Featured Launch: Do your best work with Google Docs |
Work anywhere Multi-select files for offline use, quick sharing and more with the Drive iOS app |
Learn more about Google Apps Google for Work Connect (GWC): The community for Apps administrators |
We’d really appreciate your thoughts on how we can make this newsletter work best for you.
-The Google Apps Team
October 5, 2015
Featured Launch: Do your best work with Google Docs
Be more efficient, work better together, and create compelling content
Announced September 2nd, 2015 Share with your organization |
What’s new: To help you and your employees be as efficient as possible, collaborate more effectively, and create beautiful, compelling content, we’ve launched several new features in Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Forms. Read on for more information about each!
Be more efficient
New functionality in Docs saves you time by enabling you to work on the go, in the way that’s fastest and easiest for you.
Research in Docs on Android
Research in the Docs Android app makes working whenever, wherever, easier. Use the feature to search Google without leaving the app, then add those facts, images, and quotes you find directly to your document with only a few taps on the screen. Spend less time toggling between apps and copying and pasting and more time on the work that’s important to you!
Voice typing in Docs
Voice typing allows you to dictate your ideas directly to Docs, both in Chrome on the web and via the Android and iOS mobile apps. When using Docs on the web, simply select Voice typing in the Tools menu, click the microphone button to activate the feature, and start speaking — no keyboard necessary. When using your phone, just tap the microphone button on your keyboard to begin. Voice typing is available in more than 40 languages.
Work better together
Collaborate more effectively with your colleagues and partners using the following new features in Google Docs, Slides, and Forms.
See new changes in Docs
Easily check out the changes made to a Docs file since you last viewed it—and who made them—by clicking See new changes at the top of your document or from the File menu in Docs on the web. Quickly glance at the latest edits and pick up right where your teammates left off.
Revamped Google Forms
Ask and get answers in style with the brand new Forms look, feel, and functionality. In addition to an improved mobile-friendly interface, the revamped Forms features a selection of new themes and color palettes, the ability to customize your form with your own photo or logo, and buttons to quickly insert images, GIFs, and videos. Responses are easier to analyze as well, as they now appear in the same window as the form editor (you can also view them in Sheets).
Try out the new Forms by visiting this site (don’t worry—you can revert back to the old UI at any time). Responders will only see the new UI for those forms created or edited in it. Remember—this is an early, opt-in-only release of the new Forms, and we’ll continue to add features and functionality in the future.
Google Fonts preserved in Microsoft® Word and PowerPoint on PCs
You no longer need to worry about sending documents and presentations created in Docs and Slides to customers and partners using Word and PowerPoint on PCs—even when those documents and presentations contain Google Fonts. Google Fonts will now be preserved when you download Docs and Slides files in Word and PowerPoint.
Create compelling content
Create your best and most beautiful work with a bit of help from Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides—in particular, using the features described below.
Explore in Sheets
Spend less time trying to make sense of your data and more time acting on it with Explore in Sheets. This new feature on the web and in the Android app analyzes the data (including some types of text) in your spreadsheets and automatically creates charts and surfaces insights based on that information. Highlight different sets of data and watch as the charts change dynamically, then drag and drop those charts directly into your spreadsheet. You can do the same with instant calculations (for example, the sums and counts of certain ranges). Like a built-in analyst at your beck and call, Explore allows you to easily visualize trends and better understand your data.
Partial cell formatting in Sheets
When it comes to spreadsheets—and the cells that comprise them—we know that one size doesn’t always fit all. That’s why it’s now possible to select only a portion of the characters within a cell in Sheets and to apply text formatting to only those characters (as opposed to the entire cell). This functionality is available on the web and in the Sheets Android app.
Templates in Docs, Sheets, and Slides
Focus on your content, not your formatting, with the new templates in Docs, Sheets, and Slides on the web. Choose from a wide variety of documents, spreadsheets, and presentations pre-designed for a multitude of use cases, including newsletters, invoices, pitch decks, case studies, and more. Simply visit the Docs, Sheets, and Slides home screens to access these new templates and get started. While these templates are only available in English at the moment, we’ll be rolling them out in additional languages soon.
If you and/or your employees previously created your own templates, you can still access them (and create new custom templates) at drive.google.com/templates. We understand that some businesses and brands have additional needs when working with templates, and we’re looking to address these in future updates.
Themes in Slides
In addition to using the new templates described above, you can also use a set of 22 new themes in Slides to quickly create compelling presentations. Some of these new themes are simply updated versions of old themes (e.g. Simple Light, Simple Dark, and Swiss), while others are completely new (e.g. Beach Day, Modern Writer, and Spearmint). These themes can be accessed from a new Themes side panel in Slides, so you can easily experiment with and toggle between them when crafting presentations. Though the old themes are no longer accessible from this panel, they will continue to work in any presentations already using them.
Check out the following Help Center articles for more information:
- Do quick research in a document or presentation
- Type with your voice
- See the history of changes made to a file
- Try the new version of Google Forms
- Quickly get insights on a spreadsheet using Explore
- Edit and format data in Google spreadsheets
- Docs, Sheets, and Slides templates
- Customize a slide with layouts and themes
Work anywhere
Multi-select files for offline use, quick sharing and more with the Drive iOS app
Announced September 3rd, 2015 Share with your organization |
What’s new: A new version of the Google Drive iOS app is now available on the App Store. New features include:
For more information: |
Simple to use
Send students to the same website with Share to Classroom Chrome extension
Announced September 2nd, 2015 Share with your organization |
What’s new: We recently launched a new Chrome extension for Classroom called Share to Classroom. This extension makes it easy for teachers to send all of their students to the same website during class.
How it works: Once the extension is installed, a teacher can simply open a website and “push” it to his or her students, triggering that website to open on the students’ devices as well. (It also works the other way—students can “push” websites to their teachers.)
Google Apps admins can install the extension for their entire domains, making it simple for teachers and students to get started. Both teachers and students need to have the extension installed in order to push web pages to one another. Note that the Share to Classroom extension works on any laptop, including Chromebooks, Macs, and PCs.
The Share to Classroom extension is only available to Google Apps for Education and Google Apps for Nonprofits customers using Google Classroom.
Check out the Help Center for more information.
Presenting and charts made easy in the Slides and Sheets Android apps
Announced September 16th, 2015 Share with your organization |
What’s new: You can use the Google Slides app on your mobile phone to present to any screen using Chromecast, AirPlay, or Google Hangouts (Android only). This launch makes that task even easier for presenters, allowing them to change and preview slides from their phone’s lock screen and to toggle between a presentation and video in a Hangout.
How it works: When presenting, it’s important to keep your audience’s attention. Typing and retyping your mobile phone’s password to unlock your screen and advance your presentation can be time-consuming and distracting. With this launch, when you use the Slides Android app to present to a Chromecast device or Hangout, a notification will remain on your phone’s screen, even when it’s locked. Clicking on that notification will give you options to move forward or backward through your slides or to exit your presentation entirely.
Because sometimes you want to see your audience, this launch also makes it possible to switch to video when presenting to Hangouts via the Slides Android app. It’s easy—simply tap the video camera icon at the top of your screen to view and pin other Hangout participants.
In addition to the above enhancements to the Slides Android app, this latest release also includes improvements to the Google Sheets Android app. Charts in Sheets allow you to display data in ways that are often easier to understand and more compelling. You can already create a multitude of charts in Sheets on the web; with this launch, you can insert charts and change their type using the Sheets Android app as well. For instance, if you insert a bar chart from Explore, you can now quickly and easily change it to a column chart directly within the app.
For more information on these new features, check out the Help Center articles below:
More formatting options after pasting content in Google Sheets
Announced September 21st, 2015 Share with your organization |
What’s new: By default, when you copy and paste content in Google Sheets, the formatting of that content is maintained (unless you use the Paste special function). This launch gives you alternative formatting options at your fingertips, allowing you to paste only the values contained with a cell (e.g. the numbers or text, without any formatting) or the formatting of the cell itself (e.g. the fill color or border design).
How it works: Each option is easily accessible—after you paste, a small widget will appear in the bottom corner of the cells you’re pasting into. Clicking on that widget will show you the option to Paste values only or Paste format only. Interested in saving even more time? In Chrome, use the shortcut Ctrl + Shift + V to automatically paste values without their formatting.
Check out the Help Center for more information.
Block and Unsubscribe in Gmail
Announced September 22nd, 2015 Share with your organization |
What’s New: To avoid disruptive emails and help people using Gmail stay in control of their inboxes, we launched a new Block feature in the Gmail app on Android and the web. Future mail from blocked email addresses will go directly to Spam (and can always be unblocked in Settings).
In addition, the Unsubscribe option is now available on Android, making it easier to opt out of eligible mailing lists and newsletters directly from the Gmail app.
Check out the Help Center for more information.
Business ready
Google Groups support in Admin console audit logs
Announced September 1st, 2015 Admin feature |
What’s new: Audit logs allow Google Apps admins to monitor user activity across different applications like Calendar and Drive, giving them increased visibility for tracking and troubleshooting. This launch added audit log support for Google Groups for Business.
How it works: Google Groups audit logs provide admins with access to their users’ Google Groups activity via the Admin console and the Reports API. Admins can see an audit trail of Groups-related information, including changes to group settings and permissions, moderation actions, and membership-related actions (e.g. additions, removals, bans, unbans, invites, and joins) performed by their users in the Groups interface. In addition, admins can set up custom alerts for Groups audit events to effectively track important Groups-related activity.
Check out the Help Center and developer documentation for more information.
New features, new look for the Google Admin mobile app
Announced September 2nd, 2015 Admin feature |
What’s new: The Google Admin mobile app allows Apps super admins to easily manage users and groups, contact support, view audit logs and do other common administrative tasks all from their Android and iOS devices.
With this launch, we’ve streamlining some of the most popular admin experiences, integrating admin actions with mobile communications and introducing a new look and feel.
How it works: The new features, now available for both Android and iOS, include:
Richer user profiles with support for groups and several new attributes
Ability to perform bulk actions on users and groups
Ability to send text (SMS, WhatsApp, etc.) messages to users when adding them or resetting their password
The user experience has been redesigned using material design principles―aligning with the new look and feel announced for the Admin console on desktop earlier this year―providing a seamless experience across platforms and devices.
Check out the Android and iOS Help Center for more information.
A brand new Google Apps Marketplace
Announced September 3rd, 2015 Share with your organization |
What’s new: The right tools help organizations succeed. The Google Apps Marketplace makes it easy for admins and employees to find these tools by offering hundreds of third-party applications that integrate directly into Google Apps for Work. We recently revealed a brand new site for the Google Apps Marketplace that makes this process even simpler. A new home page highlights the most popular apps, new arrivals, and more, while search functionality and the navigation bar make it easy for users to find the apps they need.
How it works: Check out the new site at apps.google.com/marketplace. A few things to keep in mind:
If you’ve disabled the installation of some or all third-party Marketplace apps for your employees (in the Admin console under Apps > Marketplace apps > Settings for Marketplace apps), they will not be able to install those applications from the new Marketplace.
End users can only see end-user apps in the Marketplace; admins can see both admin-specific and end-user apps in the Marketplace. If you want to access admin-specific apps, please be sure that you’re signed in with your Apps admin account .
Manage apps on employees’ iOS devices directly from Admin console
Announced September 9th, 2015 Admin feature |
What’s new: Earlier this year, we introduced Mobile Application Management (MAM) for Android devices. We’ve now launched that same functionality for iOS devices. iOS Mobile Application Management enables Google Apps admins to recommend specific mobile apps they want their employees to use on their managed iOS devices.
How it works: Admins can easily whitelist the apps of their choosing from within the Admin console (Device management > Mobile > Manage Applications for iOS devices). By default, the following six apps are pre-whitelisted: Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Drive, Google Docs, Google Sheets, and Google Slides.
Once an app is whitelisted, an employee can easily discover and download it from the Device Policy app (recently made available in the App Store) on their iPhone or iPad. This ensures that new and existing employees can easily find and download the apps they need most—without having to scour the App Store or recall specific app names from their orientation. If an employee then leaves the organization and the admin wipes their account, they can be sure that all of that employee’s managed work apps are uninstalled as well.
Check out the Help Center articles below for more information:
Block access to less secure applications in the Admin console
Announced September 15th, 2015 Admin feature |
What’s new: Last year, as part of an initiative to enhance user security, we encouraged developers to switch to OAuth 2.0 if their applications used plain passwords to authenticate to Google. To further that effort, we are now giving Google Apps admins increased control over user security by allowing them to block access to less secure applications in the Admin console (Security > Basic Settings > Less Secure Apps Access). Admins can change this setting at any time for their entire domains or specific organizational units.
How it works: For existing customers, this setting in the Admin console will be checked to allow access to less secure apps. If an admin leaves this setting as is, less secure applications will continue to work for any existing end users who already have them configured. New end users (e.g. new hires) who want to access less secure apps will need to enable them using an option on their My Account pages (under Sign-in & security).
If an admin decides to block access to less secure apps via the Admin console setting, their end users will not see this option on their My Account pages and will instead receive an error message when they try to access less secure apps.
Please note the following:
If an admin chooses to block access to less secure apps by disabling the Allow access for less secure apps setting in the Admin console, Google Sync/ActiveSync―which allows users to access their Google Apps accounts from devices and apps like the Windows Phone and iOS native mail app―will no longer work.
If an admin chooses to block access to less secure apps by disabling the Allow access for less secure apps setting in the Admin console, 2SV users will be unable to create to new ASPs (Application-Specific Passwords), though existing ASPs will continue to work. Admins will still have the ability to revoke ASPs on a user-level basis in the Admin console or by using an API.
Check out the following for more information:
Easily migrate calendar events to Google Apps
Announced September 16th, 2015 Admin feature |
What’s new: The Google Apps data migration service lets Apps admins easily migrate user data to Google Apps via the Admin console, with no additional software or hardware installations required. The process is easy—just enter basic information about where the data is coming from, specify the type of data to include in the migration, and select the users to migrate.
Admins could already migrate emails, labels, folders, and contacts with the data migration service. With the launch of calendar migration support, admins can now easily migrate calendar data from one or multiple Microsoft accounts (including Office 365, and Exchange versions 2007 and above) to Google Apps accounts.
How it works: The data migration service can be accessed in the Admin console via the Migrations icon on the home screen.
Check out the Help Center for more information.
Programmatically transfer ownership of Drive content and Google+ pages
Announced September 17th, 2015 Admin feature |
What’s new: In July, we introduced a Data Transfer privilege in the Admin console, which we indicated would be required to use the soon-to-launch Data Transfer API. We’re excited to announce that that API is now available! It allows admins to programmatically transfer ownership of Google Drive content and Google+ pages—in bulk—from one employee to another.For more details on the API, please refer to our post on the Google Apps Developer Blog. |
New version of Google Apps Migration for IBM Notes (GAMIN) (v 5.0)
Announced September 17th, 2015 Admin feature |
What’s new: A new version (v 5.0) of the Google Apps Migration for IBM Notes (GAMIN) tool is now available for download. GAMIN was formerly known as Google Apps Migration for Lotus Notes (GAMLN).
Here’s what’s new:
Service Accounts and OAuth 2.0 tokens are now used for data migration
GAMIN now uses the Gmail API for mail migration and label creation, replacing the Email Migration API v2 and Email Settings API respectively
Flattened and simplified architecture:
Deprecated the multiple site/replicated admin database deployment option
Setup and Site profiles merged into a single System Setup profile
No longer necessary to specify mail/database servers as part of the system setup
Added a 5 step Quick Setup wizard
Option to auto-update Domino directory Server and Configuration document settings required for migration
Check out the Help Center for more information
Google Apps for Work adopts ISO 27018 cloud privacy standard
Announced September 21st, 2015 Admin feature |
What’s new: Nearly a decade ago, we launched Google Apps as an innovative new way for you to collaborate online. Since then, we’ve introduced security innovations like encryption by default, two-step verification, security keys and a security checkup to protect your data. These features underscore our commitment to data protection as outlined in our Google Apps data processing amendment.
In September, we furthered our commitment to protect your data by adding the new ISO/IEC 27018:2014 privacy standard to our compliance framework. The new standard provides guidance for cloud providers on protecting the personally identifiable information of their customers and their customers’ users.
Ernst & Young, an independent auditor, has verified that our privacy practices and contractual commitments for Google Apps for Work and Google Apps for Education comply with ISO/IEC 27018:2014. For example:
We do not use your data for advertising
The data that you entrust with us remains yours
We provide you with tools to delete and export your data
We protect your information from third-party requests
We are transparent about where your data is stored
We continuously work with independent auditors to verify our data protection commitments. For example, over the years we’ve completed third-party SOC2 / SOC3 security audits and achieved ISO 27001 certification to provide transparency and accountability around our security procedures.
The 27018 audit also validates that our Google Apps data protection commitments meet a rigorous international privacy and data protection standard. We think that this a great step forward for both our customers and for the industry. While laws and regulations vary from country to country, the principles set forth in the standard are widely recognized.
See the original announcement on the Google for Work blog
Get more out of Google Apps Script with the Apps Script Execution API
Announced September 25th, 2015 Admin feature |
What’s new: Google Apps Script is a scripting language based on JavaScript that lets you do new and cool things with various Google Apps, like Docs, Sheets, and Forms. In September, we launched the Apps Script Execution API, which allows developers and Apps admins to expose the full utility of Apps Script to any application, including Android and iOS apps.
For more information on the Apps Script Execution API, please refer to our post on the Google Apps Developer Blog.
Learn more about Google Apps
Google for Work Connect (GWC): The official community for Apps Admins
Admin resource |
Sign in today: Google for Work Connect (GWC) is your one stop shop for resources to make your work with Google Apps easier. Sign in today to discuss best practices, ask questions, and communicate with your peers and Googlers. Don’t miss out! Make sure you follow our Community Manager, Luis Vargas, to get the weekly buzz. What’s new: By popular demand, our September Editorial Calendar articles covered Apps Script! Learn how to set up a group for and suspend all users in an organizational unit using Apps Script. While you’re at it, check out the latest from Kim Wylie’s Change Management series: Lessons from the field: Tips for increasing the value you get from Google Apps by reducing your reliance on Microsoft (guest blog written by John Yandziak). Stay tuned for our announcement of the Q4 ‘15 Editorial Calendar! |
You are invited to join a two-day customer-led Meetup at the Googleplex! Join us to share best practices and insights with the Google for Work team. Learn more.
Google Apps for all: The Apps Show on YouTube, every Tuesday, 11am PST, with special episodes every Thursday
Share with your organization |
What’s new: The Apps Show ventured further into new territory in September, covering topics such as My Maps and User Trust & Security. Of course, the usual Apps topics such as Marketplace Apps and new features in Hangouts had their moment as well. Don’t miss our special guest host this month, Luis Vargas - a face you may recognize from GWC! To know: If you learned something from The Apps Show, share it!. |
What’s New for Apps Admins videos
Admin resource |
What’s new: The What’s New for Apps Admins videos provide a recap of all of the features we've released in the past month that are relevant to Google Apps Admins, so you can watch and share them whenever you want. How it works: Bookmark the playlist on YouTube and check back each month for the latest updates. You can also access all video recordings in the archive on the What’s New site. |