It can be difficult, not to mention time-consuming, to navigate lengthy, complex documents. To make that process easier, today we’re launching an outline tool in Google Docs on the web and Android. Displayed in a pane to the left of the page, this outline features headers for each section of your document, making it simple to quickly jump from section to section. If you haven’t manually applied headers, no worries—we’ll do it for you, intelligently detecting the logical divisions within your work. You can then edit or remove these headers as necessary.



This launch will also allow you to move through documents on your Android phone or tablet at super speeds. When you begin scrolling on your mobile device, a small navigation handle will automatically appear. Touching that handle will display the entire document’s structure, allowing you quickly skip from section to section, instead of slowly swiping up and down.



To surface an outline in your document, simply click Tools > Document outline in Docs on your computer or select Document outline from the overflow menu on your Android device. Check out the Help Center article below for more details.

Launch Details
Release track:
Mobile features: Launching to both Rapid release and Scheduled release
Desktop features: Launching to Rapid release, with Scheduled release coming in two weeks

Rollout pace:
Full rollout (1–3 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

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Posted by Saurabh Gupta, Product Manager, Google Apps Script 

(Cross-posted on Google Apps Developer Blog)

There are two ways to send email in Apps Script: MailApp's sendEmail and GmailApp's sendEmail method. One of the differences between these two methods is that the MailApp’s sendEmail method doesn’t require the developer to be a Gmail user. For example, a Google Apps customer who doesn’t use Gmail, but uses Apps Script instead, can send emails through MailApp but not GmailApp. 

Starting on September 13, 2016, users with free public Google Accounts (consumers) and Google Apps for Education and Google Apps Free edition users, will be required to have Gmail access to send messages through Apps Script’s Mail Service. Consumers can enable Gmail on their Google account after signing-in—note your Gmail will then become the primary address of your Google account. Administrators of Google Apps domains (Education and Free edition only) can use the Admin console to turn on Gmail for their domain.

This change does not require any updates to your code. You can continue to use MailApp as before; just make sure that you have signed up for Gmail. We realize that sometimes these changes are disruptive to our developers, but we can assure you that we put lot of care and deliberation into this process.


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EPUB is the most widely supported file format for publishing accessible documents and digital books, allowing people to consume long-form content in their preferred apps on a diverse range of screen sizes and devices, including smartphones, tablets, and eReaders. To make it easier for authors, publishers, and academic institutions to create works that can be consumed digitally, today we’re launching the ability to export Google Docs files as EPUB publications. Simply go to the File menu > Download as > EPUB Publication (.epub).



Check out the Help Center for more information.

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
Help Center: Download a file

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

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A new version (v4.2.0) of Google Apps Directory Sync (GADS) is now available:

What’s New 

• API update 
• GADS now uses the latest version of the Admin SDK Calendar Resource API. 
• Replace primary domain name with secondary domain name 
• Added new feature to enable administrators to replace the primary Google Apps domain name with a secondary domain name for all GADS operations. 

What's Fixed

• See the Help Center for a breakout of numerous bug fixes

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

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

Impact:
Admins only

Action:
Admin action required (download the latest version of GADS)

More Information 
GADS Overview
What’s New in GADS


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

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We know that many of you work at large and organizationally complex companies, where different teams need different Google Apps products and services. This can make onboarding new employees a time-consuming and tedious process.

Today’s launch should make that process significantly easier, by allowing you to automatically assign licenses for Google Apps products and services at the organizational-unit (OU) level (until today, you could assign licenses at the OU level, but those licenses would not automatically apply to new users). This will be particularly useful if different employees in your organization need different Google Apps products, like Vault or Drive storage, or editions, like Google Apps for Work or Google Apps Unlimited. Note that you can still automatically assign licenses at the domain level.

Starting today, if you turn Auto-Licensing ON for a particular Google Apps product or service in a particular OU, all users currently in and subsequently added to that OU will receive that license. Users in child OUs will also inherit that license, unless you choose to override the setting. The Auto-Licensing setting can be found in the Admin console (Billing > Subscriptions); for more explicit instructions, check out the Help Center.



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

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

Impact:
Admins only

Action:
Admin action suggested/FYI

More Information
Help Center: Set automatic licensing options for an organization

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

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(Cross-posted on the Google for Work Blog.)

We launched a collection of templates in Docs, Sheets, and Slides in September to give your documents, spreadsheets, and presentations the extra polish they deserve. Today, we’re adding to that collection with new templates designed by five experts in their fields. All templates are available on the web and on Android and iOS.



For your big ideas, at work and on the go
Intuit's QuickBooks software helps small business owners get more out of financial planning with tools like automated budgeting, tax time reports, and payroll. Use the new annual business budget template by QuickBooks in Sheets to easily manage your budget so you can focus on building your business.



GV provides venture capital funding to bold new companies. In the fields of life science, healthcare, artificial intelligence, robotics, transportation, cyber security, and agriculture, GV’s companies aim to improve lives and change industries.The new GV pitch template in Slides helps entrepreneurs share their vision, based on proven presentation tactics.



And, in the bestselling book, Made to Stick, brothers Chip and Dan Heath revealed that “sticky” messages of all kinds draw their power from the same main traits. In their big idea template in Slides, they use these principles to help you build and deliver your most memorable presentation yet.



For a head start, at school and beyond
Reading Rainbow, the third-longest-running children's TV series in US history and award-winning digital service, has been inspiring children to read for more than 30 years. Reading Rainbow created a lesson plan and a book report template in Docs to help teachers and students get things done.



The Google Science Fair (GSF) is an annual online science and engineering competition open to teens globally. In the competition, young scientists have tackled issues like world hunger, life-threatening diseases and the energy crisis. Use GSF’s science fair template in Slides for a head start on your next project—or for this year’s GSF.



Jump-start your next project with these easy-to-use templates in Docs, Sheets, and Slides—available on the web and on your Android device or iPhone. Let us know what you create!

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

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

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With this launch, an employee can quickly and easily see a list of the Google and third-party apps they have access to, like Gmail, Drive, SurveyMonkey, and more, at apps.google.com/user/hub. This page features links to all the apps currently turned on for that user, as well as a section dedicated to those apps that have been whitelisted by their admin but not yet installed. This should encourage employees to use their enabled apps more often and to finally check out those apps they haven’t yet tried (especially the mobile versions, which will be easier to access). New users will also be directed to apps.google.com/user/hub during the onboarding process.



Note that an individual must be signed in to their Apps for Work account to access apps.google.com/user/hub. Check out the Help Center for more information.

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: 
Admins and end users

Action:
Change management suggested/FYI

More Information
Help Center: Customize your User Hub interface

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

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We know that copying data and pasting it into a spreadsheet can be a pain if the data does not separate neatly into columns. With that in mind, today we're launching a feature in Google Sheets that allows you to split delimited data (e.g. data separated by commas) from one column across multiple columns.

There are a few ways you can split delimited data across columns. For example, you can select the columns you want to split, and click Data > Split text to columns. A menu will then appear underneath the data, allowing you to split the data using commas, semicolons, periods, spaces, and even custom separators.

In addition to the “Split text to columns” option, you can also format cells containing delimited data using a contextual menu that appears immediately after you’ve pasted data, as shown in the animation below. You can choose a custom separator through this method also. See the Help Center to learn more.


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

Rollout pace:
Full rollout (1–3 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

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Check out the latest "What's New in Google Apps" newsletter [pdf] for a roundup of all Apps launches from February 2016.

Newsletter Archive & Translated Versions (coming soon for February issue)


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

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Update: This feature is now live on a gradual rollout. Please allow 3 or more days for feature visibility.

Today, Google Apps administrators use custom fields in the domain directory to store information like Projects, Teams, Languages, and whatever else their organization needs. Showing these fields to users within the Google Contacts user interface has been a popular feature request for many domain administrators, because having this information accessible helps users connect more easily.

In the coming weeks, the Contact Manager at contacts.google.com will now show user custom fields from the domain directory. User custom fields will respect the permissions that the domain administrator has set.

Example:

• If you have user custom fields which you’ve set as only visible to administrators and users, this field will only be visible in the Contact Manager to the specified users.
•  If you have fields which are visible to anyone at the domain, then these fields will now be shown in the Contact Manager to users within the domain.

In the profile above, Profession, Active Projects, and Languages were stored in the "TeamInfo" schema.

If you’d like to start using user custom fields, the Directory API is already available in Python, Go, Java, Apps Script, PHP, and more, giving administrators flexibility over what fields to add for users. To control whether fields are shown to all domain users or just specified users, use the readAccessType property.

If you’ve already added user custom fields, in the coming weeks, any user-visible custom fields that Google Apps administrators have added through APIs will now be visible to users as custom fields in the Contact Manager at contacts.google.com. To update the schema, use the Directory API.

Limitations

• Google Apps Sync for Microsoft Outlook users will not see custom fields in the Global Address List.
• Custom fields are not yet supported in the new Google Contacts preview.

Launch Details
Release track:
Launching to both Rapid release and Scheduled release on March 31, 2016.

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

Impact:
All end users

Action:
Admin action suggested/FYI

More Information
Help Center


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

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Get these product update alerts by email
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