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.

We’ve already made it easier to reply to emails; we’re now making it easier to compose them. Smart Compose in Gmail, now available to G Suite users, intelligently autocompletes your emails. At launch, it can fill in common phrases and relevant addresses, like that of your home and office; in the future, it will get smarter—learning your most-used greetings.


Smart Compose is on by default for all G Suite users. They can turn it off in their Gmail general settings (Smart Compose > Writing suggestions off).

Visit the Help Center for more details on how to use Smart Compose.

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: Use Smart Compose

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We’re adding the option for you, as a G Suite admin, to whitelist specific bots for Hangouts Chat for your organization. This new setting will apply in Chat beginning October 10th, 2018.

When we announced Hangouts Chat earlier this year, we introduced bots. Bots provide a conversational way for you to connect to services in Chat, such as looking up information, scheduling meetings, performing tasks, and so on. Bots can be created by Google, users in your domain, or third parties.

We’ve heard from you that you’d like more granularity over which third-party bots your users can interact with in Chat. In addition to the option in the Admin console to turn bots on or off for your domain, you can now enable specific third-party bots individually in the G Suite Marketplace settings.


Full instructions on how to whitelist bots can be found in the Help Center. While you can start adding bots to a whitelist now, this new setting won’t take effect in Chat until October 10th, 2018.

This means that if you have previously disabled all G Suite Marketplace apps or whitelisted specific apps, the Google Drive bot, Meet bot, and third-party bots will stop working unless you change your G Suite Marketplace settings to allow these.

For more information on using bots in Chat, 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:

• Admin ability to whitelist: Full rollout (1–3 days for feature visibility) starting September 26, 2018
• Setting takes effect in Chat: Full rollout (1–3 days for feature visibility) starting October 10, 2018

Impact:
Admins only

Action:
Admin action suggested/FYI

More Information
Help Center: About bots
Help Center: Control user installation of Marketplace apps

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With this month’s release, we’ve added two highly requested features from customers that help you jam from anywhere and give you more control when sharing your work: creating and editing jams from the web and a “View Only” mode.

Create and edit your jams in a web browser

While users have always been able to view a jam from any device, editing and collaborating on a jam has been limited to touch devices (like the physical kiosk, tablets, and smartphones).

Now, you can create and edit your jams on the web too. With the new updates to the Jamboard web experience, everybody on your team can join in and collaborate on a session in their web browser. This means that anybody in the meeting can participate, whether they want to edit a sketch from a laptop or quickly type up sticky notes during a brainstorm.



We’ve found that this makes using and adopting Jamboard much easier for most teams and organizations.

Share and protect your work with View Only mode

Sometimes you want to share something to collaborate, but other times you want to share something that’s complete. Perhaps it’s an early brainstorm that you just want your manager to be able to view, or perhaps you’re a teacher sharing an assignment that you don’t want students to edit or change. With View Only mode, you can share something broadly but set exactly who has edit access.



The feature looks and works similarly to other G Suite apps like Docs, Sheets and Slides, so you have a consistent experience no matter what you’re creating and sharing.



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 G Suite Basic, Business, Enterprise, Enterprise for Education, and Education editions only

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

Impact:
All end users

Action:
Change management suggested/FYI

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As we recently announced, we’re making our add-on for Google Sheets to connect with Salesforce generally available. You can use it to import data and reports from Salesforce into Sheets and to push updates you make in Sheets back to Salesforce. This seamless integration will help optimize workflows and reduce duplicate work between the two products.

See our beta launch announcement for more details on the add-on and how you might use it. We hope it will help you operate more efficiently.


Get and use the Salesforce add-on for Google Sheets

• End users can install “Data connector for Salesforce” from the G Suite Marketplace.
• G Suite admins can deploy the add-on to their entire domain.

As a G Suite admin you can control access to this add-on the same way you can any other Sheets add-on.

• If you have add-ons disabled for your domain but want to allow your users to use this specific add-on, you can whitelist this add-on.
• If you want to control add-ons across your domain, see disable or enable add-ons overall in Docs editors.

See our Help Center for more details on how to import, edit and sync Salesforce data with Google Sheets.

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
G Suite Marketplace: Data Connector for Salesforce add-on
Admin Help Center: Install Marketplace apps
Admin Help Center: Control user installation of Marketplace apps
Admin Help Center: Turn a Marketplace app on or off for users
User Help Center: Use add-ons & Apps Script
User Help Center: Import, edit & sync Salesforce data with Google Sheets


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We’re adding a new page in Google Drive’s left-hand navigation panel that helps you find and take action on the right Drive files at the right time. This Priority page uses machine learning to suggest files you might need to work on and has “workspaces” to help you organize files. Priority in Drive is initially available in beta. See below for more details.

See files and comments that need attention

The goal of Priority is to put your most important files in one place. Using machine learning, we identify the files that are high-priority for you to work on. When you open the page, you’ll see those files, along with comments and suggested actions. You’ll be able to reply to some comments directly through the Drive interface and open full documents with one click. This will help you spend less time searching for content and more time doing work that matters.

Use workspaces to organize files without moving them

The Priority page also organizes files into workspaces. These let you gather a private set of working files for ongoing easy access. Adding files to a workspace doesn’t affect their storage location or permissions—it just aggregates files to help you find them faster. Our studies show most users only work with around 10–20 files at any given time. Workspaces help make sure you can get to those files more efficiently. To build your workspace, you can use Drive's intelligent file suggestions or add files manually.


With the Priority page, Drive is helping you save time and focus on what matters by intelligently surfacing and organizing the files you may need in any given moment.

Apply to join the Priority in Drive Beta

Priority in Drive is launching initially in beta. Admins can see more details, review the eligibility requirements, and apply for their domains to join at this link.



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On October 17th, 2018, we’ll begin rolling out real-time presence for Microsoft Office files in Google Drive to all G Suite domains. Admin controls for real-time presence are available today.

This feature, included in Drive File Stream, will help you avoid version conflicts when editing Microsoft Office files in Google Drive. Real-time presence will let users know if another user is editing a Word, Excel, or PowerPoint file stored in Drive File Stream, in real time. This feature will start rolling out to end users on October 17th.

Avoid version conflicts when editing Microsoft Office files in Drive

Real-time presence will check to see if someone else is viewing or editing a Microsoft Office file while you have it open. It’ll alert you and them to help avoid version conflicts. When conflicts do occur, it’ll help you resolve them with a side-by-side view of the document versions, allowing you to easily merge them into one up-to-date file. For more details and to fully understand the feature:

• See this demo recorded at Google Cloud Next 2018.
• Read our previous blog post describing the feature.

Admin controls available now

Admins can choose whether to make real-time presence available to their organizations. Admin controls are live today and on by default. Real-time presence can be disabled for an entire domain or for individual organizational units (OUs) within a domain. To change the setting, go to Apps > G Suite > Drive and Docs > Features and Applications > Allow users to enable real-time presence in Microsoft Office from Drive File Stream in the Admin console.

For more granular control, admins can also deploy a configuration setting to enable or disable real-time presence in Microsoft Office on a per-machine basis.

End user feature available after October 17th

On October 17th, Drive File Stream users will begin to see an educational message when opening Office files stored in Drive File Stream. This message (pictured below), explains that real-time presence helps users see who is editing Microsoft Office files stored in Drive. After opting in to this feature, users will begin to see real-time presence status indicators in the bottom right-hand corner of Word, Excel, and Powerpoint windows that are focused in the foreground.
On macOS, enabling real-time presence may require users to grant accessibility permissions. Additionally, some users may be asked to confirm their identity before using real-time presence, by logging in with their G Suite account. Starting October 17th, employees at G Suite organizations will be able to visit our Help Center to learn more about how to use real-time presence.

Launch Details
Release track:

• Admin console setting launching to both Rapid Release and Scheduled Release today
• End user feature included in version of Drive File Stream that will become available to both Rapid Release and Schedule Release on October 17th

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
G Suite Updates blog: Avoid version conflicts when editing Microsoft Office files in Drive
Demo video: Real-time presence in Microsoft Office
Help Center: Use work or school files on your computer with Drive File Stream


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We launched the investigation tool as an Early Adopter Program (EAP) in July and are now making it generally available (GA). It will help G Suite admins and security analysts identify, triage, and remediate security threats within their organization. This tool builds on the existing capabilities in the security center to help admins:

• Identify security issues within their domain using advanced search capability.
• Triage threats targeting users, devices, or data.
• Take bulk actions to limit the propagation and impact of threats.

Since our EAP announcement, we’ve been hard at work using the feedback from participants to improve the product. As a result, this release will have the following key new features:

• Enhanced security to prevent insider risk - You can now require a second admin to verify large actions in the investigation tool.
• More fine-grained visibility while investigating incidents - Email header analysis allows you to see important attributes and the delivery path for the email. We’ve also added visibility into Team Drive settings and the ability to modify access permissions directly from the tool.
• Simplified interface - With user auto-complete, emails and names from your organization will be auto-completed as you type parameters in the investigation tool.

We hope the investigation tool helps you manage your organization’s data security. See the Help Center for more information on the tools available to provide visibility into security issues in your domain.

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

Editions:
Available to G Suite Enterprise and Enterprise for Education editions only

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

Impact:
Admins only

Action:
Admin action suggested/FYI

More Information
G Suite Updates blog: Triage and remediate threats with new investigation tool in G Suite security center Early Adopter Program
G Suite blog: Gain deeper organizational insights with new features in G Suite

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We’re launching Work Insights, a new tool to help you quickly assess the impact of G Suite on your organization by giving you visibility into the adoption of G Suite tools. Initially launching in beta, Work Insights is available to organizations with G Suite Enterprise or Enterprise for Education editions. G Suite admins can use this form to apply for the beta.

See the impact of G Suite in your organization 

With Work Insights, we aim to bring you executive-level insights into how G Suite is increasing collaboration and improving workplace culture at your organization. Use the Work Insights dashboard to see how your organization’s G Suite usage is changing over time in the following areas:

• Adoption - which teams are adopting G Suite and which apps they use most frequently
• Collaboration - how are teams working together through meetings, file sharing, and document co-editing
• Activity - which apps teams are spending time in and how much time they’re spending in meetings

The metrics in the dashboard can help you determine how quickly your workforce is adopting G Suite, how teams are collaborating, if they’re using G Suite products as expected, and if you need additional training resources to help users understand a new workflow.

Compare across your organization

For each category of metrics, you can compare insights by organizational unit. You can also benchmark usage and adoption by comparing team-level statistics to overall company data. This can help you establish usage trends and see adoption patterns to get insights into differences across your organization.

Note that at the organizational level, team insights will only be shown for teams of 10 people or more.

Work Insights Beta now open

Work Insights is initially launching in beta to organizations with G Suite Enterprise and Enterprise for Education editions only, with access restricted to admins. See this form for more details and to apply.

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(Cross-posted from the G Suite blog)

Companies across the world are exploring digital transformation to increase collaboration, leading to more idea exchange, less organizational silos and more opportunity for growth. Be it a healthcare company like SCL Health looking for ways to streamline patient care, or a media company like Nielsen looking to collaborate in real-time, every organization is unique—and so, too, are its needs.

For this reason, businesses are turning to cloud-native apps like G Suite to gain greater visibility into their organization, as well as to have more control over policies that keep their data secure.

Today, we're announcing two new ways admins can gain greater insight into their organizations to help employees focus on work that’s core to success.

See how your organization collaborates with Work Insights

Work Insights is a tool built specifically to help businesses measure and understand the impact of digital transformation within their organizations, driven by G Suite. With Work Insights—now available in beta—admins can quickly surface organizational insights about G Suite deployments at the team level (aggregated at 10 people or more) and understand adoption patterns for G Suite apps.

With adoption charts in Work Insights, admins can analyze trends and track deployment progress over time. They can see which apps are widely adopted, and by which teams, as well as benchmark and identify which ones may need additional training on applications. This can be particularly valuable when an organization is transitioning from legacy tools to G Suite.



You can also use Work Insights to learn how your teams are collaborating across your organization. For example, an admin can quickly surface the percentage of users on the Sales team that are working with the Marketing team to see patterns, like if they’re working together in meetings or co-creating documents. This insight can help executives identify opportunities to strengthen collaboration and reduce siloes.

Understand and mitigate potential security risks with new investigation tool

Understanding what is happening within an organization is also important to operate securely, and businesses need a way to simplify their security management. We introduced the security center for G Suite earlier this year to help—bringing together security analytics, actionable insights and best practice recommendations from Google.

Today, we’re announcing the general availability of the investigation tool in security center, which adds integrated remediation to the prevention and detection capabilities already available. With this addition, admins can identify suspicious device activity, see if Google Drive have been shared externally and remove access, delete malicious emails and more.



The investigation tool, with its simple UI, makes it easier for admins to identify threats without having to worry about analyzing logs which can be time-consuming and require complex scripting. Powerful remediation controls enable admins to take action by scaling incident response across the entire domain with a few clicks . Investigation tool is available today for G Suite Enterprise customers. Learn more.

Use these insights from G Suite to augment how your teams work together or visit the G Suite website to learn more.