In September 2015, we launched a new interface for Google Forms designed to simplify the form creation experience, produce beautiful forms by default, and make analyzing form responses easier. In February 2016, we made that new version of Forms the default option for users. More than 90% of forms are now managed in the new interface, and we’re ready to completely replace the legacy interface.

As part of the replacement process, we will be upgrading forms that use the legacy interface to the new interface. These changes will update the look and feel of some forms, but the functionality of the forms and any data that has been collected from forms will not change.

Limited options to use legacy Forms interface from August 22nd

Starting from August 22nd, 2018:

• New forms can only be created and managed in the new interface. All new forms will be created and managed in the new UI. There will be no option to move them to the legacy UI. 

• Forms previously created in the new UI will only be available to manage in the new interface. All forms which were previously created in the new Forms interface will no longer have the option to revert back to the legacy UI. 

• Forms created in the legacy interface will be upgraded. When an editor opens a form previously created in the legacy UI, the form will be automatically converted to the new Forms interface. Editors will see a notification and have the option to revert to manage the form in the legacy UI until November 2018. We’ll also automatically upgrade forms that haven’t been edited or received any responses in the last year. 

Interface upgrade complete by November 21st 

Starting from November 21st, 2018:

• All forms in the legacy UI will gradually be auto-upgraded to new UI. Once they are upgraded, you will only be able to manage them through the new interface. 

Making sure new Forms meets your needs

Throughout this transition period, we’ve listened closely to your feedback and incorporated your top requests as new features in the new version of Forms. These features include:

• New theme options to customize and brand your Google Forms, which helps creators choose colors and fonts to create forms that match your desired branding. 
• Intelligent response validation, which suggests that Forms check the answer format matches an appropriate answer to the question (for example Forms will suggest it checks answers to questions asking for a website are URLs.) 
• Improved notifications and response view options 
• Images in questions and answers in Google Forms 
• Smart quizzes in Google Forms 
• Ability to upload files as answers to questions 

The recently launched new theme options to customize your forms

Upgrade to the new Google Forms interface today

If you haven’t already, we encourage you and your users to start using the new Forms interface today:

• To create a form in new Forms, go to forms.google.com and select “Start a new form.” 
• To upgrade a form in legacy Forms, open the form and look for a banner that says “Try the new Google Forms.” 

The locations of some options have changed, but the Forms features you know and love still exist, and there are many new ones we think you’ll find useful.



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Beginning on October 23, 2018, Internet Explorer 10 will no longer be a supported browser for use with Google+. Before this time, we recommend referring to the Help Center to ensure you’re using a supported browser for uninterrupted access to Google+.

For more information on supported browsers for all G Suite apps, refer to the Help Center.

Deprecation Details
Impact:
All end users using Internet Explorer 10

Action:
Change management suggested/FYI

More Information
Help Center: Supported browsers for G Suite

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Last month, we announced a new look for the Google sign-in screen. Unfortunately, due to unforeseen delays, we’re now rolling out the new design this week, with some minor changes.

Going forward, you may notice that when you sign in to your G Suite account, the screen looks slightly different. Some of the changes include tweaks to the Google logo and center alignment of all items on the screen. See below for before and after images.




Please note that the outline around the text field (mentioned in our previous announcement) will appear in the coming months.

We apologize for any convenience this delay and change may have caused.

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:
Change management suggested/FYI


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(Cross-posted from The Keyword)

Effective teaching and learning require seamless collaboration between instructors and students. The right technology and training can help facilitate this connection, which is why many universities, colleges, schools and other educational institutions provide their instructors and students with a Learning Management System (LMS). In addition to using an LMS, educators and students often also use G Suite's cloud-based productivity tools to create, collaborate and communicate in real time. Until now, there hasn’t been an easy way to integrate G Suite with many LMSs.

Enter Course Kit—a free toolkit that allows instructors to use Google Docs and Drive to collect assignments, give faster and richer feedback to students, and share course materials within the LMS they’re already using. Course Kit is built using the Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI) standard so it's easy to set up and works with all LMSs that support LTI. Course Kit currently includes an assignment tool and a file embed tool, making it fast and secure to integrate G Suite's powerful collaboration capabilities into teaching and learning workflows. We piloted Course Kit over the last semester with higher ed institutions, and are now making it available more widely through a beta program.


Save time for thoughtful feedback with Course Kit's assignment tool

Creating and collecting assignments in an LMS with Course Kit's assignment tool is efficient and secure. When submitting their work, students don’t have to worry about the format of their files because any file that can be stored in Google Drive works with Course Kit. Once students turn in their completed work, Course Kit automatically manages permissions and students no longer have edit access to their submitted files while being graded. For instructors, being able to use Google’s cloud-based tools that their students use every day is critical.


Educators can use Course Kit's grading interface to easily toggle between students and their submitted files, all in one tab. They also have the ability to privately give feedback on assignment submissions with the rich collaboration features of Docs and Drive—such as in-line suggestions and margin comments. To save time for deeper, personalized feedback, Course Kit includes a new feature that lets instructors quickly insert commonly used margin comments using a customizable comment bank. “Educator comments are added to a bank, which can be easily reused over and over, or edited to make feedback more personal. Our professors found that very useful,” said Ben Hommerding, Instructional Technologist at St. Norbert College.


When educators are finished reviewing assignments, grades and feedback are synced to the LMS and files are returned to students. “This saves a lot of time managing grades manually,” said Hommerding. Course Kit also creates an archival copy of every returned assignment so professors have an easy-to-access record of submissions -- especially helpful if the assignment needs to be turned in several times. Students get notified when their assignment is returned and can view the instructor’s comments and feedback directly in their LMS.

Embed course materials in an LMS with Course Kit's file embed tool

Using Course Kit's file embed tool, LMS users can add course materials from Google Drive directly into LMS pages, making it easy to share materials seamlessly. Instructors can embed anything from assignment information and syllabi to lecture presentations and videos. This tool simplifies the process of sharing related materials because embedded files are right there in the LMS, organized in Drive and automatically shared, saving faculty from manually configuring sharing settings.


Join the beta

Now with the Google Docs and Drive integration within your LMS, it’s possible to streamline assignment workflows, give richer feedback, and collaborate with students. Course Kit meets industry standards for accessibility and is available in 44 languages. If your institution uses G Suite for Education, get started by requesting access to the beta. Once whitelisted, your IT administrator can install Course Kit in your LMS. Currently using Google Classroom? We are also working to add new and improved feedback functionality directly to Classroom, so stay tuned for more updates in the next few months.

It’s our goal to build tools that enable meaningful connections and lead to effective learning. As always, we’d love your feedback about Course Kit so we can continue to improve these tools, and build others that help improve teaching and learning.


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With this month’s release, we’ve added two new features specifically for Jamboard for mobile devices: drawing tools and the ability to claim jams using near-field communication (NFC).

Draw and edit jams from your mobile device
In the Jamboard mobile app, you can now:

• Draw using Jamboard brushes
• Use the color picker
• Use the handwriting and shape recognition tools
• Use laser pointer
• Erase and clear board functions

Claim a jam using NFC-enabled mobile devices
Users can use NFC from their phones to take ownership of jams from a Jamboard or push their jams to the Jamboard using their mobile devices. They can simply tap to own or push a jam to Jamboard.



Updated Icons on the Jamboard device & apps
Toolbar icons on both the Jamboard device and mobile applications have been updated. It is important to note that the arrow that moves the toolbar from the left to the right edge of the Jamboard has been removed in this version.



For a full list of new features and improvements from this month’s release, check out the What’s New in Jamboard page in the Help Center.

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

Editions:
Available to all G Suite Basic, Business, Enterprise, and Education customers

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

Impact:
All end users

Action:
Change management suggested/FYI

More Information
Help Center
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Last year, we introduced a new resource for admins: What’s new in G Suite? Don’t forget to visit the page regularly for a list of the most recent launches across G Suite.

Feedback? Let us know.

Earlier this year, we announced a new feature in Google Calendar that, using Google AI, can automatically suggest rooms for your meetings based on the locations of the guests. We’re now releasing this feature along with new and easier ways to update the main work locations for users in your domain.

Assign main work locations
As an admin, you can add main work location information for all users. Main work locations are the office / building location where the user spends most of their time or has their main desk or team. For users without a primary office building, the work location can be set to “Working remotely.”

If you know the work locations of all your users, you can update this information via GCDS or the Directory API.

If you don’t have users’ locations, you can instead let employees set their own location. Simply go to the Admin console and click Apps > G Suite > Settings for Directory > Profile editing and select "Work location."


With this setting enabled:

• Calendar will try to infer users’ locations. Based on previous room booking activity, Calendar can infer the user’s building and floor and set it automatically. It can also detect changes in room booking behavior and infer when the work location has changed (i.e. the office has moved) and suggest that the user update their location.
• Your users can update their main work locations themselves. Users can set and update their own location in Calendar settings.

Please note, you must have already entered building and floor information for your domain to input users’ main work locations.

Automatic room suggestions
Automatic room suggestions can help meeting organizers book courtesy rooms for all guests in any location, removing friction and creating peace of mind when planning meetings. Once user locations have been added, these users will instantly start seeing the room suggestions.

This launch includes a new, enhanced room and resource booking tab that will intelligently suggest the best available room for each attendee. This suggestion is based on the individual attendee’s building and floor location, previous booking history, audio/video equipment needs, and room capacity requirements.

In this tab, users will see the criteria that was considered when suggesting a room. They can adapt this criteria to fit their needs.



To unlock this feature, admins need to add detailed meeting room information into Calendar and users must have a work location set.

For more information on automatic room suggestions, 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 and all end users

Action:
Admin action suggested/FYI

More Information
Help Center: Set up automatic room suggestion
Help Center: Set up meeting rooms and calendar resources
Help Center: Impact of adopting structured Calendar resources
Detailed Guide: Structuring Google Calendar Resources
The Keyword: New ways to help teams work faster and smarter with G Suite
G Suite Updates: Coming soon: automatic room suggestions in Google Calendar

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The devices audit log in the Admin console provides a report on the activities of managed mobile and desktop devices in your organization. Previously, this report was limited to domains with advanced mobile management enabled. To make it even more useful, we’re now showing some of the events in this report to G Suite Business, Enterprise, and Enterprise for Education customers with basic mobile management and endpoint verification enabled as well.

These customers can now use this report to:

• Find out when a G Suite account has been added to a device.
• Learn when device screen locks have been enabled and disabled. 

In addition, the devices audit log will now contain admin activities, like when an account wipe has been requested or executed. Knowledge of these activities can help you keep your users’ devices, and the data contained on them, safe. You can find this report in the Admin console at Reports > Audit > Devices.


At launch, for basic mobile management and endpoint verification customers, this report will only show events on managed Android and endpoint verification devices. We’re working on expanding coverage to more devices in the future.

Visit the Help Center to learn more about the devices audit log and how to access it. If you haven’t done so yet, check out this article for information on how to set up mobile management in your domain.

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

Editions:
Available to G Suite Business, Enterprise, and Enterprise for Education editions, as well as Cloud Identity Premium

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

Impact:
Admins only

Action:
Admin action suggested/FYI

More Information
Help Center: Manage your organization's mobile devices
Help Center: Devices audit log


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Archive and translated versions (coming soon for June issue)

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We’re always looking for new ways to keep your users’ accounts secure and your organization’s data safe. As part of that effort, users may now be asked to verify their identity by providing their employee ID when they sign in to their G Suite account. This will better protect your users from hijacking attempts, as employee IDs are more difficult to guess and phish than many types of identity challenges.


Activate the employee ID login challenge
The employee ID login challenge can only be deployed in domains where a G Suite admin has provided that ID information for their users. You can do this in one of three ways:

1. Upload employee IDs directly into the Admin console.
2. Use Google Cloud Directory Sync to pull employee IDs from Microsoft Active Directory or an LDAP server.
3. Use the G Suite Admin SDK Directory API to populate the “externalIds[].type” “organization” field with employee IDs.

Once you’ve added this employee ID information, you can turn on the login challenge from the Admin console (Security > Login challenges > Use employee ID to keep my users more secure). Note that the employee ID login challenge is OFF by default.

Check out the Help Center for more information on how to add an employee ID as a login challenge.

Notify your users
If you choose to activate this login challenge, we recommend letting your users know where they can find their employee ID and that they may be asked for it when they sign in to their G Suite account. If they’d prefer to verify their identity another way, they should update their phone number and recovery email address.

Please note that this login challenge will not be presented to any user with two-step verification enabled.

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 and end users

Action:
Admin action suggested/FYI

More Information
Help Center: Verify a user’s identity with a login challenge
Help Center: Add employee ID as a login challenge


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