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We recently launched new tools in G Suite like Explore, Action items, and other features to help your teams save time and focus on what’s important: creating impactful work, quicker. We know time spent re-creating files in the workplace takes away from the time your team can spend collaborating and achieving results.

That’s why, today, we’re introducing custom templates in G Suite for the Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Forms files your teams use the most.

Simply submit files to shared template galleries in the Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Forms home screens for your co-workers to adapt and use as needed. With these customizable templates, your teams can focus less on formatting and more on driving impact and sharing success.

Note that if you disabled template submissions to the old Google Drive templates gallery in the Admin console, users in your organization will not be able to see and use the new galleries when they launch. You can enable the new galleries for your users in the Admin console (Apps > G Suite > Drive and Docs > Templates). You can also configure the categories available for your organization’s templates from that same section in the Admin console.

In addition, G Suite for Business and Education customers can require templates be approved before they appear in the galleries, or prevent end users from submitting new templates altogether. These features are not enabled by default, so you’ll need to update your settings if you want to moderate or restrict template submissions to the galleries.

The old templates gallery will be shut down in early 2017, giving you and your users time to transition to the new galleries. We’ll let you know the exact date with a message in the old gallery, but it will not take place before February 1st, 2017.

An important note regarding this rollout: 
To give you a chance to update your settings and curate your organization’s template galleries, we’re rolling out these features (both in the Admin console and in the home screens) to all admins, regardless of their release track, starting today. We’ll launch to end users on the Rapid release track today as well, with the rollout to end users on the Scheduled release track starting on December 7th. 

Launch Details
Release track:

• G Suite administrators
• • Launching to both Rapid and Scheduled release
• G Suite end users
• • Launching to Rapid release, with Scheduled release coming on December 7th

Editions:

• Template galleries
• • Available to all G Suite editions
• Moderation and restriction capabilities
• • Available to G Suite for Business and Education customers only

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

Impact:
All end users

Action:
Admin action suggested/FYI

More Information
Help Center: Enable templates for Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Forms
Help Center: Create a file from a template

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Check out the following new features in the latest versions of the Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides Android apps:

• Notifications in Docs, Sheets, and Slides – Users who currently see notifications in their Google Drive Android app (for instance, when someone mentions them in a comment or shares a document with them) will now see notifications in their Docs, Sheets, and Slides Android apps as well. These notifications are specific to the app they’re working in and only appear if the user has an updated version of Google Drive installed on their mobile device.

• Resize rows and columns in Sheets – Users will find it easier to resize rows and columns in the Sheets Android app, which now features options to specify the pixel sizes of rows and columns and to fit columns to their data exactly.

• Create and edit data validation in Sheets – Just like they can on the web, users can now create and edit data validation criteria in the Sheets Android app.

• Change the color of sheet tabs in Sheets – Users can now differentiate between sheets in a spreadsheet by changing the color of their tabs in the Sheets Android app.

Visit the Google Play Store to download the latest versions of the Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides apps for Android.

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

Editions:
Available to all G Suite editions

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

Impact:
All end users

Action:
Change management suggested/FYI

More Information
Help Center: Edit rows and columns in a spreadsheet
Help Center: Create an in-cell dropdown list
Help Center: Copy, re-order, and delete sheets

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(Cross posted from The Keyword) 

Posted by Vishnu Sivaji, Product Manager, G Suite

Presentations are a staple in business communication. When done right, they help tell a story that can captivate, persuade, or inspire audiences. But crafting that story can be tedious, especially if you’re constantly flipping between screens to copy and paste charts, images, or figures into your slides.

If only there was an API for that….

Today, we’re announcing the general availability of the Google Slides API which gives developers programmatic access to create and update presentations in Slides from any data source. We previewed the Slides API at I/O earlier this year to change how business presentations are built. Now, your teams can use a number of ready-to-go integrations to turn your business data into presentations, with just a click.

Build beautiful, up-to-date presentations in seconds using Conga, Trello, Lucidchart and Zapier
Whether you’re looking to populate a quarterly business review (QBR) deck, add specs for weekly design review slides, or refresh event registration data for your daily update, the third-party apps below let you quickly and easily build beautiful, data-rich presentations.

• Generate your next QBR deck with Conga: Conga makes document creation and reporting for Salesforce easy. With its Slides API integration you can create a quarterly business review presentation in Slides from your standard Salesforce Account records in seconds. Read more here.

• Create vivid project updates with Trello: Trello helps you organize and prioritize project information in highly visual ways. With its Slide API integration, you can turn any Trello board or set of cards into a Slides presentation with just a click. Read more here.

• Review complex visualizations with Lucidchart: Lucidchart helps you create complex diagrams and visuals easily. With its Slides API integration you can export flowcharts, mockups, and other such visuals, break them into slides to cover specifics in more detail, and rapidly iterate on the content. You can find Lucidchart on the G Suite Marketplace and read more about the integration here.
• Create and respond to custom proposals requests with Zapier: Zapier lets you create and automate business workflows. With its Slides API integration you can create, collaborate, and share dynamic presentations using Slides with just a few workflow rules. You can get started with the Slides integration on Zapier or learn more about it here. 

All of these app integrations are available to try today — and this is just the beginning. We’re working with many other software vendors, including ProsperWorks, AODocs and Form Publisher to help you do more in less time in all sorts of ways.

Developers can start using the Slides API today. Documentation and demos are available at developers.google.com/slides and they can read more about it here.

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Earlier this year, we began previewing a completely revamped Google Sites with a select group of early adopters. Starting today, we’re making the new version of Sites generally available to G Suite customers. In addition to the intuitive technology, integration with G Suite apps, and attractive design that our early adopters have come to know and love, the new Sites now includes the ability to track performance with Google Analytics, six new themes, and other helpful features. Read on for more information regarding this launch, and check out the Help Center and Learning Center to learn more about the new Sites.

The classic version of Sites will continue to exist
The previously existing, classic version of Sites will continue to exist in parallel with the new Sites as we add capabilities that are similar to those found in the classic Sites. The classic Sites and the sites created with it will continue to follow the Sites-specific settings in the Google Admin console at Apps > G Suite > Sites.

Please note:

• In 2017, we’ll provide and recommend options to migrate your sites from the classic Sites to the new Sites.
• Beginning in 2018, we’ll send a timeline and instructions regarding the gradual process to shut down the classic Sites. The specific date for the shutdown of the classic Sites has yet to be set, but we’ll inform you at least one year in advance of that shutdown.

Turn the new Sites on or off for your organization
The new Sites is ON by default, but your users will not be able to create or edit sites in the new Sites unless you have both Google Drive and the classic Sites turned on as well.

To turn OFF the new Sites in your organization, you can do any one of the following:

• In the Admin console, go to Apps > G Suite > Sites > New Sites and select Users at [my domain] cannot create and edit sites.
• Turn off Sites entirely.
• Turn off Drive entirely.

The new Sites respects Drive sharing settings
The new Sites respects the Drive sharing settings in the Admin console (located at Apps > G Suite > Drive). It does not abide by the classic Sites sharing settings (located at Apps > G Suite > Sites). If you allow users to publish Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides files on the web, they’ll also be able to publish sites created in the new Sites on the web.

Check out the new Sites today, and get started creating useful, beautiful sites that work across screens to deliver your content in the most effective way possible.


Launch Details
Release track:

• Admin console settings
• • Launching to both Rapid release and Scheduled release
• End user features
• • Launching to Rapid release, with Scheduled release coming on November 21st, 2016

Editions:
Available to all G Suite editions except G Suite for Government

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

Impact:
All end users

Action:
Admin action suggested/FYI


More Information
Help Center: The new Google Sites
Help Center: Use the new Google Sites
Learning Center: Sites

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(Cross posted from the Gmail blog) 

Posted by Matthew Izatt, Product Manager

Today we’re making some changes to the Gmail and Google Calendar apps on iOS.

The new Gmail app for iOS

When you get the next Gmail iOS app update, you’ll notice some exciting changes: The biggest overhaul of the app in nearly four years. It’s the Gmail you know and love, with a fresh new look, sleeker transitions and some highly-requested features. It’s a lot faster, too.

With the new app, getting things done on the go is a lot easier — whether you’re trying to find a message your colleague sent you last month, or trying to get through your work inbox on a Monday morning.

Starting today, you’ll be able to:

• Undo Send, just like you do on the desktop, to prevent embarrassing email mistakes
• Search faster with instant results and spelling suggestions (like when you type “flighht,” but you really meant “flight”)
• Swipe to archive or delete, to quickly clear items out of your inbox

Google Calendar: Updated for you

In October 2015, we introduced the ability to manage company-owned devices running Android 6.0 (Marshmallow). That launch included several new settings, including device lockdowns, account management, sharing freedom, application management, and factory reset protection. Today, we’re going even further to make it easy to manage your company-owned Android devices.

First, you can now bulk enroll your Android inventory and deploy it to remote offices with your chosen settings enforced. Moreover, during the bulk import process, you can now associate your company-owned devices with a new attribute called an asset tag to better integrate with internal tracking and billing tools.

Second, the mobile inventory page in the Admin console (Device management > Mobile devices) now features improved filtering around device ownership and device actions, like blocking and wiping.

Finally, all admin activities around the management of company-owned devices—like bulk import and device actions—are now logged in the Admin Audit section of the Admin console (Reports > Audit > Admin), while all end user activities on company-owned devices—like OS updates, setting changes, and app installs and removals—are now tracked in Mobile Audit (Reports > Audit > Mobile Devices). Most importantly, you can now choose to receive a monthly report to help you monitor company-owned devices that have been inactive in the last 30 days.

Support for company-owned devices is provided to G Suite Business customers only. For more information, check out the Help Center.

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

Editions:
Available to G Suite Business customers only

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

Impact:
Admins only

Action:
Admin action suggested/FYI

More Information
Help Center: Set up mobile management for company-owned devices

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Today, we’re announcing that on January 1, 2017 we will discontinue support for the Google Drive desktop app on Windows XP and Vista since these platforms are no longer actively supported by Microsoft. The Google Drive desktop app (officially: “Google Drive for Mac/PC“) will continue to function on these platforms, but will not be actively tested and maintained. If you are still on one of these unsupported platforms, we encourage you to move to a newer version of Windows to continue using Google Drive desktop app.

Release track:
Launching to both Rapid release and Scheduled release on January 1, 2017

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(Cross-posted from The Keyword)

Posted by TJ Varghese, Product Manager, Jamboard

Bringing the right team together for a meeting or brainstorm can take an idea from being good to great. When we tap into ideas from teams across the globe, our work becomes more collaborative and productive. It doesn’t feel like…well, work. At Google, we’ve set out to redefine meetings. So today, we’re introducing Jamboard — a collaborative, digital whiteboard that makes it easy for your team to share ideas in real-time and create without boundaries. We’re moving the whiteboard to the cloud.

Your team’s collaborative, cloud-first whiteboard
Jamboard raises the bar on collaborative creativity, bringing the same real-time collaboration found in G Suite, combined with the best of the web, to your team’s brainstorms and meetings. You can work with teammates from across the world on other Jamboards or remotely use the smartphone or tablet companion app.

Jamboard makes it easy to enrich your brainstorm with the power of Google Search and your team’s work in G Suite. Grab images and content from the web and bring them straight into your “jam.” Pull in work from Docs, Sheets and Slides, or add photos stored in Drive. To capture your ideas clearly, Jamboard is packed with tools like sticky notes and stencils as well as intelligent features like handwriting and shape recognition.

It’s a hassle when you use a whiteboard, reach the end of your meeting and have to quickly scramble to snap a picture of your work. How many times have you scribbled “do not erase” above your idea? Jamboard lets you take your work with you. When you “jam” with your colleagues, it lives in the cloud in Google Drive, so you can easily share what you’ve created or come back to iterate at anytime. Your brainstorm doesn’t have to end when the meeting does.

Designed for precision and ease
Jamboard is intelligently designed to speed up collaboration among your teams with a 55-inch 4k display that features a best-in-class touch response time. Combine this with a built-in HD camera, speakers and Wi-Fi, and you’re set up to collaborate and broadcast your work globally with Hangouts.

Jamboard’s touchscreen was built for precision drawing. It automatically recognizes the difference between using the stylus to sketch or the eraser to start over, and neither require batteries or pairing. Jamboard can also sense when you’re using your finger to wipe work off of the screen, just like a classic whiteboard (except you won’t get ink on your hand). The intuitive, single-cable setup makes it easy to start creating quickly with Jamboard — just wheel it in, turn it on and start brainstorming.

Time to jam 
We want to help teams get back to the heart of what they love to do: create new ideas. That’s why we’ve worked closely with G Suite customers like Instrument, Netflix, and Spotify to refine the blend of hardware and software that drives Jamboard. We’re also partnering with BenQ to tap into its network of channels and resellers to help bring Jamboard to market.

While touch displays have traditionally been expensive, at under $6,000 USD, Jamboard is a competitively-priced way to transform your team’s meetings and will be available for purchase in 2017. As we “jam” on the final product details, we’re ready to partner with a broader set of G Suite customers to perfect Jamboard through an Early Adopter Program. If you’re interested, submit the form on the Jamboard website to receive more information about eligibility.

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You have long been able to add, edit, and view various details about a user in the Admin console, from basic information like name and email address to workplace-focused data like job title, manager, and department. Using the Admin SDK or Google Cloud Directory Sync tool, you could also add custom user attributes to that pre-defined list. Starting today, you can create and view these custom user attributes directly from the Admin console interface; there’s no need to employ the Admin SDK or GCDS.

For example, you can track the projects an employee is working on or store their hire date—whatever meets your organization’s needs. Moreover, you can determine what type of data should populate each field (e.g. text, numbers, dates, email addresses, etc.) and who can see that data—admins and the individual user only, or all users in your organization. You can then edit and view these details on the User Details page in the Admin console.

For more information on how to add and manage custom user attributes, check out the Help Center.

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

Editions:
Available to all G Suite editions

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

Impact:
Admins only

Action:
Admin action suggested/FYI

More Information
Help Center: Manage custom user attributes

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(Cross-posted from The Keyword) 

One of the core promises of Google Docs is to help you and your team go from collecting ideas to achieving your goals as quickly and easily as possible. That’s why last month we launched Explore in Docs, Sheets and Slides — with machine intelligence built right in — to help your team create amazing presentations, spreadsheets and documents in a fraction of the time it used to take.

Today, we’re introducing five new time-saving features designed to speed up and simplify the way you work, so you can focus on bringing your team’s ideas to life.

1. Spend less time figuring out who owns what with Action Items

According to research by the McKinsey Global Institute, employees spend about 20 percent of their work week — nearly an entire day — searching for details internally and tracking down colleagues for answers. This can be especially true when a document is full of ideas, requests and comments, making it difficult to get a clear sense of who’s responsible for what.

To help keep your projects moving, when you type phrases like “Ryan to follow up on the keynote script,” or “Andrea to schedule a weekly check in” on desktop, Docs will intelligently suggest an Action Item to assign to the right person, thanks to Natural Language Processing (NLP).

You can also manually assign an Action Item to someone in the Docs, Sheets and Slides desktop and mobile apps by mentioning their name in a comment and checking the new Action Item box. The assignee will get an email notification and see the Action Item(s) clearly highlighted with a blue bar when they open the file.

2. Spend less time searching for the files that need attention

Once Action Items have been assigned, it’s easy for team members to identify documents, spreadsheets and presentations that need their attention. The next time they visit Docs, Sheets, Slides (or Drive) from their laptops or mobile apps, they’ll see a badge on any files with Action Items assigned to them, plus any unresolved suggestions that others have made to their files.

3. Spend less time building questions with smarter Forms

Since its launch in 2008, more than a billion questions have been asked in Forms, allowing us to identify common patterns, like question types and the response options that usually go with them. With the help of neural networks, we can now predict the type of question you’re asking and suggest potential responses for you to choose from, giving you back about 25 percent of the time you used to spend creating a Form.

Let’s say you’re planning an all-day event at the office and need to know which day works best for your team. When you type “What days are you available next week?” Forms will intelligently determine that “Checkbox” is the ideal question type, and generate related response options that you can add one by one or all together.

Also debuting today is a top-requested feature from our business and education customers — the new “File upload” question type. Your respondents can now upload files from their computer or Drive — all of which are neatly collected for you in a new Drive folder. Note: This feature is only available for G Suite customers in Forms shared within their organization.

4. Spend less time typing with a set of new voice commands

Last year, we launched Voice typing in Docs on the web to help you capture ideas, big and small, without lifting a finger. Today, we’re adding more ways to format and customize content with commands for changing text color, deleting words, inserting links and comments, plus a number of other ways to format, hands-free.

5. Spend less time switching between apps to get things done

We want you to be as productive and collaborative as possible, regardless of the tools you choose to work with, so we’ve partnered with Slack to make it even easier to work with Google Docs files. With a click of the “+” button in Slack, you can bring files from Drive directly into a conversation with your team, or create new Docs, Sheets and Slides files right from Slack. You can check out more details on Slack’s blog.

With the introduction of Explore, and more and more updates to products that build in machine intelligence, taking back time spent on mundane, repetitive tasks will only get easier with G Suite. Now, you can focus your energy on creative and strategic work, not busy work.

Launch Details
Release track:

• Launching to both Rapid release and Scheduled release
• • Assigned action items
  • Priority badges
  • Voice typing improvements
  • Slack integration
• Launching to Rapid release, with Scheduled release coming on November 2nd, 2016
• • Suggested action items
  • Suggested response options in Forms
• Launching to Rapid release, with Scheduled release coming on November 9th, 2016
• • File uploads in Forms

Editions:
Available to all G Suite editions

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

Impact:
All end users

Action:
Change management suggested/FYI

More Information
Help Center: Add, edit, reply, or delete comments
Help Center: Edit your form
Help Center: Type with your voice
Slack Blog

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In September, we introduced Google Cloud, a portfolio of products, technologies, and services designed for enterprises. Following that announcement, we’re rebranding our Google Apps Directory Sync tool to better reflect the wide variety of products and services it supports. Going forward, Google Apps Directory Sync will be known as Google Cloud Directory Sync. In addition to this change, the latest version of Google Cloud Directory Sync will include the features and fixes described below.

What’s new

• The GCDS interface now shows only those sync features supported by your domain type. 
• The tool uses the latest Java JRE v1.8, which by default uses TLS v1.2 for HTTPS connections. 
• The GCDS EULA has been updated to include customers who may use a domain covered by the Managed Google Domain Terms.

What’s fixed

• “Force new users to change password” is now properly set on account creation. 
• Group memberships are now added properly on initial sync with group creation. 
• Instead of displaying “Connected failed – null” when there is a connection error testing SMTP notifications, GCDS now displays a proper error message. 
• Random passwords for accounts are no longer synced on the first and subsequent syncs; they are now set on the first sync only. 
• Users are now properly provisioned with the defined default password. 
• You can now re-authorize GCDS using a different account, even if GCDS has a valid auth token. 
• You can now perform a sync in GCDS, even if you haven’t configured email notification settings.
• Instead of displaying the raw HTML EULA when installing from the command line, the installer now displays the plain text EULA. 

Check out the Help Center for more details, and download the latest version of GCDS.

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

Editions:
Available to all G Suite editions

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

Impact:
Admins only

Action:
Admin action required

More Information
Help Center: About Google Cloud Directory Sync
Help Center: What’s New in Google Cloud Directory Sync

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Today, we’re announcing that as of February 1, 2017, we will discontinue service for Drive for Mac/PC desktop app versions 1.27 and lower. Going forward, we will officially discontinue service for any Google Drive for Mac/PC versions older than one year.

Newer versions of the Drive desktop app offer several performance and security updates. To ensure the highest quality experience for your users, we recommend that you take the following actions as soon as possible:

• If you manage your users’ installations, upgrade by following the instructions in the “Install Google Drive for Mac/PC” Google Apps Administrator Help Center article.
• If users have installed the client on their own, direct them to the “Install Google Drive for your Mac/PC” Drive Help Center article for end-users.

OS X and Windows users may check what version of Google Drive they are using by clicking on the Drive for Mac/PC menu, clicking on the three-dots icon, and then clicking About. Users still on versions 1.27 and lower after February 1, 2017 will no longer be able to sync files between Google Drive and local storage using Google Drive for Mac/PC.

In the coming weeks, we’ll be contacting domain administrators whose users currently use older versions of Google Drive for Mac/PC and provide guidance on the appropriate migration path.

Launch Details

Release track:
Launching to both Rapid release and Scheduled release

Editions:
Applicable to all G Suite editions

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

Impact:
End-users using Google Drive for Mac/PC versions 1.27 and older

Action:
Change Management/FYI

More Information
Help Center