Google Workspace Features Update: August 2022

Google Workspace (formerly G Suite)

Features Update Summary - August 2022

The summary of essential information about new features and improvements for Google Workspace customers in August 2022.

Product: Admin

Unified experience for Gmail logs in BigQuery, configure your existing Gmail logs to route to Workspace logs

Edition: Available to Google Workspace Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Plus, Education Standard

Who’s impacted: Admins only

In the coming weeks, we will move the location of the existing Gmail logs in BigQuery to Google Workspace logs and reports in BigQuery. To support our customers with a seamless transfer, for a brief period of time, Gmail data will be exported to both the Gmail logs and the Workspace logs — see below for more information. Read more.

Product: Admin

Control visibility of admin alerts with admin role privileges

Edition: Available to all Google Workspace customers, as well as legacy G Suite Basic and Business customers

Who’s impacted: Admins only

We’re introducing a new control that allows super admins to create a custom rule which ensures only admins with the DLP privilege can see DLP alerts. Previously, DLP alerts were visible to all admins — this change helps ensure the right people have access to list, update, or delete alerts. Further, this cuts down on the visibility of alerts that aren’t relevant to specific admins. Read more.

Product: Admin

Updated user interface for managing email quarantines

Edition: Available to all Google Workspace editions, as well as legacy G Suite Basic and Business customers

Who’s impacted: Admins only

In the coming weeks, you will see a new user interface when using the email quarantine tool. This update will bring the email quarantine experience inline with other tools in the Admin console, making it more intuitive to navigate and use. Quarantines help minimize data loss, protect confidential information, and manage message attachments. Read more.

Product: Calendar

Working location enabled by default

Edition: Google Workspace Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Fundamentals, Education Standard, Education Plus, Nonprofits, and Teaching & Learning upgrade customers

Who’s impacted: All end users

In 2021, we launched a feature to share where you’re working from directly in Google Calendar to make in-person collaboration easier and support the ongoing transition to a hybrid workplace. We recently announced an improved user interface for sharing your working location in Google Calendar, and starting today, you will be able to set your working location without having to first enable this feature in your Calendar settings. Read more.

Product: Calendar

New color categorization option to better understand how you're spending your time

Edition: Available to Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Plus and Nonprofits customers

Who’s impacted: All end users

In 2021, we launched Time Insights, a feature that gives you the ability to better understand how you’re spending your time in Google Calendar. Starting today, you can categorize your time by naming and assigning a corresponding color label to an event within Time Insights in Calendar.

We hope this customizable breakdown feature will allow you to more easily track time spent on specific activities, such as project work, staff meetings, or meetings with specific colleagues and stakeholders. Read more.

Product: Calendar

Better location context for events and RSVPs in Calendar

Edition: Available to Google Workspace Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Fundamentals, Education Plus, Education Standard, Teaching & Learning Upgrade, and Nonprofits, as well as legacy G Suite Business customers

Who’s impacted: All end users

We’re making it even easier to use RSVPs in Google Calendar and let others know how you’re planning to join a meeting.

You can now select an RSVP join method that’s powered by your working location, whether that’s joining in a particular meeting room or virtually. With the new RSVP option, Calendar will automatically update how you intend to join the meeting if your working location happens to change. In addition, your colleagues will now see your working location or out-of-office status directly in the guest list section of a Calendar event. Read more.

Product: Classroom

Seamlessly access popular Education Technology tools directly in Google Classroom

Edition: Available to the Teaching and Learning Upgrade, and Google Workspace for Education Plus customers

Who’s impacted: Admins, End users, and developers

With a new seamless integration of single sign-on, assigning, and grading, we’re making it easier for educators to access popular EdTech tools that work best for their class directly in Google Classroom. Read more.

Product: Classroom

Choose to grade with Canvas SpeedGrader or Google Assignments

Edition: Available to Google Workspace Education Fundamentals, Education Plus, Education Standard, and the Teaching and Learning Upgrade customers

Who’s impacted: Admins and end-users

Starting today, within Google Assignments for Canvas, there is now an option to grade with either Google Assignments or Canvas SpeedGrader. 

This tool allows educators to continue using features they already enjoy with Google Assignments, such as assigning personalized files to students, seeing students’ in-progress work, and using originality reports. If educators choose to grade with Canvas SpeedGrader, they can also utilize annotations and audio and video comments as they grade. Select SpeedGrader to grade an assignment. Read more.

Product: Gmail

New integrated email marketing tools for Gmail on the web

Edition: Available to Google Workspace Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Starter, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Plus, Nonprofits, and Workspace Individual customers

Who’s impacted: Admins and end users

For select Google Workspace editions, we’re adding two new features in Gmail which you can use to easily create stylized content and custom distribution lists:

• Layouts: You can select from a predefined set of email templates, which feature images, text elements, and buttons. You can further customize these templates by uploading your own color schemes, logos or images, footer text, and links.

• Multi-send: This feature allows you to send mass emails without the need to BCC all recipients. By default, a unique unsubscribe link and header will be created — those who unsubscribe are automatically excluded from future multi-send emails from the same sender.

Additionally, we are introducing an Admin setting to control whether these features are on or off for your users. The admin setting will launch before the end-user functionality, giving admins time to configure availability for their end users in advance. See below for more information. Read more.

Product: Gmail

Delegate access to a shared inbox using a group address

Edition: Available to Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Fundamentals, Education Plus, Frontline, Nonprofits, and legacy G Suite Basic and Business customers only.

Who’s impacted: Admins and end users

You can now give an entire Google Group access to your Gmail account through mail delegation. With this feature, delegated users can read, send, and delete messages on the account owner's behalf. We hope this will enable teams to more effectively process incoming requests and tasks via a single shared email address. Read more.

More at: https://support.google.com/a/answer/7223765 

Product: Editors

Improved notifications when editing Microsoft Office files in Docs, Sheets, and Slides

Edition: Available to all Google Workspace customers, as well as legacy G Suite Basic and Business customers

Who’s impacted: All end users

Many of our customers utilize Office editing mode to collaborate on Microsoft Office files in Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides.. Today, we’re announcing improvements to the notifications you see when editing a Microsoft Office-formatted file. Read more.

Product: Editors

More control over accessibility preferences in Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Drawings

Edition: Available to all Google Workspace customers, as well as legacy G Suite Basic and Business customers. Available to users with personal Google Accounts

Who’s impacted: All end users

Over the years, we’ve launched features to support our ongoing accessibility efforts to ensure our products work well for everyone. For users of screen readers, braille devices, screen magnifiers, and more, we're improving the ability to adjust your accessibility preferences for Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Drawings separately. Read more.

Product: Editors

Easily assign Tasks from Google Docs

Edition: Available to all Google Workspace customers, as well as legacy G Suite Basic and Business customers. Available to users with personal Google Accounts

Who’s impacted: All end users

In Google Docs, you can now assign a checklist item to yourself or a colleague that will then show up in the assignee’s Tasks list. When edits are made to an assigned item in Tasks, such as a change to the title, due date or completion state, those updates will show in the Doc, and vice versa. Read more.

Product: Editors

Stay on top of changes to document content with edit notifications

Edition: Available to all Google Workspace customers, as well as legacy G Suite Basic and Business customers, and users with personal Google Accounts.

Who’s impacted: All end users

In Google Docs, you can now choose to receive notifications for document changes on a per file basis. The new feature’s setting is available in the existing and new notification settings menus.

Edit notification emails detail what changes were made, when the changes were made, and who made them. The settings are available in the expandable “Notification settings” section of dynamic comment and edit notification emails. The settings are also accessible within Google Docs itself through the bell icon button inside the comment icon button’s dropdown The bell icon button now opens notifications settings, where you can adjust your comment and edit notification settings. Read more.

Product: Meet

Google Meet call control for USB peripheral devices

Edition: Available to all Google Workspace customers, as well as legacy G Suite Basic and Business customers.


Who’s impacted: All end-users

We’re introducing additional call control for Google Meet which will allow you to toggle between mute and unmute using headsets, speaker microphones, and other USB peripheral devices. Read more.

Product: Meet

Improved quality and performance for Google Meet effects on the web

Edition: Available to Google Workspace Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus customers, and Workspace Individual users

Who’s impacted: All end-users

With this launch, two Google Meet visual effects—background blur and low-light mode—are processed on the web when available, instead of on your device. This saves battery and processing usage on your device. Meet consistently monitors whether web-based or device-based processing will offer the best experience and auto-adjusts to that option. This helps ensure the smoothest, most efficient meeting experience. Read more.

Product: Meet

See how much noise is being removed during Google Meet video calls

Edition: Google Workspace Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, and Education Plus customers

Who’s impacted: All end-users

Google Meet can remove background noises such as typing, closing a door, or the sounds of a nearby construction site. Noise cancellation helps make video calls more productive by reducing distractions that can divert attention away from the content of the meeting.

The voice indicator now shows how much noise is being removed. If you see the ring expanding while background noises occur, you can be sure others will not hear them, and you can therefore stay unmuted in the call. Read more.

Product: Site

Seamlessly delete subsets of Sites

Edition: All Google Workspace customers, as well as G Suite Basic and Business customers

Who’s impacted: All end-users

Site editors can now delete a page with subpages and delete pages that were copied into another site during a partial site copy. Read more.

Product: Site

Conveniently connect site visitors with social channels in new Sites

Edition: Available to all Google Workspace customers, as well as legacy G Suite Basic and Business customers

Who’s impacted: All end-users

Site editors can now insert stylized social media links into pages within their site. This update enables you to more conveniently connect site visitors with additional information and content on your social channels. Read more.

Source: https://workspaceupdates.googleblog.com