Quick round-up of the month and what to expect for September

Our Google Workspace Community is growing fast, with nearly 600 members already onboard. This dedicated Google Chat space is an exclusive hub for Workspace Administrators and Google Partners to connect, share best practices, and tackle challenges together.

Members get access to:

• Monthly expert-led webinars

• Real-world tips and advice from peers

• A supportive, vendor-neutral environment

It’s free to join and already being called one of the most valuable networks for Workspace professionals.

Want to join? Visit our community page here

Come and say hi and dive into the latest community discussions about all things Google Workspace.

Our Patronum ‘How To’ webinar series is all about helping you get the absolute most out of the platform. We want to ensure these practical, hands-on walkthroughs continue delivering the exact insights, best practices, and automation tricks you need.

Have you been enjoying the series? We want your feedback!

Tell us what you’ve loved so far and what you’d like us to cover next. Whether there’s a specific feature you’d like a deep dive into or a Google Workspace workflow you're trying to solve, let us know! Just hit reply to this email or drop us a message on our LinkedIn page.

Missed any of our previous live sessions? You can catch up anytime and watch past walkthroughs on demand over on the Patronum YouTube channel.

Did you know you can now archive departing users' emails directly to your own Cloud Storage without buying extra Google Workspace licences or paying third-party storage fees?

With Patronum Archive, you can automatically back up and retain critical user mailboxes, keeping your data secure, compliant, and under your total control. Best of all? It’s included in the base Patronum offering at no extra cost!

Why IT teams are using Patronum Archive:

• Save on Licensing: Reclaim expensive Google Workspace licences instantly during offboarding.

• Your Storage, Your Control: Store archived emails directly in your own cloud infrastructure (AWS S3, Google Cloud Storage, or Azure).

• Zero Extra Cost: Full archiving capabilities built straight into your existing Patronum subscription.

Want to learn how it works and how to set it up?

Discover how Patronum Archive works

Read the step-by-step setup guide

The Google Workspace Community is about bringing like-minded people together to share ideas and offer advice where needed.

If you’re in the community and want to host a session or know someone perfect to host, feel free to reach out.

And if you’re not in the community yet but want to be part of exclusive conversations and a growing network of IT leaders, now’s the time to join.

Here’s the latest from Google Workspace!!!

Native Data Import for Microsoft OneDrive and Teams Google has expanded its advanced data import tools, adding direct, high-fidelity migration paths for Microsoft OneDrive and Microsoft Teams. Admins can now migrate files, permissions, and channel chat histories directly into Google Workspace without relying on complex third-party tools, drastically reducing migration costs, technical risk, and downtime during tenant consolidations.

Context-Aware Access Controls Now Support Google Classroom To help educational institutions and enterprise environments harden data security, Google Classroom now supports Context-Aware Access (CAA) policies. Admins can set granular, attribute-based access rules directly in the Admin Console, such as limiting access to managed devices, verified IP ranges, or specific user locations, ensuring sensitive academic and organizational data remains locked down.

Hardware Touch Controller Management for Meet's “Take Notes for Me” Managing Gemini AI in meeting rooms just got easier. Room participants can now start, stop, and toggle the “Take notes for me” feature directly from Google Meet hardware touch controllers. This gives in-room attendees direct control over note-taking, allowing them to pause AI recording during off-the-record discussions without needing a laptop in Companion mode.

Enhanced Privacy via Member List Restrictions in Google Chat Space owners and managers can now restrict who can view the full participant list within Google Chat spaces. With four granular visibility levels (ranging from Owners only to Entire organization), admins and managers can prevent unauthorised roster scraping in sensitive, large-scale, or external vendor collaboration spaces.

Streamlined Data Analysis with Grouped Field Persistence in Google Sheets Google Sheets has updated its pivot table editor to automatically retain custom-grouped date, time, and numeric fields directly in the sidebar as reusable source fields. This eliminates repetitive manual grouping tasks for analysts, allowing teams to unassign, reapply, and analyse complex datasets with far less administrative overhead.

Automation turns rapid updates into seamless governance! As Google rolls out deeper migration pathways and expanding AI hardware controls, the operational workload for IT teams continues to grow. Patronum bridges the gap between new Workspace features and manual upkeep, automating user provisioning, enforcing security policies, and managing file lifecycles so your domain stays compliant effortlessly as you scale.