Google Workspace Changes

Hangouts Chat is now generally available as a core service.

Google has launched Hangouts Chat as a core service for G Suite, making it available to all editions except Government. The service is enabled by default for most organizations and is compatible with classic Hangouts, ensuring seamless communication across both platforms. Admin controls for chat history and service activation are available in the Admin console.

Automatic room suggestions in Google Calendar

Google Calendar is introducing automatic room suggestions to help organizations collaborate more effectively. The tool suggests rooms optimized for attendees based on their building and floor location, previous booking history, audio/video equipment needs, and room capacity requirements. To unlock this feature, administrators must input detailed meeting room information into Calendar.

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

We’re now adding SAML integration for 12 additional applications: 15Five, 4Me, Clarizen, Deskpro, Heroku, Hightail, moxtra, ScreenSteps, Targetprocess, Tinfoil, UserEcho, xMatters

Admins can now limit the bandwidth used by Drive File Stream.

Administrators now have the ability to limit the bandwidth of Drive File Stream for both uploads and downloads to manage network usage within their organization.

Admins can now customize the content cache location for Drive File Stream.

Administrators can now customize the content cache location for Drive File Stream to any directory on a connected APFS, HFS+, or NTFS file system.

End users can now pause Drive File Stream syncing.

End users now have the ability to pause Drive File Stream syncing. While paused, the application will not upload local changes to Google Drive, and new versions of files made available offline will not be downloaded.

Improvements to menus in the web versions of Google Docs editors.

Google is updating the menus in the web versions of Google Docs, Slides, and Sheets to make items easier to find. Changes across all editors include renaming 'Spelling' to 'Check Spelling' in the Tools menu and removing 'Select none' from the Edit menu. Specifically for Google Sheets, 'Filter' is renamed to 'Create a filter' and 'Validation' to 'Data validation' in the Data menu, with various reordering of items in the File, Edit, Tools, Data, and Format menus.

Ability to email all members of a Team Drive.

Google is introducing a feature that allows users to email all members of a Team Drive to improve collaboration. Users can send emails either from the Team Drive's drop-down menu by selecting 'Email members' or from within a file in the Team Drive via the File menu's 'Email Collaborators' option. The tool allows users to customize the recipient list by filtering for members, guests, and specific access levels such as Full, Edit, Comment, and View.

G Suite admins can now manage Android app runtime permissions.

G Suite admins using Google Mobile Management can now control runtime permissions for Android apps on work profiles or company-owned devices. Admins can set a global policy to automatically allow, deny, or prompt users for permissions, and can also configure specific runtime permissions for individual whitelisted apps, which takes priority over the global setting.

Updated 'Can view' permissions for Microsoft Office files to allow viewing of comments.

Google Drive is updating the 'Can view' permission setting for Microsoft Office files. Users with 'Can view' access will now be able to see any comments added to MS Office files after the launch of this change, although they will remain unable to create new comments or reply to existing ones.

Comment on Microsoft Office files, PDFs, and images in Google Drive preview mode.

Google Drive now allows users to comment directly on Microsoft Office files (Word, Excel, PowerPoint), PDFs, and images within the preview pane without needing to convert them into Google Docs, Sheets, or Slides. This update introduces anchored comments—such as drawing rectangles on PDFs/images or selecting specific text and cells—and supports the importing and exporting of comments to and from the underlying OOXML and PDF files.

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.