Google Workspace Changes

Standalone Meet speakermic available for larger rooms.

Google is offering a standalone Meet speakermic for pre-order to improve audio quality in larger rooms. The device reduces echoes and background noise and supports daisy-chaining up to five speakermics together.

New Hangouts Meet room kit available for larger rooms.

A new Hangouts Meet room kit is available for pre-order, designed for larger rooms of up to 20 people. It includes a Logitech PTZ Pro 2 camera with 10x optical zoom and pan-tilt capabilities.

Hangouts Meet hardware expands to the Netherlands and Denmark.

Hangouts Meet hardware is now expanding to two additional countries, the Netherlands and Denmark, bringing the total number of countries where the hardware is available to 14.

Private Android apps can now be published to up to 20 organizations.

Businesses using Google Mobile Management and other Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) providers can now publish a single private Android app to up to 20 different organizations. This update allows developers to publish apps to domains other than their own, removes the requirement for developers to be admins of the target organizations, and simplifies the delegation of app publishing to third-party developers. Security is maintained as developers must have the target organization's Organization ID and an admin must approve the app.

International language support for Google Drive integration with Slack

Google is launching international language support for the Google Drive integration with Slack. The Google Drive bot will now send messages and respond to users in French, Spanish, German, or Japanese, depending on the user's preferred language setting in Slack.

View Slack activity events within Google Drive

Google Drive is adding activity events that allow users to see when a file is shared or discussed within Slack. Specifically, the activity logs will now record when someone shares a Google Drive file in Slack or comments on a shared Google Drive file within Slack, provided the user has access to both the document and the Slack channel.

Twenty-two third-party applications added to the G Suite pre-integrated SAML apps catalog

We’re now adding SAML integration for 22 additional applications: 7geese, Accellion, Bime, Bugsnag, Canvas LMS, Honey, Humanity, Jitbit, Kintone, Knowbe4, Kudos, Looker, Meraki, Mingle, RemedyForce, Replicon, Rollbar, Signal FX, StatusPage, Weekdone, Wrike, and Zoho CRM.

Publish Google Sites to a specific audience.

Google Sites now allows users to specify exactly who can view their content when published. By selecting the 'Share with others' icon and changing the Published settings to 'Specific people can view when published,' editors can invite specific individuals to view the published site.

With Single-Sign-On (SSO), users can access all of their enterprise cloud applications—including the Admin console for admins—after signing in just one time.

We’re now adding SAML integration for 22 additional applications.

Updated setup flow for company-owned Android devices to improve ownership assignment.

Starting February 12th, 2018, the setup flow for company-owned Android devices (running Android 6.0+) will be updated to encourage correct ownership assignment. Instead of requiring users to check a box to assign ownership to their organization, users will be asked if they own the device personally. Unless they explicitly state personal ownership, the device will be auto-assigned to the organization, provided the G Suite account is added before any personal account.

Hangouts Meet now supported on Android and iOS tablets.

Hangouts Meet is now available for use on Android and iOS tablets, enabling team members to join video meetings from a wider variety of devices.

Hangouts Meet metrics added to G Suite Reports API.

Google is introducing over 50 new metrics to the Reports API Customer Usage report for Hangouts Meet, providing details on call duration, size, and device-specific characteristics. Additionally, Hangouts-related metrics previously provided under the Google+ metrics group have been migrated to a new 'Meet' metrics group.

Pop-up notifications for Drive for Mac/PC users to transition to Drive File Stream starting January 30

Starting January 30, 2018, G Suite accounts still using the legacy Drive for Mac/PC client will begin seeing pop-up notifications providing instructions on how to install Drive File Stream, provided the domain allows the service and displays download links in the Drive interface.

Shutdown date for legacy Google Drive desktop sync client delayed to May 12, 2018

Google has delayed the complete shutdown of the legacy Google Drive desktop sync client for Mac and PC (Google Drive for Mac/PC) from March 12, 2018, to May 12, 2018. Enterprise organizations are encouraged to transition to Drive File Stream, while non-G Suite users are recommended to use Backup and Sync.

HTML view removed from the menu in Google Slides.

The HTML view option has been removed from the View menu in Google Slides. Users can still access this view using the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Alt+Shift+P.