SaaS Updates Summary: February 26 – March 2

It was quite the eventful week for SaaS Updates—in fact, this might be the most we’ve ever had in a week. The biggest news? Google made Hangouts Chat (its Slack competitor) generally available. Google also announced a few AI-related updates for Calendar and Docs. In a few months, Calendar will automatically suggest rooms optimized for each attendee. And then there’s Quick Access for Docs, which uses AI to suggest relevant files. There were other product updates from Slack, Evernote, Trello, Okta, and of course, ~yours truly~. BetterCloud now offers customizable file and folder sharing Alerts. You can now configure Alerts for public, external, and link sharing for Dropbox, Box, and Drive.

Learn more below!

More Octocat in Your Slack Channels
Several People Are Typing | If your company’s code lives in GitHub, good news: Slack is partnering with GitHub to give their shared customers full visibility into their engineering projects, right from Slack. The new GitHub app makes Slack the place for developers to generate new ideas, keep an eye on project status, triage bugs, and move work forward alongside their broader teams.

Introducing Spaces in Evernote Business: Collaboration Made Easier
Evernote Blog | Spaces in Evernote Business helps teams more effectively turn their ideas into action and move projects forward. As a home for all your team’s work, Spaces get everyone on the same page by effortlessly surfacing the most relevant and up-to-date information to each member of your team.

Introducing Our Improved Trust Dashboard + New Oktane Trainings
Okta Blog | Okta’s newly updated Trust Dashboard is now live on their website, and categorizes the nature of incidents into two distinct categories (“service degradation” or “service disruption”), offering a timeline for better event navigation, with up to two years of incident details. They’re also introducing three new training courses at Oktane18.

Hangouts Chat Now Generally Available
G Suite Updates | Google is making Hangouts Chat generally available as a core G Suite service. From direct messages to group conversations, Chat helps teams collaborate easily and efficiently. Here are some admin-specific details about Hangouts Chat to help you get started.

Google Vault Support for Hangouts Chat
G Suite Updates | Google introduced Google Vault support for Hangouts Chat. Here are some admin-specific details to help you get started.

Coming Soon: Automatic Room Suggestions in Google Calendar
G Suite Updates | Google introduced automatic room suggestions in Google Calendar, which will be launching to all G Suite editions in the coming months. This tool will automatically suggest rooms optimized for each attendee based on their building and floor location, previous booking history, audio/video equipment needs and room capacity requirements. Here are some admin-specific details about automatic room suggestions to help you get started.

Quick Access for Docs Now Available
G Suite Updates | Google introduced Quick Access for Google Docs. Quick Access for Docs uses artificial intelligence to suggest relevant files based on signals like Drive activity and information in your documents, so you can work with the most up-to-date information and create new material quickly. Here are some admin-specific details about Quick Access for Docs to help you get started.

Twelve Third-Party Applications Added to the G Suite Pre-Integrated SAML Apps Catalog
G Suite Updates | Google is adding SAML integration for 12 additional applications: 15Five, 4Me, Clarizen, Deskpro, Heroku, Hightail, moxtra, ScreenSteps, Targetprocess, Tinfoil, UserEcho, and xMatters.

New in February—Advancing Creativity, Teamwork, and Management in the Modern Workplace
Office Blog | New Office 365 capabilities in February included tools to improve the quality of your work, craft compelling resumes, and work with team members outside your organization. Office 365 administrators also benefit from new ways to manage collaboration at scale, communicate complex ideas, and protect their employee and customer data.

Introducing Trello For Google Hangouts Chat: Bring Chat And Project Management Together
Trello Blog | G Suite fans get ready, because you can now get your Trello alerts in Hangouts Chat! As more teams are using technology to evolve the ways in which they communicate, the importance of seamless chat and collaboration (or chatlaboration as Trello has coined it) has never been more urgent.

Introducing Jira Cloud for Hangouts Chat
Atlassian Blog | Enabling teams to deliver value to their customers faster by releasing earlier, more often, and more iteratively is what Jira is all about, which is why they’re jazzed to announce that Jira Cloud customers can now have issue notifications sent right to Chat.

What’s New in G Suite – February 2018
G Suite Updates | Check out the latest “What’s New in G Suite” launch recap (pdf) for a roundup of all G Suite launches from February 2018.

Custom File and Folder Alerts
BetterCloud Release Notes | Continuing with ongoing enhancements to Alerts, BetterCloud now offers customizable file and folder sharing Alerts. You can now configure Alerts for public, external, and link sharing for Dropbox, Box, and Drive. These alerts support additional conditions for more granular alerting, enabling you to monitor your domain’s sharing according to the exact parameters you set.

Insightly’s Latest Release Surfaces Insights, Speeds Up Admin Tasks, And Increases CRM Adoption
Insightly Product News & Feature Releases | In the latest update to Insightly, customers can experience a number of enhancements aimed to help provide visualized information to make better decisions and reduce time spent on administrative activities like updating records.

Integration Domination
Zendesk Blog | Zendesk has plenty of new apps that will help you ensure your customers experience the best support possible.

Interview: Ian Gotts Explains What GDPR Means for Salesforce Admins
Salesforce Admins | Ian Gotts explains how GDPR affects you whether you’re in the EU or not, and why you should view it as an opportunity and not a hassle.

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