Posts

Receive notifications on your iOS device for high-priority emails only

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Notifications are only useful if you have time to read them—and if you’re being notified hundreds of times a day, chances are, you don’t. That’s why we’re introducing a feature that alerts you only when important emails land in your Gmail inbox, so you know when your attention is really required.

 

These notifications leverage Gmail’s machine learning and artificial intelligence capabilities to identify messages you may want to read first. To enable the feature, select “High priority only” from the Notifications drop-down in the settings menu of your Gmail iOS app.

Available on iOS now and Android soon, we hope this feature makes your Gmail notifications relevant—not just noise.

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

More menu improvements in Google Docs and Slides

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Based on usage data and your feedback, we’re making some changes to the menus and toolbars in Google Docs and Slides on the web. These are similar to some previous changes we made and will make it easier to find certain items. Among other things, these changes include:

To add a line or page break in Docs:
Before: Insert > Page break or Column break
After: Insert > Break > Page break or Column break
See Help Center for more details: Add, edit, or remove a link, bookmark, or page break.

To add Alt text to a shape in Docs or Slides:
Before: Select shape > Format > Alt text. This option will be removed from the menu.
After: Right click on shape > Alt text. This is the new way to add alt text to a shape.
See Help Center for more details: Make your document or presentation accessible.

To change a shape in Slides:

Before: Select shape > Format > Change shape. This option will be removed from the menu.
After: Right click on shape > Change shape. This is the new way to change a shape.

The HTML view in Slides is being removed from the menu.
Before: View > HTML
After: Ctrl+Alt+Shift+P
See Help Center for more details: Make your document or presentation accessible.

These changes will only affect the visual menu. All options will still be available via keyboard shortcuts and the search box in the Help menu.

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

Editions:
Available to all G Suite editions

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

Impact:
All end users

Action:
Change management suggested/FYI

 

Reference by Google.com

Smarter Google Forms to save you time

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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

 

 

 

 

G Suite administrators can now provision users to Asana

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When auto-provisioning is enabled for a supported third-party application, any users created, modified, or deleted in G Suite are automatically added, edited, or deleted in the third-party application as well. This feature is highly popular with admins, as it removes the overhead of managing users across multiple third-party SaaS applications.

Today we’re adding auto-provisioning support for six new applications: Asana, Dialpad, Freshdesk, Lucidchart, RingCentral, and Smartsheet. We previously launched auto-provisioning support for Box Enterprise, Salesforce Sandbox, Salesforce, Slack, and Workplace by Facebook, bringing the total number of supporting applications to 11.

G Suite Business, Education, and Enterprise customers can enable auto-provisioning for all eight supported applications. G Suite Basic, Government, and Nonprofit customers can configure auto-provisioning for up to three applications from the supported list. For specific details on how to set up auto-provisioning, check out the Help Center.

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

Editions:

  • G Suite Basic, Government, and Nonprofit customers can enable auto-provisioning for up to three applications
  • G Suite Education, Business, and Enterprise customers can enable auto-provisioning for all supported applications

Rollout pace:
Gradual rollout (potentially longer than 3 days for feature visibility)

 

Reference by Google.com

Gmail admins can now notify internal senders when their email gets quarantined

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Through Gmail compliance and routing settings, Gmail administrators can now choose to notify internal senders when their messages get quarantined, depending on your compliance rule.
Below is an example of the email that users will receive when their emails get quarantined:

To enable the feature: In the Admin console where you setup and configure policies to quarantine messages, there is now a checkbox at the bottom to “Notify sender when mail is quarantined (onward delivery only)”. This feature is default off for existing rules, but when you create a new rule, the default is on.

Launch Details
Release track:
Launching to both Rapid release and Scheduled release
Editions:
Available to all G Suite editions
Rollout pace: 
Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility)
Impact:
Admins only

 

Reference by Google.com

New features for your Google Docs and Sheets mobile apps

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Today’s updates to the Google Docs and Sheets mobile apps bring several new and useful features to your Android and iOS devices. Read on for more information.

On your Android phone or tablet, you can now:

Image Manipulation

On your iPhone or iPad, you can now:

iOS Page Setup 2

Download the latest versions of these apps from Google Play or the App Store.

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

Editions:
Available to all G Suite editions

Rollout pace:
Gradual rollout (potentially longer than 3 days for feature visibility)

Impact:
All end users

Action:
Change management suggested/FYI

 

 

 

Users with legacy Android devices can now access work apps in Google Play

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Recently, we announced that your organization’s private apps would move from the “Private Channel” (i.e. the “domain.com” tab) to the “Work Apps” tab in the Google Play Store. We envision this Work Apps section as a single destination where users can find all of the applications they need to be productive on mobile. Using Google Mobile Management, G Suite administrators can offer a curated set of both public and custom apps to their employees in the Work Apps section of Google Play.

Previously, however, employees with Android devices that did not support work profiles could not see the Work Apps tab and the apps their admins had curated. This included any users with Android devices running 5.0 Lollipop or less. With this launch, employees with these older devices can now access the Work Apps tab in Google Play (in their personal profile) and the apps their admins have curated.

Google Play for Work on Legacy Devices

Note that on devices that do support work profiles, the Work Apps tab can only be accessed from Google Play in the work profile.

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

Support for rotated text, accounting number formats, and more in Google Sheets

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We’re working hard to ensure that Google Sheets meets your business needs. As part of that effort, today we’re introducing several enterprise-friendly features that you’ve been asking for in Sheets on the web, Android, and iOS:

Rotated text
You can now rotate the text in a cell in Sheets (Format > Text rotation). This is especially useful when you need to fit long header names into thin columns, or when you simply want to fit more text on a single screen.

 

Rotated text 1

Accounting number formats
We’re making it easier to read your budgets, expense reports, and other spreadsheets containing monetary amounts by aligning the currency symbols within them (Format > Number > Accounting). We’re also making improvements to the way numbers, decimal points, and repeated characters line up to make them simpler to scan and analyze.

Accounting number formats 2

More border styles
You can now choose from several new border styles in Sheets, including various thicknesses and double borders, which are commonly used in financial statements like balance sheets (Toolbar > Borders > Border styles).

Additional improvements on mobile
In addition to the features described above, we’re also launching the following improvements to our mobile apps:

  • Support for using a mouse with the Sheets Android app
  • Ability to view and select existing custom colors in the Sheets Android app
  • Ability to drag and drop rows and columns in the Sheets Android and iOS apps
  • Formatting suggestions in Explore in the Sheets iOS app

For more details, check out the Help Center articles below.

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

  • All mobile features
  • Additional border styles on the web

Launching to Rapid release, with Scheduled release coming on March 6, 2017

  • Rotated text on the web
  • Accounting number formats on the web

Editions:
Available to all G Suite editions

Rollout pace:
Gradual rollout (potentially longer than 3 days for feature visibility)

Impact:
All end users

Action:
Change management suggested/FYI

Reference by Google.com

Resolve conflicting accounts with the new Transfer tool for unmanaged users

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If your organization recently made the jump to G Suite, you may have employees who previously set up personal Google Accounts using your company’s domain name. With this launch, we’re making it easier to identify and transfer those accounts before they become conflicting accounts.

Using the new Transfer tool for unmanaged users, you can view all personal Google Accounts with email addresses that match the G Suite email addresses for your organization. You can then send emails to those individuals, requesting that they convert their personal accounts to G Suite accounts. Later, you can view the statuses of those requests and cancel them as necessary.

Transfer tool 2

If an employee accepts your request to transfer their account, you’ll be granted access to their data and given the ability to manage that account. If they decline or ignore your request, they’ll be asked to rename their personal account with a different email address when you create a new G Suite account for them. They’ll retain sole access to and control over all of the data in their personal account.

Transfer tool email

Note that these actions must be performed manually. While you can send requests, cancel requests, and download request statuses for multiple users at once, you can’t yet do so in bulk via an API.

We hope this launch will make the transition to G Suite easier for you and your end users alike. For more information about the Transfer tool, please visit the Help Center.

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

Editions:
Available to all G Suite editions

Rollout pace:
Gradual rollout (potentially longer than 3 days for feature visibility)

Impact:
Admins only

Action:
Admin action suggested/FYI

 

Insert videos from Google Drive in Google Slides

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Starting today, you can insert and play your Google Drive videos in Google Slides, in addition to videos from YouTube.

Insert Drive video in Slides

Once you’ve added a Drive video to your presentation, you can choose when to start and end it, whether it should autoplay when presenting, and whether it should be muted or play with audio. Simply right-click on the video and select Video options.

video option

If a person viewing your presentation doesn’t have permission to view a video embedded within it, they’ll be prompted to request access.

Note that while you can play Drive videos in Slides on the web and mobile, you can only insert them from the web application. For more details, visit the Help Center.

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

Editions:
Available to all G Suite editions

Reference by Google.com