What's New?

As part of the migration from classic Hangouts to Hangouts Meet that Google announced last year, they will begin migrating video conferencing for recurring Calendar events from classic Hangouts to Meet starting on March 25, 2019.

Check out the bConnected Early Adopter Program website for a new Google Forms testing opportunity (restricted to bConnected Google accounts). 

Google has announced they will be making changes to the Google Groups settings to make group management easier, starting in May 2019. You may notice an informational banner in the https://bgroups.berkeley.edu user interface. The bConnected team will contact bConnected Lists managers and owners about any impact the changes will have on their Groups in advance of the changes being made. 

Learn more: Announcing changes to Groups settings

There's lots happening during Love Data Week (February 11th-15th). Students, researchers, librarians and data specialists are invited to attend a series of events to gain hands on experience, learn about resources, and engage in discussion around data needs throughout the research process. 

Google has announced that Inbox by Gmail is going away at the end of March 2019. Inbox users will be switched to the new Gmail interface, which includes top Inbox features like snooze, nudges, and more to help you get more done. For help transitioning to new Gmail, please review Google's support article: Move from Inbox to Gmail. 

Starting on January 7, 2019, SMS notifications from Google Calendar will no longer be available. Since bCal offers in-app notifications, you can still get notified, regardless of your device or connection.

If you had previously been receiving Calendar notifications via SMS, they’ll be replaced with in-app and email notifications. You’ll see these notifications:

All bConnected services, including G Suite (bMail, bCal, bDrive, etc.) and Box, will be available over the holiday curtailment period (Monday, Dec. 24, 2018 and Tuesday, Jan. 1, 2019) ; however, IT support will be extremely limited. bConnected support staff will respond to any critical problems reported to bConnected@berkeley.edu. End user support will be available through the CSS IT Service Desk on all non-holiday dates to assist campus units via phone, email, or online.

Earlier this year, Google launched a 

On January 31, 2019, Box will deprecate support for WebDAV. The Berkeley Box Support Team will be contacting the 25 impacted users, and provide recommended alternative options.

Learn more: Deprecation WebDAV Support

Contacts hovercards provide lots of useful information about the people within your organization. Over the next few days, Google will be adding more information to these hovercards when the contact itself is a group.

Starting on January 7, 2019, SMS notifications from Google Calendar will no longer be available. Since bCal offers in-app notifications, you can still get notified, regardless of your device or connection.

If you had previously been receiving Calendar notifications via SMS, they’ll be replaced with in-app and email notifications. You’ll see these notifications:

You can now show automated real-time captions when you present in Google Slides. This feature uses your computer's microphone to detect your spoken presentation, and then transcribes what you say as captions on the slides you're presenting. This helps improve accessibility and in environments where it's hard to hear. This feature can help make your presentation more effective for:

The Hangouts Chat Desktop app is now available for Windows and Mac. Learn more about how to use Hangouts Chat, or Download Hangouts Chat and get started right away!

The new Gmail experience was launched earlier this year with an opt-in option. Soon after October 16th, 2018, new Gmail will become the default experience, and anyone who previously opted out will be automatically migrated to the new experience. Users will no longer be able to toggle back and forth between the classic and new versions of Gmail. 

Additional resources: 

The mybConnected application will be temporarily unavailable on Tuesday, October 9th from 7:00AM-9:30AM. The following bConnected services will be impacted:

1. Manage Your Account - creation and changes to accounts

2. Manage Your Mailing Lists - creation, transfer and deletion of mailing lists

As previously announced, Box has ended support for Box apps and custom apps using an insecure security protocol (TLS 1.0) on June 25, 2018. These applications will stop working on November 12, 2018 at 8:00AM. Any individuals still using unsupported apps will be contacted directly by Box on the week of September 17, 2018. 

Before you begin the download and installation process for Microsoft Office software, run the Synchronize CalNet Passphrase Tool(link is external). This will ensure that your passphrase is in sync and prevent login failures later in the download process.

The new school year is an exciting time for students, faculty, and staff. It's also an exciting time for hackers, identity thieves, and other unscrupulous types who take advantage of people during this busy time of year. 

Rescheduling in Google Calendar just got easier. Starting August 13, 2018, Google is introducing a new feature that enables more efficient meeting scheduling. Now, each guest invited to a meeting can propose a new time and the organizer can easily review and accept time proposals. This allows for richer communication between attendees, reduces time spent on meeting practicalities, and makes meetings more productive with key stakeholders in attendance.

Google will be retiring "legacy" comments made on "binary" files such as Microsoft Office or PDFs that are stored in Google Drive, starting on July 31, 2018. The bConnected team will be contacting 82 individuals who are impacted by this change. 

This is related to the New Ways to Comment on Microsoft Files (and more) announcement made on February 7, 2018.