Because G Suite is a cloud service it means it is under constant change and update! I’ve said this in the course and as part of my commitment I’ll work on keeping you up to date with all the changes that happen to G Suite from the moment the course was published!
Checkout my online G Suite administrator course The Complete Course to Manage G Suite. I mentioned it a lot in this article! (https://www.udemy.com/the-complete-course-to-manage-g-suite/?couponCode=LAUNCH1099)
This is a recap for the changes and updates that happened to G Suite since 1st of March/2018! March has been very active in terms of updates and changes to G Suite! Please check below for the details!
I’ll put some links at the end of this report for this document on Google Docs in case you wanted to share it with your organization or connections. Also I’ll post a link to a document from Google as well that is more business oriented you can share it with your organization as well, plus other resources and links that might be useful and connected to the content below.
Contents
Major changes
Google Drive
Google Drive is a product that is built on the collaboration and ease of access philosophy. This new update comes under this title.
Now when you access the “Shared with me” page in Google Drive, you will notice some changes there. Mainly you will see people names along with the files/folders they have shared with you. This way you will know who shared what with you very easy and in a nice way.
Link to announcement: https://gsuiteupdates.googleblog.com/2018/03/find-shared-content-with-new-file.html Please read the announcement for more information and some screenshots about this new feature/enhancement.
Gmail App for Android
7-Mar-2018 – Inbox types now supported in the Gmail app for Android – (for end users)
Previously it was not possible to change the inbox type in the Gmail app for Android. Now this feature has been made possible!
You can now choose between Default inbox, Important first, Unread first, Starred first, or Priority inbox.
The inbox type that you have on your Gmail web interface will be reflected to the Gmail app as well. So if you change the inbox type from Gmail web interface, you should see the update reflected to your Gmail app.
Please check the announcement link for more details:
https://gsuiteupdates.googleblog.com/2018/03/inbox-types-now-supported-in-android-gmail.html
Google Docs
7-Mar-2018 – Improve collaboration in Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides with Activity dashboard
The Activity Dashboard in my opinion is one of the features that should have been introduced much earlier to G Suite. Because it helps collaboration a lot!
With the Activity Dashboard you can now know who did view your document and when. This feature is only available for G Suite Business, Enterprise, Government, and Education. The Basic users can still control their own privacy settings, but they cannot access the views page.
This feature will allow you to see the views of users who you shared the document with them and users inside your domain as well.
The course has been already updated to show this setting and feature with a demo for the Activity dashboard on Google Sheets.
Link to announcement:
https://gsuiteupdates.googleblog.com/2018/03/docs-activity-dashboard-launch.html Please read the announcement carefully because it has very valuable information about how the feature is working and what controls that you have and how you can enable it/disable it for your users.
Google Sites
13-Mar-2018 – Add a custom favicon in the new Google Sites (for end users)
Google Sites continue to get more updates and features. This is the new Google Sites we are talking about. The new feature for this month is the ability to add a custom favicon!
Google Sites are a great tool for end users that will help them present any report they have or create great looking dashboards for whatever need they have! Adding more enhancements and functionality to the Google Sites is sure to bring more users to this awesome tool!
Please read the announcement below for details on this new feature!
Announcement link: https://gsuiteupdates.googleblog.com/2018/03/add-custom-favicon-in-new-google-sites.html
Jamboard
21-Mar-2018 – Automatic document closeout, custom backgrounds and more with the latest Jamboard release
Jamboard keeps getting updates and features! This month it is about the closing the documents automatically and being able to decide what is your background that you want to work on!
Jamboard isn’t covered in our course due to it being a hardware (and an expensive one!) but that does not mean we don’t get to follow up its updates and enhancements.
Please check the link for the announcement for more information and details!
Announcement link: https://gsuiteupdates.googleblog.com/2018/03/automatic-document-closeout-custom.html
Device management
21-Mar-2018 – Stay secure with default-on mobile management
By end of this year, the basic device management policy will be enabled for all devices that are connected to your G Suite environment! This is a great feature and it will be coming enabled by default on new G Suite accounts!
Please make sure you read the announcement and the details in it because there are instructions on how you can prepare your organization for the automatic enable of basic device management by the end of this year!
Check out the announcement link for the details about these great new features!: https://gsuiteupdates.googleblog.com/2018/03/default-on-mobile-management.html Please make sure you read the announcement completely. There are a lot of valuable information in it!
Security and protection
21-Mar-2018 – Helping G Suite customers stay secure with new proactive phishing protections and management controls
Google constantly is working on improving the security. And they are putting a lot of work to keep up with the continuous demands and notes form their customers! March was full of security updates and enhancements.
In March a lot of new features were added:
- Phishing protection for Gmail
- More advanced controls for Team Drives access
- Basic device management is now enabled by default!
- More reports and charts in the Security center.
The course is already updated for the safety settings for Gmail. I will update the Team Drive settings and show the new changes, as well as the Security center as well very soon!
Check out the announcement link for the details about these great new features!: https://gsuiteupdates.googleblog.com/2018/03/helping-g-suite-customers-stay-secure.html Please make sure you read the announcement completely. There are a lot of valuable information in it!
21-Mar-2018 – Helping G Suite customers stay secure with new proactive phishing protections and management controls
The security threats coming from email are not ending. They are increasing! With a lot to worry about such as ransomware attacks and other viruses/malware, it is really critical to make sure no bad email is reaching our end users. The end user cannot in most of the cases identify a fake email from an authentic email if the email looked very similar to what he used to receive.
Here comes the new Safety settings that have been introduced for us in the Gmail settings. Those settings will help protect against:
- All un-authenticated emails (that fail SPF and DKIM checks)
- Embedded short links inside an email. Gmail will check the destination behind those short links and will put a warning if the destination is bad.
- Images in the email. Gmail will scan the images and make sure no bad content is embedded in the images
- Gmail will also protect us against email messages that pretend to be sent form our domain or form domains that visually appear similar to our domain (such as a domain similar to our domain name but there is one letter difference or a small-case ‘L’ is replaced with a capital-case ‘i’.
- Other protection is also against spoofed employee names in the sender address (the part before the @), where the email appears to be coming from an existing user account but in fact that email is not authenticated and it failed SPF and DKIM checks.
You should already see the related lecture in the course about this topic, as I have updated it last week!
For further information and other details, please check the announcement link and make sure you read the details in it carefully!
Check out the announcement link for the details about these great new features!: https://gsuiteupdates.googleblog.com/2018/03/gmail-advanced-phishing-protections.html Please make sure you read the announcement completely. There are a lot of valuable information in it!
23-Mar-2018 – All G Suite customers can now manage security keys for two-step verification
Google always advise that you should enable 2-step verification for all of your organization. It is one of the best security practices Google recommends.
One of the methods for 2-steps verification is to enforce the use of security keys (USB devices that can be plugged to your computer and you will not be able to sign in to your account without plugging in that security key).
Previously it was only available for G Suite Enterprise and Business to use this function. Now Basic customer were given this feature to allow their users to sign in using only the security key method. This is a good security change because security keys add more protection and security to critical accounts.
For further information and other details, please check the announcement link and make sure you read the details in it carefully!
Check out the announcement link for the details about these great new features!: https://gsuiteupdates.googleblog.com/2018/03/manage-security-keys.html Please make sure you read the announcement completely. There are a lot of valuable information in it!
27-Mar-2018 – Control session length for Google services on the web
It is now possible for you to limit or control the duration of the web sessions of your users on the web. This setting is only available for G Suite Business and Enterprise and Education, so make sure you are aware about this.
Basically if the user kept the session idle for a period of time he or she then will be required to sign in again to their account. This is useful if computers are easily accessed by outsiders or the are in a public place.
The settings and the timeout will apply to all web sessions on desktop and some mobile sessions. The mobile apps such as the Drive or Gmail apps are not affected by this though.
For further information and other details, please check the announcement link and make sure you read the details in it carefully!
Check out the announcement link for the details about these great new features!: https://gsuiteupdates.googleblog.com/2018/03/control-session-length.html Please make sure you read the announcement completely. There are a lot of valuable information in it!
27-Mar-2018 – 2-step verification (2SV) frequency
This setting is useful for devices that the user uses frequently to login to his account. While these devices are trusted to the user; his account will prompt him for 2-step verification if he sign out of the account on that trusted computer.
Now an option has been introduced to allow the user to choose and indicate that he want to trust that computer so he does not get prompted to sign in using the 2-step verification again after he signs out!
Check out the announcement link for the details about these great new features!: https://gsuiteupdates.googleblog.com/2018/03/control-session-length.html Please make sure you read the announcement completely. There are a lot of valuable information in it!
Other updates
- Accounts: Automatically provision users with four additional apps. (05-Mar-2018)
- More info: http://bit.ly/2ETBNE6
- Accounts: Twenty-five third-party applications added to the G Suite pre-integrated SAML apps catalog. (12-Mar-2018)
- More info: http://bit.ly/2H6lOV0
- Accounts: Twenty three third-party applications added to the G Suite pre-integrated SAML apps catalog. (29-Mar-2018)
- More info: http://bit.ly/2qEzlMB
- Google Docs: Menu and toolbar updates in Google Docs editors
- More info: http://bit.ly/2JQUBaC
- Hangouts: Warning message shown to iOS users who don’t have Hangouts Meet enabled
- More info: http://bit.ly/2qDIV2T
- Drive: Jamboard files now appear in Google Drive. (26-Mar-2018)
- More info: http://bit.ly/2qDTL99
Extra links
- What’s new in G Suite? – A link to Google Help Site that will list all announced and unannounced changes that happened to G Suite. You can find the changes and sort them by date and find all the related information for each change: https://support.google.com/a/table/7314896?visit_id=1-636560334479561612-1825969126&p=whatsnew&rd=1
- G Suite March/2018 Updates – This report that you are currently reading, but on Google Docs, so you can also share it with colleagues and co-workers in your organization: https://docs.google.com/document/d/18gZ5KGBDDjsjAWTptyYrNR10JQxfq-c1pP0ndMBkjfQ
- Let users see file activity (Activity dashboard) – https://support.google.com/a/answer/7573825
- Apply extra phishing and malware protection – https://support.google.com/a/answer/7577854
- Set up session length for Google services – https://support.google.com/a/answer/7576830
- Set up 2-Step Verification – Enforcement – https://support.google.com/a/answer/2548882
- See the view history of your Google Docs, Sheets & Slides – https://support.google.com/docs/answer/7378739
Disclaimer: The “Google” logo is a registered trademark for Google which I don’t own. The user of Google’s logo in this article is for demonstration/informational purposes only. Rights are reserved for their original owners.
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