Google Workspace Updates

Tuesday, November 18, 2014

Admin provisioning of individual Google+ profiles

Previously, Google Apps administrators had no means by which to give people in their organizations a Google+ profile in order to connect with other employees and encourage collaboration and sharing in the organization. With today’s launch, admins can now perform individual profile upgrades centrally (bulk upgrades coming soon).

For people with Google+ enabled who have yet to register (i.e., create a profile), admins may individually create a basic Google+ profile on their behalf, certifying the employee is 18+ years of age (or specifying a birthday). After the admin has completed this action, the person for whom the profile was created will receive a Google+ welcome email explaining the action taken by the admin.

Notes

Today’s launch applies to Premier, Gov and higher-education EDU domains only (K-12 EDU domains are excluded).
People using Picasa or with a public chat photo are not eligible to be upgraded by an admin, and must create their own profile.

Release schedule:

Rapid release and Scheduled release

For more information:

Google for Work G+ post

Help Center (admin)

Help Center (user)

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

whatsnew.googleapps.com
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Thursday, November 13, 2014

Increased visibility and control with OAuth token audit reporting

Currently, people using Google Apps can authorize any third party mobile or web application which supports login with a Google Apps account using OAuth to read their account data (e.g. Contacts, Calendar, Drive files, etc) to integrate with Google Apps. Each authorization grants an access token, which is then logged in the Apps Admin console. Previously, Admins could review the current state of OAuth tokens granted by people within their domain using the security tab, but could not access the change logs of authorized and revoked tokens.

With this launch, we are adding a new audit report that allows admins to view ‘authorize’ and ‘revoke’ events for OAuth tokens within the Admin console Reports section and the Reports API. Admins can use this new audit report to find out what new apps have been installed by individual users and, if needed, can revoke access using the security tab. This improves admin visibility and control over access of third party apps by users in their domain.

In addition, admins can use the Reports API to set up a push notification for oAuth 'authorize' and 'revoke' events, generating an alert when a certain event happens. Optionally, admins can also revoke data grants using the Directory API.

To access the OAuth audit reports in Admin console, click on Reports -> Audit -> Token. Release track:

Rapid release and Scheduled release

For more information:

Help Center

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

whatsnew.googleapps.com
Get these product update alerts by email
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Monday, November 10, 2014

Migration of older spreadsheets to the new Google Sheets

As recently communicated, the auto-migration of older spreadsheets (those created prior to Dec 2013, including any subsequent copies) to the new version of Google Sheets will start today for Google Apps domains on the Rapid release track.

No action is required as a result of the migration. No data should be affected; however, in rare cases the results of some formulas and some other features may be slightly different. See "What's different in the new Sheets?" in the Help Center article for more detailed information.

You can tell what version your spreadsheet is in by checking to see if there is a green checkmark at the bottom right of your spreadsheet (the checkmark is found on new Sheets only).

Release track:

Rapid release (gradual rollout); migration for Scheduled release domains will start in approximately four weeks (preceded by the notification)

For more information:

Friday, November 7, 2014

A new, unified experience coming to Google products

At Google I/O in June, we introduced material design, a single underlying design system that allows for a unified experience across platforms and device sizes. It features smooth animations and transitions between screens, a multi-layered interface with quick access to the elements that you need most often, and a colorful UI with diverse fonts and styles.

Material design principles have begun to appear in recent Google product launches, including Google Classroom, the Docs, Sheets, and Slides home screens and mobile apps, the Drive Android app, Android 5.0 Lollipop and the new Gmail and Calendar Android apps. You’ll continue to see more Google products adopting these new design principles across platforms in the coming months

To help with this transition, we’ve created a few resources for Google Apps customers. First, a special segment of The Apps Show featuring an interview with Lucas Pettinati, UX Lead for Google Apps. Lucas explains Google’s approach to applying material design to Apps products and what to expect moving forward. Second, an instructional guide [pdf] outlining the functional elements of material design and a deep dive [pdf] into how these elements surface in the new Gmail Android app. Check out these resources and share them with your organization.

Friday, November 7, 2014

New Google Drive UI to become the default experience

Since the launch of the new Google Drive UI in June, the new experience has been opt-in, allowing people to try out and become accustomed to the UI and feature set. We’ve since been working on adding a few features that weren’t ready for the launch in June, like the ability to view and manage versions for non-Google file formats, and add caption files or transcript files to videos.

With these features now complete, today’s launch will make the new UI the default experience for people using Drive, while retaining the option for them to return to the old Drive UI via the Settings drop down. In the future, we’ll remove the option to return to the old Drive UI.

Release track:

Rapid release (gradual rollout), with Scheduled release coming early in 2015

For more information: