Until now, G Suite users with company-owned Android devices and those with work profiles could only install mobile apps that had been specifically whitelisted by their admin. In some organizations, however, such restrictions weren’t critical, and whitelisting required unnecessary time and effort. That’s why, going forward, we’re giving admins the option to allow their users to install any app in the managed Google Play store on Android devices that are corporate-owned or have work profiles.

Admins can select this option in the Admin console under Device management > App Management > Manage apps for Android devices.


If an admin selects “Allow all apps,” he or she can still whitelist specific apps. These whitelisted apps will appear on the managed Google Play homepage, but users will be able to find any app using the search tool.


For more information, 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: Manage apps on mobile devices


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The navigation bar is how users get around a website, and it helps them find important resources quickly. The new Google Sites automatically creates an intuitive navigation bar that links to content within your site, but there may be times when you want to create your own links that go somewhere else. That’s why we’re adding a new feature where you can link to any URL from the navigation bar.

You can use this new custom link creator to add an item in the navigation bar that goes to:

• Your company’s social media profile or homepage.
• Your company’s HCM tool.
• Another Google Site with different access permissions.
• Your team’s project tracker.
• Your team’s Drive folder.
• Any other website. 

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

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: Add, delete, & organize pages


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In our earlier post, we provided an overview of some of the ways we’re making Google Sheets better for business. This included several new feature announcements. This post will provide some more specific feature and rollout information that may be useful to G Suite admins.

Record macros in Sheets
To help save your team time when completing repetitive tasks, you can record macros in Sheets. When you record a macro, it’s saved as an Apps Script that you can run in the cloud whenever you need to perform the task. You can also edit the script to change it, or import existing Apps Scripts as new macros. See the previous post for more details, or the Help Center for the specific how-tos.

Group rows and columns in a spreadsheet
There’s a new option to group rows or columns in Sheets. This makes it easier to collapse or expand several rows and columns at once to customize your view. See the Help Center for more on how to manage rows, columns, and cells.


Add checkboxes to a list in Sheets
You can turn a list of items into a checklist with the new checkbox feature. See the Help Center to learn how to add and use checkboxes.


Improved date-based pivot tables
We’re making it easier to work with dates in pivot tables by adding an option to create groupings by time and date, including hour, day, month, quarter, year, and more. See the Help Center to learn how to add and use pivot tables.


Better spreadsheet printing
We’re adding new features to make it easier to print spreadsheets. Specifically, you can specify custom paper sizes and set custom page breaks. This makes it easier to get the right content from a spreadsheet on a printed page. See the Help Center for more about how to print from Google Sheets.


Launch Details
Release track:
Launching to Rapid Release, with Scheduled Release coming in 4 weeks

Editions:
Available to all G Suite editions

Rollout pace:
Extended rollout (potentially longer than 15 days for feature visibility); rollout to Scheduled Release domains will only start after rollout to Rapid Release domains is complete.

Impact:
All end users

Action:
Change management suggested/FYI

More Information
The Keyword: Think macro: record actions in Google Sheets to skip repetitive work
Help Center: Automate tasks in Google Sheets
Help Center: Customize a pivot table
Help Center: Print from Google Sheets
Help Center: Edit rows, columns, and cells in a spreadsheet
Help Center: Add and use checkboxes



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(Cross-posted from The Keyword)

Since their debut nearly 40 years ago, spreadsheets have remained core to how businesses get work done. From analyzing quarterly revenue to updating product inventory, spreadsheets are critical to helping companies gather and share data to inform quicker decisions—but what else can you do if they’re in the cloud?

We’ve been focused on making Google Sheets better for businesses for this reason, which is why we’ve recently added new features to help teams analyze and visualize their data. Today we’re adding more updates to Sheets, including a way to record macros in the cloud to automate repetitive tasks, as well as more formatting options. Check it out.

Record macros in Sheets, skip mundane tasks

We want to help companies automate work by approaching macros differently: cloud-first. Starting today, you can record macros in Sheets. Let’s say you need to format new data imports or build the same chart across multiple sheets of quarterly data. Repeating the same steps manually can take hours, but the Sheets macro recorder lets you record those actions and play them back on command without having to write any code.


Here’s how it works: when you record a macro, Sheets converts the macro actions into an Apps Script automatically. If you want to update your macro, you can simply edit the script directly instead of having to re-record the macro from scratch. You can also write your own Apps Script functions and import them as new macros.

The best part about Sheets macros is that they’re built for use in cloud-based files, which means that teams can run macros at the same time that others are working in the sheet without interrupting them. For example, a finance team having a budget meeting can run macros while reviewing the same spreadsheet. It also means that coworkers or clients won’t be forced to download sensitive files to use your macros. Since your Sheets files are in the cloud, you can keep tighter controls over who can view and re-share your data.

More updates to Sheets

You may have noticed that over the past few years we’ve put effort toward building Sheets features to help businesses view, analyze and share their data more easily. This includes adding new chart types (waterfall and 3D), ways to embed charts while keeping data up-to-date in Docs and Slides (even if you move files), more functions (up to 400+ now), additional formatting, print options and more. 

Today, we’re adding even routinely requested features, including the ability to add printing page breaks, custom paper sizes, more options for row and column grouping and a way to add checkboxes in cells. We’ve also made it possible for you to group your data by time frame (like week, month or year) when you create pivot tables.

Speaking of pivot tables, our engineering team has also been hard at work bringing the power of Google’s artificial intelligence into Sheets to help teams know what their data knows. You might have noticed that we recently added intelligent pivot tables in Sheets to help analyze and find new insights, no matter how skilled you are at data analytics.


Companies like Whirlpool Corporation and Sanmina are using Sheets for more collaborative data analysis. These latest additions are designed to make Sheets a go-to resource for businesses and will begin to roll out today. Learn more about Sheets on our Learning Center.



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The G Suite Directory surfaces profile information to users in your organization, allowing them to easily find and learn about one another while they work in G Suite apps. For instance, autocomplete in Gmail makes it easy for users to find their coworkers’ email addresses and quickly send them a message.

Previously, we allowed one directory per domain, which meant G Suite admins could only enable or disable contact visibility for their entire domain and couldn’t specify who saw what information. We’re now making it possible for G Suite admins to cluster users in separate directories with custom visibility rules for each organizational unit (OU). For example, a company might give full-time employees access to a global directory, because they want them to be able to find other full-time employees and temps. At the same time, they might not want temps to be able to find full-time employees, so they’ll limit them to a custom directory with restrictions applied.



Admins can configure these visibility rules in the Admin console under Apps > G Suite > Settings for Directory.



For more information on configuring Directory settings, check out this Help Center article.

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: Create custom directories

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In October 2017, we announced the rollout of international Hangouts Meet dial-in phone numbers for G Suite Enterprise domains. This option helps your team to stay connected, wherever they are. We’ve added this functionality for six additional countries (with more to come!):

• Dominican Republic (DO)
• Estonia (EE)
• Greece (GR)
• Hungary (HU)
• Latvia (LV)
• Luxembourg (LU)

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

Editions:
Available to G Suite Enterprise edition only

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

Impact:
All end users

Action:
Change management suggested/FYI

More Information
Help Center: Dial in from a phone
Help Center: Join a video meeting


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Google Drive makes it easy to share files through Gmail, Calendar, and other apps with a feature called “Access checker.” When you send an email, calendar invite, or other communication that includes a Drive file, Access checker automatically looks to see if the people you’re sending the message to have permissions to view the file. If they don’t, Access checker asks if you want to change the permissions before you share the file.

We’re updating Access checker to:

• Make it easier to see who needs access. You’ll now see the names or email addresses that don’t currently have access to the file in the Access checker interface. 
• Support more file types in Drive. Access checker will now support files in a Team Drive. 
• Share directly with those who need access. Access checker will anticipate who needs access to a file and intelligently default to sharing with those recipients only.

The updated Access checker interface looks like this:



You can share with these intelligent default settings in just one click, or choose a different sharing option for the file. Before, the default share option was “turn link sharing on.” We hope this change makes it easier for you to ensure that only the right people have permission to access your files.

Note that all sharing settings configured for your domain (or OUs) will remain the same. This launch respects the settings you’ve already chosen for Sharing outside your domain, Access Checker, and Link Sharing Defaults. If you’ve chosen to limit Access Checker to Recipients only, link sharing will not be suggested.

These updates are based on your feedback, and we hope they deliver a sharing experience that is simple, secure, and anticipates your users’ needs.

Admin controls for Access checker

As a G Suite admin, you can control how Access checker works for your organization. Specifically, you can select the sharing options that are available to your users. You can choose if your users see the option to:

• Share with recipients (default), share link within your organization, share link with anyone (no Google account required). 
• Share with recipients (default), share link within your organization.
• Share with recipients (default). 

See our Help Center to find out more about how to configure Access checker for your organization.

Launch Details
Release track:
Launching to Rapid Release, with Scheduled Release coming in three weeks

Editions:
Available to all G Suite editions

Rollout pace:
Extended rollout (potentially longer than 15 days for feature visibility). Rollout to scheduled release domains will begin one week after rollout to rapid release domains is complete.

Impact:
Admins and end users

Action:
Admin action suggested/FYI and change management suggested/FYI

More Information
Help Center: Set file sharing permissions for your organization
Help Center: Share files from Google Drive

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Update (May 15, 2018): It is no longer necessary to enable Google Voice for users to access to this feature.

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All G Suite domains call a US or Canadian phone number for free from Hangouts Meet.
With easy-to-join video calls, Meet helps your team stay connected. Sometimes, you may want to add participants to your meeting without needing to send them a link, like when you want to connect folks who are already dialed into a conference bridge, or if a team member is running late and is still on their commute. That’s why you can now call US or Canadian phone numbers, directly from your meeting, for free.

With this launch, G Suite users who are in the same domain as the event organizer, and who are accessing Meet through their web browser, can add someone by phone using the instructions in the Help Center.




To give their users access to this feature, G Suite admins will first need to enable Google Voice in the Admin console.

Please note, this feature is currently supported from specific countries only. Please reference this Help Center article for a list of countries that are currently eligible to use this feature.

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:
Admin action suggested/FYI

More Information
Help Center: Add someone by phone to a video meeting
Help Center: Let users add people by phone to meetings
Help Center: Enable Google Voice

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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 March 2018.

Archive and translated versions (coming soon for March issue)

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