Last October, Mozilla Corporation announced that it would end support for browser pluginsin its Firefox 52 release in order to ensure better browser performance, security and improved user experience. Because Google Hangouts in Firefox currently relies on browser plugins to enable video and audio calls, users of Hangouts will not be able to make audio or video calls in the upcoming Firefox 52 release. Google is actively working to develop a solution that will enable Hangouts to work in Firefox without a plugin. In the meantime, we recommend you take the following steps to minimize any future impact before the Firefox 52 release scheduled for March 7.

Recommended next steps
Using chat on Hangouts will continue to work for Firefox users; however, if you need to make phone or video calls from Hangouts, we encourage you and your employees to temporarily switch to one of the supported browsers below:

• Mozilla Firefox ESR: Download
• Google Chrome: Download
• Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE): Download
• Safari: Download

We will publish a follow-up announcement once we have a fix in place that will support Hangouts on Firefox again.

Launch Details
Release track:
Launching to both Rapid release and Scheduled release after March 7

Editions:
Affects all G Suite editions using Mozilla Firefox

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

Impact:
All end users on Mozilla Firefox

Action:
Change management suggested/FYI

More Information
Help Center

Launch release calendar
Launch detail categories
Get these product update alerts by email
Subscribe to the RSS feed of these updates

Last year, we launched the ability to create and share short links to Hangouts group chats. This allows your team to opt-in to a chat, rather than having to invite people one by one. Today, we're streamlining how you create group chats to make it easier to create group chats for projects or teams. In the improved flow, you can now name your group chats more easily when you are creating a group chat. Once the group chat has a name, this allows you to create "placeholder" group chats which you can then share with a link.



These improvements will be in available all three Hangouts user interfaces on the web. In Hangouts in Gmail, a "+" button will be available next to your contacts list in Hangouts. In hangouts.google.com and in the Chrome extension, you'll see a "New conversation" option. By clicking "New group" or "New conversation" you can name the group, start adding members, or both.



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


Launch release calendar
Launch detail categories
Get these product update alerts by email
Subscribe to the RSS feed of these updates

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.


Provide your information here to learn more about these Early Adopter Programs when they launch.

*Note: the Team Drives EAP will be available to G Suite Business and G Suite for Education customers only.


Launch release calendar
Launch detail categories
Get these product update alerts by email
Subscribe to the RSS feed of these updates

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 12, 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 cfm-support@google.com.

Launch Details
Release track:
Launch to both Rapid release and Scheduled release planned for October 12, 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

Launch release calendar
Launch detail categories
Get these product update alerts by email
Subscribe to the RSS feed of these updates

Google offers its Google Apps customers useful and simple-to-use video chat features to make communication better. Whether communicating changes to remote teams, presenting demos to stakeholders, or just getting things done quicker in real time, screen sharing is an effective way to present content to your audience. That’s why we’re excited to roll out a new integration between Google Chrome and Google Hangouts that makes screen sharing from your Chrome browser to a Google Hangout easier than ever before.

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.

We are pleased to announce that we are adding new Hangouts metrics to the Reports API (part of the Admin SDK). These new metrics can be used to track video calls by platform. The new metrics that are being added are listed below:

• gplus.num_video_calls_android
• gplus.num_video_calls_cfm
• gplus.num_video_calls_ios
• gplus.num_video_calls_web
• gplus.total_video_call_minutes_android
• gplus.total_video_call_minutes_cfm
• gplus.total_video_call_minutes_ios
• gplus.total_video_call_minutes_web
• gplus.num_video_conferences_android
• gplus.num_video_conferences_cfm
• gplus.num_video_conferences_ios
• gplus.num_video_conferences_mobile
• gplus.num_video_conferences_web

In addition, Apps admins may notice a change in numbers for Google+ active users. A number of Google+ components and integrations (Hangouts, YouTube Comments, and Photos, for example) have been unbundled from the core Google+ product. The new metrics reflect users of Google+ only. Google+ activity metrics that are impacted with this change are below:

• gplus.num_1day_active_users
• gplus.num_7day_active_users
• gplus.num_30day_active_users

The above changes will be rolled out starting today to all Google Apps domains. To find out more on these new metrics, check our updated developer documentation.


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

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

Impact:
All end users

Action:
Change management suggested/FYI

More Information
Google Apps Admin SDK
Updated Developer Documentation

Note: all launches are applicable to all Google Apps editions unless otherwise noted

Launch release calendar
Launch detail categories
Get these product update alerts by email
Subscribe to the RSS feed of these updates

Share your group chats with short links

Group chat participants can now share a link to invite others to join the chat. This is particularly useful for onboarding new team members to a project, or to reach everyone in a mailing list. Rather than adding everyone at once, people can opt-in to the group chat.


Search for groups from your Google Hangouts contacts list

In order to make it easier to get to your group chats, you can also easily find your group conversations by searching for the group name or participant name.
Additional controls to manage group chat access

When team members leave a project, it may be necessary to remove them from group chats. Now, anyone who is directly invited to a chat will be able to remove others from the group chat, removing that person’s access to the chat history and notifying the group participants. Only by being directly invited back by someone already in the group, can the former member rejoin the chat.
Note for Administrators

These Google Hangouts changes to group chats will continue to follow the administrative controls you’ve set in the Admin console. You can learn more in this Help Center article.

Link sharing and removing from groups on Google Hangouts is now available on all platforms. Group search is already available on Android and will be coming to the web and iOS soon. Finally, we’re looking at additional ways to make group conversations even better in the future, so please stay tuned.


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

Google Hangouts video calls make it easy to connect and interact to get things done. With today’s update, to make it easier to connect with more people, we’re raising the participant limit for Hangouts video calls from 15 to 25 for Google Apps customers.

To help ensure a high quality experience on a variety of computers, only the 10 most active video call participants will have their video feeds visible at the bottom of the screen at any given time.

No action is required to make use of this new participant limit. Check out the Help Center for more information on Hangouts video calls.

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

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

Impact:
All end users

Action:
Change management suggested/FYI

More Information 
Help Center


Note: all launches are applicable to all Google Apps editions unless otherwise noted

Launch release calendar
Launch detail categories
Get these product update alerts by email
Subscribe to the RSS feed of these updates