U-M Google Updates

U-M Google July Summary

8/2/2017

The monthly U-M Google Summaries inform campus of Google releases for Core Apps as well as the Non-Core Apps (those that are not part of the G Suite for Education agreement). We communicate important information on Core Apps throughout the month. Core and Non-Core Apps are listed on the U-M Google List of Services page.

Core Apps

Non-Core Apps:

  • Object duplication, faster sharing, and more with the latest Jamboard release.
  • The new Google Vault API allows you to manage legal matters and holds programmatically.

Note: Keep in mind that even when non-core apps are found in a core app (like Google Drive), they are not covered by the G Suite for Education agreement.

Smarter Google Forms

7/27/2017

Recently, Google added the following new features and machine learning to Forms.

  • Intelligent response validation
    When you know the specific type of answer you’re looking for, it’s often helpful to validate responses in Forms. For example, if you’re asking for a website, Forms can double-check that the answer provided is a URL. When possible, Forms will suggest response validation based on the question you ask. If you ask respondents for their age, for instance, Forms may recommend validating that the answer they provide is a whole number. This feature is rolling out gradually and may take several weeks to appear in the UMICH domain.
  • Cross-domain file uploads
    Oftentimes, when you use Forms, you’re not collecting data from your colleagues—you’re gathering information from third parties. To guarantee you get the information you need, Forms allows people outside the UMICH domain to upload files as responses to your questions—provided the other organization allows cross-domain sharing in Google Drive. Based on usage patterns, total uploads to new forms will be capped at 1GB and uploads to existing forms will be capped at 1TB.
  • Preferences
    If you use similar settings across all of your forms, you can now assign default settings to apply to any new forms you create. For instance, you can choose to always collect email addresses, make questions required every time, and assign default quiz point values.
  • “Checkbox grid” questions
    Sometimes a question is more complex than multiple choice or checkbox answers alone can satisfy—you need to be able to select multiple options from multiple categories. Now, you can use the “Checkbox grid” question type to get the answers you need, like dates and times that work for an upcoming meeting.
  • Section reordering
    Many Google Forms users have stated there needs to be an easy way to organize (and reorganize) questions in Forms. In response to that feedback, Forms now makes it possible to reorder whole sections.

U-M Google June Summary

7/7/2017

The monthly U-M Google Summaries inform campus of Google releases for Core Apps as well as the Non-Core Apps (those that are not part of the G Suite for Education agreement). We communicate important information on Core Apps throughout the month. Core and Non-Core Apps are listed on the U-M Google List of Services page.

Core Apps

Training:

  • Google has released a G Suite Training extension for Google Chrome which provides interactive training and walkthroughs on how to best use GSuite.

Previously Communicated:

Google Backup and Sync

6/26/2017

On June 28th, 2017 Google will be launching Backup and Sync. We ask that you refrain from upgrading to Backup and Sync at this time. Backup and Sync is intended for consumer, non-enterprise Google accounts. Google recommends that enterprise accounts and domains continue to use Drive for Mac/PC until an enterprise-focused solution is implemented in the future. This includes GSuite accounts used by the University of Michigan.

New! Built-in Gmail Protections to Combat Malware in Attachments

6/14/2017

Google has announced new security features for Gmail customers, which include early phishing detection using machine learning and click-time warnings for malicious links. In addition, Google has updated defenses against malicious attachments. Google will correlate spam signals with attachment and sender heuristics to predict messages containing new and unseen malware variants. These protections enable Gmail to better protect us from zero-day threats, ransomware and polymorphic malware. Along with all these protections, Google blocks use of file types that carry a high potential for security risks including executable and javascript files.

Machine learning has helped Gmail achieve more than 99% accuracy in spam detection, and with these new protections, Google is able to reduce your exposure to threats by confidently rejecting hundreds of millions of additional messages every day.

These new changes are just the latest in Google’s ongoing work to improve protections to keep ahead of evolving threats. For many years, scammers have tried to use dodgy email attachments to sneak past Google spam filters, and Google has long blocked this potential abuse in a variety of ways, including:

  • Rejecting the message and notifying the sender if Google detects a virus in an email.
  • Preventing you from sending a message with an infected attachment.
  • Preventing you from downloading attachments if Google detects a virus.