Along with our new name, today we’re announcing a number of new features to help employees work together as teams on strategic and creative projects to better serve their customers. Two of these features are coming soon as Early Adopter Programs:
Drive for teams When Google Drive launched in 2012, bringing all of your work to all of your devices was a key focus. Today, with Drive installed on more than one billion smartphones, mobility is a given. As businesses have adopted Google Drive, a new focus has emerged: teams. Teams move fast, they grow, they shrink, they’re rebuilt. In order to keep pace, a new capability called Team Drives redefines the model, shifting from a focus on the individual user to a focus on the team. Content ownership and sharing are managed at the team level, and new roles give more granular control over team content. Team Drives help streamline teamwork from end-to-end, from onboarding a new team member (add her to the team and she instantly has access to all of the work in one place) to offboarding a departing team member (remove him from the team and all of his work stays right in place), and everything in-between. We’ve been previewing Team Drives with a small set of customers, and we’ll be extending this capability to more customers through an Early Adopter Program.
Meetings for teams Teams extend beyond office walls — spanning countries and companies — and video meetings have become critical to bringing teams together. No matter where you’re sitting or even when you’re on the go, you expect to be plugged in so you never have to worry about missing a thing. A new meeting experience for Google Hangouts makes this exceedingly easy: no downloads, no browser plugins, invite anyone, join from any device, even without an account or a data connection. Every meeting generates a short link and dial-in phone number so you can invite anyone without friction. An updated user interface accommodates up to 50 video participants, and with seamless integration into Calendar and instant screen sharing, your team will be better connected than it ever was before. Like Team Drives, we’ve been previewing this new meeting experience with a small set of customers and we’ll be extending this to more customers through an Early Adopter Program.
(Cross posted from the Google Cloud blog) Posted by Kelly Campbell, Senior Director of G Suite Marketing, Google Cloud
All around the world, business is filling up with busyness. Employees today are more plugged-in than ever before, but technology too often gets in the way of turning ideas into game changers. For businesses, sharing and communicating has gotten complicated and often happens in silos. The bigger the company, the bigger the challenge.
But what if technology lived up to its promise for us at work? What if it helped us cut through the noise so we could work together to focus on what matters?
We created Google Apps for Work ten years ago (back when it was Google Apps for Your Domain) to do just that—to help people everywhere work and innovate together, so businesses can move faster and go bigger.
And today, we’re introducing a new name that better reflects this mission: G Suite.
G Suite is a set of intelligent apps—Gmail, Docs, Drive, Calendar, Hangouts, and more—designed to bring people together, with real-time collaboration built in from the start. And there’s a lot more on the way. Because we believe that when organizations break down silos, connect people and empower them to work together, we get the speed, agility and impact needed to compete in today’s market. So in the spirit of teamwork, we partnered with some of our favorite illustrators from around the world to bring our ideas to life with their iconic creativity.
“All together now” by Matt Blease
“Great ideas happen outside the office” by Josh Cochran
“Meet face to face from any place” by Jean Jullien
With G Suite, information can flow freely between devices, apps, people, and teams, so great ideas never get left in the margins again. Imagine the future for your business, if this was how it could be...
Special thanks to artists Jean Jullien, Matt Blease, Chris DeLorenzo, Tomi Um, Jan Buchzcik, Josh Cochran, Xarly Rodriguez.
Late last year, we announced a planned change to our security policy, whereby OAuth 2.0 tokens would be revoked when a user's password was changed. We later decided not to move forward with this change for Apps customers and began working on a more admin-friendly approach, which is now ready to be rolled out.
To achieve the security benefits of this policy change with minimal admin confusion and end-user disruption, we’ve decided to initially limit the change to mail scopes only, and to exclude Apps Script tokens. Apps installed via the Google Apps Marketplace are also not subject to the token revocation. Once this change is in effect, third-party mail apps like Apple Mail and Thunderbird―as well as other applications that use multiple scopes that include at least one mail scope―will stop syncing data upon password reset until a new OAuth 2.0 token has been granted. A new token will be granted when the user re-authorizes with their Google account username and password.
Mobile mail applications are also included in this policy change. For example, people who use Apple’s mail application on iOS will now have to re-authorize with their Google account credentials when their password has been changed. This new behavior for third-party mobile mail apps aligns with the current behavior of the Gmail apps on iOS and Android, which also require re-authorization upon password reset.
Please see this Help Center article and FAQ for more details. The policy change is scheduled to take effect on October 5, 2016. Moving forward, any additional scopes to be added to the policy will be communicated in advance.
Please note that password changes alone should not be relied upon for account security. If you suspect an account may be compromised, use the checklist in the Help Center to ensure that your users' accounts are secure.
Launch Details Release track: Launching to both Rapid and Scheduled release on October 5, 2016
Rollout pace: Full rollout (1-3 days for feature visibility)
(Cross posted from the Apps Developer Blog) Posted by Pierce Vollucci, Associate Product Manager, Gmail and Steve Bazyl, Developer Programs Engineer, Google Apps When you send emails, your recipients might read them on a computer, tablet, or phone—or more likely, all three. However your message might look different on all these devices. Later this month, you’ll be able to use CSS media queries with Gmail and Inbox by Gmail to ensure that your message is formatted the way you intended, whether it's viewed on a computer, a phone in portrait mode, or a tablet in landscape mode. You’ll be able to change styles based on width, rotation, and resolution, allowing for more responsive formatting to optimize your email for every device.
Example of an email before and after responsive design
In discussions with email designers, these supported CSS rules were identified as the most useful media queries to support responsive design. This is just one part of an overall effort to expand CSS support in Gmail and to give email designers more control over how their messages are rendered. For example, the CSS below applies the color red when the screen width exceeds 500px.
You can find the full list of supported CSS rules in the developer documentation. We hope this reference helps you create more feature-rich, responsive email for users. Happy formatting!
Launch Details Release track: Launching to both Rapid release and Scheduled release
Rollout pace: Gradual rollout (more than 3 days for feature visibility)
Impact: All end-users for domains with Google+ enabled
To help reduce the hassle and help travelers enjoy their hard-earned vacations, today we’re introducing a new mobile app to help you instantly plan each day of your trip with just a few taps of your finger: Google Trips.
Google Trips is a personalized tour guide in your pocket. Each trip contains key categories of information, including day plans, reservations, things to do, food and drink, and more, so you have everything you need at your fingertips. Check out the announcement on the Official Google blog to learn more.
The Google Trips app will be available for Google Apps customers on both Android and iOS in the coming days. Depending on your Admin console setting for opting in to new services, access to the app will either be automatically enabled*, or can be enabled manually. You will also be able to control access to the app in the Admin console under Apps > Additional Google Services.
*Note: the app will be defaulted off for Google Apps for Education customers.
Launch Details Release track: Launching to both Rapid release and Scheduled release in the coming days. Please monitor the Google Apps release calendar for the specific availability date.
Rollout pace: Gradual rollout (potentially longer than 3 days for feature visibility)
Impact: All end users
Action: Change management suggested/FYI
More Information Download the Google Trips app for Android and iOS Note: all launches are applicable to all Google Apps editions unless otherwise noted
In an effort to ensure our customers are getting the best possible experience when using Chromebox for Meetings (CfM), we are revisiting how ChromeOS updates are handled for CfM devices.
Today, CfM admins are able to manage ChromeOS updates by choosing to pin a ChromeOS version and enable/disable ChromeOS updates for their devices. Customers pinning the ChromeOS version or disabling auto-updates may not enjoy the benefits that new ChromeOS versions may bring them, including new features and security updates. This can result in a degraded user experience when using the Hangouts application on CfM devices.
To address this issue, we are rolling out a new feature in the Admin console―planned for October 2016―that will allow the Hangouts application to update in tandem with ChromeOS. This will enable the Hangouts application to directly manage ChromeOS updates to ensure high reliability and stability for CfM devices.
When this feature launches, admins will not be able to configure the auto-update settings when the release channel is set to stable. However, they will still be able to configure the OS update scattering policy. Our goal is to provide a superior experience that will delight your users with minimal admin intervention. We would love to hear your thoughts on this planned change. Please reach out to us at [email protected].
Launch Details Release track: Launch to both Rapid release and Scheduled release planned for October 2016
Rollout pace: Full rollout (1-3 days for feature visibility)
Impact: Admins only Action: Admin action suggested/FYI
Note: all launches are applicable to all Google Apps editions unless otherwise noted
From keeping remote workers in the loop to sharing information across teams, businesses are using Google+ to collaborate and communicate more effectively. As announced last week, today the new version of Google+ will become the default option on web for Google Apps users of Google+. The new experience makes it easier to focus on the features our Apps customers tell us they find the most useful, including a new home page to quickly browse through content, Communities that make it easy to collaborate around ideas and Collections that enable organizations to follow and discuss topics of interest.
If desired, users will still be able to use the classic Google+ interface by clicking on the "Back to classic Google+" link in the bottom left-hand corner. In the coming weeks, with the launch of Google+ as a core Google Apps service, Google Apps customers will no longer have the ability to revert back to the classic Google+ interface.
Launch Details Release track: New version of Google+ launching as the default experience to both Rapid release and Scheduled release today. In the coming weeks, the ability to revert back to the classic Google+ interface will no longer be available with the launch of Google+ as a core Google Apps service. Monitor the Google Apps release calendar for a specific launch date to be added soon.
Rollout pace: Gradual rollout (potentially longer than 3 days for feature visibility)
Impact: All end-users for domains with Google+ enabled
Last month in Google Hangouts, we announced that better group chat controls were now available on Android, iOS, and the web in order to make it a simpler and more consistent experience joining group chats with your team. In following this move towards consistency, on August 31, 2016, a new version of the Google Hangouts Chrome extension will be made available to new users. As we continue to iterate and add in features that help users communicate in group chats, the new experience brings together multiple chat windows into one and makes it easier to see more chat content.
Existing users of the Chrome extension will be able to opt into the new experience on August 31, 2016, which has functional parity with the current experience. Users will have the option to remain on the current experience until October 16, 2016, at which point all users will be automatically updated to the new experience.
If you have people using the existing Google Hangouts Chrome extension in your organization, share the Help Center articles above to prepare them for this change.
If you use Chrome Management (available to all Google Apps customers) to centrally manage installation of the extension, please see our Help Center article for more information.
As a reminder, the new Google Hangouts Chrome extension will become the default experience on October 16, 2016.
Launch Details Release track: Launching to both Rapid release and Scheduled release on August 31, 2016 as the default for new users, and opt-in for existing users. The new extension will become the default for all users on October 16, 2016.
Rollout pace: Full rollout (1-3 days for feature visibility)
