This official feed from the Google Workspace team provides essential information about new features and improvements for Google Workspace customers.
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Quick launch summary 

In June 2021, we announced that ‘Rooms’ in Google Chat would evolve to become ‘Spaces’. As part of that evolution, starting on September 8, 2021, any user who has enabled Chat in their Gmail settings will start to see the term ‘Rooms’ automatically updated to ‘Spaces’. 

Over the coming months, spaces will be enhanced with a number of new features such as in-line topic threading, discoverable spaces, and enhanced user roles and moderation. Read more about the upcoming spaces experience. 


Getting started 


Rollout pace 

Availability 

  • Available to all Google Workspace customers, as well as G Suite Basic and Business customers 

Resources 

Roadmap 

Read More

What’s changing 

You can now quickly surface information regarding specific users and the groups they are part of directly in the Admin console. 
  • View direct and indirect members of a group: Enables you to see an expanded view of all memberships in a group. This allows to see a single view of all memberships for a nested group structure 
  • Check Membership: This allows you to validate whether a user is a member of a particular group. 
  • List all groups for a member: You can view a list of all groups a user is a member of, the email address or addresses associated with the group, and the group relation (indirect, direct, or both). See below for more information. 

Who’s impacted 

Admins 



Why it’s important 

In order to manage access to content and resources within their organization, Admins use numerous groups to ensure proper access for their users. This also involves nesting groups, adding another layer of complexity. 

This feature will give Admins a clear understanding of the group structures for any user in their organization, all in one place. We hope this feature makes it easier for Admins to take action on managing their users by providing all the necessary information, such as all groups a user is part of and their membership status. 



Getting started



Availability


  • Available to Google Workspace Enterprise Plus, Enterprise Standard, Education Plus, and Cloud Identity Premium customers
  • Not available to Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Education Fundamentals, Frontline, and Nonprofits, as well as G Suite Basic and Business customers


Resources


Read More

Update

[December 13, 2021]: This beta is now closed and will no longer be accepting new applications.

What’s changing 

We’re launching a new beta that makes it easier for admins and delegated admins to move folders from My Drive to shared drives. This beta will add several usability enhancements including: 
  • Retaining folder IDs (“copyless moves”) to reduce disruption due to the move 
  • Preventing moves that would exceed any shared drive limits 
  • Reparenting any unmovable items under the item owner's My Drive root, and creating shortcuts in the existing hierarchy as a reference 


See below for more information and availability. 


Who’s impacted 

Admins 


Why you’d use it 

Shared drives are a powerful way to empower teams and organizations to store, access, and collaborate on files. With this beta, admins and delegated admins will notice significant improvements when moving folders from My Drive to shared drives. 



Currently, when admins move folders, the existing folder IDs change, existing links to these folders can break, and impacts on shared drive limits are unclear. With this beta, folder IDs will not change and moves that can potentially exceed any shared drive limits will be rejected. 



We hope this streamlined process will allow admins to confidently migrate folders from My Drive to shared drives by providing them with more context on the changes they’re making. 




Additional details 

In the coming months, we will introduce end user support for moving My Drive folders to shared drives. We will provide an update on the Workspace Updates Blog when the end user portion of this feature becomes available. 

Dragging and dropping a folder from My Drive into a shared drive



Getting started 


Availability 

  • Available to Google Workspace Essentials, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Fundamentals, Education Plus, and Nonprofits, as well as G Suite Business customers 
  • Not available to Google Workspace Business Starter and G Suite Basic customers, as well as users with personal Google Accounts 

Resources 

Read More

What’s changing 
Google Drive stores your most important files, whether they are Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, PDFs, images or the hundreds of other file types we support today. Today, we are announcing more ways to make sure you can make them all accessible to you even when your internet connection is unavailable. 

In 2019, we launched a beta which enabled you to mark non-Google file types, like PDFs, images and Microsoft Office files, available offline when using Google Drive on the web. Now, we’re making this functionality generally available. When you mark these files available offline, you can easily open these files from your browser even when you aren’t connected to the internet.

Easily find files offline


 

ChromeOS users can now also use the easily accessible Files app on their Chromebook to select Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides files to be available when offline. This streamlined access eliminates the need to open Google Drive or Google Docs to select files to make them available offline. 

Find files offline
 

Who’s impacted 
Admins and end users 
 
Why you’d use it 
Users can access all of their important Drive files while offline such as when they’re traveling or when there’s poor internet connectivity. 

Additional details 
Non-Google files such as PDFs, images and Microsoft Office files will need to be opened using apps installed on your computer through Google Drive Web when offline. This feature is already available for Google Drive for desktop users. 

Getting started 

Rollout pace 
Availability 
  • Available to all Google Workspace customers, as well as Cloud Identity Free, Cloud Identity Premium, G Suite Basic and Business customers. Available on personal accounts as well. 

Resources 

Roadmap 
Read More

What’s changing

We’re introducing a new integration with Tenor, which will allow users to quickly search for and send GIFs in Google Chat on web.

Additionally, we’re introducing a new setting for Admins to control the use of this GIF integration within their organization.

See below for more information.


Who’s impacted

Admins and end users


Why you’d use it

The new Tenor integration makes it faster and easier for users to find and share GIFs when interacting with colleagues.  


Easily find and share GIFs
We’ve made improvements to the way users find and share GIFs in Chat. You’ll notice a new “GIF” icon, which will bring up an expanded window for browsing GIFs. 


Here, users  can find GIFs through search or by filtering on popular categories such as “Trending”. 


Admins can enable or disable this GIF integration in the Admin console by going to Apps > Google Workspace > Settings for Google Chat > GIFs. This integration is enabled by default for all customers. Visit the Help Center to learn more about turning GIFs on or off in Google Chat.


Getting started

  • Admins: Important note: Admins will see this setting beginning September 1, 2021, allowing one week to configure the setting before the end user experience begins rolling out. Visit the Help Center to learn more about turning GIFs on or off for your organization.
  • End users: When enabled by your admin, you can find and insert GIFs by selecting the “GIF” icon in the Google Chat compose bar.

Rollout pace

Admin setting

End user experience 

Availability

  • Available to all Google Workspace customers, as well as G Suite Basic and Business customers

Read More

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