Tag Archives: Other

Hangouts Meet troubleshooting data to include mobile devices

Hangouts Meet allows G Suite administrators to determine whether web video call logs should be uploaded to Google to aid with support troubleshooting. Starting on July 17th, 2017, the Hangouts Meet client logs upload setting in the Admin console will also apply to mobile devices. Such log data allows Google Support to more effectively resolve issues reported by customers to Google Support. 

Please review the updated section in the Admin console under Google Hangouts > Meet; your existing setting for Client Logs Upload will continue to remain unchanged unless you choose to modify it.

Please see the configuration in the Admin console for more information.

Launch Details
Release track:
Launching to both Rapid Release and Scheduled Release on July 17th, 2017

Editions:
Available to all G Suite editions

Rollout pace:
Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility)

Impact:
Admins only

Action:
Admin action suggested/FYI

More Information
Help Center: Turn Meet on or off

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Learn about more G Suite launches in one easy-to-access place

As a G Suite admin, it can be difficult to stay on top of the various new products and features we launch on a regular (often daily!) basis. Reading the G Suite Updates blog is a great start, but the blog doesn’t provide a quick snapshot and doesn’t cover some smaller feature changes. To help you better track the breadth of G Suite launches, including those that aren’t announced on the G Suite Updates blog, we’ve created a new resource: What’s new in G Suite?

This Help Center article includes a list of new G Suite products and features, all of which are added soon after they’re made available to customers on both the Rapid and Scheduled Release tracks. Sort the list by product or week of release, or search for a particular term to find related launches. Click on the “Learn more” links for additional details.

We hope this new resource will make it easier for you to track G Suite launches and communicate them to your organizations. We’d love to hear your thoughts as we continue to iterate and improve, so please use this form to provide any feedback.

More Information
What’s new in G Suite?
Feedback form


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Backup and Sync from Google available soon

On June 28th, 2017, we will launch Backup and Sync from Google, a tool intended to help everyday users back up files and photos from their computers, so they’re safe and accessible from anywhere. Backup and Sync is the latest version of Google Drive for Mac/PC, which is now integrated with the Google Photos desktop uploader. As such, it will respect any current Drive for Mac/PC settings in the Admin console.


Backup and Sync is primarily intended for consumer users. We recommend that our G Suite customers continue to use Drive for Mac/PC until our new enterprise-focused solution, Drive File Stream (currently in EAP), is made generally available to all G Suite Basic, Business, Enterprise, Education, and Nonprofit domains later this year. Drive File Stream will allow users to access huge corporate data sets without taking up the equivalent space on their hard drives.

With that in mind, we will not automatically upgrade G Suite users from Drive for Mac/PC to Backup and Sync at this time. If you currently allow your users to install Drive for Mac/PC on their own computers, they will be able to download and upgrade to Backup and Sync starting on Wednesday, June 28th. If you don’t currently allow Google Drive for Mac/PC in your organization, your users won’t be able to use Backup and Sync with their G Suite accounts.

For more details, check out the resources below starting on June 28th. If you’re interested in trying Drive File Stream, sign up for the Early Adopter Program (EAP) today.

Launch Details
Release track:
Available for download starting on June 28th, 2017

Editions:
Available to all G Suite editions

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

Impact:
All end users

Action:
Change management suggested/FYI

More Information
(Note that these articles will not go live or be updated until Backup and Sync launches on June 28th. Please check back on June 28th for more information.)
Help Center: Install Google Drive for Mac/PC
Help Center: Back up and sync files with Google Drive
Help Center: Delete and restore files in Google Drive
Help Center: Fix problems syncing to your computer
Help Center: Stop syncing Google Drive files with Backup and Sync 



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Google Cloud services are switching Certificate Authority

Today we announced that Google will soon begin using a different Certificate Authority (CA). We expect this change to have no impact on the vast majority of G Suite customers, as the CA is already trusted by systems and browsers for typical desktop and mobile platforms, including Android, Chrome OS, Windows, macOS and iOS.

This change, which will roll out gradually across Google services over the coming months, may affect customers who operate systems with custom certificate trust stores if they’re not kept up to date.

Check out today’s post on the Google Cloud Platform blog for more details and recommended actions.

Launch Details
Release track:
Launching to both Rapid release and Scheduled release no earlier than June 12, 2017. Monitor the G Suite Release Calendar for any changes to this date.

Editions:
Applicable to all G Suite editions, though no impact is expected on the vast majority of G Suite customers

Rollout pace:
Extended rollout (longer than 15 days for feature visibility)

Impact:
Admins only

Action:
Admin action suggested/FYI

More Information
Google Cloud Platform blog post


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Upcoming change: Admins now have more control over Profile fields, and changes to the Contacts On/Off setting

On June 26, 2017, we’re releasing some changes that will bring user profile management under the direct control of G Suite admins, starting with the Name, Photo, Gender, and Birthday fields. Whereas end users could previously only edit these fields if they had upgraded to Google+, these new controls let admins decide which profile fields can be edited by end users, independent of Google+ status. Additionally, we are renaming the Contacts setting to Directory in order to better describe the functionality and, as such, the Contacts on/off setting within it will be removed.

More about this change

If you want to enable or disable your users’ ability to modify their Name, Photo, Gender, or Birthday, you can now do so from the Admin console. You will continue to be able to set these fields directly yourself where supported in the Admin console, or sync values using Google Cloud Directory Sync.




Profile editability can be toggled for your entire domain or by organizational unit (OU).

Editability settings are respected across Google. Once editability is enabled, your users can modify their profile information from My Account, About Me or other surfaces where profile editing is supported. If editing is disabled, users will be directed to you, the administrator, if they need to make changes.



This is the first in several launches that will grant admins better control over the editability of user profile data. Stay tuned for additional profile, directory, and contact management improvements in the future.

Service setting for Contacts On/Off: As part of this launch, we are removing the Contacts service on/off setting from the Admin console starting on June 26, 2017. Today, this setting only controls access to the Web contacts manager at contacts.google.com. It does not control any other user access to contacts, such as the contacts manager in Gmail, the Contacts Preview, API access to contacts, or the Directory functionality.

Once the Contacts on/off setting is removed from the Admin console, we will retain the the Web contacts manager on/off preference you’ve already specified. Please review whether this setting needs to be changed, and if so, make such change in the admin console before June 26, 2017 if required.
You can review your own Admin console settings from the Admin console.

Contacts on/off controls access to
Contacts on/off does not control access to
Web Contacts Manager at contacts.google.com
  • Web Contacts embedded in Gmail
  • Web Contacts Preview
  • API access to contacts
  • Directory functionality, including autocomplete

When Contacts Preview eventually replaces the current Web contacts manager, the setting will no longer have any effect, and will be fully deprecated.

Default editability settings: At launch, editability behavior will be consistent with pre-launch behavior. For example, if Google+ was disabled for an Organizational Unit, which restricted editing pre-launch, then your editability settings will be “off”, not allowing users to edit their name, gender, photo, or birthdate. For domains with Google+ enabled, we will respect and migrate over the name editability control that existed in the Google+ settings. This design choice was made to keep the impact to your domain minimal, giving you flexibility for when you’d like to make changes.

Current OU/User status
Profile editing default
G+ enabled, name editing disabled
Name editing disabled. Other fields enabled.
G+ enabled, name editing enabled
Editing enabled
G+ disabled
Editing disabled
Newly created domain after launch
Birthdate editing enabled. Other fields disabled.


Special behavior for Education domains: Education domains will not have an editability control for birthdate. For those domains, birthdate will never be editable by end users, except in the Google+ upgrade flow, if Google+ has been enabled.
Special behavior for domains with existing profile photos: Some domains have users with profile photos, despite not having G+ enabled. Those domains will have photo editability enabled on launch, in order to not interfere with existing photos. Admins may change the setting after launch.

Launch Details
Release track:
Launching to both Rapid release and Scheduled release on June 26 2017
Editions:
Available to all G Suite editions
Rollout pace:
Full rollout (1-3 days for feature visibility)
Impact:
Admins and all end users
Action:
Change management suggested/FYI

More Information
Help Center: Managing directory profile changes


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Updating developer identity guidelines and registration processes to protect users

(Cross-posted from G Suite Developers) 

Posted by Naveen Agarwal, Identity Team 

Recently, we took immediate action to protect users from a phishing attack that attempted to abuse the OAuth authorization infrastructure.

We’re now supplementing those efforts to help prevent these types of issues in the future. These changes may add some friction and require more time before you are able to publish your web application, so we recommend that you plan your work accordingly.

Updating app identity guidelines 
As our Google API user data policy states, apps must not mislead users. For example, app names should be unique to your application and should not copy others'.

To further enforce this policy, we are updating our app publishing process, our risk assessment systems, and our user-facing consent page in order to better detect spoofed or misleading application identities. You may see an error message as you’re registering new applications or modifying existing application attributes in the Google API Console, Firebase Console, or Apps Script editor as a result of this change.

New review processes and restrictions on web apps requesting user data
We have also enhanced our risk assessment for new web applications that request user data.

Based on this risk assessment, some web applications will require a manual review. Until the review is complete, users will not be able to approve the data permissions, and we will display an error message instead of the permissions consent page. You can request a review during the testing phase in order to open the app to the public. We will try to process those reviews in 3-7 business days. In the future, we will enable review requests during the registration phase as well.

You can continue to use your app for testing purposes before it is approved by logging in with an account registered as an owner/editor of that project in the Google API Console. This will enable you to add additional testers, as well as initiate the review process.

We also recommend developers review our earlier post outlining their responsibilities when requesting access to user data from their applications. Our teams will continue our constant efforts to support a powerful, useful developer ecosystem that keeps users and their data safe.


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Upcoming changes to chat in Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides

Chatting in Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides makes collaboration easier, as users can discuss a document while they work on it—without leaving the document itself. As many of you know, the current Docs Editors chat functionality is built on Google Talk, which we previously announced will be shutting down at the end of June.

We want to be sure you can continue to use chat in Docs, Sheets, and Slides, so—over the course of the next few weeks—we’ll make a few small changes and decouple the feature from Talk. As of June 7th, 2017, shortly before the Talk shutdown, organizations on the Rapid release track that have the Google Hangouts service enabled will have chat available in the Docs Editors; organizations on the Scheduled release track with Hangouts enabled will have chat in the Docs Editors starting on June 21st.*

If you currently have the Hangouts service enabled but Talk disabled, chat in Docs, Sheets, and Slides is not available to your users at this time. After June 7th or 21st (depending on your release track), however, your organization will begin to be able to use chat in the Docs Editors.* We encourage you to communicate the new feature to your users ahead of time. There will be no in-app promotion; users will simply see the chat button below appear in Docs, Sheets, and Slides when collaborators are in the document.


If a user clicks on that button, a chat window like the one below will appear on the right side of the screen, allowing him or her to chat with others in the document.


We’ll be making further improvements to chat in Docs, Sheets, and Slides in the future, so stay tuned for additional updates.

*IMPORTANT: Please see the Help Center for a list of exceptions.

Launch Details
Release track:
Launching to Rapid release on June 7th, with Scheduled release coming on June 21st

Editions:
Available to all G Suite editions

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

Impact:
Admins and end users

Action:
Change management suggested/FYI

More Information
Help Center: Chat with others in a file


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Upcoming change: Encouraging more users to use work profiles on personal Android devices

As the use of mobile in the enterprise proliferates, and more and more enterprises are embracing mobile first strategies and policies, it is important that our G Suite customers who use Google Mobile Management as their enterprise mobility management tool (EMM) determine the policies that best protect their mobile users. This includes ensuring that corporate data stored on mobile devices is kept separate from end user data via the use of Android work profiles.



Making work profiles the default enrollment option for Android devices

To ensure a BYOD policy that is end-user friendly without sacrificing corporate security, we would like to encourage Google Mobile Management customers to employ a mobile policy that keeps personal and corporate data safe.

To that end, starting with Google Apps Device Policy v7.55 and above, the default enrollment process will utilize a work profile for those customers that have enabled Android at work and are whitelisting apps in managed Play, and for those devices that do support work profiles.




Enrolling a corporate account allows your end users to access the managed Play store for curated and whitelisted apps, and provides a clear separation between corporate data and personal data to ensure that IT does not accidentally remove personal data from the device.

Your users will still be able to opt-out of using a work profile and continue with the previous method of enrollment, if your corporate policy allows this.

For more details on whether this change will apply to your organization, or if you would like details on how to prevent work profiles from being used in your mobile deployments, please see the FAQs below and refer to the Help Center.

This change will start rolling out on June 5, 2017 along with the release of Google Apps Device Policy app v7.55+.


-- FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS --

Will this enrollment change be the default for all Google Mobile Management customers?

No. This change will only apply to your organization under the following conditions:
  • Your organization is using Google Mobile Management for Android (more details)
  • Android advanced management has been enabled for the entire organization, or organizational unit (more details)
  • Your organization has whitelisted Android apps in the managed Play store (more details)


This change will also only be shown to your users under the following conditions:
  • The Android device to which your user is adding their account supports work profiles
  • The Google Apps Device Policy app that is being used for enrollment is version 7.55+
How do we know if the Android device supports work profiles?

Android work profiles are supported on Lollipop (5.1), Marshmallow (6.0), and Nougat (7.0) devices, and any yummy future versions of Android. If you are looking to purchase new devices, please see the recommended list of Android Enterprise devices, or contact the OEM manufacturer of the device you are interested in.

Our organization currently does not use work profiles, what are the advantages of using a work profile?

We recommend work profiles for several reasons:

  • End users can use one Android device and keep corporate data and personal data separate
  • Administrators can curate and whitelist applications that are needed for corporate use
  • IT administrators cannot erase personal emails, photos, or other personal data; they can only wipe the content within the work profile itself

For more details on work profiles and Android within the enterprise, please refer to the Android at work home page.

We provide our employees with Company Owned Android devices. Does this change impact us?

No. If you are already using Company Owned devices within Google Mobile Management, then this change will not be relevant to those devices. This change only applies to personal Android devices.

We are upgrading our mobile deployment at the moment. Can we opt out of this change?

Yes you can disable this feature immediately (without waiting for the new version of the Google Apps Device Policy app to be available).

To do this, follow these steps:

  • Log in to Admin Console
  • Click on Device Management
  • Go to Android Settings > Work Profile and set the Work Profile Setup field to be “Disable”

Note that this will prevent any user from enrolling in a work profile, and we encourage you to view the benefits of using work profiles in your organization as a way to keep corporate and personal data separate.

Can my users access their corporate apps without a work profile?

Yes. However, if your user has a device that supports a work profile, but does not use a work profile, they will not be able to access the managed Play store from their Android device. Thus these users will not be able to see the recommended apps that have been whitelisted for their organization.

For more details on how users with legacy Android devices can access work apps, please see the following announcement: Users with legacy Android devices can now access work apps in Google Play


Launch Details

Release track:
Launching to both Rapid release and Scheduled release on June 5

Editions:
Available to all G Suite editions

Rollout pace:
Extended rollout (potentially longer than 15 days for feature visibility)

Impact:
End users who are setting up eligible Android devices and whose organization policies allow it.

Action:
Change management suggested/FYI

More Information
Help Center: What is a work profile?

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Web clipboard to be removed from Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides on September 13th, 2017

The web clipboard in Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides was originally developed to improve the copy and paste experience in browsers with fidelity issues. As these issues have become less prevalent across many browsers, we’re looking to simplify the user experience by removing the web clipboard, which is rarely used, on September 13th, 2017. We’re also planning enhancements to the traditional copy and paste functionality in Docs, Sheets, and Slides, so stay tuned for more info.



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