Google Workspace Updates

New options to control chat history in unthreaded Google Chat rooms

Monday, May 10, 2021

What’s changingWe’re introducing a new admin control for Google Chat history in unthreaded rooms. With this new control, admins have the option to:

Set unthreaded room history behavior separately from 1:1 and group conversations: Admins can set the default history state to be either on or off. They can also prevent users from changing the default history setting for unthreaded rooms. Note: this setting does not impact threaded rooms. Threaded room history is always on.

Note that this will only affect organizations that use Chat; it will not impact organizations that still use classic Hangouts. Use our Help Center to learn more about these changes and how they might impact your organization.

Who’s impactedAdmins
Why you’d use itThese new options give you as an Admin more control and flexibility in setting Chat history options for unthreaded rooms.

Getting started

Admins: This feature will be ON. Visit the Help Center to learn more about setting the default room history for your users.
End users: There is no end user setting for this feature.

Rollout paceRapid Release and Scheduled Release domains: Gradual rollout starting on May 10, 2021. You can set the new Admin console controls when you see them, but it may take a few days before they take effect. This is a one-time delay during the rollout. The settings should work by late May.

AvailabilityAvailable to all Google Workspace customers, as well as G Suite Basic and Business customers.
Resources

Google Workspace Admin Help: Set default room history for users
Google Workspace Admin Help: Set chat history options for your organization

Google Workspace Updates Weekly Recap - May 7, 2021

Friday, May 7, 2021

New updates There are no new updates to share this week. Please see below for a recap of published announcements.
Previous announcements
The announcements below were published on the Workspace Updates blog earlier this week. Please refer to the original blog posts for complete details.

Google for Education transformation reports window open, available worldwide The next reporting window for Google for Education transformation reports is now available for K-12 Google Workspace for Education customers worldwide. | Learn more.

“Show Editors” provides more context on changes made in Google Docs You can now view richer information on the edit history of a particular range of content in Google Docs. | Available to Google Workspace Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, and Education Plus customers. | Learn more.

Improve Google Cloud Search results with Contextual Boost We’re adding the ability to boost Google Cloud Search results using the Cloud Search Query API for third party data sources. Contextual boost is one of the key ways used to enable search personalization.| Available to Google Cloud Search customers. | Learn more.

Additional admin controls for Google Voice ring groups Admins can now configure a “fixed order” pattern for their ring groups and change the maximum duration a call should ring before proceeding to the “unanswered call” behavior. | Available to all Google Workspace and G Suite customers with Google Voice standard and premier licenses. | Learn more.

Specify which attributes are available for the Secure LDAP client Admins can now specify which attributes they’d like to make available for the LDAP Client, such as system, public and private attributes. | Available to Google Workspace Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Fundamentals, and Education Plus, G Suite Enterprise, and Cloud Identity Premium customers. | Learn more.

More options for customizing a charts line and fill styling in Google Sheets We’ve added more for line and fill customization options for series and series items. | Learn more.

For a recap of announcements in the past six months, check out What’s new in Google Workspace (recent releases).

More options for customizing a charts line and fill styling in Google Sheets

Friday, May 7, 2021

Quick Summary We’ve added more for line and fill customization options for series and series items. You can now modify:

Color
Opacity
Line dash styles
Line thickness

For column-shaped series, we’ve added the ability to add and style borders, a highly requested feature.

Note: these new options are not available for pie charts, however the ability to change pie slice colors and add borders is already available.
We hope these new options help you best display important data and create more impactful reports with Sheets.
Getting started

Admins: There is no admin control for this feature.
End users: Visit the Help Center to learn more about adding and editing a chart in Google Sheets.

Rollout pace

Rapid and Scheduled Release domains: Extended rollout (potentially longer than 15 days for feature visibility) starting on May 7, 2021

Availability

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

Resources

Google Help: Add & edit a chart or graph

Specify which attributes are available for the Secure LDAP client

Wednesday, May 5, 2021

What’s changing The Secure LDAP service provides a simple and secure way to connect your LDAP-based applications and services to Cloud Identity or Google Workspace. Admins can now specify which attributes they’d like to make available for the LDAP Client:

System attributes: Default user attributes that are available for all user accounts—for example, Email, Phone, and Address. Note that you can't disable this option.
Public custom attributes: Custom user attributes that are marked as visible to the organization.
Private custom attributes: Custom user attributes that are marked as visible only to the user and administrators. Use caution when using private custom attributes, as you're exposing private information to the LDAP client.

Who’s impacted

Admins and end users

Why it’s important

LDAP clients are in the secure LDAP service, which enables users to access traditional LDAP-based apps and IT infrastructure using their Google Workspace credentials. This new feature gives admins more control over the connections your LDAP-based applications and services use to interact with Google Workspace and Cloud Identity services.

Additional details

Custom attribute naming requirements and guidelines:

Names for custom attributes can contain only alphanumeric text and hyphens.
There should be no duplicate attribute names across all custom schemas.
If the custom attribute name matches with an existing system attribute, we will return the system attribute value.

Important: If attribute names don't adhere to the above guidelines, the attribute values in question are excluded from the LDAP response.

Getting started

Admins: Visit the Help Center to learn more about the Secure LDAP service, creating custom attributes for user profiles, and configuring access permissions.
End users: No action required.

Rollout pace

Rapid Release and Scheduled Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) May 5, 2021

Availability

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

Resources

Additional admin controls for Google Voice ring groups

Wednesday, May 5, 2021

What’s changingWe’ve added new ways for admins to manage their Google Voice ring groups. Specifically, admins can now:

Configure a “Fixed order” pattern where incoming ring group calls will ring members in a predetermined order.
Change the maximum duration that a call should ring before proceeding to the "unanswered call" behavior — previously this was fixed at 30 seconds.

Set your Call Routing Pattern, Ring Duration, and Order of Call Ringing

Setting the Call Routing Pattern to Simultaneous

Who’s impactedAdmins

Why you’d use itWe've heard from you that you'd like more options to customize the ringing behavior for your ring groups. With the new “Fixed order” pattern, you can define exactly what order to ring your members when the ring group receives a call, skipping members who are already in a call or have “Do not disturb” enabled. You can also customize the maximum ringing duration for fixed and round robin patterns that allows you to limit how long an incoming call should ring, which may be particularly useful for large ring groups.

Getting started

Admins: Visit the Help Center to learn more about setting up and configuring ring groups for your organization.
End users: No action required.

Rollout pace

Rapid Release and Scheduled Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 5 days for feature visibility) starting on May 5, 2021.

Availability

Available to all Google Workspace and G Suite customers with Google Voice standard and premier licenses.
Not available to Google Workspace and G Suite customers with Google Voice starter licenses.

Resources

Google Workspace Admin Help: Set up ring groups

Improve Google Cloud Search results with Contextual Boost

Monday, May 3, 2021

What’s changing We’re adding the ability to boost Google Cloud Search results using the Cloud Search Query API for third party data sources. Contextual boost is achieved by defining document specific context at the time of indexing and using the right contextual values at the time of query. Contextual boost is one of the key ways used to enable search personalization.
Some examples of the contextual attributes you can define are:

Location: Certain results can be more relevant to users from a specific location. For example, an employee in Japan might search for "benefits," and want to receive benefits information specific to their office in Japan
Department: Certain results can be more relevant to a user's department. For example, a member of the Sales team might search for "pitch decks," and want to discover pitch decks specific to their team
Tenure: Certain results can be more relevant to the user's tenure. For example, a new employee might search for "onboarding documents," and want to discover documents specific to employee onboarding

Who’s impacted

Admins and end users

Why you’d use it Context is a critical element in providing highly relevant search results. By providing a wide range of contextual attributes, users will see more tailored results based on inputs such as location, department, and job role. This helps reduce the time spent searching by surfacing more relevant content faster.
With this launch, we provide support for a wide range of contextual attributes that can be used to personalize the results for the end users. This launch also supports combining contextual attributes for deeper context. Combining attributes helps to further triangulate the right results tailored for a specific end user.

Getting started

Availability

Available to Google Cloud Search customers

Rollout pace

Rapid Release and Scheduled Release domains: This feature is available now.

Resources

Google Cloud Search: Increase ranking based on item context

“Show Editors” provides more context on changes made in Google Docs

Monday, May 3, 2021

Quick launch summary You can now view richer information on the edit history of a particular range of content in Google Docs. Simply highlight and right-click on a range of text and select “Show Editors” from the dropdown menu. Here, you can view a list of editors and their latest edit along with time stamps. You’ll also have the option to open the Version History of the document.

This makes it easier to track edits made by multiple collaborators, giving greater insight into who the recent editors were, what changes were made and when.
Getting started

Admins: There is no admin control for this feature.
End users: Visit the Help Center to learn more about viewing who changed part of a document in Google Docs.

Rollout pace

Availability

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

Resources

Google Help: Find what’s changed in a file

Useful Links

Updates

New options to control chat history in unthreaded Google Chat rooms

Google Workspace Updates Weekly Recap - May 7, 2021

More options for customizing a charts line and fill styling in Google Sheets

Specify which attributes are available for the Secure LDAP client

Additional admin controls for Google Voice ring groups

Improve Google Cloud Search results with Contextual Boost

“Show Editors” provides more context on changes made in Google Docs

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