Google Workspace Features Update: September 2022

Google Workspace (formerly G Suite)

Features Update Summary - September 2022

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

Product: Admin

Scaling our Calendar Interop offering

Edition: Available to all Workspace customers using Calendar Interop

Who’s impacted: Admins only

Currently through Calendar Interop, if a Google Calendar user wants to see the availability of a Microsoft Exchange user to schedule a meeting, the request is performed through an Exchange role account. When too many requests occur within a certain timeframe, an Exchange role account can hit its limit, and as a result, the Calendar Interop service can fail.  

Starting today, admins can configure multiple role accounts in the Calendar Interop Admin console. This will provide support for a higher number of requests and enable Calendar Interop to work more seamlessly at scale. Read more.

Product: Calendar

New Google endpoint management setting to show both personal and work entries in Google Calendar

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

Who’s impacted: Admins and end users

In 2020, we announced the ability to s​​ee your personal and work calendars together on your Android device. We’re now adding support for Google endpoint management admins to enable this feature to their users. 

Users with multiple accounts can easily switch accounts when using the Google Calendar app on a mobile device. This helps users manage multiple accounts more easily, and ensures consistency across Workspace apps.

Now, admins in organizations that use endpoint management will be able to determine whether this feature makes sense for their users and turn it on/off as desired. They can also choose to promote this feature to their users to encourage adoption. Read more.

Product: Calendar

New Google Calendar shortcuts improve glanceability for screen reader users

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 addition to the improved announcements for braille comments and highlights available in Google Docs on Web, and the recent launch of more control over accessibility preferences, we’re introducing Announce Shortcuts for Calendar event details. 

Users of screen readers can now type a keyboard shortcut that verbalizes the content of an event, such as the title, date and time, guestlist, and much more. These shortcuts greatly improve glanceability because they enable Calendar details to be heard on demand instead of time consuming navigation through information. Read more.

Product: Chat

Google Hangouts will be fully upgraded to Google Chat starting November 1, 2022

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

Who’s impacted: All end users

In February, we announced that all domains would be upgraded to ‘Chat preferred’ and Google Hangouts would start redirecting to Google Chat. Since then, the Hangouts mobile app, Hangouts Chrome extension, and Hangouts in Gmail on web have been redirecting to Chat. Read more.

Product: Chat

Spanish, French, and Portugese smart replies in Google Chat

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 2018, we announced Smart Reply in Chat, a feature that saves time by suggesting quick responses to your messages based on your habits. 

While these replies were initially offered only in English, you will now see options for Spanish, French, and Portuguese. When you are typing a reply, Smart Reply will automatically detect the language and offer responses accordingly. Read more.

Product: Chat

Send multiple images or videos at a time in Chat

Edition: Chat on mobile

Who’s impacted: All end users

You can now select more than one image or video at a time when sending a message in Google Chat. This is now available across iOS devices. 

For Android devices, roll out to Rapid Release began September 15, 2022; launch to Scheduled Release planned for September 30, 2022. Read more.

Product: Gmail

View information about recipients on Android

Edition: This is now available to all users on Android

Who’s impacted: Admins and end users

While using the Gmail app on Android devices, you can now view details about a person, such as their phone number or email address, by tapping their name or avatar when composing an email. Read more.

Product: Meet

Google Meet now automatically adjusts the volume of meeting participants

Edition: Available to Google Workspace Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Plus, the Teaching and Learning Upgrade, Frontline, and Individual customers

Who’s impacted: All end-users

With meeting participants using various devices to join a meeting, this can lead to discrepancies in volume, with some participants sounding louder than others. Meet will adjust the audio of all participants, helping to ensure everyone is equally loud. To take advantage of this feature, make sure noise cancellation is turned on. We hope this makes for smoother meetings, with fewer disruptions. Read more.

Product: Meet

Mute and unmute yourself with the spacebar during Google Meet calls

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

To quickly unmute yourself during a meeting, you can now hold down the spacebar to be unmuted, then release the spacebar to return to a muted state. We hope this makes it even easier for you to participate in your meetings by quickly unmuting to say something. This feature will also help in situations where you forget to mute again after unmuting yourself. This feature is OFF by default and can be enabled in the Google Meet settings. Read More.

Product: Meet

Share Google Meet artifacts with co-hosts more easily

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

Who’s impacted: All end-users

Google Meet features such as meeting recordings, Chat transcripts, attendance reports, and more are automatically saved in the Google Drive belonging to the meeting host. Beginning today, hosts can share these artifacts with meeting co-hosts.

To share these artifacts, meeting hosts need to:

• Specify co-hosts when creating the event or through the Calendar event 
• Select the “Artifact sharing” option when adding co-hosts in Google Calendar. 
• Read more.

Source: https://workspaceupdates.googleblog.com