What’s changing

You can now use different sources for your audio and video feeds in a Hangouts Meet video call. Specifically, you can use a phone call for audio while still using your computer's camera and web browser for video.

This can be done by dialing into the call directly, or by having Meet call your phone. You can use your phone for audio immediately upon joining, or anytime after joining if you’d like to switch.

Who’s impacted

Admins and end users

Why you’d use it

You can use your phone for audio on Hangouts Meet calls to ensure you have consistent and reliable audio quality, even if your network connection is poor, or if your computer’s microphone and speaker aren’t working. You’ll still be able to share and see video and presentations in the meeting.

Additional details

Please note that the Meet dial-out option is currently only available in the US and Canada.

Getting started

Admins: This feature will be ON by default if dial-in functionality is enabled. If you’d like to disable the dial-in functionality for Meet meetings, it can be done at the domain, OU, or group level. To disable this feature, in the Admin console go to Apps > G Suite > Settings for Google Hangouts > Meet settings and disable the setting “Provide a phone number and PIN for each video meeting.”

Visit the Help Center to learn more about turning dial in/out on or off for your organization.

End users: This feature will be ON by default for all calls with dial-in/out enabled. Visit the Help Center to learn more about using a phone for audio in a video meeting.

Rollout pace

• Rapid Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on January 29, 2020
• Scheduled Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on February 12, 2020

Availability

• Available to all G Suite customers

Resources

• G Suite Admin Help: Manage Meet video meeting settings
• Google Help: Use a phone for audio in a video meeting

What’s changing 

We’re introducing a new data loss prevention (DLP) system that will make it easier to deploy more advanced detection policies for content on Google Drive. The new Drive DLP functionality can be found at: Admin console > Security > Data Protection. Key updates include:

• Advanced detection policies that enable more detailed rules using nested conditions, volume-based detection, finer detection thresholds, and more. 
• New DLP incident management dashboard to see incident trends, view detailed incident reports, dry run rules, and more. 
• Simplified deployment with more flexible scoping, roles based access for admins, and more. 

Use our Help Center to learn more about the differences between the legacy and new DLP systems.

The new system is separate from the legacy Drive DLP system. 

Currently, the new DLP system (at Admin console > Security > Data Protection) will exist alongside the legacy DLP system (at Admin console > Rules). Rules created in the new system will be separate from rules in the legacy system, and both will continue to work. You can migrate legacy DLP rules to the new DLP by manually creating a new rule in the DLP and then deleting the legacy DLP rule. When you perform this migration, we encourage you to consider reconfiguring them to use the more advanced functionality offered by the new system. Use our Help Center to learn more about migrating from the legacy to the new DLP system.

Who’s impacted 

Admins

Why you’d use it 

Protecting your company’s confidential data is critical. DLP supports this by giving you control over what users can share, and prevents unintended exposure of sensitive information. You can use it to prevent or warn users from sharing sensitive content (such as confidential information and customer social security numbers) outside of the domain on a per file basis. As an admin, you can also use the system to get alerts about policy violations and DLP incidents and to investigate information on the policy violation.

We have developed this new system to provide a more advanced way for you to configure DLP for Drive, going beyond the previously announced Drive DLP systems (DLP for Drive, and DLP for shared drives). You can use it to make your deployment more powerful and flexible with more granular policies customized for the specific needs of your organization. Combined with added deployment flexibility, it will be easier to deploy more advanced DLP policies that add visibility into and control over your data. Use our Help Center to learn more about how the new DLP system is different from the legacy system.

Additional details 

Advanced detection policies 
The new Drive DLP system provides more advanced functions to help admins configure deeper content detection rules including:

• Nested conditions with AND, OR, and NOT - You can now define complex DLP rules leveraging a wide variety of conditions. 
• Volume-based detection - Enforce DLP actions based on the number of violations to reduce the incident volume. 
• Finer detection thresholds - Additional detection confidence thresholds help to balance DLP settings and reduce false positives. 
• Targeted detection - Choose to target detection to comments, suggestions, title, body or all content of a Drive file. 

Additionally, you can now utilize DLP rule templates to quickly author new policies. Templates utilize predefined content detectors, which can then be fine-tuned with appropriate threshold levels suitable for your environment.


Incident management dashboard 

The new system includes a DLP dashboard that will help you test, understand, and manage rules and alerts in your domain, including by showing incident trends. Features include:

• “Dry Run” for your data protection rules - Generate reports without having the rule active so you can start monitoring your environment without enforcing blocking actions. 
• New alert delivery options - Choose who receives alerts for specific rules, including additional members of the organization outside the super admin groups. 
• Detailed incident reports - See more detailed reports for all the DLP actions (block, warn, audit). 
• Integration with policy investigation tool - Help DLP response teams dig deeper into violations when needed. 

Simplified deployment 
The new system makes it easier to deploy DLP rules with features like:

• Roles-based access for administrators - Assign delegated admins for DLP functions in the Admin console. Learn more. 
• Predefined content detectors - Use 90+ predefined content detectors to help expand coverage and better manage policy violations. 
• Policy exports - Download a copy of DLP policies. 
• Flexibility for scoping policies - Scope DLP policies to include or exclude specific groups or OUs. 

Getting started 

• Admins: This feature will be OFF by default and can be controlled at the domain, OU, or group level. Find the new DLP system at Admin console > Security > Data Protection. Use our Help Center to learn more about the new Drive DLP system.
• End users: No action needed. 

Rollout pace 

• Rapid Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on January 28, 2020 
• Scheduled Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on January 28, 2020 

Availability 

• Available to G Suite Enterprise, G Suite for Education, G Suite Enterprise for Education, and Drive Enterprise customers 
• Not available to G Suite Basic, G Suite Business, and G Suite for Nonprofits customers 

Resources 

• G Suite Admin Help: Prevent data loss using new DLP for Drive

Roadmap 

• This feature was listed as an upcoming G Suite release.

What’s changing 

Due to low usage, Google App Maker will be turned down gradually over the course of 2020 and officially shut down on January 19, 2021. Prior to the shutdown, you’ll need to review App Maker usage in your domain and take any necessary action.

See the Additional details section below for a timeline of the shutdown and alternatives you can deploy in your organization.

Who’s impacted 

Admins, end users, and developers

Why it’s important 

As soon as possible, review your organization’s App Maker applications. App creators should review the uses cases listed in the Additional details section below and take action as necessary by the dates listed in the turndown schedule.

Additional details

Turndown schedule
App Maker will be disabled gradually according to the schedule below:

• Today, existing apps continue to work. Though App Maker is no longer under active development, the service will continue to be maintained.
• Starting April 15, 2020, you will no longer be able to create new App Maker apps. You will still be able to edit and deploy existing apps.
• Starting January 19, 2021, existing App Maker apps will stop working and you will no longer have access to them. App maker data stored in Cloud SQL will remain unchanged and continue to follow the policies established by your Google Cloud Platform (GCP) account.

Quick launch summary

You can now select specific participants when viewing meetings in the Meet Quality Tool. This allows you to display data and statistics for just a subset of the participants. When viewing calls with many participants, this helps limit the amount of information displayed on the screen at one time. By fitting just the most relevant information into the view, pagination can often be avoided even for very large meetings.

Getting started

Admins: This feature will be available by default when using the Meet Quality Tool. To select participants, use the participant list on the left-hand side of the Meeting Details page. As selections are made, the information displayed to the right will update accordingly.

End users: This feature has no impact on end users.

Rollout pace

• Rapid Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on January 22, 2020
• Scheduled Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on January 22, 2020

Availability

• Available to all G Suite customers

Resources

• G Suite Admin Help: Troubleshoot meeting quality

What’s changing 

Last year, we announced betas for originality reports and rubrics, two new tools for Google Classroom. Beginning today, these features are generally available for G Suite for Education and G Suite Enterprise for Education Classroom users.

Who’s impacted 

End users

Why you’d use them 

Help students turn in their best work 
Originality reports check a student's work for matches across billions of web pages and books.  This can make it easier for instructors to evaluate the academic integrity of the student’s work and provide them constructive feedback.

Students can also use originality reports to check for missed citations or poor paraphrasing before they turn in a document. This gives them the opportunity to improve their work and learn from their mistakes before final submissions.

Enhance feedback to students with rubrics
A rubric is a scoring framework that makes it easier for educators to evaluate student assignments, set clear expectations, and provide actionable feedback.

With the new rubrics feature, educators can now:

• Create a rubric as they create an assignment. 
• Reuse rubrics from previous assignments rather than creating them from scratch.
• Export and import Classroom rubrics to share with other instructors. 
• Grade students work with a rubric from both the “student listing page” and Classroom’s grading view, where instructors can select rating levels as they review the assignment. 

Additionally, rubrics can be helpful for business users. For example, you can create a rubric to assess marketing plans or performance in key business areas.

Additional details 

Language availability for originality reports:
Note that originality reports are only available in English and for Google Docs at the moment. See below for details on expanded language options available in beta.

Number of originality reports available per assignment:
Classroom instructors can enable originality reports on three assignments per class for free. Instructors who use G Suite Enterprise for Education can turn on originality reports for unlimited assignments per class.

Regardless of what G Suite for Education edition their instructor uses, students can run originality reports on a document three times per assignment before submitting. When students submit their work, a new originality report is created for the instructor.

More options for originality reports available in beta:

• International language options: Originality reports are launching in beta for the following languages: French, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, and Swedish.
  
  
• Student-to-student comparison: Originality reports will also compare student work against past student submissions within a school's domain. This feature is only available to G Suite Enterprise for Education customers.

You can learn more and sign up for these betas using this form.

Getting started 

End users: 
Originality reports: Once originality reports are available in your domain, instructors can turn them on per assignment by checking the originality reports checkbox within the assignment creation process. Visit the Help Center to learn more about using originality reports.

Rollout pace 

• Originality reports
• Rapid Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on February 3, 2020
• Scheduled Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on February 3, 2020
• Rubrics
• Rapid Release domains: Full rollout (1-3 days for feature visibility) starting on February 3, 2020
• Scheduled Release domains: Full rollout (1-3 days for feature visibility) starting on February 3, 2020

Availability 

• Originality reports and rubrics:
• Available to G Suite for Education and G Suite Enterprise for Education customers and Classroom users
• Not available to G Suite Basic, G Suite Enterprise, G Suite Business, and G Suite for Nonprofits customers

• Beta availability
• International language options for originality reports: available to G Suite for Education and G Suite Enterprise for Education customers.
• Student-to-student comparison: available to G Suite Enterprise for Education customers only.

Resources 

• Classroom Help: Turn on Originality reports
• Classroom Help: Create or reuse a rubric for an assignment
• Beta Sign-up: International beta and student-to-student comparison
• Keyword: Improve student writing with originality reports and rubrics in Classroom

Roadmap 

• Rubrics for Classroom was listed as an upcoming G Suite release.