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We’re happy to announce that starting today the Gentle Notifications lab is graduating to become a fully supported feature.

This new feature is opt-in and automatically activated for existing lab users. In order to opt-in, simply enable browser notifications from the settings menu in Google Calendar.

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

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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Based on your feedback, we’re improving the search and filter experience in the Audit Reports section of the Admin console. Previously, when you typed a query in any one of the “Filters” fields in a particular report, we would automatically begin searching when your cursor left that field—an unexpected and often confusing experience. To make this workflow more intuitive, we’re adding a Search button below the filtering fields, which you’ll need to explicitly click to launch any search. This should make the process of pulling key reports quicker and easier.

Check out the Help Center for more details.

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: Admin Audit Log

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

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Any skilled presenter knows that an interactive presentation is often an effective presentation. Starting today, you can better engage your audience by allowing them to submit questions and vote on them during Google Slides presentations.

To see the feature in action, check out this video in which Google Science Fair winner Shree Bose fields questions from a group of 200 middle school students.

A few things to note:

• The Slides Q&A feature works on desktop computers, Android mobile devices, and iOS mobile devices.

• You can only use Slides Q&A if you have edit or comment access to that Slides presentation.

• By default, any user in your domain can submit a question. If your organization permits external sharing, you can allow external users to submit questions as well.

For more information on how to accept, submit, and view audience questions in Google Slides, check out the Help Center.

Bonus! Allowing your audience to ask questions isn’t the only way we’re improving the presentation experience on Slides today. We’re also making the following possible:

• Use your mouse as a laser pointer in Slides on the web. Just choose the laser pointer option from the toolbar and move your mouse, and a red laser-like dot will appear in the same place on screen, helping your audience know where to look and when.

• In the Slides iOS app, present to a new Hangout or to a Hangout selected from a meeting on your Google Calendar. For more information, check out the Help Center. 

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

• All mobile features
• All audience features on mobile and desktop

Launching to Rapid release, with Scheduled release coming in two weeks:

• Ability for a presenter to enable Q&A on desktop

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: Ask and present audience questions
Help Center: Present slides
Google for Work Blog: Talk with your audience — not at them — with Slides Q&A

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

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Images—for instance, business logos—can make or break a spreadsheet. With that in mind, we’re launching improved image and drawing functionality in the Google Sheets mobile apps. Starting today, you can:

• View images and drawings in in the Sheets app on your iPhone or iPad.

• View images and drawings—even in frozen sections!—in the Sheets app on your Android device (previously these images would not render in frozen cells on Android).

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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Today, we’re announcing that as of July 1, 2016, we will discontinue support for Drive for Mac/PC sync client versions 1.22 and lower and going forward, any Google Drive for Mac/PC versions which are older than 1 year old.

Newer versions of the sync client offer several performance and security updates. 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 the sync client they are using by clicking on the Drive for Mac/PC menu (which appear as three dots) and then clicking About. The dialog that appears will include the version number on it. Users still on versions 1.22 and lower after July 1, 2016 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 also be contacting domain administrators whose users currently use older versions of Google Drive for Mac/PC and provide guidance on the appropriate migration path.

Release track:
Rapid release and Scheduled release

We recently announced that the new Google Contacts is available for preview from the Admin console. By enabling the preview, administrators can allow their users access to the new Google Contacts, along with the many benefits that come with it, like a new fresh look and improved contact merge features.

One popular request from Google Apps users was the ability to easily import their contacts into Google Contacts. We’re happy to announce that starting today, the ability to import contacts, powered by ShuttleCloud, is now available for Google Apps users.

Getting started for administrators

• Administrators must first enable the “Contacts Preview” for their users via Apps > Google Apps > Settings for Contacts > Advanced Settings
  

Posted by Matt Ward, Software Engineer

(Cross-posted on Google for Education blog) 

In August 2015 we launched YouTube Settings in Google Apps to give schools and other organizations a way to manage the YouTube experience for users logged in to their domains and on networks they manage. Today we’re happy to announce a number of new features to make these more flexible and easier to use.

Channel whitelisting
Administrators and designated approvers can now whitelist entire channels, not just individual videos. For example, if you want to ensure that all current and future videos uploaded to your organization or school’s channel are watchable by your users, you can now simply add the entire channel to your approved list. Learn how to designate approvers.

More flexible options for administrators
Administrators have new capabilities to help them manage YouTube to meet the needs of their organization.

• Administrators can now choose between two levels of Restricted Mode restrictions — strict or moderate — for their logged-in users. 

• Network managers can now use an HTTP header to enforce either strict or moderate restricted mode on managed devices. 
• Network managers can also use this new DNS configuration if they want to enforce moderate restricted mode on wifi networks they manage.
• Coming soon, logged-out users on YouTube’s mobile apps on restricted networks will also get a restricted experience. 
• And since we know this can be tricky to set up, network managers can visit this page to ensure their network restrictions have been configured correctly. 

YouTube for Schools
In August we announced that we would no longer be maintaining YouTube for Schools (YT4S). As of July 1, 2016, YT4S will no longer be available. View the YouTube Settings in Google Apps Help Center for additional details.

More information
Learn how to enable YouTube settings for your Google Apps domain and join the discussion in the product forum.

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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

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

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Working with long and complicated formulas is tough enough as is; you shouldn’t have to struggle to simply read them. Fortunately, this launch makes it easier to view and type those lengthy equations in Google Sheets on the web, by allowing you to drag and expand the formula bar.

Only have view or comment access to a spreadsheet? Previously, it was difficult to read the entire content of a cell containing a large amount of text. With this launch, you can simply click the bottom of the function bar and drag it up or down to make it big enough to see everything within it.

Check out the Help Center for more information on working with formulas in Sheets.

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: Add formulas and functions to a spreadsheet

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

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Launch detail categories
Get these product update alerts by email
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We’re pleased to announce that Google Drive will now support web notifications when your colleagues share Google Drive files with you, or request access to files.

Please note:

• Users must opt-in to turn on notifications.
• This feature will only be visible while using Google Chrome. 
• Users can control which notifications they receive, on a per-device basis.

To make users aware of these notifications, Google Drive will show a message in the bottom left of the document list, outlining the benefits with a link to enable the feature.

Posted by Vartika Agarwal, Technical Program Manager, Identity & Authentication, and Wesley Chun, Developer Advocate, Google

(Cross-posted on Google Apps Developer Blog)

As we indicated several years ago, we are moving away from the OAuth 1.0 protocol in order to focus our support on the current OAuth standard, OAuth 2.0, which increases security and reduces complexity for developers. OAuth 1.0 (3LO)* was shut down on April 20, 2015. During this final phase, we will be shutting down OAuth 1.0 (2LO) on October 20, 2016. The easiest way to migrate to the new standard is to use OAuth 2.0 service accounts with domain-wide delegation.

If the migration for applications using these deprecated protocols is not completed before the deadline, those applications will experience an outage in their ability to connect with Google, possibly including the ability to sign-in, until the migration to a supported protocol occurs. To avoid any interruptions in service for your end-users, it is critical that you work to migrate your application(s) prior to the shutdown date.

With this step, we continue to move away from legacy authentication/authorization protocols, focusing our support on modern open standards that enhance the security of Google accounts and that are generally easier for developers to integrate with. If you have any technical questions about migrating your application, please post them to Stack Overflow under the tag google-oauth.

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*3LO stands for 3-legged OAuth: there’s an end-user that provides consent. In contrast, 2-legged (2LO) doesn’t involve an end-user and corresponds to enterprise authorization scenarios such as enforcing organization-wide policy control access.

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

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Launch detail categories
Get these product update alerts by email
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