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


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We are excited to announce a few upcoming changes to the Google Play Private Channel, a feature which allows G Suite admins to distribute private (custom) Android apps to their users via the Play Store app.

With this launch, private apps will be more discoverable and easier for your users to access. Customers using private apps will also be able to whitelist these apps for work profiles and company-owned devices in a more streamlined manner by using an Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) provider.

Making private apps more discoverable and easier for your users to access
Previously, private apps were located in your company’s Private Channel: in the Play Store Android app under the tab [your organization’s name], which is the last category within the Play app.
In order to make these apps easier for users to access, private apps will be relocated to the “Work Apps” tab within the Play app, the third category, which will also contain any managed applications if your organization is using an EMM provider, such as Google Mobile Management.
Making “Work Apps” richer with private apps and managed Google Play (formerly Play for Work) for new customers
Our vision for “Work Apps” within Google Play is for it to become the single destination for corporate users to find all of the applications they need. G Suite admins will be able to offer a curated set of both public and private applications specific to your enterprise for your employees.

You will also no longer need to manage different access controls for your employees; controls for both private and public applications within managed Play will be consolidated, simplifying the whitelisting process for mobile applications.

As part of this simplified whitelisting process, customers who currently are not using Google Play Private Channel, and want to deploy private apps for the first time, must enroll with an EMM, such as Google Mobile Management, and must enroll with managed Google Play. This will allow you to make private applications available in work profiles and on company-owned devices, as you currently can do with managed public applications. Customers currently using Google Play Private Channel are not required to use an EMM and can continue to use private applications as they do today.

We are expecting to launch these changes to Google Play Private Channel on January 31, 2017.

Launch Details 
Release track:
Launching to both Rapid release and Scheduled release on January 31, 2017

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

Editions:
Available to all G Suite editions

Impact:
Admins and end users

Action:
Admin action suggested

More Information
Google Play Private Channel applications


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New versions of the Docs, Sheets, and Slides apps for Android are now available on Google Play, including the following new features to help you get more done on the move:

Page setup in Google Docs and image support improvements in Sheets
You can now change the orientation, paper size, and page color Docs on Android. In Sheets, you can use the IMAGE function to view images inside of cells.





EPUB and ODF support on Android
Docs now supports exporting your files in the EPUB (.epub) and OpenDocument Text (.odt) file formats. Additionally, you can now import OpenDocument Text (.odt) files from the Android app. Similarly, you will now be able to import and export OpenDocument Spreadsheets (.ods) in Sheets and OpenDocument Presentations (.odp) in Slides.

Please note: these features are only available when the device is online. When the device is offline, an error dialog will show saying "Data connection needed to open this file type".


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: Page setup
How to use Google Slides
How to use Google Docs
How to use Google Sheets

Update:

• The option to convert existing Sending routing, Receiving routing, Catch-all address and Domain-level routing settings will return no earlier than April 17. The visibility of the convert option will take a number of weeks to roll out to all customers. In the meantime customers can manually convert to the unified Routing setting.
• The automatic conversion process will not occur earlier than June 5. We will follow up closer to the date and have updated the G Suite release calendar.

G Suite customers use Gmail because it's simple to use and reliable, and because it allows them to customize their enterprise-specific routing settings in the Admin console. However, as we expanded these features to cover more use-cases, it became clear that a consolidated view of all routing settings would make it easier to manage at a glance. That's why today, we're beginning to unify Gmail's routing settings in the Gmail Routing section of the Admin console that was launchedone year ago.





Beginning week of January 23, 2017, your existing Sending routing, Receiving routing, Catch-all address and Domain-level routingsettings will become read only. These settings are still active, but in order to make changes, you must click the CONVERT button, next to the existing rule. We've taken steps to make this process as simple as possible by converting the previous setting and mapping it to the new fields automatically. The converted setting is then placed in the unified Routing section, where all of your rules can be managed from one place. The old setting will no longer be visible in the old user interface, so you don't need to clean up old rules afterward.


Action Suggested

1. To make changes to an existing routing setting, click the CONVERT button next to the rule. Since the user interface has changed slightly, we suggest re-familiarizing yourself with the new look and feel.
   
   
   
2. To add new routing settings, use the Routing section from Gmail's advanced settings section. The previous way to create routing settings will soon be removed.
3. To migrate your existing rules to the new section ahead of time, you can use the CONVERT button for all of your rules. If you decide not to make any changes to your routing rules, then your rules will be automatically converted to the new Routing format and section on June 5, 2017.

Launch Details
Release track:
Settings converted to read only on both Rapid release and Scheduled release week of January 23, 2017.
Automatic routing settings conversion occurring after June 5, 2017.

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

Editions:
Available to all G Suite editions

Impact:
Admins only

Action:
Admin action suggested/FYI


More Information
Set up routing for your domain or organization

Check out the latest "What's New in G Suite" newsletter [pdf] for a roundup of all G Suite launches from December 2016.

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

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G Suite administrators who want their employees to use their own mobile devices at work face a challenge: all Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) solutions available today require an agent or profile to mandate corporate mobile policies, but employees are uncomfortable setting up these agents and profiles on their personal devices. Oftentimes, they choose not to add their corporate accounts to their personal devices at all.

To meet the needs of both admins and employees, today we’re introducing an agentless way to manage iOS devices: Basic Mobile Management.



Basic Mobile Management allows admins to mandate basic security on iOS devices without requiring users to install an MDM profile. It also relieves admins of the need to set up an Apple Push Certificate and the hassles of renewing that certificate regularly.

With Basic Mobile Management, admins can:

• Enforce a screen lock.
• Wipe a corporate account (but not the entire device).
• View, search, and manage their device inventory.

Basic Mobile Management makes it easier for employees to use their personal devices at work as well, by allowing them to set up their corporate accounts just like they would their personal accounts.

Organizations that require additional restrictions, mobile audit, or application management on iOS devices should continue using the Advanced Mobile Management option.

For more details on Basic Mobile Management and how to get started, check out the Help Center.

Please note that agentless management is only available for iOS devices at this time. Users will still need to install the Device Policy app on their Android devices, even if their admin has chosen Basic Mobile Management.

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

Editions:
Available to all G Suite editions

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

Impact:
Admins only

Action:
Admin action suggested/FYI

More Information
Help Center: Set up mobile device management


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If you've ever had to troubleshoot your Gmail users' mail, you know that getting message headers and interpreting bounce messages can sometimes be a chore. That's why Gmail will be rolling out some user-facing features to make bounce messages and message headers easier to read and understand. Here's what's new:


Bounce messages are now easier for your users to understand

When users' mail has problems being delivered, this new format will have user-friendlier text, as well as translations into the user's language (if the language has been set on the account.) Below the improved bounce message, you can find the original bounce message, just like you're used to from before.



Message Headers that are clear and readable

To prevent the errors that sometimes plague complex calculations, today we’re launching a new setting in Sheets on the web (File > Spreadsheet settings > Calculation > Iterative calculation) that allows you to set the maximum number of times a calculation with a circular reference can take place. In addition, you can specify a “convergence threshold,” and when results from successive calculations differ by less than that threshold value, the calculations will stop (even if the maximum number of calculations has yet to be reached).


Over the course of the week, we’ll make additional improvements to your Sheets experience on the web and Android devices. First, we’ll update the Sheets Android app UI to make it easier for users with right-to-left language settings to read and navigate. Second, we’ll make it possible to search the menus in Sheets on the web, much like you can in Google Docs and Slides.



For more details on these features, please visit the Help Center.

Launch Details
Release track:

• Launching to Rapid release, with Scheduled release coming on January 9th, 2017
• Iterative calculation setting
• Launching to both Rapid release and Scheduled release
• Right-to-left language improvements
• Menu search

Editions:
Available to all G Suite editions

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: Change a spreadsheet's locale, time zone, calculation settings, and language


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In September 2016, we launched Explore in Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides to give you the insights, design tools, and research recommendations you need to do your best work. Today, we’re improving upon the feature by allowing you to easily cite those findings. Students writing research reports, analysts crafting whitepapers, and others looking to credit their sources can now insert citations as footnotes with the click of a button in Explore in Docs on the web. You can even change the format of your citation, switching between the MLA, APA, and Chicago styles. For more information on how to use citations in Docs Explore, check out 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:
All end users

Action:
Change management suggested/FYI

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


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Check out the latest "What's New in G Suite" newsletter [pdf] for a roundup of all G Suite launches from November 2016.

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


Launch release calendar
Launch detail categories
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