Google recently announced a new set of updates for their business-oriented platform, Google Workspace. The main purpose of these updates is to improve the overall end-user experience and enhance the level of security and organization when working with sensitive files and data. 

In short, Google Workspace is getting better and more efficient for companies of every size and location. If you want to know how this will help make your business better, here are the most important takes:

Google Workspace Client-side Encryption

This update is in its beta version and is only available for Google Workspace Enterprise Plus and Google Workspace Education Plus customers. Its main purpose is to enable Client-side encryption using a 3rd party service partner in all Google Workspace services, but for now, it will only be available in Drive, Docs, Sheets, and Slides. 

With this update, Google takes a step further towards giving customers control of the method of encryption, which can help improve the confidentiality of the files and data shared via Google Workspace apps. 

In summary, this update allows businesses and individuals using Google Workspace to feel more confident in their data security and privacy online. 

Improved Content Organization & Protection

In the spirit of connectivity and collaboration, Google adds two new features that help users keep their content organized and easy to search. 

These two features are:

Drive labels & DLP (data loss prevention)

This feature allows users to clearly classify the files stored in Drive, so everyone who will be using them in the future can understand how to handle them. Moreover, due to Google’s automated classification feature, users can automatically add Drive labels to content based on administrator-defined rules and predefined content detectors.

Due to the automated classification mentioned above, Drive labels also integrate with the DLP feature. This means that the labels can be associate with rules that prevent access from users without the right permissions. Moreover, you can use labels to prevent actions such as external sharing, downloading, and printing. This increases the overall safety of this collaborative work environment and prevents unwanted access to sensitive content. 

Lastly, users now have access to 60 new content detectors (some powered by machine learning algorithms) to make search through files a lot easier.  

Trust Rules

The ability to work in a collaborative online environment tends to clash with the need for protecting sensitive content and confidential information. Therefore, Google introduced a new security feature called trust rules where admins can set fine-grained rules defining whom users can collaborate in Drive with. Moreover, these rules can be applied to both internal and external collaborators.

According to Google, trust rules are meant to replace the existing Sharing Options feature. Moreover, Admins can choose between three actions (allow, deny, or display a warning) when users try to share/receive Drive files with/from external users or domains or users from within the organization (depending on the trust rules previously set for said files). 

Overall, trust rules are designed to help increase the control over your organization’s files and make collaborative work more secure. 

Google Chat Rooms turned into Collaborative Spaces

As part of the Workspace Chat, Rooms’ main purpose was to create virtual spaces where team members could discuss specific topics or projects. With the new updates, Google says they’ll evolve the Rooms experience into Spaces. This way, admins and end-users will be able to organize people, topics, and projects as they wish. 

Among the features this evolution brings, you should notice presence indicators, in-line topic threads, assigned tasks, content search, and more. Moreover, users can have custom statuses and better room for expression due to emojis. 

Lastly, Spaces will have the possibility to integrate with other Goole Workspace tools such as Drive, Tasks, And Calendar. This means users will be able to work with docs (create, share, side-by-side edit, discuss), run interactive polls, and even integrate workflows directly with Bots. 

In Summary

With these updates, Google Workspace is getting more flexible and secure for companies everywhere. This will help organizations become more flexible and integrate work from home or remote working with a lot more ease. 

So, if you want to make sure these updates are active in your account or that all your settings are correct, don’t hesitate to contact our team!