Collaboration Services Welcomes the 2023 Fall Semester!
The Collaboration Services team is excited to welcome or welcome back all students, faculty, and staff to the Fall 2023 semester! Below we’ve rounded up everything you need to know as we get started with the new semester.
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Google Feature Updates
Google has been hard at work this year and especially the Summer bringing new features and quality of life updates to Gmail, Google Chat, Google Meet, and Google Drive & the Docs Editors (Docs, Sheets, and Slides.)
We’ve summarized the April – July features here: Google Feature Updates Overview: April – July 2023. Please keep an eye out for our August Features update next week.
Mail Merge is available for Gmail!
Mail merging is the act of sending personalized email to a list of recipients. Historically, the options to perform a mail merge required use of Google Groups or third-party software such as Maestro and Yet Another Mail Merge. Now, Gmail has the ability to perform a Mail Merge directly built in, so you can write and design your email, select the list of recipients, then click Send and Gmail will take care of the rest.
Note: While external recipients will have the ability to unsubscribe to mail merge emails, internal vcu.edu users cannot. The sender may choose to remove the unsubscribe option; however, please use care when sending to large mailing lists. Google’s daily sending limits apply. We also encourage you to first read this blog post to avoid having your mailing flagged as Spam: https://blogs.vcu.edu/drgee/2023/04/19/15-tips-to-avoid-getting-your-emails-flagged-as-spam/
Additionally, you can use a spreadsheet to merge not just recipient email addresses, but names as well, to personalize each email.
Related to this feature, you can also choose from a preset list of layouts and choose a university-compliant theme to get a jump start on your mailing (which can be used separately or in combination with the new Mail Merge feature):
For more information about this feature, please visit:
- Send personalized emails with mail merge – Gmail Help
- Create branded emails with customized layouts – Gmail Help
Google Storage Updates
Google has announced the end of unlimited storage for the academic community effective May, 2024. VCU is currently in-process of identifying storage needs. For more information, please visit: Storage and Retention – Collaboration Services.
What action can I take?
We would recommend beginning to do some clean-up of your VCU Google Workspace account. Tools and documentation to assist you can be found at these links:
- Cleanup your Google Workspace account – Collaboration Services
- “What should I do now” – Storage and Retention – Collaboration Services
Ramscaping Your Google Account
Over the Summer, we ran our Ramscaping Your Google Account campaign, where each week we broke down the tasks of cleaning up a VCU Google Account into 8 easy, manageable parts. While Summer may be coming to a close, the Ramscaping journey can be started at any time and can be done at your own pace.
To get started, visit: Ramscaping Your Google Account – Collaboration Services