Google Workspace Updates: Groups

Available in open beta: the Groups Admin role can now be provisioned for specific group types

Monday, February 26, 2024

The Groups Admin role can now be assigned for security groups or non-security groups. Previously, those with the Groups Admin role had access to all groups within an organization. This change gives administrators more granular delegation of group admin responsibilities, helping limit access to the most sensitive groups to only those who absolutely need it.

This feature is available in open beta, which means no additional sign-up is required to use the feature.

Getting started

Admins:

You can assign a group as a security group through the Cloud Identity Groups API or the Admin Console, and then manage these groups through the Admin SDK Groups API, the Admin console, or the Cloud Identity Groups API. See our API documentation to learn how to update a Google Group to a security group.
Visit the Help Center to learn more about the Groups Admin role, assigning specific admin roles, and prebuilt administrator roles.

End users: There is no end user impact or action required.

Rollout pace

Rapid and Scheduled Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on February 26, 2024

Availability

Available to Google Workspace Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Plus, and Education Standard customers

Resources

What’s changing (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); The Groups Admin role can now be assigned for security groups or non-security groups. Previously, those with the Groups Admin role had access to all groups within an organization. This change gives administrators more granular delegation of group admin responsibilities, helping limit access to the most sensitive groups to only those who absolutely need it.

This feature is available in open beta, which means no additional sign-up is required to use the feature.Getting started

Admins:

You can assign a group as a security group through the Cloud Identity Groups API or the Admin Console, and then manage these groups through the Admin SDK Groups API, the Admin console, or the Cloud Identity Groups API. See our API documentation to learn how to update a Google Group to a security group.
Visit the Help Center to learn more about the Groups Admin role, assigning specific admin roles, and prebuilt administrator roles.

End users: There is no end user impact or action required.

Rollout pace

Rapid and Scheduled Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on February 26, 2024

Availability

Available to Google Workspace Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Plus, and Education Standard customers

Resources

Google Workspace Updates Weekly Recap - December 15, 2023

Friday, December 15, 2023

We have begun enforcing 2-step verification for all admin accounts

Two-step verification (2SV) is a critical security measure that has been proven to reduce password-based hijacking by more than 50%. We are committed to protecting the security of our users and are taking additional steps to help customers guard against data compromise and prevent account takeovers.

We have begun enforcing 2SV for all admin accounts and will continue this enforcement on an ongoing basis. As of December 2023, this change is already in effect for some customers. When this goes into effect for your organization, you will receive the following notifications:

30 days prior to enforcement in your domain: Super admins will receive various email and in-app notifications informing them of the forthcoming enforcement, encouraging them to verify their admins’ 2SV status.
Once enforcement goes into effect in your domain: All admins will receive email and in-app notifications upon signing into their accounts for the next thirty days. If they do not enable 2SV within this time period, they will be locked out and will need to follow these steps to recover an administrator account.

We highly encourage all administrators to turn on 2SV as soon as possible. Visit the Help Center for more details and further guidance.

Dynamic groups limit increased to 500

We’re increasing the number of dynamic groups a customer can have from 100 to 500. Dynamic groups are defined as groups whose membership is managed automatically based on specific criteria, such as a user’s department or location. This increase gives admins more flexibility to create dynamic groups as needed and cuts down on manual group management tasks that would otherwise be required. | Rolling out now to Rapid Release and Scheduled Release domains at a gradual pace (up to 15 days for feature visibility). | Available for Google Workspace Frontline Standard, Enterprise Standard and Enterprise Plus, Education Standard and Education Plus, Enterprise Essentials Plus, and Cloud Identity Premium customers only. | Learn more about dynamic groups.

Previous announcements

The announcements below were published on the Workspace Updates blog earlier this week. Please refer to the original blog posts for complete details.

Meet Add-ons SDK available in Developer Preview

The Google Meet Web Add-ons SDK is available through our Developer Preview Program. Developers can use the SDK to bring their app experience right into Meet. End users can install, open, and collaborate in apps right inside a meeting, either as the meeting focal point, or in the sidebar — all without ever leaving Meet. | Learn more about Meet Add-ons SDK .

Huddly cameras bring continuous framing to Google Meet Series One room kits

As part of our initiative to bring adaptive framing to Google Meet meeting rooms, we’re proud to announce that you can now access Huddly’s continuous framing capability available as part of the Series One room kit hardware devices. | Available to all Google Workspace customers using Google Meet Series One room kits only. | Learn more about Google Meet Series One.

Record and share your name pronunciation across Google Workspace products

From your Google account settings, you can now record your name and share its pronunciation with other users. The pronunciation can be played from your profile card across various Google Workspace tools such as Gmail or Google Docs on web or mobile devices. | Available to Google Workspace Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Essentials Starter, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Essentials Plus, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Frontline Starter, Frontline Standard, and Nonprofits customers only. | Learn more about name pronunciation.

Easy access to people, documents, building blocks and more in Google Docs

When moving to a blank line within your Doc, you will see an “@” button with the option to select, search and insert smart chips, such as people, dates, timers, or files, building blocks, calendar events, groups and more. | Learn more about bringing smart canvas features to the forefront of your workflow.

Excuse assignments in Google Classroom

Teachers can mark an assignment for a particular student as “Excused” instead of giving it a 0-100 score. This will exclude that particular assignment from the student’s overall grade. | Learn more about excusing assignments.

Introducing interactive questions for YouTube videos in Google Classroom

Educators can now turn any YouTube video into an interactive lesson by adding questions for their students to answer throughout the video. | Available to Education Plus and the Teaching and Learning Upgrade only. | Learn more about interactive videos.

Introducing the Bitbucket app for Google Chat

We’re adding Bitbucket for Google Chat. Bitbucket is a Git-based code and CI/CD tool optimized for teams using Atlassian’s Jira. | Learn more about Bitbucket app for Google Chat.

Use “Profile Discovery” to display basic information only in search results, available in open beta

Google Workspace admins can now turn on “Profile discovery” for their users. When turned on, users can customize how they appear across Google products to people who search for them by their phone number or email. Specifically, you can choose how you want your name to be displayed and how your profile picture will be displayed. | Learn more about Profile Discovery.

Completed rollouts

The features below completed their rollouts to Rapid Release domains, Scheduled Release domains, or both. Please refer to the original blog posts for additional details.

Rapid Release Domains:

1:1 video calling in the Google Meet mobile app is now available (Android only)
Star important messages in Google Chat
Additional enhancements to the search results page in Google Chat
Solve math equations easily with Smart Compose (Docs, Slides and Sheets only)

Scheduled Release Domains:

Filter by people or groups in Google Drive

Rapid and Scheduled Release Domains:

For a recap of announcements in the past six months, check out What’s new in Google Workspace (recent releases).

2 New updatesUnless otherwise indicated, the features below are available to all Google Workspace customers, and are fully launched or in the process of rolling out. Rollouts should take no more than 15 business days to complete if launching to both Rapid and Scheduled Release at the same time. If not, each stage of rollout should take no more than 15 business days to complete.
We have begun enforcing 2-step verification for all admin accounts Two-step verification (2SV) is a critical security measure that has been proven to reduce password-based hijacking by more than 50%. We are committed to protecting the security of our users and are taking additional steps to help customers guard against data compromise and prevent account takeovers.
We have begun enforcing 2SV for all admin accounts and will continue this enforcement on an ongoing basis. As of December 2023, this change is already in effect for some customers. When this goes into effect for your organization, you will receive the following notifications:

30 days prior to enforcement in your domain: Super admins will receive various email and in-app notifications informing them of the forthcoming enforcement, encouraging them to verify their admins’ 2SV status.
Once enforcement goes into effect in your domain: All admins will receive email and in-app notifications upon signing into their accounts for the next thirty days. If they do not enable 2SV within this time period, they will be locked out and will need to follow these steps to recover an administrator account.

We highly encourage all administrators to turn on 2SV as soon as possible. Visit the Help Center for more details and further guidance.

Dynamic groups limit increased to 500 We’re increasing the number of dynamic groups a customer can have from 100 to 500. Dynamic groups are defined as groups whose membership is managed automatically based on specific criteria, such as a user’s department or location. This increase gives admins more flexibility to create dynamic groups as needed and cuts down on manual group management tasks that would otherwise be required. | Rolling out now to Rapid Release and Scheduled Release domains at a gradual pace (up to 15 days for feature visibility). | Available for Google Workspace Frontline Standard, Enterprise Standard and Enterprise Plus, Education Standard and Education Plus, Enterprise Essentials Plus, and Cloud Identity Premium customers only. | Learn more about dynamic groups.

Previous announcementsThe announcements below were published on the Workspace Updates blog earlier this week. Please refer to the original blog posts for complete details.

Meet Add-ons SDK available in Developer Preview

Huddly cameras bring continuous framing to Google Meet Series One room kits

Record and share your name pronunciation across Google Workspace products

Easy access to people, documents, building blocks and more in Google Docs

Excuse assignments in Google Classroom

Introducing interactive questions for YouTube videos in Google Classroom

Introducing the Bitbucket app for Google Chat

We’re adding Bitbucket for Google Chat. Bitbucket is a Git-based code and CI/CD tool optimized for teams using Atlassian’s Jira. | Learn more about Bitbucket app for Google Chat.

Use “Profile Discovery” to display basic information only in search results, available in open beta

Completed rollouts

The features below completed their rollouts to Rapid Release domains, Scheduled Release domains, or both. Please refer to the original blog posts for additional details.

Rapid Release Domains:

Scheduled Release Domains:

Filter by people or groups in Google Drive

Rapid and Scheduled Release Domains:

For a recap of announcements in the past six months, check out What’s new in Google Workspace (recent releases).

Create, modify, and insert email templates within Groups messages

Tuesday, September 26, 2023

Directly in Groups, you can create and save messages as a template. Templates can also be deleted.

Who’s impacted

End users

Why you’d use it

We know users rely heavily on sending messages from Groups, and often these messages closely resemble one another with only specific information requiring updates. Now, instead of typing the same message from scratch, you can compose and save your reply as a template, saving you time and accelerating your workflows. Some examples include:

Saving time on a new lead introduction by filling in only critical details, such as the recipient name and one sentence pitch.
As a teacher, create a template to quickly share daily homework assignments day after day.
When sending project updates, use a template to avoid the trouble of creating status reports from scratch.

Getting started

Admins: There is no admin control for this feature.
End users: Visit the Help Center to learn more about using email templates in Groups. Note that templates are specific to individual users and are not shared across other Group owners, managers, or members.

Rollout pace

Rapid and Scheduled Release domains: Available now.

Availability

Available to all Google Workspace customers and users with personal Google Accounts

Resources

Google Groups Help: Create & respond to messages

What’s changing When you’re using Groups to send messages, you can save a composed message as a template to reuse in the future.

Directly in Groups, you can create and save messages as a template. Templates can also be deleted.

Who’s impacted End users

Why you’d use it We know users rely heavily on sending messages from Groups, and often these messages closely resemble one another with only specific information requiring updates. Now, instead of typing the same message from scratch, you can compose and save your reply as a template, saving you time and accelerating your workflows. Some examples include:

Saving time on a new lead introduction by filling in only critical details, such as the recipient name and one sentence pitch.
As a teacher, create a template to quickly share daily homework assignments day after day.
When sending project updates, use a template to avoid the trouble of creating status reports from scratch.

Getting started

Admins: There is no admin control for this feature.
End users: Visit the Help Center to learn more about using email templates in Groups. Note that templates are specific to individual users and are not shared across other Group owners, managers, or members.

Rollout pace

Rapid and Scheduled Release domains: Available now.

Availability

Available to all Google Workspace customers and users with personal Google Accounts

Resources

Google Groups Help: Create & respond to messages

New membership limits for Google Groups

Monday, May 15, 2023

Rollout pace

Rapid and Scheduled Release domains: This update is available now for all Google Workspace customers.

Availability

Available to all Google Workspace customers

Resources

Google Workspace Admin Help: Understand Groups policies and limits

What’s changingAs a security measure, the Google Groups for Business service has limits for message activity, group size, invitations, and membership. Starting today, we’re increasing the limits for the number of direct and indirect group memberships for which a user can have:

Direct: 3,000 memberships (increasing from 2,000)

Combined direct and indirect: 7,500 memberships (increasing from 5,000)

If you're the owner or manager of a group, it counts as two memberships—one as a group member and one as the owner or manager. A user is an indirect member of a group if they belong to a different group that's nested in the group. Visit the Help Center to learn more.Increasing these membership limits gives our customers more flexibility to scale and manage their use of Groups, especially those with complex group structures.

Getting started

Admins: Visit the Help Center to learn more about policies and limits for Google Groups.
End users: There is no end user action required.

Rollout pace

Rapid and Scheduled Release domains: This update is available now for all Google Workspace customers.

Availability

Available to all Google Workspace customers

Resources

Google Workspace Admin Help: Understand Groups policies and limits

Assign admin roles to specific groups

Tuesday, April 18, 2023

Currently, there is a limit of 500 role assignments— since groups can contain unlimited members, this gives you more flexibility to manage roles as needed. This is particularly helpful for larger organizations, allowing them to pare down their role assignments without exceeding the limits.

Also, roles assigned to groups will automatically reflect changes in underlying membership of the group. This allows admins to manage role assignments at a higher-entity level vs adding/removing end-users one at a time to maintain updated privileges.

Getting started

Admins: Super admins can create and assign administrator roles. Visit the Help Center to learn more about assigning admin roles and pre-built admin roles, Additionally, use these Help Center articles to learn more about creating a security group.
End users: There is no end user action required.

Rollout pace

Rapid and Scheduled Release domains: Available now.

Availability

Available to all Google Workspace customers, as well as legacy G Suite Basic and Business customers
Available to Google Cloud Identity Premium customers

Resources

What’s changing Scale and secure your role-based access controls (RBAC) practice on Workspace by leveraging a new capability for role assignments to groups. You can now assign admin roles to groups in addition to or instead of individual users. For example, you can assign the service admin role to an existing group that contains all of the IT admins in your organization.
Currently, there is a limit of 500 role assignments— since groups can contain unlimited members, this gives you more flexibility to manage roles as needed. This is particularly helpful for larger organizations, allowing them to pare down their role assignments without exceeding the limits.
Also, roles assigned to groups will automatically reflect changes in underlying membership of the group. This allows admins to manage role assignments at a higher-entity level vs adding/removing end-users one at a time to maintain updated privileges.

Getting started

Admins: Super admins can create and assign administrator roles. Visit the Help Center to learn more about assigning admin roles and pre-built admin roles, Additionally, use these Help Center articles to learn more about creating a security group.
End users: There is no end user action required.

Rollout pace

Rapid and Scheduled Release domains: Available now.

Availability

Available to all Google Workspace customers, as well as legacy G Suite Basic and Business customers
Available to Google Cloud Identity Premium customers

Resources

Google Workspace Updates Weekly Recap - August 12, 2022

Friday, August 12, 2022

Delegate access to a shared inbox using a group address

You can now give an entire Google Group access to your Gmail account through mail delegation. With this feature, delegated users can read, send, and delete messages on the account owner's behalf. We hope this will enable teams to more effectively process incoming requests and tasks via a single shared email address. | Available to Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Fundamentals, Education Plus, Frontline, Nonprofits, and legacy G Suite Basic and Business customers only. | Learn more.

Granular controls for app allowlisting in the Google Workspace Marketplace

Admins can now choose which Google Workspace Marketplace apps are available to be installed by users in a particular department (OU) or group by managing Marketplace apps on their allowlist. Previously, admins could only manage the allowlist for an entire domain. Additionally, the Marketplace apps access settings, Allow all apps, Allow selected apps, and Block all apps, can now be set for your entire organization or for an OU or group. This new functionality provides a solution when only a subset of domain users need permissions to install certain Marketplace apps. Examples include Chat apps required for your Engineering organization and IT security group or Classroom add-ons required for high-school teachers. | Available to Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Fundamentals, Education Plus, Frontline, Nonprofits, and legacy G Suite Basic and Business customers only. | Learn more.

Seamlessly delete subsets of Sites

Site editors can now delete a page with subpages and delete pages that were copied into another site during a partial site copy. | Roll out to Rapid Release began August 8, 2022; launch to Scheduled Release planned for August 29, 2022. | Learn more.

Previous announcements

The announcements below were published on the Workspace Updates blog earlier this week. Please refer to the original blog posts for complete details.

Office Building support for Working Locations

We’ve added the ability to select a specific office building as your working location. | Available to Google Workspace Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Fundamentals, Education Plus, Nonprofits, and legacy G Suite Business customers only. | Learn more.

Improving data privacy with Client-side encryption for Google Meet

We’ve added Workspace Client-side encryption to Google Meet, giving customers increased control over their data. | Available to Google Workspace Enterprise Plus, Education Standard, and Education Plus customers hosting client-side encrypted calls only. | Learn more.

Stronger protection for sensitive Google Workspace account actions

There are now stronger safeguards for sensitive actions taken in your Google Workspace account. These apply to actions that, when done by hijackers, can have far reaching consequences for the account owner or the organization it belongs to. | Learn more.

The Google Meet and Google Duo app icons are changing, additional information for Google Workspace users

As part of the announcement that we are upgrading the Duo experience to include all Google Meet features, users will now begin to see their app name and icon update to Google Meet. | Learn more.

Better location context for events and RSVPs in Calendar

We’ve made it even easier to use RSVPs in Google Calendar and let others know how you’re planning to join a meeting. | Available to Google Workspace Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Fundamentals, Education Plus, Education Standard, Teaching & Learning Upgrade, Nonprofits, and legacy G Suite Business customers only. | Learn more.

Improved notifications when editing Microsoft Office files in Docs, Sheets, and Slides

We’ve rolled out a series of improvements to the notifications you see when editing a Microsoft Office-formatted file with Office editing mode. | Learn more.

Unified experience for Gmail logs in BigQuery, configure your existing Gmail logs to route to Workspace logs

In the coming months, we will move the location of the existing Gmail logs in BigQuery to Google Workspace logs and reports in BigQuery. | Available to Google Workspace Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Plus, Education Standard customers only. | Learn more.

Google Meet call control for USB peripheral devices

We've introduced additional call control for Google Meet which will allow you to toggle between mute and unmute using headsets, speaker microphones, and other USB peripheral devices. | Learn more.

Control visibility of admin alerts with admin role privileges

There is a new control that allows super admins to create a custom rule which ensures only admins with the DLP privilege can see DLP alerts. | Learn more.