Last year, we started the gradual rollout of the new Google Drive UI as the default user experience for Rapid release Google Apps customers, while retaining the ability to return to the old Drive UI via the Settings drop down. After pausing the rollout to work on some performance improvements, the rollout was resumed and completed earlier this month.
For Scheduled release customers, the rollout of the new Google Drive UI as the default user experience will occur in early-April (currently planned for April 7, as per the release calendar).
In the first half of May at the earliest, we’ll remove the option to return to the old Drive UI via the Settings drop down. At least two weeks before the removal of the option to return to the old Drive UI, we will show a notification in the Drive UI about the upcoming change.
Please note that the new Drive UI does not work with older unsupported browsers prior to and including Chrome 23, Firefox 23, IE9 and Safari 6, so it’s important to upgrade to a supported browser to ensure continued access to Drive.
Release track:Opt-out experience coming to Scheduled release in early-April (planned for April 7); Removal of the ability to return to the old Drive UI planned for no sooner than early-May for Rapid release domains, with Scheduled domains to follow two weeks later.
See the release calendar for specific dates for the removal of the option to return to the old Drive UI, as they may shift out further. Additional comms to follow.
For more information:
Help Center
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When it comes to sharing Google Drive content outside of your domain, whether giving marketing materials to your design agency or inventory lists to your caterer, you want to make sure they can see it―whether they use Drive or not.
With today’s launch, Google Apps admins now have the option in the Admin console to allow Drive content to be viewed by recipients outside of their domain, without them having to sign-in with a Google account.
This feature will be defaulted off at launch. It can be enabled in the Admin console at: Apps > Google Apps > Drive > Sharing settings.
Check out the Help Center for more details on enabling this feature.
Release track:Rapid release and Scheduled release
For more information:Help Center
Google for Work blog post
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Different departments have different needs when it comes to sharing content outside of your domain. You might, for example, have a research department that needs to keep information confidential and a sales team that needs to share presentations with their clients.
With today’s launch, Google Apps admins now have the flexibility to choose Drive sharing permissions based on organizational unit (OU), as you currently can with other apps like Gmail and Calendar.
To enable Drive sharing at the OU-level in the Admin console, click on: Apps > Google Apps > Drive > Sharing settings.
Note: this feature is available for Google Drive for Work and Google Apps for Education customers only
Release track:Rapid release and Scheduled release
For more information:Help Center
Google for Work blog post
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People using Google Sheets will now have more powerful conditional formatting options. This launch will add the following features:- Ability to add gradient conditional formatting rules (e.g. green -> orange, where the lowest numbers are shaded green and the highest are shaded orange, with gradient shades in between)
- More style choices like bolding, striking through, and italicizing text based on conditional formatting rules
- A new look for the conditional formatting editing pane
- Import/export of color scale conditional formatting
Conditional formatting can be added by highlighting the relevant cells and selecting Format > Conditional formatting from the menus.Release track:Rapid release and Scheduled release
For more information:
Help Center
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Google Drive allows you to store and access your files anywhere—on the web, on your hard drive, or on the go. We’re now making it easier to store and organize your photos and videos in Google Drive as well.
Moving forward, people using Google+ Photos will see their photos and videos automatically in Google Drive. They will appear in a new menu item called Google Photos, and can be shared, moved, and renamed like any other Drive file:This feature will start rolling out for consumers today in Drive for Android, iOS and the web, and will roll out gradually to Apps customers in the coming weeks. A notification in Drive will give people the option to add a Google Photos folder to My Drive, allowing them to manage their photos and videos alongside other types of files if they so choose. Existing Google+ Photos users will notice their photos and videos available in Drive in the coming weeks.
Note: photos and videos that do count against quota that are backed up to Drive via Auto Backup will only count once against a storage limit, but Apps users may want to review their Google+ Photos Auto Backup settings to avoid inadvertent syncing to their corporate Drive account.
See the Help Center for more information on organizing, syncing and deletion options.
Release track:Rapid release (gradual rollout) starting in the coming weeks, with Scheduled release to follow two weeks after rollout to Rapid. See the release calendar for specific dates as they are available.
For more information:Help CenterGet the latest Google Drive apps from Google Play and the App StoreDrive blog post
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A new version of the Gmail app for Android is now available on Google Play. New features include:- All your inboxes in one place―view all your mail at once, regardless of whether it’s from your work or personal accounts, using the new “All Inboxes” option. This way you can read and respond to all your messages without having to hop between accounts.
- Conversation View―if you’ve set up separate inboxes in Gmail for your Yahoo, Outlook.com and other IMAP/POP accounts, messages in these accounts will appear neatly stacked as one conversation, just like your Gmail messages.
- Smarter Search―searching in the Gmail app for Android now comes with better auto-complete, so you can find what you need even faster.
- Other helpful features―larger attachment previews to help you see what’s inside, the ability to save to Drive with a single tap, and new animations that make opening and closing conversations more smooth.
Note: The search auto-complete feature is not available for Google Apps for Government customers
Release track:Rapid release and Scheduled release
For more information:
Get the latest Gmail app for Android on Google Play
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Complex businesses can require multiple Google Apps domain instances to meet their needs. Previously, certain domain management functionality was restricted to primary domains only, making managing multiple domains a bit cumbersome. With today’s launch, we’re extending several key features to secondary domains to make managing multiple domain instances more seamless:- Custom app URLs―make it easy for people in any of your domains to find your core Google Apps services by creating custom web addresses to each service. For example, mail.primarydomain.com or mail.secondarydomain.com.
- Web address mapping―have your Google Sites appear under custom URLs for all of your domains, such as hr.yourdomain.com, hr.yourdomain.in or hr.yourdomain.fr.
- Group renaming―create a Google Group in a primary domain and move it to a secondary domain. For example, rename the group users@yourdomain.in to users@yourdomain.fr.
Check out the Help Center links below for more information.
Release track:Rapid release and Scheduled release
For more information:Custom app urlsWeb address mappingGroup renaming
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Over the past few years, we’ve been updating our APIs with new versions across Drive and Calendar, as well as those used for managing Google Apps for Work domains. These new APIs offered developers several improvements over older versions of the API. With each of these introductions, we also announced the deprecation of a set of corresponding APIs.
As per previous reminders, the deprecation period for these APIs is coming to an end. As of April 20, 2015, we will discontinue these deprecated APIs. Calls to these APIs and any features in your application that depend on them will not work after April 20th.
| Discontinued API | Replacement API |
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| | No replacement available |
In the coming weeks, we’ll be contacting domain administrators whose applications are still using these deprecated APIs with a final reminder email and guidance on specific migration paths.
*Note that since our last reminder, where we recommended the Email Migration API v2 as the replacement for the Email Migration API v1, the Gmail API has been announced as the replacement for both Email Migration APIs (v1 and v2).
Email Migration API v2 will be turned down on November 1, 2015, and we recommend starting the process of switching to the Gmail API. To aid you with this effort, we've put together this migration guide. For those who may have recently migrated from Email Migration API v1 (set to be turned down on April 20, 2015) to Email Migration API v2, note that the migration to Gmail API should require relatively minimal effort.
Release track:Rapid release and Scheduled release
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Today we’re announcing a new feature that will allow Google Apps admins to automatically notify their users of any newly installed app from Google Apps Marketplace. After installing a Marketplace app from the Admin console, admins will have an opportunity to choose whether to send a notification to their users to inform them about the newly available app:
The notification will only appear to the people in the OU or domain for which the app has been installed. The notification will appear in each person’s Notification Center and will describe how to access and launch the app:
Note that for domains not currently using Google+ and potentially unfamiliar with this kind of notification, the Notification Center icon will appear in the Google One Bar whether admins opt to utilize the post-install notification feature or not. This area will be used for notifications from other Google Apps moving forward, so admins may want to inform their users of this UI change in advance of this launch.
This new feature will be gradually rolled out to all domains starting the week of March 30th.
Release track:Rapid release and Scheduled release (gradual rollout), starting the week of March 30th
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Last year we launched add-ons, tools created by developer partners that provide even more helpful features in your documents, spreadsheets and forms. Previously, the ability to install add-ons was controlled centrally by Google Apps admins in the Admin console, but users retained ultimate control of choosing which individual add-ons to install or remove.
Today we’re releasing a couple of updates to help developers share their add-ons with an even wider audience and give Google Apps admins more consistent control over which add-ons are used in their organizations.
Developers can now choose to make their add-ons for Docs, Sheets and Forms available for installation across entire domains, which automatically creates a Google Apps Marketplace listing that is easy for customers to find. Admins can then install these handy add-ons for their whole organization using just a couple of clicks.
Admins will continue to have a “disable add-ons” option for their users, but they can also whitelist add-ons via the Google Apps Marketplace for their entire domain or a specific team. Check out the Help Center for details on the available options.
Keep in mind that it will take some time for add-on developers to publish their apps for domain-wide installation, so you might not find all your favorite add-ons in the Apps Marketplace yet.
Note: this launch will not impact existing add-on installation settings.
Release track:Rapid release and Scheduled release
For more information:Help Center
Google for Work blog post
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