Google Workspace Features Update: November 2023

Google Workspace Features Update Summary - November 2023

The summary of essential information about new features and improvements for Google Workspace customers in November 2023

Product: Admins

It’s now even easier to take meetings on-the-go

Edition:  Available to all Google Workspace customers 

Who’s impacted: Admins and end users

We’re introducing a new, simplified mobile experience that will make taking calls on-the-go easier and less distracting. When you join a meeting from your mobile device, we’ll automatically detect whether you’re in motion and prompt you to use On-the-Go mode.

Your meeting experience will be streamlined to surface the most important features to keep you focused and save you bandwidth:

• A simplified user interface with access to the most critical features such as mute & unmute, the hand raise feature, and audio device selection.
• Only key information is displayed, such as the active speaker and the number of people on the call.
• Your video is automatically turned off.
• You have the option to view presented content. 
• Read more

Product: Chat

Streamlining the user experience in Google Chat to help you find what you need much faster

Edition:  Available to all Google Workspace customers and users with personal Google Accounts 

Who’s impacted: All End users

We recently introduced numerous enhancements across Google Chat, and today we’re excited to announce the general availability of three features highlighting a new integrated experience. 

The redesigned navigation panel brings direct messages and spaces together and introduces Shortcuts, a new framework to help you stay on top of your messages. Read more.

Product: Chat

Star important messages in Google Chat

Edition:  Available to all Google Workspace customers and users with personal Google Accounts 

Who’s impacted: All End users

Following the recent announcement of home and mentions in Google Chat, we’re excited to introduce starred, an additional shortcut in the redesigned navigation panel that helps you stay on top of your most important messages in Chat. Read more.

Product: Chat

Improved search query suggestions in Google Chat web

Edition:  Available to all Google Workspace customers

Who’s impacted: All End users

In conjunction with recent updates to search in Google Chat, we’re introducing enhanced search query suggestions, a feature already available on mobile, that helps you find the right message, person, file, or space in Chat web. 

When searching in Chat, you will now see query suggestions based on historical search activity, sorted by relevance. The top suggestion will also appear in the search box and you can press “Tab” to autofill the query. You can also delete a suggested query by hovering over it and clicking on the “x” icon next to it. Read more.

Product: Calendar

 View full screen tasks lists on Google Calendar 

Edition:  Available to all Google Workspace customers and users with personal Google Accounts

Who’s impacted: All end users

We recently completed the migration of Reminders from Google Calendar and Google Assistant to Google Tasks in order to provide an easy way to view and manage all your to-dos in one place. To build upon this, we’re providing you with a full screen desktop experience to view all tasks together. Starting today, you will be able to see all your tasks and task lists in a single full screen view on Calendar web. Read more.

Product: Drives

Filter by people or groups in Google Drive

Edition:  Available to all Google Workspace customers and users with personal Google Accounts

Who’s impacted:  All end Users

We’re adding a new filter to Google Drive that enables you to see which files or folders have been shared with specific people or groups.

Whether you’re trying to share a file with more audiences or reduce oversharing, this feature will give you greater visibility into who has access to files within and outside of your organization. Read more.

Product: Drives

Introducing a new homepage in the Google Drive app

Edition:  Available to all Google Workspace customers and users with personal Google Accounts

Who’s impacted:  All end Users

We’re updating the homepage of the Google Drive mobile app on Android and iOS mobile devices to help you find the right file much faster. An updated suggested view will allow you to see even more recommended files at once, such as those that have been recently opened, shared or edited. Read more.

Product: Docs

Adding timezone support for existing smart chips in Google Docs

Edition:  Available to all Google Workspace customers and users with personal Google Accounts 

Who’s impacted:  All end Users

To more accurately represent time across the world, we’re introducing timezone support for existing date+time smart chips in Google Docs. Read more.

Product: Sheets

Timeline view in Google Sheets now available on Android & iOS

Edition: Available to all Google Workspace customers and users with personal Google Accounts

Who’s impacted: All end users

In 2022, we introduced an interactive timeline view that allows you to track projects in Google Sheets. We’re excited to announce that you can now view your timelines on Android and iOS. Read more.

Product: Meets

Enhancements to Google Meet viewer mode improve user participation and gives hosts greater flexibility

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

Who’s impacted: All End users

First, viewers can now send emoji reactions during a meeting, which is a lightweight, non-disruptive way to engage and participate in meetings without interrupting the speaker. 

Next, meeting hosts and co-hosts will be able to promote a viewer to a meeting contributor while the hosts are using picture-in-picture mode. This gives hosts greater flexibility and saves time when needing to change participant rights without having to leave PiP mode. Read more.

Product: Meets

1:1 video calling in Google Meet mobile app available for select Google Workspace customers

Edition: Available to all Google Workspace customers

Who’s impacted: All end users

You can now make cloud-encrypted 1:1 video calls to other users in your organization using the Meet mobile app. Previously, you had to create a meeting link ahead of time, which could then be shared in a calendar invite, chat, or email. Now you can place a Meet call on your mobile app directly to a colleague, ringing their mobile device. Within the call, you’ll also have access to the latest Meet features including in-meeting chat, virtual backgrounds and visual effects, live closed captions, and more depending on your Workspace edition. Read more.

Product: Meets

Improvements for scheduling large-scale meetings on the web

Edition: vailable to all Google Workspace customers

Who’s impacted: All end users

We’re making several changes that will make scheduling large-scale meetings (up to 100k guests per event) easier and guide schedulers through the process with more context. Once you’ve created and saved a Calendar event that contains a large group of attendees, you can open the event to check on the invitation progress. As groups are successfully added, they will appear in the guest list and you will see an “invitation in progress” message as invitations are being sent. Read more.

Source: https://workspaceupdates.googleblog.com