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What’s changing 
We’re launching new APIs in beta to help better identify, audit, and understand indirect group membership (also known as ‘transitive’ or ‘nested’ group membership, see explanation below). The indirect membership visibility, membership hierarchy, and check APIs are part of the Cloud Identity Groups API and enable you to: 
These APIs are currently available as an open beta, which means you can use it without enrolling in a specific beta program. Use our API documentation to learn more. 



Who’s impacted 
Admins and developers 



Why it’s important 
These features will help provide all of the information you need to create visualization of complex group structures and hierarchies. Having this kind of membership visibility can help you make decisions about who to add to or remove from your groups. 


Customers often use groups to manage access to content and resources within their organization. Using ‘nested’ groups is common as it can decrease duplication, simplify administration, and centralize access management. 


However, nested groups can create a complex hierarchy that can make it hard to understand who ultimately has access to content or resources and why they have access. These APIs simplify finding out these answers by making it easier to identify the direct and indirect members for a group. Some use cases include: 
  • A security team can quickly identify all group memberships and associated nested memberships when a bad actor account is identified. 
  • An admin could perform a deep-dive on group structure for audit and compliance. By using the APIs to list and validate direct and indirect members for groups with many nested groups. 
  • A developer could extract group information via the API and feed it to a visualization tool that supports DOT format to make auditing and visualizing complex nested structures easier. 


Additional details 
Indirect memberships, also known as transitive memberships, come from ‘nested’ groups. Nested groups refer to situations where groups are members of other groups. As a result, users in the sub-group are members of both groups. For example, group Y is a member of group X. Users in group Y are direct members of group Y and indirect members of group X. 


Getting started 
Rollout pace 
  • This feature is available now for all users in beta. 
Availability 
  • Available to Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Enterprise for Education, and Cloud Identity Premium customers 
  • Not available to Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, and Business Plus, as well as G Suite Basic, Business, Education, and Nonprofits customers
Resources 
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Quick launch summary 
You can now mark conversations as favorites in new Google Groups. To mark an item as a favorite, simply click the star icon. You can access starred conversations from the left-hand navigation menu, making them quick and easy to find. When you star an item, it appears as a favorite in your account only. It doesn't appear as a favorite for anyone else. 

This feature was available in classic Groups, but until now it was not available in new Groups. Learn more about new Groups and the transition from classic Groups. 

Getting started 
  • Admins: This feature will be ON by default. There is no admin control for this feature. 
  • End users: Visit the Help Center to learn more about how to mark groups and posts as favorites. 



Rollout pace 

Availability 
  • Available to Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, and Enterprise Plus, as well as G Suite Basic, Business, Education, Enterprise for Education, and Nonprofits customers, and users with personal Google Accounts 

Resources 
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What’s changing 
Dynamic groups let you create a group with membership that is automatically kept up to date with a membership query. Dynamic groups can be based on one or many user attributes, including addresses, locations, organizations, and relations. You can manage dynamic groups in the Cloud Identity Groups API and the Admin console. 

Dynamic groups is currently available as an open beta, which means you can use it without enrolling in a specific beta program. 


Who’s impacted 
Admins and developers with group create and user read privileges. 


Why you’d use it 
Dynamic groups work the same as other Google Groups with the added benefit that their memberships are automatically kept up-to-date. This means you can use them for the same functions, including for distribution lists, access-control list (ACL) management, and more. By automating membership management you can increase security, reduce errors, and alleviate user frustration while minimizing the burden on admins. 

Here are some examples of how you can use dynamic groups. You can create groups of: 
  • All users based in your New York office, which you can then use for email communications related to that office location. 
  • All engineers, which you can then use to provide access to specific tools. 


Additional details 
At launch, you won’t be able to manage policies such as context-aware access policies using dynamic groups. Once available, you will be able to create a dynamic group which you could then use to manage specific context-aware access policies. We are working on adding this functionality in the future, and will announce it on the G Suite Updates blog when it’s available. 


Getting started 


Rollout pace 
  • This feature is available now for all eligible users. 
Availability 
  • Available to G Suite Enterprise, G Suite Enterprise for Education, and Cloud Identity Premium customers 
  • Not available to G Suite Essentials, G Suite Basic, G Suite Business, G Suite for Education, G Suite for Nonprofits, and Cloud Identity Free customers 
Resources 
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What’s changing 
We’re adding the ability to set expirations for group memberships using the Cloud Identity Groups API. This enables admins to set an amount of time that users are members of a group. Once the specified time has passed, users will be removed from the group automatically. 

Membership expiry is currently available as an open beta, which means you can use it without enrolling in a specific beta program. 


Who’s impacted 
Admins and developers 


Why it’s important 
Groups are a powerful way to manage permissions and access control in your organization.In many cases,, there’s a known amount of time that a user should be a member of a group. This can make managing membership time consuming, and increases the possibility that a user has overly-broad access. 

Automatic membership expiration can help reduce the administrative overhead for managing groups, and can help ensure group membership is limited to the members that need access. This can help: 
  • Increase security by ensuring users do not have long lived membership in groups, and that your group memberships don’t become too expansive. 
  • Manage security groups by using group membership with our recent launch of security groups. 
  • Reduce admin time and administration costs by automating some group management tasks 
Getting started 
Rollout pace 
  • This feature is available now for all users. 
Availability 
  • Available to G Suite Enterprise, G Suite Enterprise for Education, and Cloud Identity Premium customers 
  • Not available to G Suite Basic, G Suite Business, G Suite for Education, G Suite for Nonprofits, G Suite Essentials, and Cloud Identity Free customers 
Resources 
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Quick launch summary 
We recently announced betas for two new features related to service accounts. Now, these features are generally available: 
  • Support for service accounts in Google Groups, which makes it easier to use service accounts with groups while increasing security and transparency. Learn more. 
  • Use service accounts with Google Groups APIs without domain-wide delegation, which enables service accounts to perform critical business processes without compromising your strong security and compliance posture. Learn more. 

Groups are a critical tool for customers to manage their G Suite deployment. Many customers use service accounts with Groups to automate user management, manage migrations, and integrate G Suite with other apps, tools, and services. Use the announcements linked above to learn more about the features and how you can use them. 

Learn more about these and other launches in our Security Blog post highlighting 10 new security and management controls for security at scale. 

Service accounts in Google Groups 

Getting started 
Rollout pace 
Availability 
  • Available to all G Suite customers 
Resources 
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Quick launch summary 
We’re updating the interface admins use to manage Google Groups for Business in their organizations. Google Groups for Business settings let admins control how Google Groups can be created and used within their domains. All the same settings will be available in the new interface, but the structure will be revamped to make it easier to find and change settings. 

In addition, we’re adding Groups information to the Admin audit log, which will enable admins to see when and by whom settings were changed. 

A new look for Groups for Business settings 

Groups information is now in the admin audit log 


Getting started 
  • Admins: You’ll see the new interface by default when you go to Admin console > Apps > G Suite > Groups for Business. Visit the Help Center to learn more about managing Groups for your organization. 
  • End users: No end-user impact. 

Rollout pace 
Availability 
  • Available to all G Suite customers 
Resources Roadmap 
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What’s changing 
Earlier this year, we made the new Google Groups generally available. Since then, it’s been the default version of Groups, but admins could turn off the new interface for their users via an Admin console setting. 

Starting on September 15, 2020, we will make new Groups the default for all users. When this happens:
Visit our Help Center for more information on new Groups and the transition from classic Groups. 


Who’s impacted 
Admins and end users 


Why it’s important 
New Groups has a more efficient and streamlined user interface, which makes it easier for users to create and manage groups. See our previous announcement for a full overview of the new Groups experience. In that announcement, we noted that some features in classic Groups were not yet available in new Groups. Since then, we’ve listened to your feedback and recently launched several highly requested features, including: 
We’re working to add more soon. See the Help Center for the full list of features we’re planning to launch, and follow the G Suite Updates blog for launch announcements. 


Additional details 
Planning for a complete migration to new Groups 

We’re planning to migrate all users to new Groups at a future date. At that time, classic Groups will no longer be available. We’ll announce this change on the G Suite Updates blog at least three weeks before it takes place. Note that you can use the Help Center to see a list of the features that we don’t plan to add to new Groups before this migration. 


Getting started 
  • Admins: The Admin console setting to turn off new Groups for your users will be removed. There will no longer be a way for you to require your users to use classic Groups. Visit the Help Center to learn more about new Groups and the transition from classic Groups. 
  • End users: End users will see new Groups by default when they go to groups.google.com, but can revert to classic Groups at any time. Visit the Help Center to learn how to go back to classic Groups. If users were already using new Groups there will be no change to their experience with this change. 
Rollout pace 
Availability 
  • Available to all G Suite customers
Resources 
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What’s changing 
We’re making security groups available in beta. Security groups help you easily regulate, audit, and monitor groups used for permission and access control purposes. They enable admins to: 
  • Apply a label to any existing Google Group to distinguish it from email-list groups. 
  • Provide strong guarantees that: 
    • External groups (owned outside your organization) and non-security groups cannot be added as a member of a security group. 
    • Security labels, once assigned to a group, cannot be removed. 
Soon, you’ll be able to use more granular admin roles to separate administration of security and non-security groups. Keep an eye on the G Suite Updates blog for an announcement when that rolls out. 


Who’s impacted 
Admins and developers 


Why you’d use it 
Groups are used in a variety of ways. This can include groups that help teams communicate and collaborate, as well as groups that control access to important apps and resources. Security groups can help customers manage these categories of groups differently to increase their overall security posture. 

For example, if you have compliance or regulatory requirements for managing access control, you may have set up naming conventions to keep track of which groups were used for this purpose. With security groups, you can now assign a security label to these groups and more easily manage them without having to use workarounds like naming conventions. 


Getting started 
Rollout pace 
  • This feature is available now for all users in beta. 
Availability 
  • Available to all G Suite customers 
Resources 
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What’s changing 
We’re adding full support for service accounts in Groups in beta. This builds on our recent announcements of a new Cloud Identity Groups API beta and the ability to use service accounts with Groups APIs without domain-wide delegation. With this launch, you can now: 
  • Add service accounts from primary and secondary domains without turning the “Allow external members in the group” setting on. 
  • See the service account member type on the Groups page and audit logs in the Admin console. 
  • Add, remove, and manage service account membership via the Admin console and Cloud Identity Groups API. 


Who’s impacted 
Admins and developers 


Why it’s important 
Groups are a critical tool for customers to manage their G Suite deployment. Many customers use service accounts with Groups to automate user management, manage migrations, and integrate G Suite with other apps, tools, and services. 

Until now, it was difficult to use service accounts in groups due to limitations in the functionality. This launch fixes many challenges and makes it easier to use service accounts with groups while increasing security and transparency. 



Additional details 
The feature does not affect Admin SDK Group APIs. 



Getting started 


Rollout pace 
  • This feature is available now for all users. 
Availability 
  • Available to all G Suite customers 
Resources 
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What’s changing 
Service accounts can now have direct access to Groups APIs without needing domain-wide delegation and admin impersonation. This means you can: 

Who’s impacted 
Admins and developers 


Why it’s important 
Using service accounts with Groups can help provide sufficient data access for business apps and enable the automation of various admin tasks. 

Previously, you had to use domain-wide delegation and admin impersonation to provide service accounts with sufficient data access. This was a cumbersome process, which could result in overly broad privileges for the service account and audit logs that were hard to interpret. 

By enabling direct API access, we’re making it easier to use service accounts to enable critical business apps and processes while making it easier to maintain a strong security and compliance posture. 


Getting started 
Rollout pace 
  • API role assignments: This feature is available now for all users 
  • Admin console roles page updates: Rapid and Scheduled release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on August 26, 2020 
  • Service account API access: This feature is available now for all users 
Availability 
  • Available to all G Suite customers 
Resources 
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What’s changing 
We're launching two features in new Google Groups:
  • Collaborative Inboxes, which can be used by teams to collaborate on messages received by a group, such as a customer support team managing support queries from customers. 
  • Shared labels, which can help organize group conversations and enable you to filter and search for messages. This replaces tags and categories in classic Groups. 

Who’s impacted 
End users 


Why it’s important 
These features were available in classic Groups, but until now were not available in new Groups. We hope that adding them to the new experience will enable more users to use the new and improved interface in Groups. 


Additional details 

Collaborative Inboxes 
Using Groups as a Collaborative Inbox can be useful if you want to use a group as a mailing list for a team, where different team members can see, manage, and respond to messages sent to the group. For example, you could have a Collaborative Inbox for your support team, so the team could all see inquiries to your support email address. Once inquiries are received, team members can assign each other tasks, categorize topics with labels, and mark topics as resolved. Collaborative Inboxes in new Groups enables:
  • Advanced search, including for conversation status 
  • Filtering, including quick filters for conversation status or to help users find conversations assigned to themselves, others, or that are unassigned 

Existing collaborative inboxes will be accessible in the new Groups experience. New and existing groups can be changed to a Collaborative Inbox via Groups settings. 



Labels 
Labels is a replacement for tags and categories in classic Groups. Any tags currently used in classic Groups will be migrated to new Groups as labels, and the feature will be turned on automatically. Tags that are created under categories will also be migrated over if the Labels feature is enabled in new Groups. Note, categories will not be migrated.

When a message is posted to a group, group owners or managers can label conversations. Labels will appear in the left navigation panel of a group, and any users viewing the group can then search and filter conversations by those labels. This can make it easier to find messages, to see grouped related messages, or to manage workflows within Collaborative Inboxes. 



Getting started 
  • Admins: There is no admin control for this feature. 
  • End users: These features will be OFF by default, but can be turned on for each group by group owners or managers. Visit the Help Center to learn more about Collaborative Inboxes and labels. 
Rollout pace 
Availability 
  • Available to all G Suite customers and to users with personal Google Accounts 
Resources 
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What’s changing 
We’re launching a new Cloud Identity Groups API. This will enable you to create and manage Google Groups and their memberships for your domain via API. Previously, API support for group management was available only via the Admin SDK and therefore was accessible only to domain admins. With this launch, the APIs can be accessed by admins as well as non-admins. Once you create groups via the API, you can view and manage them through the Google Groups web UI (groups.google.com), through the Admin console, or via the API. 

Using the new API you can: 
  • Create and delete groups 
  • See and update group metadata 
  • Add members to and remove members from a group 
  • Modify member roles within a group 
See our developer documentation for more details on how to use the Cloud Identity Groups API. 


Who’s impacted 
Admins, developers, and end users 


Why you’d use it 
Groups are an important tool to manage communication, access, and security for organizations. Adding the ability to create and manage groups via an API can help make group management more scalable and efficient. 


Additional details 
Available to admins, developers, and end users 
Business teams can create and manage groups they own without being granted admin permissions, preventing them from managing additional, unnecessary groups and saving the admin team time. This allows teams to manage their work more efficiently without creating any security risks from assigning admin permissions when they are only needed for this specific task. 


Getting started 
Rollout pace 
  • This feature is available now for all users in beta. 
Availability 
  • Available to all G Suite customers 
Resources 
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Quick launch summary 
Earlier this year, we made new Groups generally available. The new experience featured an updated interface that made it easier to use on desktop devices. Now we’re also improving how new Groups looks when accessing it on a mobile web browser. The modern and streamlined interface matches the look and feel of new Groups on desktop, and makes it easier to complete common tasks, including: 
  • Finding groups by browsing, searching, or going to favorite groups 
  • Managing your membership settings for a group 
  • Reading conversations within a group 
Note that not all group interactions are available on mobile. For example, you can’t post to a group or reply to a conversation on mobile. For full functionality, please use groups on a desktop device. 


Getting started 
Browse, sort, and search for groups on mobile 


Read conversations within a group on mobile 


Manage group membership and browse for groups in the main menu 


Rollout pace 
Availability
  • Available to all G Suite customers and users with personal Google Accounts 
Resources 
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Quick launch summary
When a user joins a Google Group, they’ll now receive an email listing the shared calendars they can access as a result of their group membership—typically within an hour of joining. This will make it much easier for new team members and employees to discover relevant calendars and eliminate the need for existing group members to share those calendars manually.

Example of new shared calendar notification email


Users will also be able to add these shared calendars to their calendar list with just one click.

Note, if a group has more than 100 shared calendars, new members will not receive an email.

Getting started
Admins: There is no admin control for this feature.

End users: This email will be sent by default whenever you join a new Google Group that has associated shared calendars. Visit the Help Center to learn more about sharing your calendar.

Rollout pace
  • Rapid Release domains: Extended rollout (potentially longer than 15 days for feature visibility) starting on July 20, 2020
  • Scheduled Release domains: Extended rollout (potentially longer than 15 days for feature visibility) starting on August 3, 2020
Availability
  • Available to all G Suite customers
Resources
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What’s changing We’re making the new Google Groups generally available - featuring an updated interface and more streamlined controls that make it easier to create, manage, and use. The modern interface is similar to other G Suite apps, such as Gmail, and makes Groups more efficient for new and existing users. It was previously available in beta.

We’ll introduce new Groups according to this timeline:

  • May 26, 2020: Setting to turn new Groups on or off will begin to appear in the Admin console. This setting will be on by default. If turned off, users will not be able to access the new interface. If left on, users will be migrated to the new interface on the dates below. 
  • June 9, 2020: Users in Rapid Release domains will start seeing new Groups, unless their admin has turned it off. Individual users will have the option to revert to classic Groups. 
  • June 23, 2020: Users in Scheduled Release domains will start seeing new Groups, unless their admin has turned it off. Individual users will have the option to revert to classic Groups. 

See more details on these stages and changes below.

Who’s impacted Admins and end users

Why you’d use it New Groups has a more efficient, streamlined UI, which makes it easier for users to create and manage groups. It includes the most used features from the classic interface, along with:

  • Read group conversations and write messages 
  • Consolidated settings for improved navigation 
  • Quick, simplified group creation 
  • New filtering and search options to help you find content quickly 
  • Improved group member management and more 

Use our Help Center to learn more about the improvements in new Groups.

Additional details Features not available in the new Groups UI 
Most commonly used features are available in new Groups, and the new interface will improve the experience of using Groups for most users. However, not all features from classic Groups are currently available, including collaborative inboxes, tags, and categories. Use the Help Center to see which features aren’t available in the new interface. We’re working to add many of these features to new Groups, but organizations and users that rely on these features should continue to use classic Groups for the moment.

We’ll announce when features are added to new Groups on the G Suite Updates blog.

The new Admin console setting to turn new Groups on or off

If you leave new Groups turned ON in the Admin console 

Starting on June 9, we’ll begin redirecting users in Rapid Release domains to the new interface when they visit groups.google.com. On June 23, users in Scheduled release domains will begin seeing the new experience.

Individual users will have the option to revert to the classic UI by going to Settings > Return to classic Google Groups. If they opt-out, they will see the classic interface when they visit Groups next. Users can switch between classic and new Groups as many times as they like.

If you turn new Groups OFF in the Admin console 

If you turn new Groups OFF in the Admin console, your users will not be able to access the new UI and will see the classic interface whenever they go to Google Groups. Note that users who have new Groups turned off by their admin will also not be able to access any new Groups URL, even if they’re sent a direct link by another user that is using the new interface.

If your organization participated in the beta 

Organizations participating in the alpha or beta will start to see the setting to turn new Groups on or off in the Admin console starting on May 26. If an alpha or beta Admin uses the Admin console setting to turn off new Groups, that will take effect within 24 hours. All users currently using new Groups through the beta would be reverted back to classic Groups.

End users at organizations that are part of the alpha or beta program and who are currently using the new interface will continue to see the new user interface throughout, unless their admin turns off new Groups at a domain level.

End users at organizations that are part of the alpha or beta program who have previously reverted to classic Groups will continue to see the old interface, and will have the option to use new Groups if they want.

Getting started 
  • Admins: The new interface will be ON by default and can be disabled at the domain level by going to Admin Console > Apps > G Suite > Groups for Business > New groups. Visit the Help Center to learn more about managing new Google Groups for your organization. 
  • End users: The new interface will be ON by default and can be disabled or enabled by the user on each browser. 
Rollout pace Admin console setting 


End user rollout: 


Availability 
  • Available to all G Suite customers. 

Resources 
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UpdateMarch 30, 2020: We're no longer accepting beta applications. Please stay tuned for an announcement when the new Groups interface becomes generally available.

What’s changing Later this year, we’ll replace the current Google Groups interface with a new experience. Starting today, you can sign up to try the new experience in beta, giving your organization early access to the new UI and a head start on the migration from classic Groups. Use this form to apply for the beta. 

Before applying, please carefully consider the “Additional details” below. Some features that currently exist in Groups will not be available in the beta. If your organization uses those features often, you may want to wait to try new Groups.

Who’s impacted Admins and end users

Why you’d use it The new Groups experience features a modern, fresh look and controls that are streamlined, intuitive, and consistent with other G Suite tools like Gmail. Participation in the beta will allow you to check out the new interface as soon as possible, provide feedback to Google, and prepare your users for future migration.

It’s important to note that we’re continuing to improve on the new Groups experience and some features that currently exist in classic Groups will not be available in the beta. 

Specifically, users in the new Groups beta won’t have access to the following features:
  • Collaborative inboxes
  • Tags and categories
  • Mobile browser experience for new Groups
  • Welcome messages above group conversations
  • Accessing moderated messages
For the complete list of features that will not be available in beta, see our Help Center.


Users will still be able to access features not available in beta features at any time by reverting back to classic Groups. To do so, you can click on the gear at the top right of the page and select “Visit classic Google Groups.” When opted into beta, users can switch between the beta version of Groups and Classic Groups as often as needed. If you feel this will be confusing or disruptive, however, you may not want to apply for the beta.


Reverting back to Classic groups from the New Groups beta

Reverting back to the New Groups beta from Classic Groups

Visit our Help Center for more information on the features available in the new Groups beta.
Additional details
We’ll roll out the new Groups experience in three stages:

  • Beta with the option to revert: If you apply for and are accepted into the beta, your users will be automatically transitioned to the new Groups experience with the option to revert back to the classic Groups UI at any time.
  • General availability (GA) with option to revert: Following the beta, we’ll introduce the new Groups experience to all G Suite customers. We’ll announce the specific date for this GA phase on the G Suite Updates blog at least two weeks in advance, and admins will have the option to control user access to the UI in the Admin console at that time. If an admin doesn’t take action, their users will see the new Groups experience when they visit groups.google.com. Users will have the option to revert back to classic Groups at any time.
  • Mandatory transition to new Groups: Later this year, all users will be migrated to new Groups, and they’ll no longer have the option to revert to classic Groups. Admins will not be able to prevent users from accessing the new Groups UI. We’ll announce the specific date for this transition on the G Suite Updates blog at least one month in advance.

Getting started
Admins:  
  • Complete this form to apply for the beta. You must be a super admin to qualify.
  • If you’re accepted into the beta, you’ll receive an email shortly before your domain is whitelisted. Once your domain is whitelisted, all users in your domain and subdomains will be migrated to the new Groups experience, but they’ll have the option to revert back to classic at any time. Once accepted into the beta, you can use this email template to communicate these changes to your users. 
  • Please note that it may take several weeks for your domain to be whitelisted into the beta.
End users:  
  • If your organization is accepted into the beta, you’ll automatically be transitioned to the new UI. You can revert back to classic Groups at any time.
Availability
  • Available to all G Suite customers
Resources

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What’s changing Consolidated Google Groups audit logs are now available in the G Suite AdminSDK Reports API and GCP Cloud Audit Logs. Specifically you’ll notice:

  • Changes in the G Suite AdminSDK Reports API: We’re introducing a new consolidated log named groups_enterprise, which includes changes to groups and group memberships across all products and APIs. These were previously split across the groups and admin audit logs. 
  • Changes in GCP Cloud Audit Logging: We’re adding Google Groups information to Cloud Audit Logs (CAL) in Stackdriver. See our Cloud Blog post for more details on how this could help GCP customers. Note that this will not change visibility of these logs in the G Suite Admin console - it just adds them to Cloud Audit Logs (CAL) in Stackdriver as well. 


Who’s impacted G Suite and GCP Admins only

Why you’d use it These changes will help improve the security and usability of Groups as an IAM tool by streamlining administration, transparency, and access monitoring.

How to get started 
  • Admins: 
    • Changes in the G Suite AdminSDK Reports API: Get started with the AdminSDK Reports API. 
    • Changes in GCP Cloud Audit Logging: This is an opt-in feature that can be enabled at G Suite Admin console > Company profile > Legal & Compliance > Sharing options. 
  • End users: No action needed. 


Additional details Changes in the G Suite AdminSDK Reports API 
Changes to groups have historically been logged in either the groups or admin audit logs. Changes made in the Google Groups product are logged in the groups log while changes made through admin tools like the Admin console, AdminSDK, and GCDS are logged in the admin log. As part of our efforts to streamline administration and increase transparency, we’re introducing a new consolidated log named groups_enterprise, which includes changes to groups and group memberships across all products and APIs. This new log is now available through the AdminSDK Reports API and will be available in the Admin console in the future.

Changes in GCP Cloud Audit Logging 
Google Groups are the recommended way to grant access to GCP resources when using IAM policies. GCP customers have told us that having group audit logs available in Google Cloud Audit Logs would help streamline security and access monitoring. With that in mind, we’re adding Google Groups information to Cloud Audit Logs (CAL) in Stackdriver. See our Cloud Blog post for more details on how this can help GCP customers.

Helpful links Cloud Blog: Integrated Google Groups Audit Transparency from G Suite to GCP Cloud Audit Logs 
Get started with the G Suite AdminSDK Reports API 

Availability Rollout details 


G Suite editions 
  • Google Groups are available to all G Suite editions. 

On/off by default? 
  • G Suite AdminSDK Reporting API for consolidate group events will be ON by default. 
  • GCP Cloud Audit Logging for groups will be OFF by default and can be enabled at the domain level.


Stay up to date with G Suite launches
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What’s changing Based on your feedback following our previous announcement, Changes to Google Groups settings starting May 6, 2019, we’re making the following changes:


  • Additional improvements to the Groups Settings API to help you plan for and manage the changes (see more details below). 
  • “Post as the group” will remain a separate setting - it will not be merged as we previously stated. 
  • “New member posts are moderated” will remain an option for moderation - it will not be deprecated as we previously stated. 
  • “Take topics” will be merged into the content metadata settings. 


To help you plan for these changes, we’re also sharing a Google Sheet which can help identify what the new settings will be for a group. In addition, we’re changing the rollout schedule so the new settings will start to take effect in Scheduled Release domains on June 3, four weeks after Rapid Release domains.

Use our Help Center to see details of these changes and see how you can prepare for the update.

Who’s impacted Admins and end users

Why you’d use it We hope these resources will help you better understand and prepare for the changes to Groups settings.

How to get started 


Additional details Groups API improvements 
On March 25th, 2019, we’ll be updating the Groups Settings API. These updates align the API with the product changes we’re making (outlined in our previous announcement and this post) and mean it’s easier to use the API to prepare. API updates include:


  • All settings that are to-be merged will be exposed via the API. This means you can audit your current groups via API, and make changes to ensure new settings are inferred as you want them to be. 
  • New merged settings will be exposed via the API. This means you can query the new merged settings and ensure they are going to be inferred as expected. Note that It will be read-only (i.e. inferred value) until launch, at which point it will also support write. 
  • New bit for custom roles exposed. If you use custom roles, API queries may return incorrect values. The new bit will highlight if a group uses custom roles for one of the merged settings and so will help you identify groups that require manual review. 
  • New bit for collaborative inbox exposed. We will expose a new bit that represents whether collaborative inbox will be enabled for a group. If you expect your group to have collaborative inbox functionality (e.g. topic assignment), ensure that this bit is true. You may do this by enabling any of the collaborative inbox features. Note that it will be read-only (i.e. inferred value) until launch, at which point it will also support write. 
  • New bit for who can discover group exposed. We will expose a new bit that represents who the group will be visible to. This setting will replace show in group directory. Note that it will be read-only (i.e. inferred value) until launch, at which point it will also support write. 


See our Cloud blog post for more details on these API changes and how to use them.

“Post as the group” will not be merged into the content moderator setting 
Previously we stated that this setting would be merged. However, you told us that it was valuable and we should keep it separate, so we’re updating the plans and will not merge it.

“New member posts are moderated” will continue to be supported. 
The “New member posts are moderated” setting, exposed in the API as MODERATE_NEW_MEMBERS, will continue to be supported as a value for moderation.

“Take topics” will be merged with content metadata 
We previously suggested that “Take topics” would remain a standalone setting. However, this will now be merged as part of the content metadata settings.

New worksheet to help visualize changes
We’ve created this Google Sheet which will show you what the new settings will be for any group if you input the current settings. This can help you check the settings will be inferred as you want them.
Helpful links 


Availability Rollout details 


G Suite editions 
Available to all G Suite editions.

On/off by default? 
This feature will be ON by default.
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What’s changing In May 2019, we’ll make some changes to the settings in Google Groups. In response to your ongoing feedback, we are updating Groups’ settings to make it easier for you and your users to manage and configure groups. Specifically, we will remove settings and features that are rarely used, and combine settings that cover similar functionality. These changes will affect the groups.google.com interface and also the APIs used to manage groups.

Your existing groups may be affected by the upcoming settings changes. When the changes take effect, we’ll update the settings for existing groups. These updates may change how groups can be accessed and used.

Use this Help Center article to see details of these changes and see how you can prepare for the update.

The changes will start to roll out on May 6, and may take up to 15 days to reach all domains.

Who’s impacted Admins and end users

Why you’d take action Some users who are not group owners or group managers but who currently have access to specific group management features may lose that access. We recommend you audit groups in your organization and adjust the settings before May 6 to make sure these users don’t lose access.

When the new settings take effect:
  • Existing group settings will be updated to conform to the new controls available. 
  • Group owners will still be able to change the settings that apply to their group at any point. 
  • New groups will be subject to the same default controls that they are today. 


How to get started 
Additional details In the next few days, users will see an in-product message about the upcoming changes when they use Groups. The message will direct them to the Help Center for an overview of the changes and change timeline.

Most groups will be affected in some way by these changes. You can use the Groups API to get a list of all groups and get a list of group owners in your organization, which might help you prepare for the changes.

Helpful links 
Availability Rollout details 
  • Rapid Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on May 6, 2019 
  • Scheduled Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on May 6, 2019 G Suite editions Available to all G Suite editions On/off by default? This feature will be ON by default. 

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Contacts hovercards provide lots of useful information about the people within your organization. We’ve heard from you that you’d like better visibility into Google Groups across G Suite, so we’re adding more information to these hovercards when the contact itself is a group.




When you mouse over the name of a group in Gmail, you’ll now be able to see essential information, like group members, as well as take some actions, such as:

  • Schedule an event with the group
  • Email the group
  • See more members
You can also select “More info,” which will take you to the Groups membership details page on groups.google.com. The group members will only appear on the hovercard if the user has permission to view them. This functionality will be added to other G Suite apps in the future.

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

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