Tag Archives: Rapid Release

Introducing Student Groups in Google Classroom

What’s changing 

We’re excited to introduce a new feature in Google Classroom that enables teachers to create groups of students to make assigning differentiated content easier. This update will allow them to quickly assign classwork to pre-defined sets of students without having to tediously select individual students. 


Now, teachers can differentiate content across sub-sections of their class based on their students' needs. For example, teachers can create groups based on reading levels and as their class adapts, they can edit members of a group or delete groups within their class. 

Student groups in Classroom
Who’s impacted 

End users 


Why you’d use it 

Groups in Classroom will help teachers organize, manage and understand performance in their class. 


Additional details 

Group names and members are only visible to teachers or co-teachers, not students. 


Getting started 

Rollout pace 

Availability 

Available for Google Workspace: 
  • Education Plus and the Teaching & Learning Upgrade 

Resources


Expanding multi-party-approvals to domain-wide-delegation actions

What’s changing

Earlier this year, we announced multi-party approvals for sensitive actions taken in the admin console, specifically requiring one admin to approve actions taken by another. At launch, these protections applied to several settings, including 2-step verification, account recovery, and more. 


Today, we’re expanding multi-party approvals to include domain-wide-delegation. Domain-wide-delegation is a powerful feature which allows admins to grant third-party applications permission to access your Workspace users’ data. Bringing this feature under the umbrella of multi-party-approvals helps mitigate the risk of data exfiltration by internal bad actors or if admin credentials have been compromised. 


Overall, multi-party-approvals help ensure no sensitive action happens in a silo and, most importantly, helps prevent unauthorized or accidental changes from being made. This added layer of approval helps ensure actions are being taken appropriately and not too broadly or too often. For more information, see our original announcement.

When domain-wide-delegation changes are attempted, admins will be required to submit the change to a super admin for approval.

 Super admins can review and take action on these requests in the Admin console by navigating to Security > Multi-party approval. Super admins will also receive email alerts when a change is requested or any other protected action is attempted.



Getting started

  • Admins: The multi-party approvals feature is available for eligible Workspace customers with two or more super admin accounts. Multi-party approvals are OFF by default and can be turned on in the Admin console by going to Security > Multi-party approval settings. Visit the Help Center to learn more about multi-party approvals for sensitive actions.

Rollout pace


Availability

  • Available for all Google Workspace customers

Resources


Save time managing your Meet Hardware fleet with new device filters

What’s changing 

As we continue to make improvements for managing Meet Hardware fleets, we’re pleased to announce eighteen additional filters in the Admin console, which include:

  • Alert silence expiration time
  • Boot mode
  • Camera
  • Chrome version
  • Content camera (i.e., whiteboard cameras)
  • Controller (i.e., MIMO, Logitech Tap, Juno Remote, etc.)
  • Device ID
  • Display
  • Enrollment date
  • Has user
  • Camera home position mode
  • Microphone
  • Noise cancellation (denoising state)
  • Notes
  • Operating system version
  • Primary framing strategy
  • Speaker
  • Software audio processing mode
The new filters can be added as chips to filter the device table:

From Menu > Devices > Google Meet hardware > Devices, select “Add a filter”. Any filters you select will be added to the URL so you can save the link or share it with others.





New data columns have been added that enable you to view additional device info at a glance, which include:
  • Boot mode
  • Camera
  • Camera home position
  • Chrome version
  • Content camera
  • Controller
  • Device ID
  • Display
  • End of Meet support
  • Enrollment date
  • Microphone
  • Noise cancellation
  • Notes
  • Operating system version
  • Primary framing strategy
  • Volume
  • Speaker
From Menu > Devices > Google Meet hardware > Devices, select the gear icon to add columns. Any columns you select will be added to the URL so you can save the link or share it with others.





Increasing the number of searchable fields makes it easier and faster to find specific groups of devices, which is particularly helpful when managing a large fleet of devices. Quickly finding groups of devices allows you to save time and resources managing and troubleshooting your devices. 


Getting started

Rollout pace

Availability

  • Available to all Google Workspace customers with Google Meet hardware devices

Resources


View and structure Google Form data as a table in Google Sheets

What’s changing

We're introducing a new feature that enables users to more easily view and structure their Google Form data in Sheets. 

Starting today, when a user initiates the creation of a new sheet using their Forms data, Sheets will automatically open the data as a table, bringing format and structure to your data. If a user opens a pre-existing sheet connected to a Form, there will be no change and the user will need to convert the data to a table by going to Format > Convert to table. 

View and structure Google Form data as a table in Google Sheets


Getting started

  • Admins: There is no admin control for this feature. 
  • End users: 
    • For pre-existing spreadsheets connected to Form data, you can convert the data to a table manually by selecting the data range and going to Format > Convert to table. 
    • Visit the Help Center to learn more about using tables in Google Sheets. 

Rollout pace 

  • Rapid Release domains: Extended rollout (potentially longer than 15 days for feature visibility) starting on August 15, 2024 
  • Scheduled Release domains: Extended rollout (potentially longer than 15 days for feature visibility) starting on September 5, 2024 

Availability

  • Available to all Google Workspace customers, Google Workspace Individual subscribers, and users with personal Google accounts 

Resources 

Use intelligent suggestions for table conversion in Google Sheets

What’s changing

Following the introduction of tables in Google Sheets and the recently announced improvements to tables, we’re excited to support a new automated way for users to transform their data into a well-formatted table, with rich data types.

If you have a meaningful range of data, Sheets will show a “Convert to table” suggestion when you click into your data range. By hovering over that indicator, you can preview the suggestion and then convert your range to a table in one click. 
suggestions for table conversion in Google Sheets

Who’s impacted

End users 


Why you’d use it 

This update encourages the use of tables, a feature that enables users to transform the way they organize their data, simplify data creation, and reduce the repetitive tasks needed to format, input, and update data in Sheets. 


Getting started 

  • Admins: There is no admin control for this feature. 
  • End users: 
    • This feature will be on by default and can be disabled by going to Tools > Suggestion controls > (deselect) Enable table suggestions. 
    • While the suggestion to convert to table will likely appear automatically, you can also convert data to a table manually by selecting a data range and going to Format > Convert to table. 
    • Visit the Help Center to learn more about using tables in Google Sheets. 

Rollout pace 

  • Rapid Release domains: Extended rollout (potentially longer than 15 days for feature visibility) starting on August 13, 2024 
  • Scheduled Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on September 4, 2024 

Availability 

  • Available to all Google Workspace customers, Google Workspace Individual Subscribers, and users with personal Google accounts 

Resources 

Chat safer with new settings for students in Google Chat

What’s changing 

We're introducing a new setting that enables education admins to restrict which users can create and manage members in Google Chat conversations. 


This can be useful for admins who want to prevent groups of students from initiating or adding users to a conversation. 

Chat restrictions for Education domains



Who’s impacted 

Admins and end users 


Why it’s important

This is a highly-requested feature that restricts the creation of unsupervised activity among K-12 students and helps provide a safer and easier way for teachers to communicate with students. 


Getting started 

  • Admins: 
    • To restrict users from accessing features in Chat, go to the Admin console > Apps > Google Workspace > Google Chat > click the Chat and Space restrictions setting > Inside the Google Chat box, search for the group of users you'd like to apply Chat restrictions to > check the box for Restrict creating direct messages, group messages, and spaces > hit Save. 
      • Note: groups can be restricted at the group level only.
    • We recommend admins enable the "automatically accept chat invitations" setting for their OU. This will ensure teachers can easily initiate messages to students that instantly deliver without the need to accept an invitation. We also recommend turning OFF Chat with external users.
    • Visit the Help Center to learn more about setting up Chat restrictions for Education accounts.
  • End users: There is no end user setting for this feature.

Rollout pace 

Admin setting: 
Chat UI: 

Availability 

Available for Google Workspace: 
  • Education Fundamentals, Standard, Plus, the Teaching & Learning Upgrade 

Resources 

Google Meet hardware event logs are now available in the security investigation tool and BigQuery

What’s changing 

We’re pleased to announce a new set of features to help you conduct deeper analysis and more flexible issue detection within your Google Meet hardware fleet:
 
First, Meet hardware log events are now captured in the security investigation tool. Within the tool, you’ll be able to view historical events for your devices and create customized alerts. You can also click out to Meet hardware log events from individual device pages (Devices > Google Meet Devices > [Device Name]), allowing you to find information on specific devices even faster.

Meet hardware logs in the security and investigation tool




Secondly, through integration with BigQuery, Meet hardware logs can be imported from the security investigation tool to be analyzed at scale. This is a powerful new tool that can be used to build customized views of your historical data across your entire hardware fleet. For example, you can use this data to identify which devices are the most used across your organization, which devices are experiencing the most issues within a specific timeframe, and more.




Specifically, you’ll be able to filter by the following details: 



Getting started

Rollout pace


Availability

The security investigation tool is available for Google Workspace:
  • Enterprise Standard and Plus
  • Education Standard and Plus
  • Enterprise Essentials Plus
  • Frontline Standard
  • Cloud Identity Premium
Reporting logs in BigQuery is available for Google Workspace:
  • Enterprise Standard and Plus
  • Education Standard and Plus
  • Enterprise Essentials Plus
  • Frontline Standard

Manage all Calendar interop settings from the Admin console

What’s changing

Previously, the interoperability settings that allow Calendar users to see availability of colleagues using Outlook and vice-versa were split between two separate locations: in the Admin console and from https://calendar.google.com/Exchange/tools. Going forward, all interoperability settings will be housed in the Admin console at Apps > Google Workspace > Settings for Calendar > Calendar Interop management. This will make it easier for admins to view and manage their interop setups.



Getting started


Rollout pace

Availability

  • Available for Google Workspace customers except Google Workspace Essentials and Workspace Individual Subscribers 

“Take notes for me” in Google Meet is rolling out soon; pre-configure access with a new admin setting

What’s changing 

“Take notes for me,” an AI-powered feature in Google Meet that automatically takes notes during your meetings, will be rolling out soon. Prior to end user availability, admins can now configure whether their users can use this Google AI note-taking feature with a new Admin console setting. This setting can be configured in the Admin console by going to Apps > Google Workspace > Google Meet > Gemini Settings. 


Apps > Google Workspace > Google Meet > Gemini Settings > Google AI note-taking


Similar to Meet transcripts Admin settings, this control gives admins more flexibility to test the feature within specific Organizational units (OUs) or Groups before deploying the feature more broadly within their organization.


“Take notes for me” is available for customers who have a Gemini Enterprise, Gemini Education Premium, or AI Meetings and Messaging add-on. Only users who are assigned one of these licenses will be able to use the note-taking feature. 


We’ll provide more information and timing on end user availability about “Take notes for me” in the coming weeks here on the Workspace Updates blog.


Additional details

Notes documents will be stored in the meeting owner’s drive folder and will follow the Meet retention policy that your organization has configured. If you are currently testing this feature in Workspace Labs and Alpha, your experience will change from respecting the Drive retention policy to respecting the Meet retention policy. 


Getting started

  • Admins: Take notes for me will be ON by default and can be configured at the OU and Group level in the Admin console by going to Apps > Google Workspace > Google Meet > Gemini Settings > Google AI note-taking. If you want all of your users to receive the feature at once, you may want to consider turning this setting OFF and then after rollout switching it to ON.


Rollout pace

  • Rapid and Scheduled Release domains: Gradual rollout of the admin setting (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on August 13, 2024 with expected completion on August 21, 2024

Availability

Available for Google Workspace customers with the:
  • Gemini Enterprise add-on
  • Gemini Education Premium add-on
  • AI Meetings & Messaging Add-on

Providing student engagement signals for Google Drive file attachments in Google Classroom

What’s changing

We’re introducing a new feature that surfaces richer student engagement data on assignments with Google Drive attachments in Google Classroom. 

With this update, teachers will have easily accessible visibility into whether students have made progress on assignments with Drive attachments through pre-existing workflows in Classroom. This can help to identify students who may need additional support and make more informed decisions about how to assist their students. 

Specifically, teachers can see: 
  • From the Classwork page: The number of students who haven’t edited attachments for assignments. 
  • From the student work page on individual assignments: When the attachments were last edited by each student. 

With this information, teachers can: 
  • Quickly see whether students have started on their assigned work 
  • Provide timely interventions like sending reminders to the class or individual students 
  • Adjust instruction based on class progress Metrics for Drive attachments in Classroom

Who’s impacted 

End users 


Why you’d use it 

This feature gives teachers visibility into student progress on academic work and helps them provide effective interventions to best support students. 


Additional details

The feature is currently only available on assignments with Google Docs, Sheets, Slides and Drawings attachments. 


Getting started 

  • Admins: There is no admin control for this feature. 
  • End users: 

Rollout pace 

Availability 

Resources