Because G Suite is a cloud service it means it is under constant change and update! I’ve said this in the course and as part of my commitment I’ll work on keeping you up to date with all the changes that happen to G Suite from the moment the course was published!

This is a recap for the changes and updates that happened to G Suite since 1st of February/2018!

I’ll make sure I do one recap every month for the changes that happened in the previous month.. This being the first.

I’ll put some links at the end of this report for this document on Google Docs in case you wanted to share it with your organization or connections. Also I’ll post a link to a document from Google as well that is more business oriented you can share it with your organization as well, plus other resources and links that might be useful and connected to the content below.

Major changes

Hangouts Chat

Now became generally available (from 26-Feb-2018) – will be rolled out to all customers by mid-March. (26-Feb-2018)

Hangouts Chat is a new way to communicate with teams that are part of a single project. It is Google’s answer to Slack and Microsoft Teams.

You can create chat rooms and threads in Hangouts Chat. Conversations will be grouped based on threads of “subjects” if you want to call them like that.

There is also an awesome integration with ‘bots’ which are like plugins that bring information from external apps to Hangouts Chat. These integrations start from Google’s own apps such as Drive and Docs and go beyond to other apps such as:

• Accounting: Xero
• Analytics: Statsbot
• Communications: Dialpad, RingCentral, Uberconference and Vonage
• CRM: ProsperWorks, Salesforce and Streak
• Customer Service: Freshdesk
• File Sharing: Egnyte
• Human Resources: Disco, Polly and Zenefits
• Meditation & Mindfulness: Stop, Breathe & Think
• Productivity: Lucidchart and Zoom.ai
• Project and task Management: Jira, MeisterTask, Trello and Wrike
• Travel: Kayak

Link to announcement: https://gsuiteupdates.googleblog.com/2018/02/hangouts-chat-core-service.html please refer to this link for very important information on how to activate Hangouts Chat for your domain.

Google Sites

Now you can publish (share) the site to specific people instead of opening it for everyone (26-Feb-2018)

Previously we used to enable the access to this site for either people inside our organization or people external (public to the web).

Now finally we have the option to allow certain people to access the site. This is a great feature specially if people in your organization want to utilize Google Sites to share information with management or other people in your organization, but are concerned about privacy and access restrictions!

Please check the announcement link: https://gsuiteupdates.googleblog.com/2018/01/publish-google-sites-to-specific-audience.html

I will be updating the videos in the Google Sites section in my course for this new change once it is rolled to my testing Admin Console!

Google Vault

Retention rules support for Hangouts Chat (26-Feb-2018)

With the general availability of Hangouts Chat, the need for retention rules in Google Vault arise and to meet this, you can now create retention rules that affect the Hangouts Chats messages.

Please check this link for important information about how you can do this: https://gsuiteupdates.googleblog.com/2018/02/google-vault-support-for-hangouts-chat.html

Note the change is being rolled out to customers and in my case I still haven’t receive the change. Changes will take up to 15 days from announcement until they are completely rolled out to all customers.

I will be updating the videos in the Google Vault section in my course for this new change once it is rolled to my testing Admin Console!

Drive

More settings and options for the Drive File Stream to allow more control and flexibility. (19-Feb-2018)

The Drive File Stream is a great client from Google that will sync Team Drives and Google Drive to your PC. It was recently launched so it is still being constantly changed with new features!

This recent update for it brings a lot of settings and features to the client.

In general the changes are:

1. Control when changes are synced to Google Drive (all end users)
2. Customize the cache location (admins only)
3. Limit the bandwidth used (admins only)
4. Customize drive letter or mount point (admins only)

Please see the announcement link for details and very important details about this: https://gsuiteupdates.googleblog.com/2018/02/new-drive-file-stream-settings-for-your.html

Gmail

Content copied from MS Office Word/Excel will keep format when posted in new message. (12-Feb-2018)

Device management

Users will be able to assign ownership of their devices to their company if they added the G Suite account as the first account on the new device (must run Android 6.0+). (12-Feb-2018)

The topic of device management was a large and an interesting one and we’ve seen this through the long section in the course! Device management is still being changed and constantly!

This change basically addresses how company owned devices are added to the Admin Console.

There are 2 ways to add a device to the list of company owned devices: either by uploading a list of the devices using a CSV file template. Or by having the user mark the device he is enrolling as a company owned device.

The change here is on the second method, users now are prompted to choose and explicitly indicate whether they own the device or not.

Check the announcement for the details! https://gsuiteupdates.googleblog.com/2018/01/upcoming-change-to-setup-flow-for-co-android-devices.html

You can now manage the preferences for how realtime permissions requests are handled on devices. (8-Feb-2018)

An extra feature has been added to the app management interface in Device Management. When we saw the demonstration about managing apps for users we’ve seen the preferences for how to handle the permission request by applications on user device.

Now we have other control that will let us control the behavior when an app request a permission in real time.

For example when you install a map application, upon the installation it requests the permissions to access your location. But when you start the newly installed app, it will request the permission to access your location upon its start.

The change that we got will allow us to control this behavior. We have to option now to manage these permissions and either manage them completely or leave it to the user to grant the permissions.

Note: This only works for company owned devices or devices with Work Profile enabled.

Check the announcement for all the details and info! https://gsuiteupdates.googleblog.com/2018/02/manage-app-runtime-permissions.html

Jamboard

New features added: autodraw, external camera/speaker support, and other options. (19-Feb-2018)

Jamboard is a new product from Google. I did not talk about it in the course, however it is a core app in G Suite.

The reason I did not talk about it in the course is it is more a hardware app than a software.  But in a quick word Jamboard is a smart and interactive whiteboard! It is great for meetings and will make them enjoyable and productive instead of a time for people to sleep 😀

The changes that happened in February on Jamboard were:

• Autodraw
• Ownership sharing configuration for unclaimed Jams
• Animated frame changes with page numbers
• USB camera support
• S/PDIF audio support

Check out the announcement link for the details about these great new features!: https://gsuiteupdates.googleblog.com/2018/02/autodraw-external-cameraspeaker-support.html

You can find more details about Jamboard if you just open its home page or search on it in Google

Docs

Quick access in “Explore” bar is added to help find information quick and add them to the current document. (28-Feb-2018)

Quick Access for Docs uses artificial intelligence to suggest relevant files based on signals like Drive activity and information in your documents, so you can work with the most up-to-date information and create new material quickly.

So when you work on a topic with your team and want to create a project plan, once you create the doc and start the edit work on it, the quick access section will show related files to the topic that you are working on, so you will be able to add the informations to the file quickly.

Note: This is only available for domains who have Cloud Search enabled. Check external links section for info on how to enable the Cloud Search.

Other updates

• Accounts: 12 new 3rd-party apps added to the pre-integrated SAML apps (for SSO and auto-user provisioning). (26-Feb-2018) More info: https://goo.gl/vBsvV5
• Google Docs: Menus improved in editor. (26-Feb-2018) More info: https://goo.gl/K8zueF
• Gmail: Smart reply is available in French now. (26-Feb-2018) More info: https://goo.gl/uDpRHs
• Sites: Advanced users can specify a custom persistent URL for a page in Google Site. (5-Feb-2018) More info: https://goo.gl/cUAyXA
• Drive: New option to send email to all members of a team drive. (12-Feb-2018) More info: https://goo.gl/gD9Yzd
• Hangouts Meet: Ability to zoom in to see presentations while on Hangouts Meet Android app. (12-Feb-2018) More info: https://goo.gl/qZ5SnP
• Admin Console (ONLY FOR ENTERPRISE): Ability to track the Google Drive Data Loss Prevention rule scans through the top-right hourglass icon in the Admin Console. (5-Feb-2018) More info: https://goo.gl/PLNZLV

Extra links

What’s new in G Suite? – A link to Google Help Site that will list all announced and unannounced changes that happened to G Suite. You can find the changes and sort them by date and find all the related information for each change: https://support.google.com/a/table/7314896?visit_id=1-636560334479561612-1825969126&p=whatsnew&rd=1

What’s New in G Suite – Recap of February 2018 – A report or recap document made by Google to list all the changes that happened to G Suite in the previous month. This one is for February 2018. You can take this link and share it with your colleagues and have it on PDF as well: https://docs.google.com/document/d/18wYuhr9RgPqYpiKWY2h9tR1XnZ-1WkNEIifh-bzK3m4

G Suite February/2018 Updates – This report that you are currently reading, but on Google Docs, so you can also share it with colleagues and co-workers in your organization: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1drCPxc19AiPmDFnM0s8HHNt1U4x5vsgvRGhGH4YVKVA

Turn Cloud Search on or off for users – Related to the Docs update mentioned above on how to enable Cloud Search for your organization to benefit form that update: https://support.google.com/a/answer/6167160

Jamboard home page – The homepage for the Jamboard product from Google. Check it out as it is a great and an awesome product! https://www.blog.google/products/g-suite/jamboard-whiteboard-reimagined-collaboration-cloud/

Checkout my other blog posts here.

Check out my channel on Youtube and subscribe ?