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We’re making the Quick Access feature in Google Docs available to more G Suite users and are adding natural language search when you’re looking for documents. We hope these launches mean you spend less time searching for documents and more time working on them.

Expanding Quick Access in Docs to more users 

We launched Quick Access in Docs earlier this year to help users spend less time searching for the right documents and more time crafting ideas. We’re now making this feature available to all G Suite users. Previously it was only available on a subset of G Suite editions.

Quick Access uses artificial intelligence to suggest relevant files in the right hand “Explore” panel of Docs based on your Google Drive activity and information in your document. You can use this to add related resources to a document you’re working on, discover additional content that’s relevant to projects, and more.

See our Help Center to find out how to use Explore in Google Docs.


Adding natural language processing to search in Explore

We’re making the search in Google Docs’ “Explore” panel easier by adding natural language Processing.

This means you can search in a more natural and intuitive way. Just describe what you’re looking for, and Docs will find it for you. So you can search for things like “show me slides shared with me last week” or “show me documents I created this month” and Docs will find the best results. This is similar to the natural language processing used in other Google products and will show you relevant files and information from your Google Drive, including Docs, Sheets, and Slides files.

See our Help Center to find out how to search from inside a document in Google Docs.

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

More Information
Help Center: See and use suggested content in a document

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Jamboard is designed to make learning a more interactive and engaging experience through real-time, peer-to-peer collaboration. With its online platform for shared problem solving and ideation, Jamboard has been bringing collaboration to new heights in the classroom. To help make this technology more accessible to educational institutions, we’re offering a new, discounted price for Jamboard, specifically for G Suite for Education domains.

G Suite for Education customers in the United States are now eligible to purchase a Jamboard for a one-time cost of $5600. This price also covers:

  • A single management and support fee payment of $600 with no repeating annual payment
  • A wall mount (a rolling stand can be purchased as an optional extra)
  • Two styluses
  • An eraser
G Suite for Education customers who have already purchased Jamboards will qualify for the one-time management and support fee program.

While all devices come with a free one-year warranty, our partner BenQ is offering an optional three-year warranty at a discounted rate. See here for details.

To purchase a Jamboard at this newly discounted price, email jamboard-sales@google.com or contact your reseller. For more information on these new prices, please reference this guide.

Launch Details
Editions:
Available to G Suite for Education editions only

Impact:
Admins only

Action:
Admin action suggested/FYI

More Information
Help Center
FAQ

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We’re introducing a new report in the Admin console that shows the worldwide availability for G Suite services in previous months. This report, called the “G Suite Apps Monthly Uptime” report, adds to the information on G Suite’s current status and future availability in the G Suite apps status dashboard. We hope that these two reports will help you better understand the historic and current availability of products for your users.

To view the report, Open the Admin console > Reports > G Suite Apps Monthly Uptime. 

Use our Help Center to learn more about the G Suite Apps Monthly Uptime report and its data

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: 
Admins only

Action: 
Admin action suggested/FYI

More Information 
Help Center: G Suite Apps Monthly Uptime

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We’ve enabled new features in Hangouts Meet to ensure your users always find their meeting rooms configured correctly and ready for their upcoming meetings. As an admin, you can now set a preferred mic, speaker and camera to use for all meeting rooms.

Going forward, if you’re using only qualified peripherals, the Hangouts Meet device will automatically reset back to the recommended configuration for microphone, speaker and camera between uses. If you’re using other peripherals or custom configurations, an alternative default configuration can also be configured in the Admin console.

To do this, open the Admin console, navigate to Device management > Google Meeting room hardware, and then find the specific unit whose default peripheral you’d like to change. Click on that unit, open the device health section, and click the desired device.



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:
Admins only

Action:
Admin action suggested/FYI

More Information
Help Center: Manage settings for Chrome devices for meetings

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Last year, we introduced a new resource for admins: What’s new in G Suite? Don’t forget to visit the page regularly for a list of the most recent launches across G Suite.

Feedback? Let us know.

Whether you’re on vacation or just offline at the end of your workday, Google Calendar can help protect your time out of the office. We’re introducing a new out of office option and customizable working hours to further improve your digital well-being.

Indicate when you’re going out of office

When creating an event on the web, simply select the “Out of office” Calendar entry type. The Out of office object will have a different look on the Calendar grid, signalling to others that you’re unavailable.



Google Calendar will automatically decline meetings that occur during this time period. You can customize both the decline message as well as the visibility of the title of your out of office object.

Going forward, Google Calendar will try to intelligently detect, based on the title entered, when you’re creating an out of office object and change the type automatically. You can always manually change this if you’d like to opt for a different entry type.

Restrict your working hours

By setting your working hours, you protect your personal time from your work time. People who will try to schedule meetings with you outside of these hours will be informed that you are not available at that time. You can already set your working hours to one interval for all days of the week. With this launch, you can now customize your work hours for each day separately.

Based on your timezone and past scheduling patterns, Google Calendar can now infer your working hours. You may see a prompt asking you to set them, and you can further customize them as needed.



For more information on these and other settings in Google Calendar, check out the Help Center.

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

More Information
Help Center: Change your Calendar settings
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We're introducing new features in Google Vault that allow for more granular retention and provide a more transparent search experience. These features can help you retain exactly the data you need and thereby reduce your liability risk, as well as improve your eDiscovery process with better search and export capabilities.

Set retention policies for Hangouts Meet recordings
Previously, Hangouts Meet recordings were subject to applicable Drive retention rules. With this launch, you can set default and custom retention rules specifically for Hangouts Meet. This will allow you to set shorter retention periods for Meet recordings if, for example, they happen to contain more sensitive content.

Create a custom retention rule for Hangouts Meet

Set retention policies for files in Drive trash
As a G Suite admin, you can now also set custom retention rules specifically for Drive files that have been moved to a user’s trash. This option provides more flexibility for organizations who wish to control the lifecycle of files deleted by users separately from those files still active in their users' My Drive and Team Drives.

Retain files moved to trash

Large search improvements
With this launch, we’re making the process of searching your entire domain and large OUs easier and more transparent. If a data type supports domain-wide search, you can now select “All Accounts” to search the entire domain.

Search all accounts in a domain

As Vault processes your large search request, you’ll see an activity indicator and the amount of time that has elapsed. You’ll also have the option to cancel your search or run another search in a new tab.


See details of a search in progress

When your search is complete, in addition to your results, you’ll now see the total time taken for the search. For a Gmail search, you’ll also see the total number of accounts searched and the number of accounts searched per second. This will give you an idea of Vault's performance during the large search.

See details of a completed search

Simpler exports for Hangouts Chat
We’re also making it easier for organizations to export large amounts of Hangouts Chat data. Going forward, export data from Hangouts Chat will be condensed into a small number of files. Previously, you’d see one conversation per file; now you’ll see multiple conversations included in the same file, until the file size limit is reached.

For example, in the past, 100 conversations would be exported as 100 MBOX or PST files. With this launch, those same 100 conversations will be exported as just one or two MBOX or PST files, making it simpler to process the results.

In addition, each Chat conversation will continue to have metadata associated with it, but with two new fields: (1) type of conversation (direct message or room), and (2) conversation ownership (either the room name or a comma-separated list of accounts that participated in a direct message).

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

Editions:
Available to G Suite Business, Enterprise, and Education editions only, as well as G Suite users with the Vault add-on

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

Impact:
Admins only

Action:
Admin action suggested/FYI

More Information
Help Center: What's new in Vault


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Earlier this month, we announced interoperability with SIP/H.323 standards based video conferencing systems and Skype for Business in Hangouts Meet through the Pexip Infinity Platform.

You can now enable this feature in the Admin console at Apps > G Suite > Google Hangouts and checking the box for “Turn on interoperability with other systems" under “Meet Settings.” After the feature is enabled and a token is generated, you will need a license from Pexip for the solution to work.

For complete instructions on enabling third-party interoperability and more information, 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:
Full rollout (1–3 days for feature visibility)

Impact:
Admins only

Action:
Admin action suggested/FYI

More Information
Help Center: Turn interoperability with third-party systems on or off

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As a reminder, the automatic migration tool to transfer Google Sites from classic Sites to new Sites will start rolling out to end users on June 19. The tool makes it quicker and easier to move sites created in classic Sites to new Sites.

The tool automatically creates a draft of a classic site in new Sites. This new draft site will have the updated look and feel of new Sites, and contain the content from the classic site. When the new site is ready to go live, it can either be published to the URL of the classic site (to replace the original site and automatically redirect viewers), or published to a new URL.

For full details on the tool and how it works, see our announcement for the admin preview of the tool. You can also use our Help Center to find out more about how to convert a classic Site to a new Site and what to expect when you convert a site.

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

More Information 
G Suite Updates blog: Admin preview for Google Sites automatic conversion tool 
Help Center: How to convert a classic Site to a new Site 
Help Center: What to expect when you convert a site 

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To help Google Forms users create more personalized surveys, feedback forms, quizzes, and more, we’re introducing new theme customization options. Specifically, you can now choose colors and fonts to theme your form. This has been a top feature request from our users, who have asked for more options to create forms that match their organization or team branding. We hope these options help you build forms that look and feel just right.


Pick a theme and background color 

You can choose a color for your theme. When you choose a theme color, it will apply to your header background, titles, action buttons, and more. You can pick a predefined color, or a custom one. After you pick a theme color, you can select a complementary color for the background.

Use an image for the form header 

By default, the form header matches the theme color you select. If you want, you can change this and use an image to display in the header instead.

Customize the font style

You can pick from several font styles to apply to your form. When you pick a style, it will apply to your form title and question text.

New theme options for Google Forms 

See our Help Center for more details on how to change the theme of your Google Form.


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

More Information 
Help Center: Change the theme or font of your form


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Over the past year, we’ve announced that Jamboard, our cloud-based, collaborative whiteboard, is available for purchase in an ever-growing list of countries such as the United States, Canada, the UK, and select parts of Europe. We’re now expanding that list further, bringing Jamboard to Australia and New Zealand.

G Suite customers in Australia and New Zealand can now purchase Jamboard for $7,999 (AUD), which includes two styluses, an eraser, and a wall mount. See the table below for pricing.

Keep in mind that a G Suite license is required to use Jamboard so that you can access files from Drive, use them in your brainstorms, and come back to your work later.



G Suite customers based in Australia and New Zealand can contact their Google Cloud sales rep, our distributor, BenQ, or visit our website to learn more about how to start jamming with colleagues today.

Additional information about Jamboard
In addition to the Jamboard device, the Jamboard app is available on Android and iOS for all G Suite customers. When used on a tablet, the Jamboard app allows users to experience similar features as they would on the Jamboard device. On a smartphone, the app functions as a companion for the Jamboard device.

Usage of the Jamboard app is controlled by a service on/off switch in the Admin console, and is off by default.

Check out the Help Center for more information, including an FAQ section.

Launch Details
Release track:
Jamboard devices now available for purchase in Australia and New Zealand

Editions:
G Suite Basic, Business, Enterprise, and Education customers

Impact:
Admins only

Action:
Admin action suggested/FYI

More Information
Help Center
FAQ

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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.

Gmail iOS app with option to get notifications for high-priority emails only

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

More Information
Help Center: Change email notifications

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We’re giving G Suite admins more visibility into which computers are being used to access their corporate data and apps through a new feature called “Endpoint Verification.”

Endpoint Verification collects information via Chrome extensions and native apps on users’ devices, and displays that information to admins in a new report in the Admin console. It’s a lightweight and easy solution for desktop and laptop device reporting, and we hope this visibility empowers admins to maintain a strong security posture for their organization.

Endpoint Verification report provides desktop device information 

Endpoint Verification adds a new view in the Admin console. Once it is set up on user devices (see below), admins will be able to see:


  • An inventory of desktop and laptop devices within the enterprise that access corporate data. 
  • Device information including screen lock, disk encryption, and OS version. 


To see the report, open the Admin console and visit Device management > Endpoint Verification.

Information available in the Admin console when Endpoint Verification is enabled

How to deploy Endpoint Verification in your organization 


Endpoint Verification is available for ChromeOS, macOS, and Windows devices. It requires a Chrome extension to be installed. On Windows and MacOS devices, it also needs a native app which works with the extension. Extensions and apps can be installed by users individually or deployed centrally. See our Help Center article for admins to see details on how to deploy Endpoint Verification.

End user experience of Endpoint Verification 

When the Endpoint Verification extension is installed on a user’s device, there will be a notification shown to users (see image below). The user will have to click “Agree” before data from their device is shown in the admin’s Endpoint Verification report. If the user does not click “Agree,” information about that device will not be shown. The user Help Center has information about Endpoint Verification and user devices.

Endpoint Verification notification shown to users when the extension first runs 


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 and end users

Action: 
Admin action suggested

More Information 
Admin Help Center: Monitor your Chrome users' computers 
End User Help Center: Allow an admin to monitor your computer


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(Cross-posted from The Keyword)

It’s easy to get used to doing things a certain way. This can be a good thing if you're prepping for the World Cup, where process, repetition and routine can make you a champion. But if you're like the rest of us who rely on certain workflows to get things done at work—like budgeting or filing expenses—“trusting the process” doesn’t always feel rewarding.

Today, we’re making App Maker generally available to help you rethink how your teams operate. App Maker is G Suite’s low-code application development environment that makes it easy for teams to build custom apps to speed up workflows and make processes better.

Apps to fill business gaps, built for your needs

Analysts estimate that the right custom mobile app can save each employee 7.5 hours per week (that’s a week’s worth of lunch breaks!). Yet, too few businesses have the means, let alone the resources, to invest time and effort in building custom apps. Why? Because their IT budget centers on big enterprise apps like CRM, ERP and SCM and beyond those priorities, IT executives’ attention focuses on security and governance.

App Maker was created to enable your line-of-business teams to build apps for the jobs these bigger apps don't tackle. With App Maker, you can shape company processes like requesting purchase orders, or you can speed up business workflows like filing and resolving help desk tickets, as if you designed and built the processes yourself.

“Pooling talent resources was always an ad hoc process, but App Maker let us quickly build an app that tracks allocation requests in detail.” 
- Peter McAuley, Director of IT, EA

Take Electronic Arts (EA) for example, a global interactive entertainment software company that makes games and more. To create many of its games, EA has to occasionally allocate staff resources to different projects—whether it’s a designer needed on a new game project or an HR consultant to advise on setting up a studio. EA’s IT department used App Maker to create a custom app to streamline capital resourcing.

“Pooling talent resources was always an ad hoc process, but App Maker let us quickly build an app that tracks allocation requests in detail,” says Peter McAuley, director of IT at EA. “Our custom app also calculates and provides management with a view of total resource utilization by month, something which was always more of a chore to put together manually.”

Over the last few months, we've worked closely with customers and partners around the world, including EA, Colgate-Palmolive, SADA Systems and more, to build apps to solve specific business needs.




Powerful new database model and governance

Since launching App Maker in our Early Adopter Program, we've made changes and added new features to make it even better for our customers.

  • Open: App Maker now offers built-in support for Cloud SQL (GCP account required), offering high performance, scalability and convenience. It also supports a Bring Your Own Database (“BYODB”) model, letting you connect it to your own database using JDBC or a REST API.
  • Fast: Responsive templates, samples, a drag-and-drop UI design and declarative data modeling make it easier for IT developers, or anyone who wants to automate work, to design and build apps even faster.

  • Managed: In the coming weeks, G Suite administrators will have visibility over the apps running in their organization including owners, usage metrics and OAuth permissions. Expanded OAuth Whitelisting controls mean administrators will also be able to prevent apps from running without their approval. Learn more.

Get started

App Maker is now available to all G Suite Business and Enterprise customers, as well as G Suite for Education customers. Learn more, or see how you can get started with documentation and this codelab. We can’t wait to see what your companies build with it.

Additional details for G Suite admins

App Maker is now turned on for your G Suite Business, Enterprise, Education, or Enterprise for Education domain, unless you’re a K–12 G Suite for Education customer or you’ve chosen to manually opt in to new services. If App Maker isn’t yet enabled for your eligible domain, you can turn it on in the Apps > Additional Google services section of the Admin console.

App Maker comes with built-in support for Google Cloud SQL, which requires a Google Cloud Platform account. To set up Cloud SQL for your domain, follow the steps outlined in this Help Center article. You can also connect App Maker to your own database using JDBC or a REST API.

As a G Suite admin, you can manage the use of App Maker in your domain. For example, you can view the activity of users creating App Maker apps using the Drive audit logs, or view the activity of end users of App Maker apps in the OAuth Token audit logs. For more information on the management capabilities available to G Suite admins, visit the Help Center.

App Maker is now an additional Google service, but it offers 24x7 technical support and service-level commitments. It is also compliant with ISO 27001 and SOC (1, 2, 3) and offers accessibility features to help meet the needs of your users.

At launch, however, App Maker is not ISO 27017 and 27018 compliant. Please note that this corrects our previous communication. 

For more information on App Maker, check out the Help Center.


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

Editions:
Available to G Suite Business, Enterprise, Education, and Enterprise for Education editions only

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

Impact:
Admins and end users

Action:
Admin action suggested/FYI

More Information
Help Center: App Maker
Help Center: Manage App Maker in your domain
App Maker site
App Maker developers guide


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Earlier this year, we introduced an all-new version of Tasks―where you can keep track of your daily tasks, organize multiple lists, and track important deadlines with mobile and web applications―to the G Suite product offering. On June 28, 2018, Tasks will launch as a standalone G Suite core service. Since Tasks was previously available as a feature of Gmail and Calendar to all domains, Tasks will launch ON by default, but it can be turned off at any time in the Admin console under Apps > G Suite.

As a G Suite core service, Tasks will be covered under your existing G Suite agreement and will offer the same technical support and service level commitments as any other core service.



Launch Details
Release track:
Launching to both Rapid Release and Scheduled Release on June 28, 2018

Editions:
Available to all G Suite editions

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

Impact:
All end users

Action:
Admin action suggested/FYI

More Information
Help Center:Turn Tasks on and off for users
Help Center: How to use Google Tasks
The Keyword: With new security and intelligent features, the new Gmail means business

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Update re: end user routing settings (August 6, 2018):

End user routing settings are now read-only and can't be changed. Unlike the settings mentioned below, you don't have the option to CONVERT end user routing settings. Any required configuration changes need to be made via the recipient address mapping feature. We're in the process of automatically migrating end user routing settings and will continue to do so on an ongoing basis.





In January 2017, we announced some changes to the Gmail routing settings in the Admin console. For technical reasons, some of these changes were delayed past the originally communicated date and are now launching this month.

Convert old Gmail routing settings now

Going forward, your remaining Sending routing, Receiving routing, Catch-all address, and Domain-level routing settings are read-only. These settings are still active, but in order to make changes, you need to click the CONVERT button next to the existing rule.

Click CONVERT next to existing rule to map to new fields

Once you click CONVERT, we’ll convert the setting and map it to the new fields automatically. The converted setting will then be placed in the unified routing section, where all of your rules will be manageable from one place. The old setting will no longer be visible in the user interface, so you won’t need to clean up old rules afterward.

Routing settings

All settings automatically migrated starting July 11th

If you don’t convert your settings using the CONVERT button, they’ll be automatically migrated to the unified routing section no earlier than July 11th, 2018. This migration will take place over the course of several weeks.

Launch Details
Release track:

  • CONVERT button launching to both Rapid Release and Scheduled Release now
  • Automatic migration starting for both Rapid Release and Scheduled Release no earlier than July 11th, 2018


Editions:
Available to all G Suite editions

Rollout pace:

  • CONVERT button: Full rollout (1–3 days for feature visibility)
  • Automatic migration: Extended rollout (potentially longer than 15 days for feature visibility)


Impact:
Admins only

Action:
Admin action suggested/FYI

More Information
Help Center: Set up routing for your domain or organization


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At InfoComm in Las Vegas last week, we announced our partnership with Pexip to allow seamless compatibility between Hangouts Meet and other video conferencing systems like Skype for Business, Polycom, and Cisco. With this new interoperability, your team can walk into a meeting room outfitted with Hangouts Meet hardware and join a call with clients, vendors, or partners joining from another platform.

In addition to being compatible with other video conferencing software, it’s important that your meeting rooms are compatible with the hardware you need for your meetings. That’s why we’ve created a peripheral qualification program featuring cameras, audio devices, and cables certified for use with Hangouts Meet hardware. Through this program, Google’s partner lab tests the peripherals for quality, reliability, and interoperability. Qualified peripherals will get automatic, over-the-air firmware updates.

We’re constantly adding more great devices to the Hangouts Meet ecosystem. Beginning with ChromeOS version 69, the Logitech MeetUp will be a certified camera and speakerphone. Featuring a 120° field-of-view and integrated audio optimized for huddle room acoustics, the MeetUp is perfect for small video conferencing spaces. Like all certified peripherals, the MeetUp will receive over-the-air firmware updates from the Hangouts Meet Chromebox to ensure it is always up to date and improving over time.

In addition to cameras and speakermics, partners like Lindy and Newnex have joined our ecosystem to bring the highest quality USB 3.0 extenders and hubs to the meeting room. As officially qualified peripherals, these devices help you scale your meetings to spaces of all shapes and sizes.

Learn more about Hangouts Meet hardware here, or find details about the qualification program and certified devices in the Help Center.

Launch Details
Release track:
All features launching to both Rapid Release and Scheduled Release

Editions:
Available to all G Suite editions

Impact:
All end users

Action:
Change management suggested/FYI

More Information
Help Center: Manage settings for Chrome devices for meetings
The Keyword blog: Bring teams together with new G Suite integrations

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Update (July 17, 2018): Please see this post for updated details regarding this launch.




Update (July 10, 2018): This launch has been delayed. Please stay tuned to the G Suite Updates blog for more information, as we'll provide an update on the launch and its timing shortly.






In 2014, we introduced Material Design, a visual language that helps developers create intuitive and beautiful products. Since then, we’ve steadily updated our G Suite apps to adhere to Material principles. Next week, we’ll bring this same design to Google sign-in screens.

Starting on June 14th, 2018, you may notice that when you sign in to your G Suite account, the screen looks slightly different. Some of the changes will include tweaks to the Google logo, an outline around the text field, and center alignment of all items on the screen. See below for before and after images.

Current Google sign-in screen with left-aligned text

Current Google sign-in screen

New Google sign-in screen with center-aligned text

New Google sign-in screen

If necessary, please provide your users advance notice of these changes.

Launch Details
Release track:
Launching to both Rapid Release and Scheduled Release on June 14th, 2018

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


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We’re adding new controls to adjust the size and position of shapes, images, text boxes, and more in Google Slides. This builds on our launch from April, when we added guide and ruler features to give you more control over object positions and text alignment. Together these features provide precise control over slides and enable the design of more attractive and effective presentations. The new options allow users to:


  • Set exact size by numeric value or percentage scale 
  • Adjust object position on a slide 
  • Rotate by flipping horizontally or vertically, or setting a precise rotation angle 

Size & position controls in Slides
New object size and position controls in Google Slides 
You can access the new controls through:

  • Format menu > Format options 
  • Right click on object > Format options 
  • Select object > Format options in the toolbar 


See our Help Center for more information on how to arrange objects in Google Slides.


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

More Information 
Help Center: Insert and arrange text, shapes, diagrams, and lines


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Your time at work is important—we want to help you effectively manage that time with Calendar. In addition to scheduling and joining meetings, it’s important that you know when to cancel or reschedule meetings with low attendance, so you can take back time. That’s why we’re now indicating to Calendar users when their meetings won’t be attended by anyone else and helping them take action.

Without having to go into an event’s details, or watch your inbox for RSVP responses, you can now see beforehand when everyone else declined the meeting. We’ll show an indication on the event, flagging to you that all guests have declined.

Image displaying the visual indication that everyone has declined


After clicking on one of these events within Calendar, you can take one of the following actions:

  • Cancel the meeting: If you’re the event organizer, you’ll be able to delete the event. All other invitees will be able to remove it from their own calendar.
  • Reschedule the meeting: Organizers can reschedule the event, either manually or with “Find a Time.” Guests (or organizers in domains without the “Find a time” feature available) can email other guests to suggest rescheduling.
  • Dismiss an event: Until the event is moved to a new time, users can dismiss seeing the flagged indication for the meeting.
Image of the event details when everyone has declined


We hope that this new feature helps you to make the best use of your valuable time.

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

Editions:
Available to all G Suite editions

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

Impact:
All end users

Action:
Change management suggested/FYI

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On June 19th, 2018, Google Mobile Management will begin rolling out support for Hangouts Meet on iOS. Currently, G Suite users in domains with advanced mobile device management enabled can use the Hangouts Meet iOS app without first installing the device policy profile. Following the launch, these users will be required to install the device policy profile (if they haven’t already) in order to continue using Hangouts Meet on their iOS devices.*

*Users in domains with basic mobile device management enabled won’t be required to install the device policy profile; their iOS devices will automatically become managed when they sign in to Hangouts Meet.

Impacts iOS users without device policy profile only
This only impacts iOS users who don’t already have the device policy profile installed. If your organization currently has advanced MDM enabled, your users would have been required to download the device policy profile in order to access Gmail, Calendar, and other Google apps on their iOS devices.

Notifications to users
Starting on June 19th, iOS users who try to access Hangouts Meet will see a notification prompting them to install a security profile. This notification will only appear for users on Hangouts Meet v16.0 and above; users can upgrade to this version starting on June 4th.


Users on older versions of Hangouts Meet will be able to sign in to the app, but they’ll be unable to perform critical functions (e.g. to view and join meetings). They should upgrade to v16.0 so that they receive the prompt and can install the required device policy profile.

Launch Details
Release track:
Launching to both Rapid Release and Scheduled Release on June 19th, 2018

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
Help Center: How the device policy profile works


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We recently introduced an Early Adopter Program (EAP) for the new Gmail, with new capabilities like Gmail offline and nudging. To prepare you and your organization for the general availability (GA) launch, we’re providing additional details on the rollout schedule below.

New Gmail launching to GA in July 2018
At the moment, the new Gmail is an EAP, and customers can choose to participate (or not) at the domain and organizational unit levels. After the new Gmail launches to GA in July 2018, G Suite admins will have the following options in the Admin console:

  • Immediately transition their users to the new Gmail. For a period of time, users will still have the option to opt out (see below for more details).
  • Allow their users to opt in to the new Gmail at the time of their choice. For a period of time, users will still have the option to opt out (see below for more details).
  • Wait approximately four weeks until their users are allowed to opt in to the new Gmail. For a period of time, users will still have the option to opt out (see below for more details).
    • This is the default setting. During this four-week period, users will not have the option to opt in to the new Gmail.

Approximately eight weeks after the GA announcement in July, any users who haven’t yet been transitioned to the new Gmail will be automatically migrated to the new experience. They’ll have the option to opt out of the new Gmail for an additional four weeks.

Opt-out option removed 12 weeks after GA
Approximately 12 weeks after the GA announcement in July, any users who’ve opted out of the new Gmail will be automatically migrated to the new experience, with no option to opt out. Users who’ve already transitioned to the new Gmail will lose the ability to opt out.

Additional features and Admin console settings
Please note that features with dedicated Admin console settings, like Gmail offline and confidential mode (launching at a later date), will respect any current EAP configurations when the new Gmail launches to GA. If your organization doesn’t participate in the EAP, these settings will be OFF by default when the new Gmail launches to GA.

Try the new Gmail in EAP
We’ll provide more details on this transition plan in July, but we encourage you to begin testing the new Gmail and preparing your users now. To get started, see this Help Center article.

More Information
Help Center: What’s new in Gmail



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(Cross-posted from The Keyword)



The average employee uses 36 cloud services at work to collaborate or share files. That’s more apps than hours in a day! With so many apps and services, it’s important that your business chooses modern, open tools that make it easy to work with anyone—be it inside or outside of your organization.

We want to reduce complexity for your teams, which is why we’ve built integrations in G Suite like third-party add-ons in Gmail and Google Docs and better interoperability with Microsoft. Today, we’re announcing new integrations in Hangouts Meet and Calendar to help you have even better meeting experiences regardless of the conference technology you use. We’re also bringing you new ways to collaborate in Hangouts Chat and Sheets.

Collaborate easily with new compatibility in Hangouts Meet

Nothing’s more frustrating than hosting a meeting and having trouble getting people to join because of issues with technology—it can interrupt workflows and slow down productivity. We want to make it easier for businesses to use meeting solutions, like Hangouts Meet, without worrying about compatibility with existing equipment. This is why we’re making Meet compatible with traditional video conferencing systems, like Polycom and Cisco. In partnership with Pexip, teams will be able to join a meeting on Meet from their preferred equipment in the coming weeks. We’re also making it possible for Microsoft Skype for Business users to easily join a meeting on Meet directly from their Skype app.

Spotify has benefited from using Hangouts Meet to collaborate both internally and externally. Says Martin Antonsson, AV Infrastructure Engineer at Spotify, “Interoperability between Hangouts Meet and other video conferencing systems is fundamental to enabling collaboration. Now we can focus on having productive meetings instead of worrying about the technology.”

 Build add-ons in Google Calendar, join meetings in a cinch

A big part of having productive meetings is making sure that the right folks are able to join them. That’s why we’re announcing support for third-party conferencing natively in Google Calendar. Soon conference providers can easily build add-ons to create, view and join a video conference directly from a Calendar event. Users can simply click a link in the Calendar invite to join on web or mobile.



Cisco Webex is building an add-on to help users easily schedule meetings right from Google Calendar without requiring a download or plug-in. Arkadin, GoToMeeting, LogMeIn, Dialpad, RingCentral, Vidyo and Vonage are also building add-ons to help them more easily meet with their customers. These third-party conferencing add-ons will be available in the G Suite Marketplace in the coming months with details to come for developers.

You might have seen that we made it easier to view schedule availability across Google Calendar and Microsoft Exchange last year. Building on this, we’re also announcing a way for you to book resources like rooms, equipment and more in Microsoft Exchange. If you use G Suite, you’ll be able to easily view and book resources stored in Exchange and Office 365 in the coming months.

Work with teams outside of your domain in Hangouts Chat

After you get the right people in the room with the right setup, it’s important to be able to share information in real time during your meetings—even with folks who may not be in your company. In the coming months, you’ll be able to include people from outside of your organization in Chat, making it easy to stay aligned with clients, vendors, partners and others, all from one place.

Resuelve—a consumer debt management business based in Mexico—uses guest access in Chat to connect with people outside of their organization, particularly as they look to grow their presence in additional regions. "Hangouts Chat has been crucial to our company's ability to expand into other markets,” says Jordi Adame, Chief Technology Officer of Resuelve. “It’s helped our internal teams be productive and we're looking forward to connecting with people outside of our organization in a similarly efficient way.”

New SAP integrations with Google Sheets

Companies often have critical business data in their SAP systems. In an upcoming SAP release, employees will be able to discover additional insights from their ERP content by importing it directly into Google Sheets. With this new integration, you can skip manually exporting data to CSVs and uploading them to Drive. Instead, export directly to Sheets and analyze data with tools like intelligent pivot tables. You can also skip tedious formatting by recording macros in Sheets, making it easier to streamline business processes and share information across teams right away.



Looking ahead

In the coming months, you’ll be able to join conferences on Hangouts Meet from your existing meeting room hardware, book rooms from Microsoft Exchange in Google Calendar and collaborate with folks outside of your domain in Hangouts Chat. You’ll also start to see integrations with Google Sheets in an upcoming SAP release, too.

Learn more about how your business’ technology can co-exist with G Suite. Visit the Next ‘18 website to register.