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23 Google Apps Updates You Might Have Missed During July

4 minute read

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Although Google I/O was in June, a lot of the brand new features that were announced actually began rolling out for the first time during July. Google has directed a lot of focus to making Google Apps an even more viable option for enterprise customers, especially with improvements to Drive and Hangouts.

It can be tough to keep up with Google Apps updates as they come out, especially when Google is releasing as many as they have these past few months. Some of these updates may have not rolled out to your domain yet, but take a look and see what’s new and let us know what you think of the most recent updates!

11 Updates You Need to Know About the New Google Drive

Google Drive, once again, has a brand-new look and there are a lot of changes to absorb. While many changes were design and user-experience improvements, Google also added some new functions. Check out the video below for our quick walkthrough, along with a list of some of our favorite changes!

Improvements to Editing Microsoft Office Files in Google Drive

Editing Microsoft Office files in Google Drive
With Google’s recent updates to Drive, the integration between Microsoft Office and Drive is now much more seamless. The new feature working behind the scenes is called Office Compatibility Mode (OCM) and actually gives you the ability to edit Office files right inside the Chrome browser.

To edit Office files within a Chrome browser, you must first download the Office Editing for Docs, Sheets & Slides Chrome extension from the Chrome Web Store. With this extension, you have the ability to edit Office documents from your Mac or PC, Gmail, and third party websites. Chrome OS and Chromebooks are automatically compatible (if on stable channel and updated to latest release).

3 Updates to Filter Views in Google Sheets

Filter Views have been a fantastic update since they were first introduced for the new Google Sheets, making sorting data even easier. Up until this month there were a few limitations when it came to collaboration, but Google released three updates to improve the experience.

My favorite update is the ability to share a link to a specific Filter View with your collaborators. This is really useful if you’re dealing with a lot of data, or if your collaborators aren’t familiar with how to access Filter Views.

Now you can import Tracked Changes from Microsoft Word into Google Docs

Import tracked changes into Google Docs
The latest update to Google Docs means that whenever you convert a Word file to Docs, any tracked changes from Word will become suggested edits in Docs and vice versa. This is a huge update for those of you who are working with Word and Docs, or have colleagues that haven’t made the switch to Docs.

Now you can restore deleted Google Drive files in the Admin Console

Google Apps Admin Console
Google Apps Admins will be happy to know that they can now restore files that have been deleted from a user’s account. For the most part, users really shouldn’t be deleting any files (unless they are approaching storage limits). The issue that some people run into is accidentally emptying the Trash. If this is the case, the Google Apps Admin can recover files from a specific range of dates.

2 Updates to Image Editing in Google Drive

Image editing update to Docs, Slides and Drawings
For quite a while, image editing in Google Drive was a very light tool with few options. A few months ago Google introduced changes to address this, mainly cropping, borders and changing the shape of images in Slides, Docs and Drawings. The only problem with these updates was that there wasn’t an easy way to revert back to the original image, which is important if you’re making a lot of changes.

Earlier this month, Google introduced some more updates to image editing, hoping to fix some of this problem while also introducing a cool new feature. Now you can reset and replace images, which can help save a ton of time.

New Landing Pages for Docs, Sheets and Slides Finally Arrive

Google Docs landing page
Announced at Google I/O , Google Docs, Sheets and Slides finally received their own landing pages this month. These brand-new landing pages, which coincide nicely with their respective apps for Android and iOS, provide an easy way to access specific files in your Google Drive.

Visiting the Google Slides landing page, for example, will bring up all of your most recently opened presentations in a much more visually appealing view than the old version of Google Drive. You can also sort your files alphabetically, toggle between grid and list view, open the file picker and switch to another Google Drive app.

3 Updates make Hangouts an even better option for work

Google wrapped up a really active month with several different updates to Hangouts, aiming to make them even more reliable for enterprise customers. These updates include 99.9% guaranteed uptime, accessible from any Google Apps account (even those without Google+ enabled), dual display for Chromebox for meetings and improved management tools in the Admin Console.

What has been your favorite update the past few months? Let us know in the comments below!

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