Google Workspace Changes

Google Drive plug-in for Microsoft Office allows opening and saving Office files directly to Drive.

Google has released a plug-in for Microsoft Office on Windows that enables users to open Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents stored in Google Drive and save changes directly back to Drive. Users can also save local Office files to Google Drive from within the Office applications. The plug-in supports Office 2007, 2010, 2013, and Office 365.

Google Drive, Docs, Sheets, and Slides now display warnings for invalid sharing settings.

Google is introducing warnings within the 'Sharing with others' dialog in Google Drive, Docs, Sheets, and Slides to notify users when sharing settings are invalid. Warnings will appear if a user attempts to share a file with someone outside their domain when such sharing is disabled by an administrator, or if they use 'anyone' sharing options while external publishing is restricted.

Disable downloading, printing, and copying for Google Drive files

Google Drive has introduced Information Rights Management (IRM) features that allow file owners to disable the ability for commenters and viewers to download, print, or copy files. This setting can be managed through the advanced sharing menu on the web or via API and applies to all file types in Drive, including Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides.

Print and preview event support added to Google Drive audit logs

Google has added support for print and preview events to the Google Drive audit logs for both Google and non-Google file formats. Administrators can now filter these events by document name, user name, and timestamp, and can set alerts for specific files based on filenames and owners. This feature is available to Google Apps Unlimited/Google Drive for Work and Google Apps for Education customers.

Google My Maps is now integrated with Google Drive for easier creation, sharing, and management of custom maps.

Google My Maps is now integrated with Google Drive, allowing users to create custom maps with lines, shapes, and placemarks, import geographic data, and share maps using Drive's permission settings. Google Apps admins can enable or disable the service for their domains or specific organizational units via the Admin console. These maps are web-only and do not count toward the user's Google Drive storage limit.