Tag Archives: Google Calendar

View additional Calendar statuses in Google Chat

What’s changing

In addition to seeing when someone is out of office, you can now see additional Google Calendar statuses like “In a meeting” or “In focus time” in Google Chat. 


Additional Calendar statuses on web




Additional Calendar statuses on mobile

Who’s impacted

Admins and end users


Why you’d use it

We hope by surfacing these additional statuses, this will make it easier for your colleagues to identify appropriate times to message you.


Additional details

Additionally, the Admin control for Calendar availability will be updated to include configuration options for displaying “In a meeting” or “In focus time” blocks.




See below for more information on availability. 


Getting started



Rollout pace

End user availability 

Android & iOS:


Web:

Admin setting
  • This feature is available now.

Availability

  • Available to all Google Workspace customers, as well as G Suite Basic and Business customers
  • Not available to Google Workspace Individual users or users with personal Google accounts

Resources


Google Workspace Updates Weekly Recap – February 22, 2022

New updates 

Unless otherwise indicated, the features below are fully launched or in the process of rolling out (rollouts should take no more than 15 business days to complete), launching to both Rapid and Scheduled Release at the same time (if not, each stage of rollout should take no more than 15 business days to complete), and available to all Google Workspace and legacy G Suite customers. 



Japanese grammar suggestions for Google Docs 
You'll now see grammar suggestions as you type in Japanese in Docs. Grammar suggestions can help you write faster and more accurately. | Learn more.



Previous announcements 

The announcements below were published on the Workspace Updates blog earlier this week. Please refer to the original blog posts for complete details. 



Manage overdue tasks in Google Calendar You can now easily see and manage your overdue tasks in Google Calendar. 
If you have uncompleted tasks that were due in the past 30 days, you will have an all day entry that will tell you how many tasks are pending from that timeframe. | Learn more. 



Participate in Google Meet polls and Q&As on Chromebase for meetings 
You can now participate in Google Meet polls and Q&As when joining from a Chromebase for meetings all-in-one touchscreen device. | Learn more.



The future of Currents and the next generation of collaboration in Spaces 
With Spaces now available, starting in 2023 we are planning to wind down Google Currents and bring remaining content and communities over to the new Spaces experience. | Learn more here and here. 



Google Voice calls between many European numbers are now included in Google Voice licenses
Beginning February 8, 2022, calls from European Google Voice numbers to mobile and landline numbers in many European countries will be included with the cost of the Google Voice license. | Learn more. 



For a recap of announcements in the past six months, check out What’s new in Google Workspace (recent releases).

Manage overdue tasks in Google Calendar

Quick summary 

You can now easily see and manage your overdue tasks in Google Calendar. If you have uncompleted tasks that were due in the past 30 days, you will have an all day entry that will tell you how many tasks are pending from that timeframe. Clicking on that entry brings up the list of these pending tasks and you can directly edit or mark them as complete from this list. 

See pending tasks as an all day entry in Calendar




By giving you a comprehensive list of uncompleted past tasks, right in Calendar, we hope that this helps you better keep track of your Tasks. The feature will be available on the web and on mobile. 


Getting started 

  • Admins: There is no admin control for this feature. 
  • End users: This feature will be ON by default for anyone that uses tasks in Calendar and can be turned OFF by hiding tasks in Google Calendar. Visit the Help Center to learn more about creating & viewing tasks in Calendar. 

Rollout pace 

Web: 

Android: 

iOS: 

Availability 

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

Resources 

Google Workspace Updates Weekly Recap – December 17, 2021

New updates

Unless otherwise indicated, the features below are fully launched or in the process of rolling out (rollouts should take no more than 15 business days to complete), launching to both Rapid and Scheduled Release at the same time (if not, each stage of rollout should take no more than 15 business days to complete), and available to all Google Workspace and G Suite customers.


The filmstrip in Google Slides is now collapsable

In Google Slides, editors can now collapse or expand the filmstrip as needed. Collapsing the filmstrip expands the current slide view for more focused editing. You can expand the filmstrip when you need to view, navigate to, and edit the other slides in your presentation. 




Previous announcements

The announcements below were published on the Workspace Updates blog earlier this week. Please refer to the original blog posts for complete details.

Prevent unwanted invitations from being added to your calendar
We've improved the "Automatically add invitations" setting to help prevent unwanted invitations from being added to your calendar. You can choose to either: always have invitations automatically added or only have them automatically added if you have RSVP’d in the email event invitation. | Learn more here.





Easily see which account you’re currently using in Google Calendar on mobile
We’ve added account profile pictures in the top corner of Google Calendar on mobile so you can confidently tell which account you’re currently using and easily toggle between accounts. | Learn more.





Automatically move breakout room participants back to the original meeting
Google Meet costs and co-hosts can now automatically move break out room participants back to the main meeting room. Additionally, we’ve added better visual indicators for breakout room participants to indicate this movement. | Available to Google Workspace Essentials, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Nonprofits and Education Plus as well as G Suite Business customers. | Learn more.





Use your Google Meet hardware-connected displays as digital signage
Admins have several new options to control how screen savers are displayed on their Google Meet hardware devices. | Learn more.


Expanded occupancy detection capabilities for Google Meet hardware devices
We’ve significantly expanded our occupancy detection capabilities on Google Meet hardware devices beyond Series One devices. Additionally, we have made improvements to the Room insights dashboard in the Admin console. | Learn more.




Configure member restrictions for groups, now generally available
In October 2021, we announced an open beta for group level controls that allow admins and end users who are group owners to restrict group memberships based on internal or external members and member type. This feature is now generally available. | Learn more.



Making dynamic groups more powerful with custom user attributes and OrgUnit queries
We’re further expanding the functionality of dynamic groups: dynamic groups can now be defined by querying custom user attributes and can also be defined based on users’ membership in Organizational Units (OUs). | Available to Google Workspace Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, and Education Plus customers. | Learn more.


For a recap of announcements in the past six months, check out What’s new in Google Workspace (recent releases).

Easily see which account you’re currently using in Google Calendar on mobile

Quick launch summary

We’ve added account profile pictures in the top corner of Google Calendar on mobile so you can confidently tell which account you’re currently using and easily toggle between accounts.

See your account profile picture in the top right corner



This visual cue will also make it easier to tell what account you’re creating an event under in Calendar on your Android and iOS device.

Clicking the profile picture will allow you to switch between enabled accounts, just as you do in other Google apps.

Toggle between accounts by clicking on the profile picture



Note that you will still be able to see events for all accounts you’re logged into, or any other calendar account you added.

The account you’re active in will always be listed at the top of the accounts in the overflow menu.

See all accounts in the overflow menu



Getting started


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

Prevent unwanted invitations from being added to your calendar

What’s changing 

We've improved the "Automatically add invitations" setting to help prevent unwanted invitations from being added to your calendar. You can now choose to either: 

  • Always have invitations automatically added 
  • Only have them automatically added if you have RSVP’d in the email event invitation.
These settings allow you to prevent invitations from automatically being added to your calendar or to be visible for others who you've shared your calendar with
These settings allow you to prevent invitations from automatically being added to your calendar or to be visible for others who you've shared your calendar with


Who’s impacted 

End users and developers 

Why it matters 

These additional controls can help you manage your calendar with less manual work by ensuring unwanted events don't appear, and you see only the events that are important to you. 

Additional details 

  • If you choose to only have events added if you RSVP, you’ll see an additional option to allow those who have permission to view or edit your events to see all invitations. 
  • When you change the setting, it only determines whether future events are added to your calendar. Any events that are already on the calendar will remain visible unless you delete them. 
  • If you choose to only add events when you RSVP, you’ll receive an email invitation to all events, even if the organizer chooses not to send one. This will help prevent you from missing events. Note that this doesn’t apply to updates, only to invitations. 
  • We've moved the notification option ("Yes, but only notify me if I've responded Yes or Maybe") into the notifications section to help you better manage when you get notifications. 

Getting started 

  • Admins: There is no admin control for this feature. 
  • End users: This feature will be OFF by default and can be turned on by the user by going to Open Google Calendar > Go to settings > Scroll to event settings > "Add invitations to my calendar". Visit the Help Center to learn more about Responding to event invitations .

Rollout pace 

Availability 

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

Resources 

Set tasks to repeat in Google Calendar

Quick launch summary

You can now set tasks to repeat in Google Calendar and customize the recurrence schedules, similar to other entry types in Calendar. This means you can:
  • Create tasks with recurrence rules Edit the recurrence rule of an existing task Set an "end condition" for a recurrence rule
Change the recurrence of a task in Calendar




We hope this change helps you get more things done in Google Workspace.

Getting started

  • Admins: There is no admin control for this feature.
  • End users: These options will be available when creating a new task, or editing an existing task in Calendar. Visit the Help Center to learn more about tasks in Calendar.

Rollout pace

Availability

  • Available to all Google Workspace customers, as well as G Suite Basic and Business customers

Resources

Control the display of user availability across Google Workspace products with a new admin control

Quick launch summary

We’re introducing a new Admin setting that controls whether a user’s Google Calendar status is displayed across Google Workspace products. For example, when the setting is turned OFF, end users will no longer see if their colleagues are out of office in products such as Google Chat or Gmail.

We hope this new setting gives admins greater control over what user information is displayed across Google Workspace products.

Getting started


Rollout pace

Availability

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

Resources

Indicate whether you’ll join a meeting virtually or in person, now on Gmail

Quick launch summary

In July of this year, we introduced new RSVP options for Calendar invitations to make Google Calendar more flexible in the hybrid workplace. We’re now adding this same functionality to RSVPs in Gmail.

Dropdown menu showing new RSVP methods in Gmail
New RSVP options in Gmail



With these RSVP options, you can indicate how you plan to join a meeting—in the meeting room, or virtually. Then, both the organizer and guests will be able to see how attendees are planning to attend the meeting in the event detail. This will help meeting attendees know what to expect when joining a meeting, and prepare accordingly.

Note that if you select the new RSVP options, the join method details (e.g. “joining virtually”) are not shared with contacts on other platforms, such as Microsoft Outlook.

Getting started


Rollout pace


Availability

  • Available to all Google Workspace customers, as well as G Suite Basic and Business customers

Resources

Set aside time for focus in Google Calendar



What’s changing

We’re introducing a new Google Calendar entry type, Focus time, so you can block out and protect your time for heads-down individual work. Similar to the Out of office event type, focus time has a different appearance on your calendar and includes the option to automatically decline conflicting events.

Focus timer is now an entry type in Calendar
Create a Focus time entry in Calendar

An example of what a Focus time entry will look like on Calendar, with a headphones icon
Focus time appears with a headphones icon on your calendar

Who’s impacted

End users

Why it’s important

With the changes to our working environments in the past year, having more chats and meetings make it more difficult for people to carve out time for their core individual work. With the new focus time feature, we hope to make it easier to create dedicated time for thinking and core work.

Additional details

You can choose to assign a new color to have your focus time have a different visibility from your events and other meetings.

Additionally, your scheduled focus time will also be tracked in your Time Insights.

Getting started

  • Admins: There is no admin control for this feature.
  • End users: This feature will be ON by default. Visit the Help Center to learn more about using focus time.

Rollout pace


Availability

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

Resources