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New updates
There are no new updates to share this week. Please see below for a recap of published announcements.

Previous announcements

The announcements below were published on the Workspace Updates blog earlier this week. Please refer to the original blog posts for complete details.

Improvements for locating new comments and important conversations in Google Docs
We’ve added two new ways that make it easier to find comments that require your attention and action in Google Docs on the web. New comment activity since the last time you viewed a document will be “badged” with a blue dot. Additionally, when you hover over the blue dot, you’ll see a “New” banner. | Learn more.


More options for sharing your availability in Google Calendar
We’re adding two new options in Calendar, which will help you better communicate your work availability to your colleagues. Specifically, you can create repeating out of office entries and split your working hours into multiple segments each day. | Learn more.


End a Google Meet video call for everyone at once
When a Google Workspace for Education Fundamentals or Education Plus host leaves their meeting, they can now choose to keep others on the call or to end the call instead, ejecting everyone else. | Available to Google Workspace for Education Fundamentals and Education Plus customers only. | Learn more.


Easily locate the source file for embedded Drive video and audio files in Google Slides
It’s now easier to find the original source file for Google Drive-stored video or audio files embedded in a Google Slides presentation. | Learn more.


Reminder: Ending support for IE11 for all Google Workspace apps on March 15
Last year, we announced that Google Workspace will officially stop supporting Internet Explorer 11 (IE11) on March 15, 2021. To avoid any possible disruptions in service, such as degraded performance or security vulnerabilities, please be sure to switch to a different browser before that date. | Learn more.


Let Google Calendar automatically book a replacement room for your events
If a room declines your event, Google Calendar can now find a similar room to replace it, automatically. | Available to Google Workspace Essentials, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Fundamentals, and Education Plus, as well as G Suite Basic, Business, and Nonprofits customers only. | Learn more.


Admin control for AppSheet now fully available
In December 2020, we announced the availability of an admin control for AppSheet in the Additional services section of the Admin console. This rollout of this control is now complete. | Learn more.

For a recap of announcements in the past six months, check out What’s new in Google Workspace (recent releases).

 

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What’s changing
If a room declines your event, Google Calendar can now find a similar room to replace it, automatically.

Who’s impacted
Admins and end users

Why you’d use it
In the past, when a room declined a Calendar meeting, your users may not have noticed until the last minute, leaving them and their guests without a room. This was especially common with recurring meetings, where a room may have declined on some dates but not others.

When this new feature is enabled, your users will save time and effort as Calendar automatically tries to find and book a replacement room that is a similar size, is in the same building, and has the same equipment.


Additional details 
The organizer and guests of the event will receive an email informing them of the newly booked room. Visit the Help Center for more information.




Getting started
  • Admins: This feature will be ON by default and can be disabled at the domain level by going to Admin console > Building and resources > Global Room Settings and deselecting “Automatic room replacement.”Please note that for this feature to work, the setting must be enabled and you must have structured resources added in the Admin console. Make sure your resources are all classified correctly to prevent incorrect room replacements.
  • End users: There is no end user setting for this feature. Visit the Help Center to learn more about automatic room replacement.



Rollout pace
Admin setting
Feature rollout
Availability
  • Available to Google Workspace Essentials, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Fundamentals, and Education Plus, as well as G Suite Basic, Business, and Nonprofits customers
  • Not available to Google Workspace Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, as well as G Suite Basic customers
Resources
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Last year, we announced that Google Workspace will officially stop supporting Internet Explorer 11 (IE11) on March 15, 2021. To avoid any possible disruptions in service, such as degraded performance or security vulnerabilities, please be sure to switch to a different browser before that date.

Getting started
  • Admins: We recommend you encourage IE11 users in your organization to switch to a supported browser as soon as possible.
  • End users: To prepare for this change, we recommend using a supported browser with Google Workspace.
Availability
  • Impacts Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, and Enterprise Plus, as well as G Suite Basic, Business, Education, Enterprise for Education, and Nonprofits customers
Resources
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Quick launch summary It’s now easier to find the original source file for Google Drive-stored video or audio files embedded in a Google Slides presentation. Users can click the new ‘link to Drive’ button on an embedded video or audio file to quickly open the source file in Drive. This is useful for checking access on a file before sharing a presentation more broadly.

As announced last year, the Access checker in Slides will also check the permissions on embedded video and audio files when you first insert a Drive-stored file into a presentation and again when you share your presentation.

We hope these improvements make it easy for you to ensure collaborators and viewers have the proper permissions and visibility for all Drive-stored video and audio files embedded in a Slides presentation. 

Getting started 
  • Admins: There is no admin control for this feature. 
  • End users: When editing a Google Slides presentation, click on an embedded Drive-stored video or audio or file and then click on the ‘link to Drive’ button to open the original Google Drive file.

Visit the Help Center to learn more about inserting or deleting images and videos in Slides. 

Rollout pace 
  • Rapid Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on February 24, 2021 
  • Scheduled Release domains: Extended rollout (potentially longer than 15 days) for feature visibility starting on March 2, 2021 

Availability 
  • Available to Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Fundamentals, and Education Plus, as well as G Suite Basic, Business, and Nonprofits customers 

Resources 
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What’s changing
When a Google Workspace for Education Fundamentals or Education Plus host leaves their meeting, they can now choose to keep others on the call or to end the call instead, ejecting everyone else.


We’ll launch this feature to additional Google Workspace editions in the coming months.

Who’s impacted
End users
Why you’d use it
In some cases, a host may not want people to continue a meeting without them present. For example, teachers may want to prevent students from having unsupervised meetings.

Additional details
When a host is done with a meeting and wants to leave, they now have two options:
  • Leave meeting: The host will leave the meeting, but the meeting will continue.
  • End meeting for all: Everyone, including people in breakout rooms, will be ejected from the meeting. Participants will be informed that the host has ended the meeting. Once the meeting has been ended, people will not be able to rejoin, unless the host rejoins first.

We recommend that, after ending a meeting, if a host wants to meet with a new group of people, that they create a new meeting. This can help prevent previous participants from joining.

Getting started
  • Admins: There is no admin control for this feature.
  • End users: There is no end user setting for this feature. Visit the Help Center to learn more about ending a video call in Meet.
Rollout pace
Availability
  • Available to Google Workspace for Education Fundamentals and Education Plus customers
  • Not available to Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, and Enterprise Plus, as well as G Suite Basic, Business, and Nonprofits customers
Resources
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What’s changing 
We’re adding two new options in Calendar, which will help you better communicate your work availability to your colleagues. Specifically, you can: 
  • Create repeating out of office entries. 
  • Split your working hours into multiple segments each day. 
At the moment, working hour segments will only be available on the web and repeating out of office entries on the web and Android devices. See below for more information on these features, including rollout details. 



Who's impacted
End users



Why it’s important 
As many people have experienced changes to their working environments in the past year, their work schedules have also changed—and are now often mixed with personal commitments and other obligations. We hope that with the addition of repeating out of office entries and segmentable working hours, you can better organize your time and communicate availability to your colleagues. 

You can use segmentable working hours to indicate when certain blocks of time are outside of your working hours. Working hours are visible on your calendar when someone schedules a meeting with you. 

In addition to using repeating out of office entries for vacation time, you can use them to indicate time when you need to handle personal commitments—like childcare, exercise, and more. They can also be used to better communicate part-time availability or certain days when you're consistently unavailable. 



Additional details 
Repeating out of office entries and declining meeting behavior 
If you create a repeating out of office entry and select “Automatically decline meetings,” a decline meeting notification will be sent to the organizers of any meetings scheduled during your repeating out of office entry. If the declined meeting is a recurring meeting, those organizers may get multiple notifications—these emails are bundled for Gmail users, but not always for users of other email services. 



Getting started 
Segment your working hours in Google Calendar

Creating repeating out of office entries in Google Calendar




Rollout pace 
Working hour segments 
  • Rapid Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on February 22, 2021 
  • Scheduled Release domains: Extended rollout (potentially longer than 15 days for feature visibility) starting on March 8, 2021 

Repeating out of office entries 
  • Rapid Release domains: Extended rollout (potentially longer than 15 days for feature visibility) starting on March 1, 2021 
  • Scheduled Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on March 15, 2021 


Availability 
  • Available to Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Fundamentals, and Education Plus, as well as G Suite Basic, Business, and Nonprofits customers 

Resources 
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Quick launch summary We’ve added two new ways that make it easier to find comments that require your attention and action in Google Docs on the web.

New comment activity since the last time you viewed a document will be “badged” with a blue dot. Additionally, when you hover over the blue dot, you’ll see a “New” banner.
A blue dot emphasizes the new comment activity since the last time you viewed the document.



In the Comments history dialog, we added new filtering options. You can sort comments by: “For you”, “All comments”, or “Resolved”.


Select  “For You” in the comment history dialog to view the comment threads and action items involving you.





We hope these improvements make collaboration easier by enabling you to quickly navigate to and take action on important comments and conversations.

Getting started
  • Admins: There is no admin control for this feature.
  • End users: There is no end user setting for this feature. Visit the Help Center to learn more about using comments and action items.

Rollout pace Availability
  • Available to Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, and Enterprise Plus, as well as G Suite Basic, Business, Education, Enterprise for Education, and Nonprofits customers
  • Available to users with personal Google Accounts 

Resources 
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New updates
There are no new updates to share this week. Please see below for a recap of published announcements. 

Previous announcements
The announcements below were published on the Workspace Updates blog earlier this week. Please refer to the original blog posts for complete details.


Limit Google Drive sharing to specific groups with target audiences, now generally available
Admins can now define specific audiences with whom their users can link-share Google Drive files. | Learn more.


Mute all Google Meet participants at once
Meeting hosts in Google Workspace for Education Fundamentals and Education Plus domains can now mute everyone all at once in Google Meet. | Available to Google Workspace for Education Fundamentals and Education Plus customers only. | Learn more.


Introducing Google Workspace for Education
We’re excited to announce that G Suite for Education is now Google Workspace for Education. | Learn more.


Automatic group membership management with dynamic groups, now generally available
Dynamic groups are now generally available. Dynamic groups work the same as other Google Groups, but with the added benefit that their memberships are automatically kept up to date with a membership query. | Available to Google Workspace Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, and Education Plus, and Cloud Identity Premium customers only. | Learn more.


More notifications added to the alert center in Google Workspace
We’re adding new alerts to the alert center. Specifically, you can now see alerts for reporting rules and 11 other new alerts related to changes to app settings and user accounts. | Learn more.


New Calendar admin privilege hierarchy in the Admin console
You can now grant admin privileges for Calendar-related settings and resource management separately. | Learn more.


Changes to information visibility in Meet quality tool, Meet audit log, and Reports API
We’re updating how information is displayed in the Meet quality tool, Meet audit log, and Reports API. This makes it easier for admins to follow up on calls hosted within their domains, as all three tools will use the same identifiers for external participants. | Learn more.


New option to download third-party apps and domain-wide delegation to CSV
With this launch, we’re adding new options to download third-party API apps and domain-wide delegated apps to a CSV file. | Learn more.


For a recap of announcements in the past six months, check out What’s new in Google Workspace (recent releases).
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Quick launch summary 
Google Workspace customers can set up and manage apps for app access control and domain-wide delegation through the Admin console at Admin console > Security > API Controls. However, for some customers the lists of apps in these sections can be long, which can make it difficult to see and manage the information in the Admin console. 


With this launch, we’re adding new options to download 3rd party API apps and domain wide delegated apps to a CSV file. This file will contain all the information which is displayed in the Admin console list. Having the information in CSV format may make it easier to understand and analyze how these apps and features are accessed in your organization. 


Getting started 
  • Admins: You’ll see the option to download app and client info at Admin console > Security > API Controls > App access control or Domain wide delegation. Use our Help Center to learn more about app access control and domain-wide delegation. 
  • End users: No end user impact. 
Rollout pace 
Availability 
  • Available to Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, and Enterprise Plus, as well as G Suite Basic, Business, Education, Enterprise for Education, and Nonprofits customers 
Resources 
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Quick launch summary
We’re updating how information is displayed in the Meet quality tool, Meet audit log, and Reports API. This makes it easier for admins to follow up on calls hosted within their domains, as all three tools will use the same identifiers for external participants.

For in-domain users, admins will get access to richer information, including a user's country and IP address, and the email address of the meeting organizer. This will allow them to perform certain tasks, like troubleshooting a user connection or following up an abuse report.

For calls hosted in external domains, we’ve improved how these tools obscure or entirely hide participant information, creating consistency and better protecting external participant information.

Getting started
  • Admins: These changes will be available by default for all new meetings. Visit the Help Center to learn more about using the Meet quality tool, Meet audit log, and Reports API. to troubleshoot and analyze meeting data.
  • End users: No impact
Rollout pace
Availability
  • Available to Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Fundamentals and Education Plus, as well as G Suite Basic, Business, and Nonprofits customers
Resources
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What’s changing
You can now grant admin privileges for Calendar-related settings and resource management separately.

We’re changing the hierarchy of privileges within the Calendar privileges section of the Admin console. Before, to control calendar-related admin privileges, you had to use the "All Settings" checkbox, which controlled both calendar settings and resource management. Now, there's a separate "Settings" checkbox which allows you to assign privileges related to calendar settings separately from resource management.

Old hierarchy

New hierarchy

Who’s impacted
Admins only

Why you’d use it
With this change, admins can now create more specified custom roles to delegate tasks clearly and without worrying who the appropriate user is, for example:
  • An admin who can only manage buildings and resources 
  • An admin who can only see room insights
  • An admin who can only modify calendar-related settings
Getting started
  • Admins: In the Admin console, go to Account > Admin roles and select the admin role for which you’d like to designate privileges. Click on Calendar.
  • End users: No action required.
Additional details
Existing pre-built and custom roles will NOT be affected by this change. To learn more about the different admin privileges and their definitions, check out the Help Center.
Rollout pace
Availability
  • Available to Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Fundamentals, and Education Plus, as well as G Suite Basic, Business, and Nonprofits customers
Resources

 

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What’s changing 
We’re adding new alerts to the alert center. Specifically, you can now see alerts for: 
  • Reporting rules (formerly known as custom audit log alerts) 
  • Eleven other new alerts related to changes to app settings and user accounts (formerly known as predefined admin alerts, see more details below) 
Within the alert center, you can view important details about specific alerts, including a summary of the alert, date and time of the event, event description, and name of the related audit log. You can also click to search in audit logs to view more details about the event that triggered the alert. 


Who’s impacted 
Admins only 


Why it’s important 
You can use the alert center to view notifications about potential issues within your domain and take action (like end-user education or updates to existing policies or settings) to resolve the issues and protect your organization from security threats. You can also use the alert center API to export alerts into existing systems, such as a Security Information and Event Management system (SIEM) or ticketing platform. 


We previously moved management of both the reporting rules (formerly known as custom alerts) and other alerts (formerly known as predefined admin alerts) to the security rules section of the Admin console. This provided a more consolidated view of rules and alerts and made it easier to manage alerts from a single location. By bringing notifications from those alerts to the alert center, we are creating a more complete and centralized location to view important notifications and potential security threats to your organization. We hope this provides a more comprehensive view of relevant alerts and helps you better understand and manage your organization. 



Additional details 
Reporting rules now in the alert center 
Reporting rules are custom rules that allow you to create custom alerts based on your organization’s audit logs. Previously, you could only get email notifications when these rules were triggered. With this launch, you can see these events in the alert center. 

For reporting rules that are already set up, admins will need to opt in manually to turn on alert center notifications for each rule. For newly set up reporting rules, the alert center notifications will be on by default, but admins can turn this off during or after rule setup. 

New 'Send to alert center' option when creating or editing a reporting rule



Eleven alerts for user and app setting changes now in the alert center 
You can now choose to see notifications for the 11 alerts listed below. The alert center notifications for these will be off by default, and admins can choose to turn them on. 
  • Calendar settings changed 
  • Drive settings changed 
  • Email settings changed 
  • Mobile settings changed 
  • New user added 
  • Suspended user made active 
  • User deleted 
  • User granted Admin privilege 
  • User suspended (Administrator email alert) 
  • User’s Admin privilege revoked 
  • User’s password changed 
Examples of new alerts now available in the alert center


Getting started 
  • Admins: 
    • Reporting rules: For alerts that are already set up, notifications will be off by default. For alerts that are newly set up, notifications will be on by default. Admins can turn alert center notifications on or off while creating or editing a rule. Visit our Help Center to learn how to create and view reporting rules and set up alerts. 
    • User and app settings changes: Alerts are off by default, but can be turned on for each alert individually. Visit our Help Center to learn or view and manage alerts in the alert center. 
  • End users: No end user impact 
Rollout pace 
Availability 
  • Available to Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Fundamentals, and Education Plus, as well as G Suite Basic, Business, and Nonprofits customers 
Resources 
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Quick launch summary 
Dynamic groups are now generally available. Dynamic groups work the same as other Google Groups, but with the added benefit that their memberships are automatically kept up to date with a membership query. Dynamic groups can be based on one or many user attributes, including addresses, locations, organizations, and relations. 


By automating membership management you can increase security, reduce errors, and alleviate user frustration while minimizing the burden on admins. 


See our beta announcement for more details and example use cases for dynamic groups. Note that at launch, you won’t be able to manage policies—like context-aware access policies—using dynamic groups. We are working on adding this functionality in the future, and will announce it on the Workspace Updates blog when it’s available. 


This joins our other recent announcements for features that make it easier to manage groups within your organization. You can now also assign groups as security groups, set group membership expiration, and see indirect membership visibility and membership hierarchies via API. We hope these features make it easier to use groups to meet the access, security, and communication needs of your organization. 


Getting started 
Rollout pace 
Availability 
  • Available to Google Workspace Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Plus, and Cloud Identity Premium customers 
  • Not available to Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, and Education Fundamentals, or G Suite Basic, Business, and Nonprofits customers 
Resources 
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What’s changing 
We’re excited to announce that G Suite for Education is now Google Workspace for Education. We hope that this change will provide you greater choice and flexibility in selecting the best tools to empower your institution. As part of this change, Google Workspace for Education will now be available in four distinct editions instead of just two: 
  • Google Workspace for Education Fundamentals is the new name for G Suite for Education. It will continue to be free to qualifying schools and universities. If you’re currently using this edition, you won't see any changes besides a new name and new features. Learn more. 
  • Google Workspace for Education Standard is a new option that builds on Education Fundamentals to provide institutions with enhanced security. Learn more. 
  • Teaching and Learning Upgrade is a new option that builds on Education Fundamentals or Education Standard to offer advanced video communication capabilities, enriched class experiences in Classroom, and tools that guide critical thinking and academic integrity. Learn more. 
  • Google Workspace for Education Plus is the new name for G Suite Enterprise for Education. This includes all features from Education Fundamentals, Education Standard, the Teaching and Learning upgrade, and more. Learn more. 

In addition to these changes, we’re updating our storage policies. See more details below. 



Who’s impacted 
Admins 


Why it’s important 
More than 170 million students and educators worldwide rely on our suite of tools. With the launch of Google Workspace for Education, everything you need to teach, learn, connect, and share will remain all in one place, accessible from anywhere on any device. It will also include all the products you already use, like Google Classroom, Meet, Gmail, Calendar, Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides, and many more. 

We hope the new offerings help us meet the diverse needs of institutions around the globe, from Pre-K to PhD. 


Additional details 
Introducing a new storage policy 
Google has traditionally offered unlimited storage to qualifying schools and universities for free. In July 2022, we'll implement a new pooled storage model for all Google Workspace for Education editions. 

We remain committed to providing all institutions around the world with a best-in-class experience, including ample free storage to support quality educational experiences. The new storage model will provide schools and universities with a baseline of 100TB of pooled cloud storage shared across all of their users—more than enough storage for over 100 million docs, 8 million presentations or 400,000 hours of video. To empower admins to adapt to this model and optimize their storage, we will provide tools to identify and manage how storage is used and allocated far in advance of the policy going into effect. 

You don't need to do anything today, and this updated storage model will impact less than 1% of institutions. We will contact impacted institutions by email in the coming weeks to discuss a range of options for getting the storage they need. For details on how to prepare for this upcoming change or to learn more about how you’ll be able to increase the storage pool for your institution, please visit our Help Center. 


Getting started 
  • Admins: 
  • End users: Users will automatically get the features in their new edition. 
Rollout pace 
  • Google Workspace Education Fundamentals and Education Plus are available today. Institutions will be able to purchase Education Standard and the Teaching and Learning Upgrade starting April 14, 2021. 
  • The new storage policy will go into effect for existing customers on all Google Workspace for Education editions in July 2022. 
Availability 
  • Applicable to Google Workspace for Education Fundamentals (formerly known as G Suite for Education) and Google Workspace for Education Plus (formerly known as G Suite Enterprise for Education) customers 
  • Not applicable to Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, and Enterprise Plus, as well as G Suite Basic, Business, and Nonprofits customers 
Resources 
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What’s changing
Meeting hosts in Google Workspace for Education Fundamentals and Education Plus domains can now mute everyone all at once in Google Meet.
New host option to mute all participants


This feature will launch to additional Google Workspace editions in the coming months.

Who’s impacted
End users

Why you’d use it
This change gives the host more control by helping them prevent or stop disruptions coming from unmuted users.

Additional details
The meeting host is the only user in a meeting who can use the “mute all” feature. Once all participants are muted, the meeting host cannot unmute them. However, users will be able to unmute themselves as needed.

The mute all feature will only be available for hosts who are joining from a desktop browser, but will be launching on other platforms in the coming months.

Getting started
  • Admins: There is no admin control for this feature.
  • End users: This feature will be available by default to meeting hosts. Visit the Help Center to learn more about muting participants in Google Meet.

Rollout pace

Availability
  • Available to Google Workspace for Education Fundamentals and Education Plus customers
  • Not available to Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, and Enterprise Plus, as well as G Suite Basic, Business, and Nonprofits customers
ResourcesRoadmap
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What’s changing 
Admins can now define specific audiences with whom their users can link-share Google Drive files. This can help keep your organizational data secure, and make it simpler for users to share files with the right colleagues. 

The feature was previously available in beta. Based on your feedback from the beta, we’ve made two important changes: 
  • We’ve increased the maximum number of target audiences you can recommend from three to five. 
  • During the beta, only admin-created groups could be added to target audiences. Now, admins can add any group as a target audience, including groups belonging to different organizations. 
Read more below, or visit our Help Center to learn more about best practices for deploying target audiences. 


Who’s impacted 
Admins and end users 


Why you’d use it 
Previously, admins could choose to allow users to link-share files to either their entire domain or anyone with the link. Target audiences allow admins to define and recommend more granular link-sharing options for users. This can help to: 
  • Improve your organization’s security posture by making it harder for information to be shared more broadly than is appropriate. 
  • Guide users to share with more specific and appropriate audiences. 
  • Save users time by reducing the need to manage sharing requests from multiple individuals. 
  • Make it easier for your users to collaborate with their colleagues simply, efficiently, and securely. 

Getting started 
Admins can create a target audience in the Admin console 

Rollout pace 
Availability 
  • Available to Google Workspace Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Standard, and Enterprise Plus, as well as G Suite Business and Enterprise for Education customers 
  • Not available to Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Enterprise Essentials, as well as G Suite Basic, Education, and Nonprofits customers 
Resources 
Roadmap

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Previous announcements
The announcements below were published on the Workspace Updates blog earlier this week. Please refer to the original blog posts for complete details.


Group membership expiration now generally available
The Cloud Identity Groups API feature that enables you to set expirations for group memberships is now generally available. | Available to Google Workspace Enterprise Standard and Enterprise Plus, as well as G Suite Enterprise for Education and Cloud Identity Premium customers only. | Learn more.


Security groups now generally available
We’re making security groups generally available. Security groups help you easily regulate, audit, and monitor groups used for permission and access control purposes by simply adding the security label. | Learn more.


Email aliases now included in Gmail search results
When you search for an email address in Gmail, we'll now show all emails associated with that specific address and any aliases it's part of. | Learn more.


Dedicated Google Meet IP addresses for non-Google Workspace users traffic
In addition to the fixed IP range dedicated for Google Meet in Google Workspace domains, we’re now introducing a range of official, fixed IP addresses for non-Google Workspace users (users joining with personal Google Accounts or anonymously). | Learn more.
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Quick launch summary In addition to the fixed IP range dedicated for Google Meet in Google Workspace domains, we’re now introducing a range of official, fixed IP addresses for non-Google Workspace users (users joining with personal Google Accounts or anonymously).

This will allow Google Workspace customers and their partners to better configure and optimize network and firewall access. It will help non-Google Workspace domains and organizations with users who aren’t signed into Google Accounts to identify video conference traffic.

The new IP range is already deployed. Google Meet will stop using the old IP address on March 1, 2021. As this change may interfere with previous network optimization, we recommend Google Workspace customers adopt these IP addresses as part of your firewall and network configuration.

Getting started
  • Google Workspace admins: Update your firewall if you want to apply specific network rules for non-Google Workspace Meet traffic. You can find those IP addresses and more information in the Help Center.
  • Non-Google Workspace admins: Update your firewall to allow the new Google Meet IP addresses. You can find those IP addresses and more information in the Help Center.
  • End users: No end-user impact.
Rollout pace
  • New IP addresses are already deployed. Old IP addresses will no longer be used starting on March 1, 2021. 
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What’s changing When you search for an email address in Gmail, we'll now show all emails associated with that specific address and any aliases it's part of.

These results will be pulled from the to, from, cc, and bcc fields, or anywhere in the email.

Who’s impacted End users

Why you’d use it With this change, searching will be easier and results more comprehensive, as users won’t need to remember all of someone’s aliases and run multiple searches for each.

Additional details An email alias is an alternate address for receiving mail, used in addition to a user's primary address. There are many reasons why someone may use an alias email address, such as:
  • Official name changes
  • Preferred names
  • Company rebrands
  • Acquisitions and subsidiaries

If you’d like to retrieve results for the exact query only, you can enclose it in quotation marks.

This will also apply to multiple inbox sections based on search queries which have an email(s). Labels are not affected by this change.

Getting started
Rollout pace
  • This feature is available now for all users.

Availability
  • Available to Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, and Enterprise Plus, as well as G Suite Basic, Business, Education, Enterprise for Education, and Nonprofits customers

Resources
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Quick launch summary 
We’re making security groups generally available. Security groups help you easily regulate, audit, and monitor groups used for permission and access control purposes by simply adding the security label. See our beta announcement for more details and use cases for security groups. 

We’ve recently announced several other features that can help you better manage groups in your organization and improve your security posture. These include group membership expiration and the indirect membership visibility and membership hierarchy APIs. 


Getting started 
Rollout pace 
Availability 
  • Available to Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Standard and Enterprise Plus customers, as well as G Suite Basic, Business, Education, Enterprise for Education and Nonprofits customers 
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Quick launch summary 
The Cloud Identity Groups API feature that enables you to set expirations for group memberships is now generally available. It was previously available in beta. 


This enables admins to set an amount of time that users and service accounts are members of a group. Once the specified time has passed, users will be removed from the group automatically. Automatic membership expiration can help reduce the administrative overhead for managing groups, and can help ensure group membership is limited to the members that need access. 




This launch is another enhancement to the Cloud Identity Groups API. We recently also made the indirect membership visibility and membership hierarchy APIs generally available. Together, these make it easier to manage permissions and access control in your organization. 


Getting started 
Rollout pace 
Availability 
  • Available to Google Workspace Enterprise Standard and Enterprise Plus, as well as G Suite Enterprise for Education and Cloud Identity Premium customers 
  • Not available to Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, and Enterprise Essentials, as well as G Suite Basic, Business, Education, and Nonprofits customers 
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New updates There are no new updates to share this week. Please see below for a recap of published announcements.  

Previous announcements 
The announcements below were published on the Workspace Updates blog earlier this week. Please refer to the original blog posts for complete details. 

Check your video and peripheral device quality before joining a Google Meet call 
We’re making it possible to quickly preview how you’ll appear and sound to others before entering a Google Meet video call. | Learn more. 

Updates on how to sync Google Drive content to your computer 
In the coming months, we’ll make some changes to the solutions we offer to access Google Drive files and keep them in sync on your desktop. Additionally, customers with end users who are currently using Backup and Sync can apply for a beta of the new unified Drive for desktop experience. | Learn more. 

Postmaster Tools API now available 
We’re launching a Postmaster Tools API, allowing programmatic access to the email data found in the Postmaster Tools user interface. | Learn more.
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Quick launch summary We’re launching a Postmaster Tools API, allowing programmatic access to the email data found in the Postmaster Tools user interface. You can use the API to gather metrics on bulk emails sent to Gmail users—such as delivery errors, spam reports, feedback loop performance, and more. You can also import or merge the data into other systems and diagnose issues with email delivery.


Getting started
  • Admins: There is no admin control for this feature. 
  • End users: Registered domain owners can use this API to programmatically extract their domain’s data into their systems. Check out the Developers Guide to learn more about the using the Postmaster Tools API.
Rollout pace
Availability
  • Available to Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, and Enterprise Plus, as well as G Suite Basic, Business, Education, Enterprise for Education, and Nonprofits customers

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What’s changing 
In the coming months, we’ll make some changes to the solutions we offer to access Google Drive files and keep them in sync on your desktop. There is no immediate action required, but we suggest familiarizing yourself with the changes and plans described below. 

Currently, we have two sync solutions available—Drive File Stream, which was built for business users, and Backup and Sync, which was built for consumer users. 

Some of our Google Workspace customers have deployed both sync solutions, which can be confusing for end users and challenging for IT departments to manage. To address this, we're planning to unify these sync clients later in 2021, bringing the most used features from both Drive File Stream and Backup and Sync to all of our users. Check out the Additional details section below for more information, and sign up to preview the unified sync client in beta. 


Who’s impacted 
Admins and end users 


Why it’s important 
We’re planning to unify our sync clients and bring all of our customers the best and most used features from both Drive File Stream and Backup and Sync. This will create a powerful and unified sync client for anyone who uses Drive, whether for business or personal purposes, and will: 
  • Make it easier for admins and IT teams to manage deployments 
  • Reduce user confusion around which app to use 
  • Result in better performance for end users 
The beta for the new unified client will help organizations currently using Backup and Sync understand how the new client will work prior to it becoming generally available later in 2021. 


Additional details 

Drive File Stream is now Google Drive for desktop 
As of version 45, Drive File Stream is known as Google Drive for desktop. This is simply a name change; all functionality will remain the same and most admins and end users won’t need to take any action to continue using the client. See our release notes for more details. 


Backup and Sync functionality and users will be transitioned to a new version of Drive for desktop later this year 
Later this year, Backup and Sync users will need to transition to Drive for desktop, the unified sync client. Until then, we’re working to incorporate features from Backup and Sync into the new solution and to make it as easy as possible for users. 

We’ll announce when Drive for desktop is ready for Backup and Sync users. We will share more details later this year on how Backup and Sync users can get started with Drive for desktop. We will provide 3 months’ notice for Google Workspace admins and end users before the deadline to transition to Drive for desktop. The transition will be self-serve for end users. More details on consumer timelines will be announced closer to availability. Visit our Help Center to learn more about which features will be transitioned to Drive for desktop. 


Google Workspace customers can now preview the new Drive for desktop client in beta 
Google Workspace customers with end users who are currently using Backup and Sync can apply for a beta of the new unified Drive for desktop experience, which includes Backup and Sync features. Learn more, and sign up for the beta. 


Getting started 
  • End users: The name change from Drive File Stream to Drive for desktop will take place by default. Functionality won’t change, and there is no user action required. 
    • Note that there’s also no action required for Backup & Sync users with personal Google accounts at this time. 

Rollout pace 
Drive File Stream renaming to Drive for desktop 

Drive for desktop unified client beta 

Availability 
  • Drive for desktop is available to Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, and Enterprise Plus, as well as G Suite Basic, Business, Education, Enterprise for Education, Nonprofits customers, and users with personal Accounts. 
  • The beta for the new unified client is available to Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, and Enterprise Plus, as well as G Suite Basic, Business, Education, Enterprise for Education, and Nonprofits customers who currently have users with the Backup and Sync deployed. 

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