Tag Archives: Developer

Create birthdays in Google Calendar

What’s changing 

Currently, Google Calendar automatically pulls in birthday information from Google Contacts. However, it is not currently possible to create birthday events directly in Calendar. 

To ensure a birthday is never missed, we’re introducing the ability to create and modify birthday events in Google Calendar on Android devices. 

For developers, newly created birthday events will be available in the Calendar API with the eventType “birthday.” Both Events.list and Events.watch will support the “birthday” event type filter and return “birthday” events by default. Only a subset of the event properties will be supported for birthday events. To learn more, see our developer guide about working with the birthday event type.

Create birthdays in Google Calendar

Who’s impacted

End users and developers 


Additional details 

Birthday events do not support all event properties. If you’re using the Calendar API, we recommend reviewing your code so you don’t apply any non-supported properties. 

Creating dedicated birthday events in Google Calendar will also become available on web and iOS devices in the future. 


Getting started 

Rollout pace 

Web: 
Mobile: 

Availability 

  • Available to all Google Workspace customers, Workspace Individual Subscribers, and users with personal Google accounts. 

Resources 

Admin features for space management via the Chat API are now generally available

What’s changing

Earlier this year, we introduced a series of space management capabilities for Workspace admins in the Google Chat API via the Google Workspace Developer Preview Program. These API features are now generally available for all Google Workspace customers and developers.

Using these features, admins can easily perform a variety of space management related tasks at scale. This includes membership management, like adding and removing members, onboarding and offboarding users from spaces, cleaning up inactive spaces, and more. 

These features are also available when using the Google Apps Manager (GAM), an open source command-line tool that helps administrators to perform bulk operations associated with various aspects of their Google Workspace. The tool can be used to automate space management tasks with command-line scripts, helping to reduce admin overhead and potential errors when using APIs. See this article in our Help Center for more information on using a third-party tool for mass provisioning.

Who’s impacted

Admins and developers

Why you’d use it

In 2023, we launched the Space Management tool, which allowed admins to view all the spaces within their organization, understand the activity within those spaces, and perform essential actions like deleting a space or assigning space managers. While finding the tool helpful to perform one-off tasks, admins expressed a desire for tools to perform these tasks at scale, for example, with the help of APIs. Admins can now use the Chat API to find information and manage spaces in their organization in bulk or programmatically. Specifically they can:

  • Find and delete inactive spaces: Using spaces.search, you can find spaces that haven’t been used since a specified date and time and then delete them.
  • Onboard and offboard users: Automatically add new users to relevant spaces and remove them from spaces when they leave or change roles.
  • Audit external members: Monitor and control access to your organization's data by identifying and removing external members from sensitive conversations.
  • Lookup and update space details: Easily manage space information like names, descriptions, and guidelines.
  • Verify user membership and upgrade roles: Manage user access and roles within spaces.
  • And more — please refer to our developer guidance for even more information.

Getting started

Improving the Google Workspace Marketplace app publishing experience with Drafts

What’s changing

Developers can create apps for the Google Workspace Marketplace that automate tasks, integrate Google Workspace with third-party products, and enhance communication and collaboration. 

To improve upon the publishing experience, we’re excited to announce that developers can now make changes to their app listing, save them as a draft, and send the draft version to review. This will allow developers to preview changes and share drafts with specific users to help with validation before publishing a listing. 
Marketplace app publishing experience now includes saving as a draft

Who’s impacted 

Developers 


Why you’d use it 

This update allows developers to test and preview their Google Workspace Marketplace app listing prior to publishing, which enables feedback collection and ultimately makes updating an app listing much easier. 


Additional details 

While changes are under review in the draft state, the original app listing remains available on the Google Workspace Marketplace. 


Getting started 

Rollout pace 


Availability 

  • Available to all Google Workspace customers, Workspace Individual Subscribers, and users with personal Google accounts 

Resources

Access Google Meet artifacts with a new Google Drive API scope

What’s changing 

We’re introducing a new OAuth scope for the Drive API: drive.meet.readonly. The new scope grants app access to read and download files from a user’s drive that were created or edited by Google Meet — this includes meeting transcripts, notes, recordings, and more. This granular level of authorization helps ensure Drive access is not provisioned too broadly and only the necessary files can be accessed.


Getting started

Rollout pace


Availability


Additional admin space management capabilities in Google Chat API are now available

What’s changing 

We recently announced several new features for the Google Chat API that enable admins to manage spaces at scale. These features include the ability to audit spaces, delete inactive spaces in bulk, and more. 

Today, we’re pleased to announce more space management capabilities, which include the ability to: 
  • Look up details about specific space.
  • Update space details, including the name of a space, space description, and space guidelines. 
  • Verify user’s membership status in a specific space. 
  • Upgrade a role from space member to space manager. 



These features are available now through our Developer Preview Program — see here for more information on how to enroll in the Developer Preview program


Getting started 

  • Admins and developers: 
    • If you are part of the Google Workspace Developer Preview, you will get these features by default. Otherwise, you must apply for access using this form. 
    • Use our Developer Documentation to learn how to authenticate and authorize using administrator privilege. 
  • End users: There is no end user impact or action required. 

Rollout pace 

Availability

  • New features for the Google Chat API scoped to admin users are available to participants of Google Workspace Developer Preview Program. 

Resources 

Grading periods API for Google Classroom is now available in Developer Preview

What’s changing

Last year, we introduced grading periods, an option that allows administrators and teachers to define and apply grading periods segmented from the entire school year to their Google Classroom assignments. 

Today, we’re excited to announce grading period endpoints and capabilities in the Classroom API, available through the Google Workspace Developer Preview Program. Specifically, developers can now: 

  • Create, modify, and delete grading periods on courses 
  • Read grading periods on courses 
  • Reference and set/read grading periods on CourseWork resources
  • Apply grading period settings to existing coursework items

Who’s impacted 

Developers 


Why you’d use it 

The new grading periods endpoints allows developers to create, modify, and read grading periods in Classroom on behalf of administrators and teachers. 


Getting started 

  • Admins: The Classroom API provides a RESTful interface for you to manage courses and rosters in Google Classroom. Learn more about the Classroom API overview. 
  • Developers: 
    • To use the grading periods API, developers can apply for access through our Google Workspace Developer Preview Program. 
    • Application developers can use the Classroom API to integrate their apps with Classroom. These apps need to use OAuth 2.0 to request permission to view classes and rosters from teachers. Admins can restrict whether teachers and students in their domain can authorize apps to access their Google Classroom data. 
    • All API and Classroom share button integrations should follow the Classroom brand guidelines. 

Rollout pace 

Availability 

Available for Google Workspace: 
  • Education Plus 

Resources 

Google Classroom add-ons now generally available to Google Workspace developers

What’s changing

In 2022, we made it easy to seamlessly access popular Education Technology tools directly in Google Classroom. We partnered with 20+ EdTech companies, including Kahoot!, Pear Deck, IXL, ReadWorks, and Nearpod, to build Google Classroom add-ons. These new integrations let educators and students easily find, use, and grade great content in their favorite EdTech tools without having to navigate to external websites and apps. 


Today, we’re excited to make Classroom add-ons generally available to all developers. Now, developers can build an add-on to allow teachers to do the following within Classroom: 

  • Discover and attach content to coursework 
  • Preview content from student perspective 
  • Review student responses to activities 
  • Save time with automatic grading of student responses 

  • Google Classroom add-ons now generally available to Google Workspace developers

    Who’s impacted 

    Admins, end users, and developers 


    Why it’s important 

    Add-ons complement other Classroom API features and let educators and students experience content without having to leave Google Classroom. In addition, Classroom add-ons show up directly in Google Classroom as well on the Google Workspace Marketplace, which is the hub for administrators to manage tools across all of their Google products. 


    Getting started 

    Rollout pace 

    • This feature is now available 

    Availability 

    Available for Google Workspace: 
    • Education Plus and the Teaching & Learning Upgrade 

    Resources 

    The Calendar API now distinguishes events created from Gmail

    What’s changing

    Starting May 30, 2024, the Calendar API will distinguish events created from Gmail. New and existing events from Gmail that are scheduled for a future date will:

    In Google Calendar clients events from email may be rendered slightly differently to regular events and show a link back to the original email:



    Google Calendar limits edits for events from email:



    Additional details

    If you’re using the Calendar API, we recommend the following to help avoid any disruptions in your applications:
    • Ensure that your code does not apply restricted updates to events with the type “fromGmail”.
      • Temporarily, updates on events with the type “fromGmail” are restricted to the properties reminders, colorId, visibility, status, and extendedProperties. Stay tuned to the Workspace updates blog for more information.
      • Review your code if it filters by eventType for Events.list or Events.watch. Filtering by eventType “default” will no longer return events extracted from emails.

    Getting started


    Rollout pace

    Manage spaces at scale with new Chat API functionality

    What’s changing

    We are pleased to announce the  launch for additional features of Chat API via the Developer Preview Program, enabling space management at scale on behalf of admin users. These new features, which you can read more about down below, are available to all users currently enrolled in the Developer Preview Program. See here for more information on how to enroll in the Developer Preview program.

    Who’s impacted

    Admins and developers

    Why you’d use it

    In 2023, we launched the Space Management tool, which allowed admins to view all the spaces within their organization, understand the activity within those spaces, and perform essential  actions like deleting a space or assigning space managers. While finding the tool helpful, admins expressed a desire for more robust tools to perform these tasks faster and at scale, for example, with the help of APIs. Admins can now use the Chat API to find information and manage their spaces in bulk— specifically they’ll be able to:

    • Audit spaces: Admins can pull a list of all spaces in their organization, which includes detailed information about space settings and metadata like member counts, history setting status, the ability to invite external guests, and more. The list will be exported to a CSV file for further analysis and audit.

    • Delete inactive spaces in bulk: It’s common to create spaces for projects and initiatives that are only relevant for a specific period of time. As these projects move toward completion, activity in these spaces become inactive or abandoned altogether without deletion. This can result in a huge amount of clutter, making it for end users to navigate and search for relevant spaces, and for admins, making it difficult to audit and take action when managing your spaces. You can now easily detect and delete  all inactive or unused spaces, or create an automated cleanup task with the help of Chat API. 

    However, there are some cases where less active spaces should not be deleted, such as spaces dedicated to quarterly or annual events. In these situations, admins can use the new API functionality to identify space managers so they can reach out and confirm whether a space should be deleted.

    • User onboarding and offboarding: When a new user joins an organization, it’s important that they’re connected to all relevant spaces, including organization wide spaces or spaces based on specific departments or job roles. Admins can use this functionality to automatically add users to relevant spaces based on specific attributes like their department, role, location, and more.
    Conversely, it’s also important to ensure users are removed from spaces when they leave an organization or change roles. Admins can quickly identify all spaces where an outgoing user is a member of and remove them from spaces that are no longer relevant to them. 
    • Audit external members: To monitor and control access to organizations' data, admins can conduct an audit of membership for a specific user or group of users. Admins can use the Google Chat API to generate a list of all space members — this information, combined with a query to the People API, can assist in identifying a space’s external members. As a result, admins may choose to remove specific users from organization's conversations. This can be done on a space-by-space basis using the API directly or with the help of  your own scripts, adjusted to the unique process in your organization.

    We plan to introduce more functionality for managing spaces in the future — stay tuned to the Workspace Updates blog for more information.


    Getting started

    • End users: There is no end user impact or action required.


    Rollout pace


    Build a Dialogflow CX Google Chat app that understands and responds with natural language

    This announcement was part of Google Cloud Next ‘24. Visit the Workspace Blog to learn more about the next wave of innovations in Workspace, including enhancements to Gemini for Google Workspace.



    What’s changing

    Earlier this year, we introduced the integration between Google Chat and Dialogflow CX through the Google Workspace Developer Preview Program


    Dialogflow helps developers build and host Chat bots that understand natural language with minimal coding effort. The enhanced Dialogflow CX version, now generally available, provides a new way of designing virtual agents by taking a state machine approach to agent design. Now, developers have clear and explicit control over a conversation, enjoy a better end-user experience, and gain access to an improved development workflow. 


    The Dialogflow CX integration with Google Chat allows developers to easily create Google Chat apps that are useful in all kinds of interactions, especially those that require natural human speech. For example, consider a Chat app that helps people rent cars. A user might write, "I'd like to rent a car". The Chat app might respond with a question like "Where would you like to pick up the vehicle?" which starts a human-like conversation with the user in which the Chat app both understands and responds with human speech while booking the car rental. 
    Build a Dialogflow CX Google Chat app that understands and responds with natural language

    Who’s impacted 

    Developers 


    Why it’s important 

    Dialogflow CX enables developers to create Chat apps with virtual agents that are more conversational and capable of performing specific tasks. 


    Getting started 


    Rollout pace 


    Availability 

    • Available to all Google Workspace customers 

    Resources