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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.
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.
Product: Editors
View richer information about coworkers directly within the Gmail side panel
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
Product: Editors
Access checker for Slides now checks permissions when you share with new users
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.
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.
Product: Meet
Accept knocks in bulk in Google Meet
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.
Product: Meet
Virtually raise your hand to ask a question in Google Meet
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.
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.
Product: Meet
Improving Google Meet attendance reports and making them available to more customers
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.
Product: Chat
Set your status as away in Google Chat in Gmail
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.
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.
Product: Calendar
Schedule Google Calendar events from Google Chat
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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.
Product: Calendar
Make Google Meet or an add-on your default video conferencing option in Google Calendar
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.
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.
Product: Group
Custom roles now available 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.
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.
Product: Identity
Introducing two BeyondCorp Alliance partner integrations for improved context-aware access
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.
Product: Identity
Make specific applications exempt from session length policy
The previous session control settings page in the Admin console
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.
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