Google Workspace Features Update: November 2020

Google Workspace Features Update Summary: November 2020

Google Workspace (formerly G Suite)

Features Update Summary - November 2020

 
The summary of essential information about new features and improvements for Google Workspace customers in November 2020.

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Product: Google Workspace

Changes to Google Workspace storage policies

Edition: All

Who’s impacted: All end users

Over the past decade, Gmail, Google Drive, and Google Photos have helped billions of people securely store and manage their emails, documents, photos, videos and more. Today, people are uploading more content than ever before—in fact, more than 4.3 million GB are added across Gmail, Drive, and Photos every day. These changes to our storage policy are necessary to provide our users with a great experience and to keep pace with the growing demand. Read more.


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Product: Editors

View richer information about coworkers directly within the Gmail side panel

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Edition: All

Who’s impacted: Admins and end users

You can now find additional information about people within your organization, your Contacts, and people who email you in the Gmail side panel. This includes:

  • Contact information, such as phone number and email address,
  • Team and manager
  • Office and desk location
  • Whether you’ve received email from them before, and more.
  • Read more

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Product: Editors

Access checker for Slides now checks permissions when you share with new users

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Edition: All

Who’s impacted: Admins and end users

Earlier this year, we announced that Access checker would check permissions when you inserted Drive-stored audio and video files in Google Slides. With this launch, we’ll also perform an access check for already embedded audio and video content after you share the presentation with additional users or groups. Read more.


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Product: Editors

Office editing on iOS brings Google Workspace collaboration to Microsoft Office files

Edition: All 

Who’s impacted: All end users

We’re making Office editing available on iOS. This feature brings the collaborative and assistive features of Google Workspace to your Microsoft Office files when you’re using your iOS device. Read more.


 

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Product: Meet

Accept knocks in bulk in Google Meet

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Edition: All 

Who’s impacted: All end users

You can now accept all pending knocks in bulk in Google Meet. Admitting participants or students all at once helps limit interruptions during the video call. Note, only the meeting organizer can see or approve requests to join a meeting. Read more.



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Product: Meet

Virtually raise your hand to ask a question in Google Meet

Raised hand moderator view

Edition: Available to Essentials, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education, Enterprise for Education, and Nonprofits customers

Who’s impacted: All end users

Video meeting participants can now let you know if they have a question by raising their hand in Meet. This helps maintain a sense of order in large meetings and prevents people from interrupting one another.

To raise your hand in Meet on the web, click on the “Raise Hand” button on the bottom bar during the meeting. Once the button is pressed, it will change to a “Lower Hand” button, which can be clicked to lower your hand. When a participant raises their hand, the meeting’s moderator will see a hand icon in their video preview. If they’re presenting in another tab, they’ll get a sound notification when someone raises their hand. Read more.


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Product: Meet

Bringing breakout rooms in Google Meet to more Google Workspace customers

Edition: All 

Who’s impacted: All end users

Last month, we launched breakout rooms in Google Meet to G Suite Enterprise for Education customers. We’re now making breakout rooms available to Google Workspace, Essentials, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, and Enterprise Plus customers, as well as G Suite Business and Enterprise for Education customers. Read more.


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Product: Meet

Improving Google Meet attendance reports and making them available to more customers

Live stream attendance report

Edition: All 

Who’s impacted: Admin and end users

We previously launched Google Meet attendance reports for education meetings. We’re now making several enhancements to provide more access, control, and visibility into meetings and live stream reports. Read more.


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Product: Chat

Set your status as away in Google Chat in Gmail

  Set-as-awaySet as away web

Edition: Available to Workspace Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Standard, and Enterprise Plus, as well as G Suite Basic, Business, Education, Enterprise for Education, and Nonprofits customers

Who’s impacted: Admin and end users

You can now set yourself as “away” in Chat in Gmail. When you set your status to away, you will show as offline to others, even when you’re active. This allows you to attend to your Gmail inbox uninterrupted. Read more.


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Product: Calendar

View your personal and work calendars together on Google Calendar with Android 11 work profile

Edition: All 

Who’s impacted: Admins and end users

In Google Calendar, when you’re using a work profile on a device with Android 11 and up, you can now see your personal and work calendars together. Read more.


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Product: Calendar

Schedule Google Calendar events from Google Chat

Scheduling from from Chat (mobile)     Scheduling from from Chat (mobile) 2

Edition: All 

Who’s impacted: All end users

You can now schedule meetings in Calendar directly from Chat conversations. You’ll see a new icon in the conversation’s compose bar. Clicking this on mobile will open up the Calendar app with a meeting invite for a drafted event. For eligible chats, the event will have automatically populated the members of the conversation as attendees to invite, but you can still customize the event before sending it to guests. Read more.


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Product: Calendar

Make Google Meet or an add-on your default video conferencing option in Google Calendar

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Edition: All except Essentials and Enterprise Essentials

Who’s impacted: Admins and  end users

We’re giving you more control over how your end users choose between available conferencing providers when creating Calendar events by introducing a new Admin console setting to “Make Google Meet the default video conferencing provider." Read more.


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Product: Calendar

Support for multiple Exchange endpoints on Google Calendar

Edition: All

Who’s impacted: Admins only

We’re enabling support for multiple Microsoft Exchange endpoints so Google Calendar users can view calendar availability for Exchange users across multiple Exchange environments within Calendar Interop. Calendar Interop is a feature that lets you sync events and availability between Google Calendar and Exchange (both on-premises and Exchange Online). Read more.


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Product: Group

Custom roles now available in new Groups

custom roles in new groups

Edition: All

Who’s impacted: Admins and end users

You can now create a custom role that allows admins to assign a specific set of viewing, posting, and moderation permissions for users within a given group. Read more.


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Product: Group

New Groups will become the only user experience beginning November 10, 2020

Edition: All

Who’s impacted: Admins and end users

In September, we made new Groups the default experience for all users, but allowed individual users to choose to use the classic Groups interface. Starting on November 2, 2020 for Rapid Release domains and on November 9, 2020 for Scheduled Release domains, classic Groups will be turned off completely. Read more.


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Product: Identity

Introducing two BeyondCorp Alliance partner integrations for improved context-aware access

BeyondCorp Allice Overview

Edition: Available to Enterprise Plus, Enterprise for Education, and Cloud Identity Premium customers

Who’s impacted: Admins only

We’re announcing new integrations with our BeyondCorp Alliance partners Check Point and Lookout. The integrations, initially available in beta, are built using the Devices API and enable customers to use third party signals in context-aware access decisions. Read more.


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Product: Identity

Make specific applications exempt from session length policy

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The previous session control settings page in the Admin console 

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The new session control settings page in the Admin console. Note the new “Exempt trusted apps” checkbox.

Edition: All

Who’s impacted: Admins only

Last year, we launched an open beta that enabled Google Workspace admins to configure a session length (a.k.a. “reauth”) for Google Console and Cloud SDK. Now, we’re enhancing session length controls by allowing you to exempt specific applications from the reauth policy. We hope this will make it easier to roll out this feature in your domain. Read more.