SaaS Updates for June 21, 2016

Google released a new version of Google Apps Directory Sync (GADS), offering more flexibility with data synchronization. It also launched the ability to create or delete Google+ profiles for multiple employees at once in the Admin console. Microsoft announced new updates to Office 365 Education, including the availability of Microsoft Forms.

Google Apps Directory Sync (v4.3.0): Sync Additional LDAP Attributes into Custom User Fields – A new version (v4.3.0) of Google Apps Directory Sync (GADS) is now available for download. With this latest update, Google Apps admins can now use GADS to sync additional LDAP attributes into Custom User Fields for use with SAML SSO, or for simply building out richer Google Apps profiles for their users.

Create or Delete Google+ Profiles for Multiple Employees at Once – In the Admin console, you can create Google+ profiles for employees in your domain—either one by one or across an entire organizational unit (OU). Until now, however, if you needed to create profiles for multiple individuals or only a portion of an OU, that process was tedious and lengthy. And if you needed to delete profiles, no tool existed. To save you valuable time and to give you greater control over your employees’ information, Google is launching the ability to create and delete Google+ profiles for several employees at once.

Microsoft Forms—A New Formative Assessment and Survey Tool in Office 365 Education – The Office 365 Team is pleased to announce the availability of Microsoft Forms for their Office 365 Education customers. Forms is the result of direct feedback from educators that they want to have a quizzing function with Office 365 Education.

Educators, Increase Collaboration and Professional Development with New Office 365 Education Updates – As part of Microsoft’s Education announcement in April, the Office 365 Team announced new experiences and updates to Office 365 Education coming this summer that will make it easier for teachers to manage their classroom and collaborate with peers, and for them or their IT administrators to set it all up. As part of this announcement, they mentioned there’d be even more updates coming this summer! They’re thrilled to share these with you today—all are teacher inspired and student focused.