Google Workspace Changes

Improvements to menus and toolbars in Google Docs and Slides for better consistency and discoverability.

Google is updating the menus and toolbars in Google Docs and Slides on the web to make items easier to find and increase consistency. Key changes include renaming 'Lists' to 'Bullets and numbering', moving and renaming 'Show spelling suggestions' to 'Spelling' in the Tools menu, moving 'Document outline' to the View menu in Docs, and removing 'Import slides' from the Insert menu in Slides.

Existing templates now available in additional languages

Existing templates in Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides on the web are now available in several additional languages, including Hindi (hi), German (de), Indonesian (in), Japanese (ja), Dutch (nl), and Chinese (zh-CN).

New template categories for Project Management, Sales, HR, and Freelancer Engagement

Google has introduced four new template categories developed in partnership with experts: Project Management in Sheets (with Smartsheet), Sales in Docs (with PandaDoc), Human Resources in Docs (with Zenefits), and Freelancer Engagement in Docs (with Upwork). These templates are currently available in English on the web.

Google introduces regular release notes for Drive File Stream and Backup and Sync.

Google is now publishing regular release notes for Drive File Stream and Backup and Sync on the Help Center. This allows users to keep track of additions and improvements made to each new version of these products, while major changes will continue to be announced on the G Suite Updates Blog.

Classic Google Calendar Interop tool will be shut down on February 28, 2018.

Google is shutting down the classic version of the Calendar Interop tool on February 28, 2018. Organizations that have previously configured the classic version must migrate to the new version of Calendar Interop by this date to ensure continued availability lookup functionality between G Suite and Microsoft Exchange or Office 365 environments.

Google Sheets introduces intelligent pivot table suggestions, formula suggestions, and enhanced data analysis tools.

Google Sheets is adding several AI-powered and analytical features to help users uncover insights. This includes intelligent pivot table suggestions via the Explore panel and natural language processing, machine-learning-based formula suggestions, a refreshed pivot table UI with customizable headings, new pivot table calculation options (such as showing values as a percentage of totals), the addition of waterfall charts, and improved importing of fixed-width formatted data files.

Embed HTML and JavaScript code directly in the new Google Sites.

Google Sites users can now further customize their sites by embedding HTML and JavaScript code directly. This functionality is available via the Insert menu by selecting 'Embed' and then choosing 'Embed Code'.

Nine third-party applications added to the G Suite pre-integrated SSO apps catalog

We’re now adding SAML integration for 9 additional applications: Dashlane, Docebo, Front, InVision, IT Glue, Pivotal Tracker, Sumo Logic, SurveyMonkey and Zoom.

Nine third-party applications added to the G Suite pre-integrated SSO apps catalog

Google has added SAML integration for nine additional third-party applications to its pre-integrated SSO apps catalog: Dashlane, Docebo, Front, InVision, IT Glue, Pivotal Tracker, Sumo Logic, SurveyMonkey, and Zoom. This allows administrators to more easily set up Single-Sign-On (SSO) for these enterprise cloud applications compared to installing custom SAML applications.

Removal of the Google Photos tab from Google Drive navigation

Google Drive is simplifying its navigation by removing the Google Photos tab from the left-hand navigation menu. Users can continue to access their photos and videos within Drive by creating a Google Photos folder in My Drive, or by accessing Google Photos directly via the web, Android, or iOS apps.

Hangouts Meet now supports up to 50 participants for G Suite Enterprise users.

Google has increased the participant limit for Hangouts Meet meetings to 50 for users of the G Suite Enterprise edition. This limit supports a mixture of video and dial-in entry points, enabling larger global collaborations.

New Admin console setting to control who can move content out of Team Drives.

Google is introducing a new sharing setting in the Admin console that allows G Suite administrators to control who can remove content from their domain's Team Drives to prevent data from leaving the organization. This setting restricts moving content from a domain's Team Drive or a user's My Drive to an external domain, with three available options: 'Anyone', 'No one', or 'Only users in this domain'.

Easily add and manage site-wide footers in the new Google Sites.

Google Sites now allows users to create a consistent footer across all pages of a website from a single location. By clicking 'Add Footer' at the bottom of a page, the footer is applied site-wide. Users can also hide the footer on specific pages or create custom sections at the bottom of individual pages for unique content.

Google is deprecating and retiring the Realtime API.

Google announced the deprecation of the Realtime API in favor of newer cloud storage solutions like Google Cloud SQL, Firebase Realtime Database, and Google Cloud Firestore. Starting November 28, 2017, the API is no longer available for new projects. Existing applications will continue to work until December 11, 2018, when documents become read-only, and the API will be completely shut down on January 15, 2019, although a JSON export mechanism will remain available.

Easily copy and paste Hangouts Meet conference details across Google Calendar events.

Google Calendar now allows users to copy and paste Hangouts Meet conference codes or full URLs across different events. This is particularly useful for scheduling multiple events that require the same conference link, such as separate events for interviewers and candidates or back-to-back meetings, ensuring all participants join the same video conference. This feature is available in the new Calendar for web.