups and the transition from classic Groups. 

Getting started 

  • Admins: This feature will be ON by default. There is no admin control for this feature. 
  • End users: Visit the Help Center to learn more about how to mark groups and posts as favorites. 



Rollout pace 


Availability 

  • Available to all customers 

Resources 

Star favorite conversations in Google Groups

Quick launch summary 

You can now mark conversations as favorites in new Google Groups. To mark an item as a favorite, simply click the star icon. You can access starred conversations from the left-hand navigation menu, making them quick and easy to find. When you star an item, it appears as a favorite in your account only. It doesn't appear as a favorite for anyone else. 

This feature was available in classic Groups, but until now it was not available in new Groups. Learn more about new Groups and the transition from classic Groups. 

Getting started 

  • Admins: This feature will be ON by default. There is no admin control for this feature. 
  • End users: Visit the Help Center to learn more about how to mark groups and posts as favorites. 



Rollout pace 


Availability 

  • Available to Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education, Enterprise for Education, and Nonprofits customers

Resources