If you’ve recently rebranded your business or purchased a new domain name, today’s launch makes it possible to rename your primary domain directly from the Admin console.* Simply follow the instructions outlined in the Help Center to swap your existing primary domain name with any verified secondary domain name. If you purchased your Google Apps licenses from a Reseller, please notify them before making any changes to your domain name.


*Please note that this feature is not available for Reseller accounts, domains purchased through a Google partner, accounts with Chrome or Mobile Device Management licenses, or customers in trial. You also cannot change Standard edition domains.

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

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

Impact:
Admins only

Action:
Admin action suggested/FYI

More Information
Help Center: Before you change your primary domain
Help Center: Change your primary domain from the Admin console

Note: all launches are applicable to all Google Apps editions unless otherwise noted

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From keeping remote workers in the loop to sharing information across teams, businesses are using Google+ to collaborate and communicate more effectively. As announced last week, today the new version of Google+ will become the default option on web for Google Apps users of Google+. The new experience makes it easier to focus on the features our Apps customers tell us they find the most useful, including a new home page to quickly browse through content, Communities that make it easy to collaborate around ideas and Collections that enable organizations to follow and discuss topics of interest.

If desired, users will still be able to use the classic Google+ interface by clicking on the "Back to classic Google+" link in the bottom left-hand corner. In the coming weeks, with the launch of Google+ as a core Google Apps service, Google Apps customers will no longer have the ability to revert back to the classic Google+ interface.

Launch Details 
Release track:
New version of Google+ launching as the default experience to both Rapid release and Scheduled release today. In the coming weeks, the ability to revert back to the classic Google+ interface will no longer be available with the launch of Google+ as a core Google Apps service. Monitor the Google Apps release calendar for a specific launch date to be added soon. 

Rollout pace:
Gradual rollout (potentially longer than 3 days for feature visibility)

Impact:
All end-users for domains with Google+ enabled

Action: 
Change management suggested/FYI

More Information
Learning Center


Note: all launches are applicable to all Google Apps editions unless otherwise noted

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Today, you can view the details of any file or folder stored in Google Drive, including the file or folder owner’s name, the last time it was opened or modified, its location, and more. With this launch, you’ll gain that same capability in Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides on the web.

To see details of a Google document, spreadsheet, or presentation, simply select Document details from the File menu.


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

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

Impact:
All end users

Action:
Change management suggested/FYI

Note: all launches are applicable to all Google Apps editions unless otherwise noted

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Google offers its Google Apps customers useful and simple-to-use video chat features to make communication better. Whether communicating changes to remote teams, presenting demos to stakeholders, or just getting things done quicker in real time, screen sharing is an effective way to present content to your audience. That’s why we’re excited to roll out a new integration between Google Chrome and Google Hangouts that makes screen sharing from your Chrome browser to a Google Hangout easier than ever before.

Last month in Google Hangouts, we announced that better group chat controls were now available on Android, iOS, and the web in order to make it a simpler and more consistent experience joining group chats with your team. In following this move towards consistency, on August 31, 2016, a new version of the Google Hangouts Chrome extension will be made available to new users. As we continue to iterate and add in features that help users communicate in group chats, the new experience brings together multiple chat windows into one and makes it easier to see more chat content.

On August 30, 2016 the new version of Google+ will become the default option for Google Apps users of Google+. This follows our release of the new Google+ on an opt-in basis last November. If desired, users will still be able to use the classic Google+ interface by clicking on the "Back to classic Google+" link in the bottom left-hand corner.

Launch Details
Release track:
Launching to both Rapid release and Scheduled release on August 30, 2016. Monitor the Google Apps release calendar for release date changes.

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

Impact:
All end users

Action:
Change management suggested/FYI

More Information
Google Apps Learning Center: Google+

Starting on September 26th, 2016, we will add two additional APIs to the recently launched External Directory Sharing Admin console setting. The setting is already enforced in the Google People API, and we will now also enforce it in Google CardDAV APIand Google Contacts API v3.

The setting gives Google Apps admins more control over their domain directory data, allowing them to determine what directory information external apps and APIs can access.

Admins can manage the setting from Apps > Google Apps > Settings for Contacts > Advanced Settings in the Admin console.
By default, the external directory sharing setting is set to “Domain and public data.” When the external directory sharing setting is set to “Only public data,” the Google CardDAV API, Google Contacts API v3, and Google People API will no longer return domain data in their responses or will return forbidden 403 errors where appropriate. Any clients that use these APIs for domain data, including mobile apps, marketplace apps, and scripts, may no longer work as expected.

If admins have chosen to share “Only public data” from the Admin console, here are some common use cases that may become restricted by these new sharing controls:

• People who use the Mail and Contacts applications on iOS will no longer be able to access directory information using the Global Address List feature if the Google Apps account was added onto the iOS device using the “Add Google Account” option.
• Apps Scripts that utilize the Contacts API v3 or CardDAV API to access directory information. For example, an Apps Script that fetches birthdays of all users within the domain using the Contacts API v3 to send party reminder emails.
• Third-party Marketplace apps that utilize the Contacts API v3 or CardDAV API to access directory information. 

Google Apps products that use the domain directory data for contacts, such as the Gmail, Drive, and Calendar apps on iOS, will not be affected by this change. Also not impacted by this change are the Google Apps Sync for Microsoft Outlook® sync plug-in and any device that syncs using Google Sync, both of which will continue to be able to access directory information even if the External Directory Sharing setting is set to “Only public data.” The Google Apps Admin SDK, used by admins to manage users and domain shared contacts, is also unaffected by the External Directory Sharing setting.

Launch Details
Release track:
Launching to both Rapid release and Scheduled release on September 26th, 2016

Rollout pace:
Gradual rollout (potentially longer than 3 days for feature visibility)

Impact:
Admins and developers using Google CardDAV API, Google Contacts API v3, and Google People API

Action:
Admin action suggested/FYI

Note: all launches are applicable to all Google Apps editions unless otherwise noted

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In order to backup, share, and collaborate effectively, many Google Drive users download their files locally. For example, you may have to download an entire Drive folder with 15 large design files or 500 PDF files in it. Before, if this folder was more than 2GB in size, you would have run into download limits.

Today, we’re announcing some improvements to the Drive download and archiving service that will roll out over the coming weeks to Google Apps customers:

• You can now compress and download Drive items into multiple 2GB zip files. Files have an improved name structure, for example: drive-download-20160516T125832Z.zip for the first file and drive-download-20160516T125832Z-2.zip for subsequent archives.
• Better Google Forms handling.
• Empty folders are now included in the zip.

Launch Details
Release track:
Launching to Rapid release, with Scheduled release coming on September 6, 2016

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

Impact:
All end users

Action:
Change management suggested/FYI

More Information
Help Center

Note: all launches are applicable to all Google Apps editions unless otherwise noted

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Google Forms makes it easy to create, distribute, and analyze surveys. Starting today, you can craft even more effective forms by inserting images into survey questions or adding images as multiple choice or checkbox options in Forms on the web.

For example, a graphic designer might ask a business owner to to pick one of three different logos, pictures of which would be offered as multiple choice answers.
Or a chef might include a photo of her famous burger between a question asking diners their opinion of it and the section provided for their answer.
For more information on creating and editing surveys in Forms, check out the Help Center.

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

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

Impact:
All end users

Action:
Change management suggested/FYI

More Information
Help Center: Edit your form

Note: all launches are applicable to all Google Apps editions unless otherwise noted

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(Cross posted from the Google Apps Developer blog) 

Posted by Shashank Gupta, Product Manager, Google Apps for Work and Wesley Chun, Developer Advocate, Google Apps

Back in 2013, we launched the Google Apps Admin SDK, and later announced as a result that several outdated Apps Admin APIs would be deprecated and shut down in April 2015. Today, we are continuing this effort of removing older, less-used functionality by announcing the deprecation of the GData Admin Settings API. Some GData API functionality will find a replacement from an Admin SDK counterpart, while other features will be discontinued. The following table summarizes which features will be retained (and where to access replacement functionality) and which won’t:

Admin Settings API	Endpoint	Post-Deprecation Replacement (if any)
General Settings	/defaultLanguage	Directory API: Customers
	/organizationName	Directory API: Customers
	/currentNumberOfUsers	no replacement / discontinued
	/maximumNumberOfUsers	no replacement / discontinued
Account Settings	/accountInformation/supportPIN	no replacement / discontinued
	/accountInformation/customerPIN	no replacement / discontinued
	/accountInformation/adminSecondaryEmail	Directory API: Customers
	/accountInformation/edition	no replacement / discontinued
	/accountInformation/creationTime	Directory API: Customers
	/accountInformation/countryCode	Directory API: Customers
Appearance Settings	All endpoints	no replacement / discontinued
Verification Settings	All endpoints	no replacement from Google / any publicly available domain verification APIs can be used.
Single Sign-on (SSO) Settings	All endpoints	replacement API coming before Oct 2018
Gateway and Routing Settings	All endpoints	no replacement / discontinued

To summarize, the GData Admin Settings API is being deprecated today and will remain operational until October 31, 2018, to give developers time to migrate. On October 31, 2018, this deprecated API will be shut down. At that time, all calls to the API and any features in your applications that depend on it will no longer work. Please migrate as soon as possible.

Note: all launches are applicable to all Google Apps editions unless otherwise noted

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(Cross posted from the Google Apps Developer blog)

At Google, we are always working to keep our users' information safe. As part of these ongoing efforts, we will begin requiring explicit authorization when third-party sites request access to Google Sheets content via the Google Visualization API or Google Query Language.

For many developers, this change will be transparent, but others may need to make changes in order to continue reading spreadsheet data. For more details on the technical changes required, please visit the Google Charts API Documentation. We will begin enforcing these requirements on September 14, 2016.

If you have any questions or concerns about this change, please follow up in the Google Docs forum or on Stack Overflow.

The latest releases of the Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides apps for Android make it easy to create tables and improve the look of charts on your mobile phone or tablet.

For instance, starting today, when you copy a body of cells in Sheets and paste it into Docs or Slides, that selection will render as a fully-formatted table, gridlines and all. This will only work for selections of fewer than 400 cells; anything larger will be pasted in a tab-separated format. Note that you will need to update all three apps—Docs, Sheets, and Slides—for this to work.


We’ve also made improvements to the technology that powers charts in Sheets, so you may notice small changes to the way your charts are drawn.

Download the latest versions of the Docs, Sheets, and Slides Android apps from the Google Play Store.

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

Rollout pace:
Gradual rollout (potentially longer than 3 days for feature visibility)

Impact:
All end users

Action:
Change management suggested/FYI

Note: all launches are applicable to all Google Apps editions unless otherwise noted

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Starting this week, we’re introducing two new security warnings in Gmail to help you keep your email safer.

1. On the web or Android, if you receive a message that can’t be authenticated with either Sender Policy Framework (SPF) or DKIM, you’ll see a question mark in place of the sender’s profile photo, corporate logo, or avatar.
   
   
2.  On the web, if you receive a message with a link to a dangerous site known for phishing, malware, and Unwanted Software, you’ll begin to see warnings when you click on the link. These warnings are an extension of the Safe Browsing protection available to various web browsers today. The full-page warning will look like this:
   
   
   
   

Please note: Not all affected email will necessarily be dangerous. But we encourage you to be extra careful about replying to, or clicking on links in messages that you’re not sure about. And with these updates, you’ll have the tools to make these kinds of decisions.


Launch Details
Release track:
Launching to Rapid release, with scheduled release coming in 2 weeks

Rollout pace:
Gradual rollout (potentially longer than 3 days for feature visibility)

Impact:
All end users

Action:
Change management suggested. The Help Center articles below outline the expected behavior, and can be used to help effectively communicate these changes to users.

More Information
Help Center: Check if your Gmail message is authenticated
Help Center: Safer Links in Gmail


Note: all launches are applicable to all Google Apps editions unless otherwise noted

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Google Drive for Mac/PC — the app that syncs your computer with Google Drive — is an easy way to make sure your files are safe and accessible from anywhere. Today, we are releasing a new feature in the Google Apps Toolbox that makes troubleshooting Google Drive for Mac/PC easier and faster for Google Apps admins.

Today, if you are investigating even common problems with Google Drive, it can be a challenge, because even though Google Drive for Mac/PC generates a very rich log file that contains the error message, it’s also nested in the middle of many other log messages.

That's why we created Loganalyzer for Google Drive, a tool to help you diagnose common problems with Google Drive.

Benefits:

• No need to upload large files, the file is analyzed in the browser
• Instant scrolling, even with large log files
• Instant and powerful log filtering
• It detects Known issues and common configuration pitfalls automatically.
• It provides suggestions and workarounds.

Loganalyzer for Google Drive is based on the same knowledge and technology our Technical Support team uses, and we thought sharing this tool would be useful for Google Apps admins and power Google Drive users to be able to diagnose their issues more easily.

To get started, visit the Google Apps toolbox, a collection of tools that every Google Apps admin should bookmark.


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

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

Impact:
Admins only

Action:
Change management suggested/FYI

More information
Help Center


Note: all launches are applicable to all Google Apps editions unless otherwise noted

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The Google Drive preview feature is a way to quickly preview files you’d typically open in Microsoft Office, Adobe Acrobat, or photo editors. Available in Gmail, Inbox, and Google Drive, previewing a file is a useful and fast experience and works across a wide range of files. Starting this week, we’re rolling out some improvements to the preview feature to make it simpler and easier to use:

Earlier this year, we launched contact importing from a wide variety of supported mail and contact sources in the new Google Contacts preview. A popular request from Google Apps users has been the ability to import mail in addition to contacts from additional sources. Today, we’re happy to announce that we’re adding two more: Gmail and Rediffmail.

These secure user-initiated migrations can now be enabled from the Admin console and are powered by ShuttleCloud.  If you have already enabled User email uploads from the Admin console, then this feature is already available for your end-users.

Once enabled, the user will see a new section in their Gmail settings to Import mail and contacts. Users will then follow the prompts to migrate their email and contacts.

Check out the latest "What's New in Google Apps" newsletter [pdf] for a roundup of all Apps launches from July 2016.


Note: all launches are applicable to all Google Apps editions unless otherwise noted

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We are pleased to announce that we are adding new Hangouts metrics to the Reports API (part of the Admin SDK). These new metrics can be used to track video calls by platform. The new metrics that are being added are listed below:

• gplus.num_video_calls_android
• gplus.num_video_calls_cfm
• gplus.num_video_calls_ios
• gplus.num_video_calls_web
• gplus.total_video_call_minutes_android
• gplus.total_video_call_minutes_cfm
• gplus.total_video_call_minutes_ios
• gplus.total_video_call_minutes_web
• gplus.num_video_conferences_android
• gplus.num_video_conferences_cfm
• gplus.num_video_conferences_ios
• gplus.num_video_conferences_mobile
• gplus.num_video_conferences_web

In addition, Apps admins may notice a change in numbers for Google+ active users. A number of Google+ components and integrations (Hangouts, YouTube Comments, and Photos, for example) have been unbundled from the core Google+ product. The new metrics reflect users of Google+ only. Google+ activity metrics that are impacted with this change are below:

• gplus.num_1day_active_users
• gplus.num_7day_active_users
• gplus.num_30day_active_users

The above changes will be rolled out starting today to all Google Apps domains. To find out more on these new metrics, check our updated developer documentation.


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

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

Impact:
All end users

Action:
Change management suggested/FYI

More Information
Google Apps Admin SDK
Updated Developer Documentation

Note: all launches are applicable to all Google Apps editions unless otherwise noted

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Google offers useful and simple-to-use security features such as 2-Step Verification and Single Sign-On in order to protect users who connect to their accounts on multiple devices. One equally important component in keeping users secure is educating them on what’s happening with their accounts in real-time.

That’s why today, we’re pleased to release a new feature that notifies Android users of security events on their account: Android notifications for newly added devices.

Here’s how it works

When users add a new device to their account, native Android notifications will tell the user about the newly added device or security event.

If the activity looks suspicious, the user can choose to “Review Account Activity,” and find out what device was added, from what location, and other important information. If the activity is expected, the user can dismiss it as any other notification.