Save time replying to comments in Google Docs with Smart Reply

Quick launch summary


In 2017, we introduced Smart Reply in Gmail to save you time by suggesting quick responses to your messages. Now, Smart Reply in Google Docs saves you time replying to comments in Docs by suggesting relevant replies. 

Smart Reply suggestions appear below the reply box on comment threads in English. You can choose a suggested reply or write your own. Smart Reply joins Smart compose and spelling autocorrect announced in January 2021 to help you compose comments in Docs quickly and with confidence. 

Smart reply suggests replies to comments in Google Docs
Smart Reply can help saves you time replying to comments in Docs by suggesting relevant replies


Getting started 

  • Admins: There is no admin control for this feature. 
  • End users: This feature will be ON by default To turn it off, go to Tools > Preferences > Show Smart Reply suggestions. If turned on, click on a comment thread in Google Docs, and Smart Reply will suggest responses if available. It may not present suggestions in all cases, and the comment thread must be in English. Simply click on a suggestion to use it, once you click, you can send it as-is or edit it before sending. Visit the Help Center to learn more about using Smart Reply in Google Docs, and replying to comments in Google Docs

Rollout pace 

Availability 

  • Available to all Google Workspace customers, as well as G Suite Basic and Business customers. Also available to users with personal Google Accounts 

Resources 


Security groups are now generally available

What’s changing

In 2020, we launched security groups to beta. Beginning today, this feature is now generally available. Security groups help you easily regulate, audit, and monitor groups used for permission and access control purposes. They enable admins to: 

  • Apply a label to any existing Google Group to distinguish it from email-list groups. 
  • Provide strong guarantees that: 
    • External groups (owned outside your organization) and non-security groups cannot be added as a member of a security group. 
    • Security labels, once assigned to a group, cannot be removed. This ensures that once a group is used for security purposes, it will remain in that state. 


Why it’s important

Groups are used in a variety of ways. This can include groups that help teams communicate and collaborate, as well as groups that control access to important apps and resources. Security groups can help customers manage these categories of groups differently to increase their overall security posture. 

For example, if you have compliance or regulatory requirements for managing access control, you may have set up naming conventions to keep track of which groups were used for this purpose. With security groups, you can now assign a security label to these groups and more easily manage them without having to use workarounds like naming conventions. 

Getting started


Rollout pace

  • This feature is available now.

Availability

  • Available to Google Workspace Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Fundamentals, Education Plus, and Nonprofits, as well as G Suite Basic and Business customers
  • Not available to Google Workspace Essentials and Frontline customers

Resources


Chrome Beta for Android Update

Hi everyone! We've just released Chrome Beta 93 (93.0.4577.58) for Android: it's now available on Google Play.

You can see a partial list of the changes in the Git log. For details on new features, check out the Chromium blog, and for details on web platform updates, check here.

If you find a new issue, please let us know by filing a bug.

Ben Mason
Google Chrome

Introducing the Google For Startups Accelerator: Women Founders class of 2021

Posted by Ashley Francisco, Head of Startup Developer Ecosystem, Canada

Google for Startups Women Founders logo

Earlier this summer we shared details about how the Google for Startups Accelerator program is expanding its support for founders from underrepresented groups. In addition to our Black Founders accelerator program, the expansion included a second year of programming specifically designed for women-led startups in North America.

We launched the inaugural Google for Startups Accelerator: Women Founders program in 2020, in order to address gender disparity in the startup ecosystem and provide high-quality mentorship opportunities and support for women founders. Studies showed that only 16% of small and medium sized businesses were owned by women, and that women often lack access to venture capitalist funding and accelerator programs to help launch and scale up their businesses.

This year, we have designed another great program for our women founders, and today we are thrilled to announce the 12 women-led startups joining our class of 2021.

Without further ado, meet the Google For Startups Accelerator: Women Founders class of 2021!

  • Aquacycl (Escondido, California): Aquacycl makes energy-neutral wastewater treatment a reality, offering modular on-site systems to treat high-strength organic waste streams. The BioElectrochemical Treatment Technology (BETT) is the first commercially viable microbial fuel cell, which generates direct electricity from wastewater, treating untreatable streams and reducing wastewater management costs by 20-60%.
  • Braze Mobility (Toronto, Ontario): Braze Mobility provides affordable navigation solutions for wheelchair users. It developed the world's first blind spot sensor system that can be attached to any wheelchair, transforming it into a smart wheelchair that automatically detects obstacles and provides alerts to the user through intuitive lights, sounds, and vibrations.
  • Claira (Grand Rapids, Michigan): Claira is a competency analytics engine that helps organizations understand their people and hire better.
  • ImagoAI (Saint Paul, Minnesota): ImagoAI’s proprietary AI solution does real-time food safety and quality testing at food manufacturing facilities and on the farms. Its solutions help companies reduce production line hold times by more than 90%, delivering consistent quality products, and reduce waste by early inspection.
  • Journey Foods (Austin, Texas): Journey Foods solves food science and supply chain inefficiencies with software in order to help companies feed 8 billion people better. They build enterprise technology that improves product management, ingredient intelligence, and manufacturing insights for CPG companies, grocery stores, suppliers, and manufacturers.
  • Nyquist Data (Palo Alto, California): Nyquist Data helps companies around the world access critical data and insights, which maximizes efficiency, resources, and results for innovation.
  • Paperstack (Toronto, Ontario): Paperstack is an all-in-one platform that helps self-employed individuals with incorporation, bookkeeping, and taxes.
  • Pocketnest (Ann Arbor, Michigan): Pocketnest is a comprehensive financial planning tool targeting genX and millennials. The company licenses its software to financial institutions and employers, helping them connect with a younger audience and grow their business. Based on psychology, behavioral science and coaching, it leads users through all ten themes of personal finances, resulting in actionable items and recommendations customized for each user.
  • SAFETYDOCS Global (Vancouver, British Columbia): SAFETYDOCS Global is a document management solutions platform that streamlines and automates permitting and licensing documentation workflows.
  • Schoolytics (Washington, DC): Schoolytics, the Student Data Platform, enables schools to connect disparate student datasets, including the student information system (SIS), learning management systems (LMS), and assessments, to transform data into meaningful insights and action. Its web-based tool supports data-driven decision making through real-time analytics and reporting.
  • Tengiva (Montreal, Quebec): Tengiva is the first digital platform enabling real-time supply chain in the textile industry by optimizing the typical months-long procurement process into a single-click operation.
  • ThisWay (Austin, Texas): ThisWay matches all people to all jobs, fairly and without bias. The web platform accurately delivers qualified talent, while increasing diversity and inclusion so ROI is optimized.

Starting on September 27, the 10-week intensive virtual program will bring the best of Google's programs, products, people and technology to help these businesses reach their goals. Participating startups receive deep mentorship on technical challenges and machine learning, as well as connections to relevant teams across Google. The startups will also receive nontechnical programming to help address some of the unique barriers faced by women founders in the startup ecosystem.

We are excited to welcome these 12 women-led businesses to our Google for Startups Accelerator community, and look forward to working with them this fall!

An update to how we generate web page titles

One of the primary ways people determine which search results might be relevant to their query is by reviewing the titles of listed web pages. That’s why Google Search works hard to provide the best titles for documents in our results to connect searchers with the content that creators, publishers, businesses, and others have produced.

An update to how we generate web page titles

One of the primary ways people determine which search results might be relevant to their query is by reviewing the titles of listed web pages. That’s why Google Search works hard to provide the best titles for documents in our results to connect searchers with the content that creators, publishers, businesses, and others have produced.

Beta Channel Update for Desktop

 The Beta channel has been updated to 93.0.4577.58 for Windows, linux and Mac.


A full list of changes in this build is available in the log. Interested in switching release channels?  Find out how here. If you find a new issue, please let us know by filing a bug. The community help forum is also a great place to reach out for help or learn about common issues.




Prudhvikumar Bommana
Google Chrome

The Google Cloud Startup Summit is coming on September 9, 2021

Posted by Chris Curtis, Startup Marketing Manager at Google Cloud

Startup Summit logo

We’re excited to announce our first-ever Google Cloud Startup Summit will be taking place on September 9, 2021.

We hope you will join us as we bring together our startup community, including startup founders, CTOs, VCs and Google experts to provide behind the scenes insights and inspiring stories of innovation. To kick off the event, we’ll be bringing in X’s Captain of Moonshots, Astro Teller, for a keynote focused on innovation. We’ll also have exciting technical and business sessions,with Google leaders, industry experts, venture investors and startup leaders. You can see the full agenda here to get more details on the sessions.

We can’t wait to see you at the Google Cloud Startup Summit at 10am PT on September 9! Register to secure your spot today.

9 apps to help kids sharpen their coding skills

Coding is a skill that’s now part of just about every discipline — and what’s more, it’s fun for kids to learn, and easy for parents and teachers to add to lessons at home or school. As kids get ready to go back to school and Chromebooks are once again on desks at home and in the classroom, it’s a good time to boost students’ coding knowledge. At Google, we believe every student deserves the chance to explore, advance and succeed in computer science. Practical computer science skills can help students learn and create, and bring more relevance to nearly any subject, from history to literature to current events. 

Thanks to the devices and apps below, students of all ages can be engaged while learning to code. Fortunately, there are coding apps for just about every grade and skill level. Here are our suggestions for apps and devices to check out this fall, whether you’re in a classroom or at home with learners.

Coding apps to try in the classroom and at home

Whether it’s creating a video game as an assignment in science class, or building a website for a side project (lemonade stand, anyone?), there are coding apps for the whole family and the whole class. Families can find all of these apps on the Google Play Store, and schools can find out more information on the Chromebook App Hub


Beginning to code

  • Cloud Stop Motion (Play Store) is a fun stop-motion and animation movie creator. Cloud Stop Motion enables kids to work with animations on a zoomable, scrollable timeline. Sound effects, music, titles, credits and speech bubbles can be added before rendering to an MP4 movie. An extensive library of audio, backgrounds and styles included, this app is great for students and parents alike.

  • Grasshopper(Web app) is a coding app for beginning learners that uses games to build skills with JavaScript. Learners can move up through progressively challenging levels to refine their coding prowess.

  • Scratch Jr(Play Store) is tailor-made for younger learners. Scratch Jr is actually based on a programming language that teaches kids how to program by creating their own interactive stories and games. 

  • Tynker Jr (Play Store) is perfect for children just learning to read. Children ages 5-7 can learn the fundamentals of coding by connecting picture blocks to move their characters.

More advanced coders

  • Bloxels (Play Store, App Hub) lets anyone build a video game with their own characters and art. Game worlds are quick to build with built-in logic, triggers and actions.

  • Codecademy(Play Store) Codecademy creates an engaging, flexible, and accessible way to learn to code online, making it possible for anyone to gain skills for employability and build something meaningful with technology. Access hundreds of courses in subjects like web development and data science, as well as in-demand languages like Python, CSS, and JavaScript.

  • Piper Make (Play Store, App Hub) is a drag-and-drop coding platform for the Pico, the newest microcontroller board from Raspberry Pi. Using Piper’s hardware packages available online, the Piper Make portal offers new narrative-based tutorials, projects, and ways to start building and coding technology.

  • Replit(Play Store, App Hub) is a simple, yet powerful online coding platform. It's perfect for beginners, who are coding for the first time, but also scales to the needs of teachers and professional programmers with decades of experience. Replit supports all programming languages, including Python, Java, Javascript + HTML/CSS, and C/C++, and runs on every device, including Chromebooks. It combines an IDE (integrated development environment) with a debugger, built-in testing/autograding, and hosting tools to build websites and applications.

  • Tynker(Play Store, App Hub) features block-based coding challenges that help learners move on to more complex skills like Python coding and advanced computer science. It even offers AP Computer Science courses.

Devices for coding, creating and anything in between

With new devices for learning anywhere or advanced use, students and families can find devices for more robust needs such as content creation and editing, coding, and running apps in virtualized environments simultaneously with large video calls. 

There’s a device for everyone in the family or classroom. This includes devices like the Lenovo 500e Gen 3, which works in both laptop and tablet mode and has a rear-facing camera and built-in stylus. It also includes the spill-resistant HP Chromebook x360 11 G4 EE, the Acer Chromebook Spin 512, or the Lenovo 300e Gen 3 with its 3:2 ratio, ideal for reading and working on Docs more comfortably, an Always Connected LTE enabled device with dual cameras. You can find all the latest in this handy guide for schools, or on chromebook.com. 

To learn more about Google’s commitment to closing equity gaps in computer science education and discover lessons, research, scholarship opportunities and more, visit our Code with Google page. Educators can also find CS resources on our website and on the Chromebook App Hub. And for more resources for families, with guidance on everything from classroom tools to screen time best practices, visit families.google.com, and sign up for Family Link for parents to help set digital ground rules on their school or personal device.

Feed-based Extensions Migration Reminder and Opt Out Instructions

As previously announced, all ad extensions are migrating to the new Asset-based extension paradigm. You must update extensions support in your implementation and migrate existing Feed-based extensions to Asset-based extensions. See the migration schedule for all the important migration and sunset dates.

The first automatic migration will start on October 20, 2021 and will take several weeks to complete. You have a choice to migrate your own extensions, allow the automatic migration to proceed, or to opt client accounts out of it. During the migration, Feed-based Callout, Promotion, Sitelink, and Structured Snippet extensions within client accounts will be copied into new Asset-based extensions. The new Asset-based extensions will then serve instead of the Feed-based extensions.


What will be the impact of the automatic migration?

After an account has been migrated, there will be a new Asset instance for each Feed-based Callout, Promotion, Sitelink, and Structured Snippet extension. The new Assets will be linked to the same ad groups, campaigns, and customers as the Feed-based extensions from which they were copied. The new Assets will have new IDs, and there will be no connection between Assets created during the automatic migration and the original Feeds, including historic metrics. All subsequent extension-related metrics will only be accessible from the asset_field_type_view report. Additionally, you will no longer be able to issue CREATE or MUTATE requests that affect Callout, Promotion, Sitelink or Structured Snippet extensions in the account through the following services:

Service API Reference
ExtensionFeedItemService Google Ads API
AdGroupExtensionSettingService AdWords API Google Ads API
CampaignExtensionSettingService AdWords API Google Ads API
CustomerExtensionSettingService AdWords API Google Ads API
FeedService AdWords API AdWords API
FeedItemService AdWords API Google Ads API
FeedMappingService AdWords API Google Ads API
AdGroupFeedService AdWords API Google Ads API
CampaignFeedService AdWords API Google Ads API
CustomerFeedService AdWords API Google Ads API
GoogleAdsService Google Ads API
BatchJobService AdWords API Google Ads API


If you choose to allow the automatic migration to proceed, you will know that an account has been migrated when any MUTATE or CREATE request to the above listed services affecting Callout, Promotion, Sitelink, or Structured Snippet extensions returns an error.


What will be the impact of opting out?

You can opt out individual customer accounts from the October automatic migration. Opting out will only defer the automatic migration until the second automatic migration begins on February 15, 2022. If you choose to opt out, no resources will be created or modified in opted out accounts during the October automatic migration, and only the opted out accounts will be able to continue to issue CREATE and MUTATE requests after the October automatic migration.

You cannot opt out of the February 15, 2022 automatic migration. All remaining Feed-based extensions will be automatically migrated starting February 15, 2022 as described in the migration schedule. After this second automatic migration, all CREATE and MUTATE requests affecting Feed-based extensions will return errors.

What do I need to do?

We strongly recommend that you migrate your extensions yourself if feasible. Please follow our extension migration documentation for guidance on migrating your own extensions. Be sure to remove the Feed-based extension once you have successfully copied an extension to an Asset to avoid duplication during the automatic migration.

If you choose to allow the automatic migration to proceed, you need to only update your implementations to detect when an account has been migrated and to thereafter switch over to managing Assets instead of Feeds.


If you choose to opt out, the automatic migration will make no changes to the opted out accounts. Your existing API implementations will continue to work until the second automatic migration begins on February 15, 2022. To opt out, you must complete this form with the following:
  • A contact email at which you can be reached should any issues arise during the opt out process.
  • The developer token that you use to manage the accounts.
  • Acknowledgements of the effects of opting out.
  • An uploaded text file containing the customer IDs that you wish to opt out, one per line. If you need to generate a list of customer IDs, we recommend utilizing the GetAccountHierarchy example in each client library’s AccountManagement directory. This example will return the resource names of all accounts reachable from a given manager account.
The form will open for submissions on August 30, 2021. Note that the developer token must have been used to issue requests on the customer account after July 16, 2021. The form will close on October 13, 2021.


If you have any questions or need additional help, contact us via the forum or at [email protected].