Drive File Stream launching to all G Suite customers

/in

Launched to early adopters in March, Drive File Stream is a new desktop application that allows you to quickly access all of your Google Drive files on demand, directly from your computer, meaning you use almost none of your hard drive space and spend less time waiting for files to sync.

Starting today, you’ll see settings in the Admin console for Drive File Stream (located at Apps > G Suite > Drive and Docs > Data Access). Note—these settings won’t go into effect for your users until Tuesday, September 26th, when Drive File Stream becomes generally available.

 

Drive File Stream

As of today, Drive File Stream will be turned ON for all customers, but we’ll only show download links in the Drive interface if you currently show them for Backup and Sync / Google Drive for Mac/PC. For more information on how to turn Drive File Stream on or off in your domain, check out the Help Center.

With this launch, Google Drive for Mac/PC is officially deprecated. It will no longer be supported starting on December 11th, 2017, and it will shut down completely on March 12th, 2018. We encourage you to use Drive File Stream. As an alternative to or in addition to installing Drive File Stream, you can upgrade to the new version of Drive for Mac/PC, called Backup and Sync.

A few important things to note:

  • In October, Drive for Mac/PC users may start seeing messages in the product notifying them that Drive for Mac/PC is going away.
  • If a user is running both Drive File Stream and Backup and Sync on the same machine, they’ll be prompted to stop syncing My Drive with Backup and Sync in order to save disk space.
  • Team Drive editors won’t be able to edit their Team Drive files when they’re opened in Drive File Stream; they’ll only be able to view them. To edit these files, they’ll need to open them in Drive on the web.

Check out the Help Center for more information on Drive File Stream, including:

  • A side-by-side feature comparison with Backup and Sync.
  • Instructions for turning on Drive File Stream and deploying it to your organization.
  • Sample emails you can send to your users with more information.
  • FAQs.

Say goodbye to time-consuming file syncing and any concerns about disk space. With Drive File Stream, all your files are always ready for you and your colleagues.

Launch Details
Release track:

  • Drive File Stream Admin console settings launching to both Rapid Release and Scheduled Release on September 6th, 2017; Drive File Stream launching to end users on both Rapid Release and Scheduled Release on September 26th, 2017
  • Support for Google Drive for Mac/PC ending on December 11th, 2017; Google Drive for Mac/PC to stop working on March 12, 2018


Editions:
Available to all G Suite editions

Rollout pace:

  • Admin console settings
    • Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility)
  • Availability for end users
    • Full rollout (1–3 days for feature visibility)

 

Reference by Google.com

Google’s Contacts app (v2.1) now available for more Android devices

/in

Google’s Contacts app is now available for any device running Android 5.0 (Lollipop) or higher, including Samsung, LG, Motorola, and others.

Android users in your organization can now download version 2.1 of the Contacts app from the Play Store. This version features:

  • A simple way to move contacts from a device’s storage into a Google Account, so the contacts are safely backed up and available on all devices.
  • Clear separation between work and personal contacts.
  • Suggestions for adding new contacts, cleaning up duplicates, and more.

For more information on using the Contacts app on Android devices, check out this Help Center article.

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

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

 

Reference by Google.com

Google Drive firewall and proxy settings

/in

In order for users on your network to access Google Drive on the web, the Google Drive sync client, and Google Docs editors, your firewall rules should connect to the following hosts and ports. Otherwise, users may be blocked or denied access these services.

For the following hosts, [N] means any single decimal digit and * means any string not containing a period.

  • www.google.com:443/HTTPS
  • accounts.google.com:443/HTTPS
  • googledrive.com:443/HTTPS
  • drive.google.com:443/HTTPS
  • *.drive.google.com:443/HTTPS
  • docs.google.com:443/HTTPS
  • *.docs.google.com:443/HTTPS
  • *.c.docs.google.com:443/HTTPS
  • sheets.google.com:443/HTTPS
  • slides.google.com:443/HTTPS
  • talk.google.com:5222/XMPP (needed only for the Drive sync client)
  • gg.google.com:443/HTTPS
  • script.google.com:443/HTTPS
  • ssl.google-analytics.com:443/HTTPS
  • video.google.com:443/HTTPS
  • s.ytimg.com:443/HTTPS
  • apis.google.com:443/HTTPS
  • *.googleapis.com:443/HTTPS
  • *.googleusercontent.com:443/HTTPS
  • *.gstatic.com:443/HTTPS
  • lh[N].google.com:443/HTTPS
  • [N].client-channel.google.com:443/HTTPS
  • clients[N].google.com:443/HTTPS

Important notes

  • The IP addresses that various domain names resolve to don’t necessarily fall within any given address range.
  • Other Google properties may use the IP addresses that Drive uses.Google.com
  • Techniques that Drive uses to connect to Google servers depend on the browser, browser version, network conditions, etc.
  • Even if you don’t currently observe activity at the addresses listed above in a particular Google product there could be future activity.
  • The Drive sync client supports all unauthenticated proxies that are configured by the operating system.
  • The sync client supports the only DNS-based distribution of PAC files. PAC distribution over DHCP is not supported.

Reference by Google.com

Stay aware, stay secure with SBI Card!

/in
Read more

Optimize your network for Hangouts Meet and classic Hangouts

/in

Use this guide to create and generate a network plan when deploying Google Hangouts Meet or classic Google Hangouts.

This will help your network provide the bandwidth and performance required for video meetings using Hangouts Meet or classic Hangouts.

What’s covered Networking concepts for Hangouts Meet or classic Hangouts deployments
Audience Google partners, administrators, and network engineers
IT environment Network infrastructure
Deployment phases All
Takeaways
  • When deploying Hangouts Meet or classic Hangouts, bandwidth planning is vital
  • Concurrent usage estimates are required
  • Enable UDP ports 19302 to 19309
  • Enable TCP and UDP ports 80 and 443
  • Eliminate network bottlenecks
  • Use the Chrome Connectivity Diagnostics tool to test networks

 

 

For more details visit Google.com

Sophos Firewall: How to block Google consumer accounts

/in

This article explains how to block all web mail except for a certain Google domain. Users will no longer be able to access their private Gmail accounts and can only log onto a Gmail for a custom domain.

The following sections are covered:

How to block web mail

How to block web mail

  1. Navigate to Firewall
  2. Click +Add Firewall rule
  3. Create a firewall rule as shown below:

Google domains

googledomains

Note: Here we chose the pre-made web policy called No Web Mail but any web policy with the category Web E-Mail selected and set to Block will work.

Allow custom Google Domain

  1. Navigate to Web > Policies.
  2. Edit the policy you used in the firewall rule above.
  3. Open up the Advanced Settings option at the bottom of the policy edit screen.
  4. Enable Restrict login domains for Google Apps by checking the box.
  5. Next to Allowed domain(s) type in the domain that is allowed to access Google Apps despite the web mail block.

google domains

 

Reference by Sophos.com

 

Send and receive chat messages in Hangouts Meet

/in

Sharing written communication is a critical part of successful meetings. Meeting participants may want to share links, chime in when they can’t speak, or hold side conversations without interrupting. This chat functionality has been a top feature request in Meet since we launched earlier this year and that’s why, today, we’re bringing it to all G Suite users.

 

Going forward, meeting attendees will be able to send text and links, all in real time. The chat history will be available for the duration of the meeting.

This feature is available across Meet platforms: chat messages can be sent and received on web and mobile (versions 4.5 and above), and received on Chromebox for Meetings. All users can send and receive messages while in Meet, including those not signed in with Google accounts.

Google_Meet_Mobile_Blog

Google_Meet_TV_Blog copy

Launch Details
Release track:
Launching to Rapid release, with Scheduled release coming in 2 weeks

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

 

Reference by Google.com

How to exclude IP address in Google Adwords

/in

How to exclude IP address in Google Adwords

  1. Sign in to your AdWords account.
  2. In the page menu on the left, click Settings.
  3. Select the campaign you’d like to exclude IP addresses from.
  4. Click to expand the “IP exclusions” section. (Click Additional settings if you can’t see the “IP exclusions” section.)
  5. Enter the IP addresses you want to exclude from seeing your ads.
  6. Click Save.

Smarter Google Forms to save you time

/in

Google Forms makes it easy to collect information, plan events, solicit feedback, and more. Today, we’re adding new features and using machine learning to make Forms work better for your business. Read on for more details.

Intelligent response validation
When you know the specific type of answer you’re looking for, it’s often helpful to validate responses in Forms. For example, if you’re asking for a website, Forms can double-check that the answer provided is a URL. Following this launch, when we can, we’ll suggest response validation based on the question you ask. If you ask respondents for their age, for instance, we may recommend validating that the answer they provide is a whole number. (Note that this feature is rolling out gradually and may take several weeks to appear in your domain.)

 

Intelligent response validation

Cross-domain file uploads
Oftentimes, when you use Forms, you’re not collecting data from your colleagues you’re gathering information from third parties, customers, and more. To guarantee you get the information you need, we’ll now allow users outside of your domain to upload files as responses to your questions—provided both of your organizations allow cross-domain sharing in Google Drive. Based on usage patterns, total uploads to new forms will be capped at 1GB, with an option to increase that limit to 1TB. Uploads to existing forms will be capped at 1TB.

Preferences
If you use similar settings across all of your forms, you can now save time by assigning default settings to apply to any new forms you create. For instance, you can choose to always collect email addresses, make questions required every time, and assign default quiz point values.

Preferences 1

Preferences 2

“Checkbox grid” questions
Sometimes a question is more complex than multiple choice or checkbox answers alone can satisfy—you need to be able to select multiple options from multiple categories. Going forward, you can use the “Checkbox grid” question type to get the answers you need, like dates and times that work for an upcoming meeting.

Checkbox grid 1

Checkbox grid 2

Section reordering
We heard you loud and clear—you need an easy way to organize (and reorganize) your questions in Forms. In response to your feedback, we’re now making it possible to reorder whole sections quickly and easily.

Reorder 1

Recording section

 

Create better forms, more quickly, with these new and intelligent features in Forms.

Launch Details
Release track:
Launching to Rapid Release, with Scheduled Release coming in two weeks

Editions:
Available to all G Suite editions

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

 

Reference by Google.com