Update - April 5, 2017:

Team Drives is now available to G Suite for Nonprofits customers, in addition to G Suite Business, Education, and Enterprise customers as previously stated.

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Original - posted March 9, 2017 (updated to reflect new Team Drives availability):

(Cross-posted from The Keyword, with some additional details)

Google Drive has always made it easy for individuals to safely store, sync and share files. But as larger companies move to the cloud, there's more to think about — like the risk of data breaches, bumpy migrations, and compatibility with legacy tools. Our team has been working hard to solve these complexities for the enterprise. That’s why we're introducing powerful additions to Drive that can help your organization:

• Create, share and work confidently as a team with Team Drives
• Stay in control of sensitive company data with Google Vault for Drive
• Migrate easily to the cloud with our latest acquisition, AppBridge
• Work seamlessly with the tools you're already using with Drive File Stream
• Access relevant files immediately with Quick Access, powered by Google machine intelligence

Team Drives: work confidently together in the cloud

Most file storage solutions weren’t built to handle the explosion of files that are now created and shared in the cloud — because they were initially designed for individuals, not teams. With this amount of shared data, admins need more controls to keep their data safe and teams need to feel confident working together. Team Drives deliver the security, structure and ease-of-use enterprises need by making it easy to:

• Add new team members. You can manage team members individually or with Google Groups and give them instant access to relevant Team Drives.
• Keep track of your files if a team member leaves. Team Drives are jointly owned by the team, which means that anything added to Team Drives stays there no matter who comes or goes. Whirlpool Corporation, for example, uses Team Drives to manage file access. Says Troy McKim, Collaboration Principle at Whirlpool Corporation, “If you place files for a project in Team Drives, you don’t have to worry about losing them or moving them when files are re-owned.”
• Understand and manage sharing permissions. Team members automatically see the same files regardless of who adds or reorganizes them. You can also manage share permissions by defining the restrictions for editing, commenting, reorganizing or deleting files.
• Manage and view Team Drives as an admin. Admins can see Team Drives for a user and add new members if necessary: “Team Drives also ease the speed at which a team member can onboard and become effective in their new role,” says McKim.

Team Drives are generally available to all of our G Suite Business, Education, Nonprofits, and Enterprise customers starting today. Set up Team Drives for your organization.


Additional info for G Suite admins

You will need to enable the creation of Team Drives in the Admin console (Apps > G Suite > Drive and Docs > Sharing settings > Team Drive creation) before anyone in your organization can create Team Drives. You will have the option to enable Team Drives creation for your entire domain or for specific OUs. We recommend using this option to deploy Team Drives to your users in the manner most appropriate for your organization.

If you disable Team Drives creation but allow users to receive files from outside your organization, your users can still be added to Team Drives created by users in other organizations. They will be able to view those Team Drives in Drive and access the files in them.

NOTE: We plan to automatically enable Team Drives creation for all eligible G Suite customers no earlier than January 1st, 2018. We will update you in advance of that change.

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

Editions:
Available to G Suite Business, Education, Nonprofits, and Enterprise editions only

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

Impact:
Admins and end users

Action:
Admin action suggested/FYI

More information
Help Center: Manage Team Drives
Help Center: Share files with Team Drives
G Suite Learning Center: Drive

Google Vault for Drive: new, advanced admin controls for data compliance

Managing the data lifecycle of your files (like which files you keep or delete) is complicated and time-consuming. But ensuring compliance with your company’s data policies is essential and mistakes can lead to expensive legal costs. That’s why today we’re adding on to Google Vault for Drive, which already offers search and export capabilities.

The new Google Vault for Drive capabilities give admins the governance controls they need to manage and secure all their files, both in employee Drives as well as in Team Drives. These new features let admins set retention policies that automatically keep what they need and get rid of what they don't. For example, you might need to place a legal hold on files that are critical to a certain legal case.

With powerful data protection tools, Google Vault for Drive ensures your admins have full control of your company data in the cloud. Google Vault for Drive is generally available to all of our G Suite Business, Education, and Enterprise customers today.


Additional info for G Suite admins

See our dedicated post for more information about the Vault for Drive features launching today.

AppBridge: moving to the cloud made easy

Migrating to the cloud can be complex. It's not just your files that need to be moved; permissions also need to map correctly; content likely needs to be reorganized, and some data probably needs to be archived. To address that challenge, today we are announcing the acquisition of AppBridge, an enterprise-grade, G Suite migration tool that helps organizations seamlessly migrate from their on-prem, cloud-based and hybrid solutions to Google Drive.

With AppBridge, your organization can migrate files effortlessly to G Suite from your existing file servers or content management systems like SharePoint, or from many other cloud platforms you might be using. File permissions are also brought over when you migrate, which means your team's file access remains unchanged and your data stays safe. We’re working together with AppBridge to bring them into the G Suite team. Stay tuned for more information in the near future.

Drive File Stream: work without breaking your business processes

After you migrate to the cloud, you should be able to easily access all your content using your existing tools and processes. While other cloud-based solutions use traditional, time-consuming (and hard drive-consuming) syncs, Drive File Stream, now available in the Early Adopter Program (EAP), allows teams to quickly stream files directly from the cloud to their computer. This means that all of your company data can be accessed directly from your laptop, even if you don’t have much space left on your hard drive.

Drive File Stream lets you:

• Access, search and manage files on-demand from your computer in seconds.
• Get just the files you need and make certain files available for offline use later.
• Access your work even quicker, as your most-used files become available in the background intelligently.
• Avoid the risk of users downloading all of your company data to their hard drives.

Say goodbye to time-consuming file syncing and any concerns about disk space. With Drive File Stream, all your files are always ready for you and your colleagues. Sign up for the EAP of Drive File Stream today.


Quick Access for teams: make the most of your content with machine intelligence

You’ve migrated all of your data to the cloud. Now, it’s time to make the power of the cloud work for you. Quick Access in Drive now works with Team Drives on iOS and Android devices, and is coming soon to the web. Quick Access is powered by Google's machine intelligence, the same technology used in Gmail’s Smart Reply and Google Sheets Explore, which means that teams can save time and make smarter decisions because the right knowledge will surface to the right employees at the right time. Quick Access intelligently predicts and surfaces files based on:

• Who specific files are frequently shared with
• When relevant meetings occur
• What files are used at specific times during the day
• And many others

Additional info for G Suite admins

Available in the Drive Android app since September, Quick Access can now be used on iOS devices as well.

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

Try Google Drive for your enterprise

With these powerful new enterprise additions to Drive, you have the tools your employees need to execute on big ideas while you maintain the control your organization needs to keep your data safe. Get started on Google Drive today or contact a sales representative to learn more.


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Google Vault helps your organization meet its legal needs, by allowing you to manage your employees' G Suite data for eDiscovery and compliance purposes. Today, we’re launching additional, crucial functionality in Vault, including full support for Drive, newly launched Team Drives, and Google Groups.

Set retention policies for Google Drive, including Team Drives
Starting now, not only can G Suite admins search and export employee Drive files, they can also set retention policies to manage the lifecycle of files in My Drive and the just-launched Team Drives, regardless of whether they’re Google or non-Google files (as long as they’re owned by users in your domain).

Like with mail, the default rule will apply to all users in your domain. You can set an indefinite retention policy (such that files are never expunged), or you can choose to have files expunged at the end of a specific time period. This default rule can be applied to all files or only to files that have been deleted by users.

You can also set custom retention rules for specific organizational units (OUs) or for Team Drives. Like with mail, custom rules override the default rule and, if multiple custom rules apply to a file, the longest rule wins. Custom rules can be applied to all files or only to files that have been deleted by users.

Unlike with mail, you cannot target custom Drive retention rules with specific terms.


Place legal holds on Google Drive files
In addition to setting retention policies, you can now place legal holds on your employees' Google Drive and Team Drives files, whether they are Google files or non-Google files (as long as they are owned by users in your domain). Doing so will preserve all files that are owned by or shared with the user on hold, regardless of whether that user deletes those files. If a user on hold deletes a file, it will appear as deleted for him or her—but it will be available in Vault until the hold is removed. Remember that holds always take precedence over retention rules.

Note that both the retention policy and legal holds features are not yet available for Apps Script.

Export point-in-time Google Drive files
Vault now also allows you to export revisions of your employees’ Drive and Team Drive files from a specific point in time (this applies to Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Drawings files). This can be done by simply specifying the desired Version Date in the search form.

Note that this feature is not yet available for Google Forms, Apps Script, or any non-Google document types.


Use Vault for Google Groups
Finally, Vault now works with Groups, meaning you can search, export, and set retention policies and place legal holds on your employees’ Groups content. Groups can be used for email lists, forums, and shared or collaborative inboxes, and now you can apply the same retention and eDiscovery programs that you use in Gmail for content stored in Groups archives.


To learn more about how Vault's support for Drive, Team Drives, and Groups can help your organization meet its legal obligations and archiving needs, check out the Vault Help Center.

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

Editions:
Available to G Suite Business, Enterprise, and Education editions, as well as G Suite Basic users with add-on Vault licenses

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

Impact:
Admins only

Action:
Admin action suggested/FYI

More Information
Help Center: Google Vault
Help Center: Supported data types


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Managing a large Chromebox for meetings deployment can be challenging. To ensure end users have the best experience possible, admins constantly do manual room checks to confirm that peripherals (such as the camera, microphone, and speaker) are plugged in and working properly. With the launch of peripheral status monitoring, admins can determine whether or not peripherals are working from directly within the Admin console.
You can find this information in the Admin console under Device Management > Chrome devices for meetings > View and manage Chrome devices for meetings. From there, select the specific device in question. On the device screen, there will be a set of icons that identify the peripheral’s status:

A grayed out icon means the peripheral is not online.

To learn more about supported peripherals, peripheral status monitoring, device health, and diagnostics, please 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: 
Admins only

Action:
Admin action suggested/FYI

More Information 
Help Center


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Check out the latest "What's New in G Suite" launch recap [pdf] for a roundup of all G Suite launches from February 2017.

Archive & Translated Versions (coming soon for February issue)

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Sending and receiving attachments is an important part of email exchanges. While Google Drive offers a convenient way to share files of any size, sometimes you need to receive large files as direct email attachments. So starting today, you will be able to receive emails of up to 50MB directly.

Note: Sending size limits will remain the same at 25MB; however, just as before, you can use Google Drive to send larger attachments.


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Recently, we announced that your organization’s private apps would move from the “Private Channel” (i.e. the “domain.com” tab) to the “Work Apps” tab in the Google Play Store. We envision this Work Apps section as a single destination where users can find all of the applications they need to be productive on mobile. Using Google Mobile Management, G Suite administrators can offer a curated set of both public and custom apps to their employees in the Work Apps section of Google Play.

Previously, however, employees with Android devices that did not support work profiles could not see the Work Apps tab and the apps their admins had curated. This included any users with Android devices running 5.0 Lollipop or less. With this launch, employees with these older devices can now access the Work Apps tab in Google Play (in their personal profile) and the apps their admins have curated.


Note that on devices that do support work profiles, the Work Apps tab can only be accessed from Google Play in the work profile.

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: Manage Google Play private apps
Help Center: Publish private apps
Help Center: Manage apps on mobile devices 


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Available to G Suite users with Google Drive since 2013, Google Keep helps employees capture their thoughts, ideas, action items, and more in one easy-to-access place. As of today, Google Keep is a G Suite core service when used within a domain, and it has been added to existing G Suite agreements for most customers. In addition, Keep is now accessible in Google Docs, so employees can easily revisit and repurpose their notes.

G Suite core service
Keep now has the same technical support and service level commitments as any other core service, like Gmail or Google Drive. Going forward, domains using Keep will receive the following benefits:

• Keep content will be handled as specified in your G Suite agreement.
• Keep will be compliant with the terms, conditions, and service levels defined in the G Suite Technical Support Services Guidelines and the G Suite Service Level Agreement.
• Keep will be added as a monitored service to the G Suite Status Dashboard.

Additional admin controls
In addition, we’re giving G Suite admins greater control over Keep usage in their organizations, by allowing them to turn the app on or off for their domains. The steps to do so will depend on an organization’s current use of Google Drive. For example:

1. If you currently have Google Drive enabled for your organization, your users have had access to Keep and will continue to have access to Keep following this launch. If you would like to turn Keep access OFF, you can now do so from the Admin console (Apps > G Suite > Keep).

2. If you do not have Drive enabled for your organization, your users have not had access to Keep. Should you choose to turn on Drive in the future, Keep will be turned ON for your organization if you’ve opted into automatically receiving new services in the Admin console and turned OFF for your organization if you’ve chosen to manually enable new services. You will be able enable or disable the application from the Admin console at any time.


When turned on, Keep will respect a subset of the sharing settings applied to Google Drive.

View and create Keep notes in Docs
The improvements to Keep don’t just apply to admins. End users can now view and create Keep notes in Google Docs on the web. Starting today, simply select “Keep notepad” from the Tools menu to pull up a sidebar containing your notes from Keep (and the option to search them). You can then edit those notes and drag and drop them into your document.

If you’re inspired by the content already in your doc, you can create a new note by highlighting the relevant text, right-clicking, and selecting “Save to Keep notepad.” Or, if you simply want to create a new note with brand-new content, you can start typing in the “Take a note...” box in the notepad. All notes you create while in a document will be added to a “related” section within the sidebar. When you then view those notes in Keep, they will include a link back to the document in which they were created.


For additional details, check out More Information below.

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

Editions:
Available to G Suite Basic, Business, Enterprise, Education, and Nonprofit editions

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

Impact:
Admins and end users

Action:
Admin action suggested/FYI

More Information
G Suite Learning Center: Keep
Help Center: Get started with Keep
Help Center: Turn Keep on or off for users
Help Center: Set Keep sharing settings
Help Center: Use Google Keep in a document


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Launch Details
Release track:  
Desktop and Android launching to both Rapid release and Scheduled release on February 27, 2017
Already available in iOS

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



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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

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We know that you work with a variety of file formats in Google Drive. That’s why, starting today, we’re making it possible to preview password-protected Microsoft Office documents, presentations, and spreadsheets in Drive. Going forward, when you attempt to open one of these file types in Drive on the web, you’ll be prompted to enter the password and, upon doing so successfully, you’ll see a read-only preview of that document.


Note that this feature also works when you open password-protected Office files sent as attachments in Gmail.

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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