Collaboration Services News and Updates

Google Updates Recap for April 11 to May 6, 2022

In this update recap, we’re excited to highlight the new “table templates,” “dropdown chips,” and a new menu bar layout for Google Docs. You can now also start or join a Google Meet directly from within a Google Docs, Sheets, or Slides file, and set up host controls and assign hosts on a calendar event ahead of time.

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Google Chat

Specify which Google Chat notifications from Chat and Gmail to receive when your iOS device is in Focus mode

On iOS, you can now specify which contacts in Gmail and Google Chat to receive notifications from while in Focus Mode on iOS. This is useful for when you want to limit screen time but still want to ensure you receive important notifications.

Feature Availability: This feature is available now to all iOS users.

Quick access to additional actions when composing a message in Google Chat on iOS

When using Google Chat on iOS, you can now tap the + plus icon to the left of the compose bar to access several quick actions.

These actions include:

• Photos: Sending a picture stored on your device
• Camera: Taking a picture using your device’s camera to send.
• Meet link: Dropping a Google Meet link into the discussion
• Drive: Attaching a file stored in your account’s Google Drive
• Calendar invite: Creating a calendar invite with the participant(s) of the discussion
• Format: Show the formatting options you can apply to your message, such as bold, italics, underlining, strikethrough, text color, and bulleting. 

Feature Availability: This feature is currently rolling out to all iOS users and is anticipated to be available on or around May 10, 2022.

Space managers can now delete messages in Google Chat

In Google Chat, managers of a Space can now remove messages from other users in their Space. This allows the managers to remove content in their Space that is inappropriate, irrelevant, and/or accidental. 

The option to delete a message will appear in the same location as deleting your own message – when hovering over a message, selecting the “More actions” triple dot menu icon, then selecting “Delete.” The removed message will appear as removed in the Space.

Feature Availability: This feature is currently rolling out to all users and is expected to be available on or before May 21, 2022.

Google Docs

Use new table templates and dropdown chips in Google Docs to create highly collaborative documents

Two new features have been added as part of the “smart canvas” set of features in Google Docs: Dropdown Chips and Table Templates. 

Dropdown chips allow you to easily create a status indicator that can be used in a variety of situations and make it easy to update the status of a task, for example. In addition to being able to customize your own dropdown chip’s options, colors, and order, two default dropdown options are also available:

• Project Status, which includes dropdown options for ‘Not Started’, ‘Blocked’, ‘In Progress’, and ‘Complete’.
• Review Status, which includes dropdown options for ‘Not Started’, ‘In Progress’, ‘Under Review’, and ‘Approved’

Table templates allow you to quickly insert building blocks for common workflows, such as:

• Launch content tracking
• Project asset tracking
• Review tracking, and
• Product roadmaps

Table templates will include a sample row of column headers to help show how each table template can be used.

You can get started with both features by navigating to Insert → Dropdown and Insert → Table → Table templates respectively, or by typing the “@” symbol in your Doc.

Feature Availability:

• Dropdown chips are currently rolling out to all users and are expected to be available on or before May 17, 2022.
• Table templates will be available on or before May 24, 2022.

Important: Enhanced menus in Google Docs improves findability of key features on desktop

Similarly to Google Sheets, the menus in the menu bar in Google Docs are getting reorganized to make it easier to locate the most commonly-used features. After this update, menus will be shortened to make navigation easier, menu options will be reorganized for a more intuitive layout, and prominent icons have been added to each menu option. No options are being removed as a result of this change but may be located under a different menu or in a different position.

Note: Approvals will still be located under “File” in the new menu layout and is now located under “Download”.

Feature Availability: This change is anticipated to be completed by the end of May, 2022.

Google Meet

Join a Google Meet call from Google Docs, Sheets, or Slides

You can now join a Google Meet directly from a Google Docs, Sheets, or Slides file. 

In our May 31 to June 18, 2021 features blog post, we mentioned that a new option was added to allow you to directly present to a Google Meet from one of these types of files with additional functionality coming later for joining and participating in a Meet directly in the file. Now, the previous option to “Present to a meeting” from these files has been replaced with the option to start or join a meeting (via meeting code or scheduled calendar event). 

The button is located in the same place (to the immediate left of the “Share” button”), but now has the Google Meet camera symbol. 

In this meeting, you can do many of the same things as in a regular Meet, such as:

• View meeting details
• View the “People” list of who is in the call
• View in-call chat messages
• Raise your hand
• Use captions
• Access most audio, video, and captioning settings.

Additionally, you can use “picture-in-picture” (PIP) mode to reduce the size/space used by Google Meet.

You can also locate the existing option of “Present to a meeting” when joining an existing meeting via the meeting’s code or from a list of scheduled calendar events with a Meet attached.

Notes: 

• When using this feature, Doc Editors menus that are located on the right side of the screen may sometimes be hidden or not displayed. If you need to see or use these menus, you can select the option to “Pop-out” which will transfer the meeting to a full Google Meet page.
• If you need to access settings that are not available, access/use Activities, or present a different Tab than the Google Doc/Sheet/Slides file, use the “Pop-out” option to access these actions in the full Google Meet page.
• Most likely, Microphone and Camera access has not been granted yet to Google Docs and you may see an indicator that one or both of these are blocked. Instructions to allow Google Docs to access these can be found here: Use your camera & microphone.

For more information regarding this feature, please visit: Use Google Meet with Google Docs, Sheets, & Slides – Google Docs Editors Help.

Feature Availability: This feature is currently rolling out to all users and is expected to be available on or before May 17, 2022.

Set up host controls and assign co-hosts ahead of meetings in Google Calendar

In Google Calendar, the meeting organizer can now configure more settings for a Google Meet attached to a calendar event. These settings include:

• Designating co-hosts
• Turning the ability to chat on or off
• Turning the ability to present on or off
• Enabling (or disabling) host management (required to assign co-hosts and change other host management options)

To get started, first attach a Google Meet to your calendar event by selecting “Add Google Meet video conferencing”. Then, select the “Video call options” gear icon. Host controls and Co-hosts can be found under their respective sections.

Feature Availability: This feature is now available to all users.

Google Sheets

Intelligent corrections for formulas in Google Sheets

Formula suggestions in Google Sheets now include new intelligent formula corrections that are context-aware and can help troubleshoot many different types of formulas. Some examples of these corrections include:

• VLOOKUP errors (e.g. attempting using VLOOKUP to look at a column to the left)
• Missing cells in range input
• Locking ranges when applying formulas across cells.

Formula corrections will be enabled by default and can be enabled or disabled by going to Tools → Autocomplete → Enable formula corrections or can be disabled by selecting the triple dot menu when shown a formula suggestion and selecting Disable formula corrections.

Feature Availability: This feature is now available to all users.

Google Tasks

Set recurring task end options directly in Google Tasks

Previously, it was only possible to set the recurring option for a Task in Google Calendar. Now, you can set these same options directly in Google Tasks as well.

Google Tasks can be accessed by clicking the Tasks icon located in the side panel on the right side of the page in Gmail, Calendar, and Chat.

Feature Availability: This feature is currently rolling out to all users and is expected to be available on or before May 19, 2022.

Categories Google Chat, Google Docs, Google Drive, Google Feature Updates and Changes, Google Meet, Google Sheets, Google Tasks and Google Keep, Google Workspace News, Important Changes