SaaS Updates Summary: May 28 – June 1

Greetings! This week’s biggest SaaS updates came from Google. Three announcements of note: 1) Google is migrating all G Suite domains from classic Hangouts to Hangouts Meet; 2) The new built-in protections and controls for Team Drives are now launching to all G Suite Business, Enterprise, Education, and Nonprofit domains; and 3) Google is introducing new insights in the Google Docs Activity dashboard. Google also released updates for Google Sites, Calendar, Calendar Interop, and the Admin console Reports API.

In other news, Jira introduced project archiving for Jira Software Data Center, and Microsoft and Zendesk published roundups of new features and integrations they released in May.

Calendar Interop Now Uses a Restricted Set Of IPs
G Suite Updates | To help customers improve the security of their coexistence setups, Calendar Interop will now use a restricted set of known IPs to communicate with Exchange servers. By restricting Calendar Interop to this set of known IPs, G Suite customers can now block all incoming traffic (e.g., by setting up a firewall) to their on-premise Exchange servers, except for requests originating from Calendar Interop.

Changes to Embedded Content on Classic Google Sites
G Suite Updates | Google is upgrading how HTML boxes work on classic Sites. This will improve performance and security, but it may also change the look and feel of some embedded elements. Site editors may want to make some simple adjustments so embedded elements appear the way they want them to. Note that this only affects sites managed in classic Sites. Sites managed in new Sites are not affected.

Reminder: Absolute Metrics Removed from Admin Console Reports API on 5/29
G Suite Updates | As a reminder, Google is removing some Drive metrics from the Admin console Reports API starting May 29th, 2018. Specifically, they’re removing absolute count metrics, which have been replaced by activity based metrics. This was announced a year ago, and the Admin console user interface was updated in October. The old metrics will no longer be available through the Reports API from May 29th.

Migrating All G Suite Domains From Classic Hangouts to Hangouts Meet
G Suite Updates | In March 2017, Google announced Hangouts Meet, the next generation in enterprise video meetings. After continued positive feedback from their customers who have begun using Meet, starting May 29th, they’ll enable Hangouts Meet for all G Suite domains that are automatically upgrading on Google’s recommended schedule. This means that all newly created Google Calendar events will contain Meet video meeting details. Previously created meetings will not be impacted with this change.

Copy A Site in the New Google Sites
G Suite Updates | Google is making it possible to copy a site created in the new Google Sites. Sometimes you want to work on a new site, but you don’t want to start from scratch. By copying an existing site, you can save time by reducing duplicate work and avoiding manual copying of existing sites.

Introducing Project Archiving for Jira Software Data Center
Atlassian Blog | As the scope of Jira grows in your organization, having a plan for how to remove outdated information becomes more and more important. That’s why the Jira team is excited to share that their Data Center offering now includes project archiving.

Include a Message When Changing Meeting Details in Google Calendar
G Suite Updates | There are many reasons why you’d need to make an edit to a meeting, and Google is now making it easier to communicate those changes. Going forward, when you change or delete an existing meeting, you’ll see a dialog box where you can enter a message for other guests of the meeting.

Built-in Protections and Controls for Team Drives
G Suite Updates | This March, Google announced several new features to help G Suite customers stay secure. Among those were new controls to help users safeguard highly sensitive content in Team Drives. These controls are now launching to all G Suite Business, Enterprise, Education, and Nonprofit domains.

A Preview of the New Agility Boards in Jira Software
Atlassian Blog | The name ‘agility’ mirrors the philosophy behind the new board experience – get going fast. To help teams achieve agility, Jira has unraveled the Jira board experience and re-layered critical functionalities from top to bottom.

New Insights in Google Docs Activity Dashboard
G Suite Updates | Google is introducing new features to provide more insight and help you collaborate through Activity dashboard in Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides. This will help make the data in Activity dashboard more actionable (since users can quickly email file collaborators) and more useful (since users can see viewing patterns over time).

Making It Even Easier to Join Meetings from More Third-Party Clients
G Suite Updates | Now, whenever someone uses G Suite Sync for Microsoft Outlook, Google Sync, or a third-party Android client that relies on Calendar Provider to access an event on Google Calendar, Google will add automatically generated text to the event’s description. This text will include instructions on how to join the event through Meet or Hangouts.

New to Microsoft 365 in May—Empowering and Securing Users
Microsoft 365 Blog | In May, Microsoft introduced a number of new capabilities to help individuals produce accessible content, work together in real-time, and create a secure and compliant workplace. Here’s a look at all the new features and enhancements.

Take an Integration Vacation
Zendesk Blog | Here are all of the great new Zendesk integrations for May.

For last week’s SaaS updates (and beyond), click here for our archive.