SaaS Updates Summary: February 27–March 3
3 minute read

Hello readers! This past week was a busy one, chock full o’SaaS updates. Let’s get to all the exciting announcements and new SaaS features:
G Suite:
- Launched peripheral status monitoring for Chromebox for meetings, which means: No more manual room checks needed. This lets admins determine (right from within the Admin console) whether or not peripherals like the camera, microphone, and speaker are working.
- Published a roundup of all G Suite launches from February 2017, in case you’re interested in reading a recap.
- Welcomed Google Keep to the family. Google Keep is now a G Suite core service when used within a domain, and it’s now integrated into Google Docs, so employees can easily access their notes.
- Announced that users with legacy Android devices can now access the Work Apps tab in Google Play (in their personal profile) and the apps their admins have curated.
- Announced that you’ll be able to receive emails of up to 50MB in Gmail. (Sending size limits will remain the same at 25MB, but you can still use Google Drive to send larger attachments.)
- Redesigned the unread messages indicators in Google Hangouts. Now in Hangouts on desktop and Android, you’ll see a “Jump to Last Read” button.
- Announced that Hangouts users will not be able to make audio or video calls in the upcoming Firefox 52 release. Google recommends temporarily switching to another browser, like Firefox ESR, Chrome, Internet Explorer, or Safari.
Microsoft:
- Announced the integration of Yammer with Office 365 Groups. They write, “Now, when you create a new group in Yammer, it will automatically be part of the Office 365 Groups service, giving the group a OneNote notebook, a Planner for task management, a SharePoint Online team site and document library.”
- Introduced Visio Online, which lets users share and view Visio diagrams in high fidelity from almost any device.
- Announced that Outlook 2016 for Mac is adding support for Google Calendar and Contacts.
- Announced that the new Office 365 Service health dashboard is now available to all customers.
- Announced that Learning Tools are now available in new languages to all customers with Office 365 or a personal OneDrive account.
BambooHR introduced a new feature called Bamboo Payroll, a new console that gives employees access to tax services, payment information, and more. Dropbox Pro is now renamed Dropbox Plus. According to Dropbox, they gave Pro a new name to “better reflect all the extra space it offers.” HipChat introduced a new Confluence for HipChat integration, which lets users have a full view of their Confluence spaces in the right sidebar. HipChat also announced that SAML 2.0 support is now available out of the box with HipChat Server 2.2, giving teams a more secure and painless way to sign in. Slack announced it’s expanding the options for building internal integrations to include the full functionality of the platform, like message buttons, threads, the events API, and more. Zendesk announced they have a few new apps in the marketplace. And finally, Zenefits announced its Zenefits Payroll software is now available to businesses in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Arizona, and Colorado.
Click the links below for more information.
- G Suite | Unsupported peripherals warnings for Chromebox for meetings
- G Suite | What’s New in G Suite – February 2017
- G Suite | Google Keep now a G Suite core service with Admin console controls and access in Docs
- G Suite | Users with legacy Android devices can now access work apps in Google Play
- G Suite | Receive emails of up to 50MB in Gmail
- G Suite | Jump right back into the conversation with redesigned unread messages indicators in Hangouts
- G Suite | Google Hangouts temporarily won’t support phone and video calls on Mozilla Firefox
- Office 365 | Yammer integration with Office 365 Groups now rolling out
- Office 365 | Visio Online—anywhere, anytime access to your diagrams
- Office 365 | Outlook 2016 for Mac adds support for Google Calendar and Contacts
- Office 365 | What’s new in Office 365 administration—new Service health dashboard now generally available
- Office 365 | Learning Tools for Word Online and OneNote Online now available, plus new languages
- Office 365 | Office 365 news in February—new and improved intelligent services
- BambooHR | Bamboo Payroll™ is Here!
- Dropbox | Dropbox Pro is now Dropbox Plus
- HipChat | New Confluence integration elevates the power of the Atlassian suite
- HipChat | Built-in SAML 2.0 for HipChat Server 2.2 provides simplified user management
- Slack | Simplify your workflows
- Zendesk | So many new apps we’re running out of headlines!
- Zenefits | Zenefits Payroll: Now Available in NY, NJ, CT, AZ, and CO
For yesterday’s SaaS updates (and beyond), click here for our archive.