Google’s latest offering, the G Suite Enterprise for Education, is now available to a majority of educational institutions in the United States. The G Suite Enterprise for Education includes additional features that enable educational institutions to protect sensitive data and remotely control mobile devices. Among the tools offered by G Suite Enterprise for Education is the “Security Center”, which provides network administrators with insights on how they could better protect sensitive user data on their network. For example, this tool permits IT personnel to monitor if there are phishing messages being distributed within the organization. Furthermore, G Suite Enterprise for Education also offers Advanced Mobile Device Management, which makes it easier for administrators to remotely control mobile devices within the organization. IT personnel may monitor device activities through the Mobile Audit feature, and the tool also allows them to automate certain actions like enrolling devices, sending notifications, or even deleting account data from lost devices.
Aside from the security tools, G Suite Enterprise for Education also includes features that make it easier for students and teachers to keep track of school activities and lectures. The Cloud Search feature offers a unified search experience for emails, documents, and schedules, reducing the time spent by users on searching for information. Through the use of machine learning, this functionality automatically informs users of which files still need attention. In addition, BigQuery integration into Gmail allows administrators to analyze emails to check for insights that may improve the way the organization is being operated. Last but not the least, the G Suite Enterprise for Education also offers advanced capabilities in Hangouts Meet. For example, users gain the ability to record meetings and save it to Google Drive. Hangouts Meet allows users to invite people to the meeting through their phones using the service’s dial-in feature. The G Suite Enterprise for Education will cost organizations $4 a month per user, although if institutions subscribe to the service within the year, they may be eligible for Google’s introductory price of $2 per month for faculty and staff and free for students.
Google also enumerated the security improvements it made to the free version of the G Suite for Education. The Hosted Gmail S/MIME tool allows organizations to encrypt emails, while the Data Loss Prevention feature prevents users from sharing sensitive data like student’s personal information outside of the organization. Administrators may now set the length of time before users are automatically logged out of their accounts, and they may also require users to utilize a physical key before they could sign in to their accounts.