(Cross-posted from the Google+ Product and Feature Updates Collection)

Communities are a great way for groups of people to share around a topic. But when you’re creating a Community for a group you’re a part of, like a book club, parent-teacher association, or work team, the last thing you want to have to do is invite each member one-by-one.

Since so many groups already have a way to get ahold of one another, whether that’s through email, chat, a newsletter or something else, we’ve created a new Community invite link so you can invite all the right people at once.

 With the Community invite link, Community owners and moderators can share an invite link with their group however they choose. People with the link will be able to directly join both private and ask-to-join public Communities, and anyone who doesn’t have a Google account or Google+ profile will be able to create one along the way. Communities that are restricted to a given G Suite organization will continue to only be accessible to members of that organization.

If something changes, you can easily disable a shared link or generate a new one at any time. To share an invite link to your Community, just open the invite menu on Google+ web, turn on the “Allow invites by link” option, and grab the link that appears.

Launch Details

Release track:
Launching to both Rapid release and Scheduled release

Editions:
Available to all G Suite editions

Rollout pace:
Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility)

Impact:
All end users

Action:
Admin action suggested/FYI


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The web clipboard in Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Drawings was originally developed to improve the copy and paste experience in browsers with fidelity issues. As these issues have become less prevalent across many browsers, we’re looking to simplify the user experience by removing the web clipboard, which is rarely used, on September 13th, 2017. We’re also planning enhancements to the traditional copy and paste functionality in Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Drawings, so stay tuned for more info.


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Apps Script lets you do more with Google, like create add-ons for Docs, develop custom functions for Sheets, and manage responses in Forms. Traditionally, G Suite admins have had little or no visibility into the extent of the Apps Script usage in their organizations. With this launch, however, admins will be able to view Apps Script metrics, including number of users and number of active projects, in the Aggregate reports section of the Admin console. Admins currently participating in the App Maker Early Adopter Program will see App Maker metrics listed as well.


For more details, please visit the Help Center.

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

Editions:
Available to all G Suite editions

Rollout pace:
Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility)

Impact:
Admins only

Action:
Admin action suggested/FYI

More Information
Help Center: Aggregate reports


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This week, we’re introducing a new security feature in Gmail on Android to help you keep your email safer.

When you click on a suspicious link in a message, Gmail will show a warning prompt helping you keep your account safe. Here’s what you’ll see:

As the number of global mobile phone users continues to grow, countries have begun modifying their existing telephone numbering plans in order to expand the set of available phone numbers. When this happens, all impacted phone users gain a modified or appended digit on their mobile or landline phone numbers. After a period of time, their old numbers are no longer able to receive messages or calls.

As announced by ANATEL, Brazil recently completed a modification to its telephone numbering plan and affected numbers now contain an extra digit.

To prevent G Suite users with affected Brazilian phone numbers from being locked out of their accounts, Google will be updating their account recovery and two-step verification (2SV) phone numbers to include the extra digit in the coming weeks. These numbers will be updated based on the scheme published by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU). No action is required on the part of the user, and they will receive email and phone notifications describing the changes, including their updated numbers. Note that users can update their phone numbers anytime in their phone number or two-step verification settings.

Moving forward, to ensure continued access to accounts, Google plans to continue to make these modifications on behalf of G Suite users when they are impacted by changes to telephone numbering plans in their countries.

Launch Details
Release track:
Launching to both Rapid release and Scheduled release in the coming weeks. Please monitor the G Suite release calendar for specific timing.

Editions:
Applicable to all G Suite editions

Rollout pace:
Extended rollout (potentially longer than 15 days for feature visibility)

Impact:
All end users with impacted Brazilian phone numbers

Action:
Change management suggested/FYI


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We’ve heard that you need to caption photos, arrange content in columns, and do more vertically in the new Google Sites. With your feedback in mind, we’re adding the ability to create “vertical groups” in the new Sites on the web. Once created, you can move and edit these groups as a single entity, as well as drag items in and out of them easily. For more information on grouping items vertically in the new Sites, 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: Edit and format text and photos

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When we launched the new Google Sites last year, we promised to share more information in 2017 on how to migrate from the classic version of Sites. Today, we want to give you a better sense of what’s coming and when, so you can effectively plan for the eventual shutdown of the classic Sites product.

Migration tools*

In Q1 2018, we’ll launch an admin preview of features in the classic Sites that will help site owners migrate their content to the new Sites. Later in 2018, we’ll open up these features for site owners and provide a management dashboard to G Suite admins that will enable them to effectively manage the migration process. Stay tuned for more details on these features and tools as they become available.

Deprecation timeline

We plan to take your feedback on these migration tools into account when scheduling the deprecation and shutdown of the classic Sites. With that mind, we’ll only announce a firm timeline after the migration process is underway for many customers.

A few things to note:

• Once announced, the deprecation schedule will include at least one year of unchanged operation followed by three months of read-only operation. Migration will be possible throughout, including during the read-only phase.
• When the read-only phase ends, all unmigrated sites will be preserved as a takeout archive.
• Before deprecating the classic Sites, we’ll ensure that the new Sites includes several features necessary for team sites, portals, knowledge bases, and intranets. These will include at least the following:
• Search a site
• Restrict access to published sites
• More granular access to different sections of sites
• Embed URLs and code in sites
• Notifications of site updates
• Create larger sites, including deeper hierarchy
• Corporate themes
• More text formatting options
• Custom web addresses
• API capabilities

Follow the G Suite Updates Blog for additional details when these new features and migration tools launch.

* Dates and details adjusted on Dec 20, 2017

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A recent Gartner surveyfound that more than two thirds of employees are using personal devices at work, and we're seeing similar stats with our customers: enterprises are embracing Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) devices. That's why we're giving more control to G Suite admins with enhancements to Google Mobile Management, adding several new iOS featuresfor enterprise security, including the popular feature request for managed corporate contacts.

About Managed Corporate Contacts

G Suite admins will now be able to sync managed corporate contacts to their users' devices. This will improve iOS device compliance in the following ways:

• Easy setup of contacts during MDM setup. The user’s corporate contacts are synced automatically when an iOS device is compliant, and no longer available when device goes out of compliance.
• Searching and calling contacts from the global address list (GAL) is possible from the native iOS phone app. Additionally, native email, calendar, contacts iOS apps can look up your GAL contacts.
• Caller ID is supported when receiving a call from a user's corporate contact.
• If your organization requires your users to use 2-step verification or you use a 3rd-party SSO provider, your users will no longer need to use an App password when accessing their corporate contacts on the iOS device
• If the admin blocks or wipes the account, the user's corporate contacts are no longer available and they no longer have access to the GAL.

In addition to these changes, we're also adding or updating the following device restriction policies:

• Managed apps: Manage app author, settings and storage
• Account configuration: Automatically configure Google account on iOS to sync contacts, calendar
• Safari: Manage Safari browser settings
• Photos: Manage photo sharing on iOS
• Advanced security: Allow screenshots and screen recording, Siri, Apple Watch, and more

Launch Details

Release track:

Launching to both Rapid release and Scheduled release

Editions:

Available to all G Suite editions

Rollout pace:

Extended rollout (potentially longer than 15 days for feature visibility)

Impact:

Availability: All iOS devices managed using advanced management are applicable to have the new features applied

Action:

Admin action suggested/FYI

More Information
Help Center: Apply settings for iOS mobile devices

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

Archive & Translated Versions (coming soon for April issue)


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Following the launch of Team Drives in March, it’s likely you and your users have existing content that needs to be moved from traditional Google Drive locations (e.g. My Drive) into these new shared spaces. As a G Suite admin, there are three ways you can do this:

1. Allow users to migrate files 
If you enable this setting in the Admin console (Apps > G Suite > Drive and Docs > Migration settings > User options > Allow users to migrate files to Team Drives), users in your domain will be able to move individual files into Team Drives, as long as they have Edit access to those files and the current file owners are members of the destination Team Drive.



2. Migrate folders as a super admin
If you’re a super admin and have view access or higher to an existing My Drive folder, you can move that folder to a Team Drive yourself. Check out the Help Center for detailed instructions.

3. Delegate admin migration rights to individual users
If you’re a super admin, you can delegate the admin rights described in option 2 to any user in your domain. He or she will then be able to move My Drive folders into Team Drives. For a step-by-step guide to granting these admin migration rights, see the Help Center.


No matter which option you choose, there are a few important things to remember when moving files and folders into Team Drives:

• Any file moved to a Team Drive will then be owned by the Team Drive—not an individual.
• Moved files will remain in the user’s Shared with me and Recent locations, but they’ll be removed from all other Drive locations (e.g. My Drive).
• A file’s permissions and sharing link will not change when it’s moved into a Team Drive. People who aren’t Team Drive members will still be able to access that file with their previously granted permissions.

For additional details and key considerations, please visit the Help Center.

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

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

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

Impact:
Admins and end users

Action:
Admin action suggested/FYI

More Information
Help Center: Migrate content to a Team Drive


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