Tag Archives: Google Calendar

Let Google Calendar automatically book a replacement room for your events

What’s changing

If a room declines your event, Google Calendar can now find a similar room to replace it, automatically.

Who’s impacted

Admins and end users

Why you’d use it

In the past, when a room declined a Calendar meeting, your users may not have noticed until the last minute, leaving them and their guests without a room. This was especially common with recurring meetings, where a room may have declined on some dates but not others.

When this new feature is enabled, your users will save time and effort as Calendar automatically tries to find and book a replacement room that is a similar size, is in the same building, and has the same equipment.


Additional details 

The organizer and guests of the event will receive an email informing them of the newly booked room. Visit the Help Center for more information.




Getting started

  • Admins: This feature will be ON by default and can be disabled at the domain level by going to Admin console > Building and resources > Global Room Settings and deselecting “Automatic room replacement.”Please note that for this feature to work, the setting must be enabled and you must have structured resources added in the Admin console. Make sure your resources are all classified correctly to prevent incorrect room replacements.
  • End users: There is no end user setting for this feature. Visit the Help Center to learn more about automatic room replacement.



Rollout pace

Admin setting
Feature rollout

Availability

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

Resources

More options for sharing your availability in Google Calendar

What’s changing 

We’re adding two new options in Calendar, which will help you better communicate your work availability to your colleagues. Specifically, you can: 
  • Create repeating out of office entries. 
  • Split your working hours into multiple segments each day. 
At the moment, working hour segments will only be available on the web and repeating out of office entries on the web and Android devices. See below for more information on these features, including rollout details. 



Who's impacted

End users



Why it’s important 

As many people have experienced changes to their working environments in the past year, their work schedules have also changed—and are now often mixed with personal commitments and other obligations. We hope that with the addition of repeating out of office entries and segmentable working hours, you can better organize your time and communicate availability to your colleagues. 

You can use segmentable working hours to indicate when certain blocks of time are outside of your working hours. Working hours are visible on your calendar when someone schedules a meeting with you. 

In addition to using repeating out of office entries for vacation time, you can use them to indicate time when you need to handle personal commitments—like childcare, exercise, and more. They can also be used to better communicate part-time availability or certain days when you're consistently unavailable. 



Additional details 

Repeating out of office entries and declining meeting behavior 
If you create a repeating out of office entry and select “Automatically decline meetings,” a decline meeting notification will be sent to the organizers of any meetings scheduled during your repeating OOO. If the declined meeting is a recurring meeting, those organizers may get multiple notifications—these emails are bundled for Gmail users, but not always for users of other email services. 



Getting started 

Segment your working hours in Google Calendar

Rollout pace 

Working hour segments 
  • Rapid Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on February 22, 2021 
  • Scheduled Release domains: Extended rollout (potentially longer than 15 days for feature visibility) starting on March 8, 2021 

Repeating out of office entries 
  • Rapid Release domains: Extended rollout (potentially longer than 15 days for feature visibility) starting on March 1, 2021 
  • Scheduled Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on March 15, 2021 


Availability 

  • Available to Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Fundamentals, and Education Plus, as well as G Suite Basic, Business, and Nonprofits customers 

Resources 

New Calendar admin privilege hierarchy in the Admin console

What’s changing

You can now grant admin privileges for Calendar-related settings and resource management separately.

We’re changing the hierarchy of privileges within the Calendar privileges section of the Admin console. Before, to control calendar-related admin privileges, you had to use the "All Settings" checkbox, which controlled both calendar settings and resource management. Now, there's a separate "Settings" checkbox which allows you to assign privileges related to calendar settings separately from resource management.

Old hierarchy

New hierarchy

Who’s impacted

Admins only

Why you’d use it

With this change, admins can now create more specified custom roles to delegate tasks clearly and without worrying who the appropriate user is, for example:
  • An admin who can only manage buildings and resources 
  • An admin who can only see room insights
  • An admin who can only modify calendar-related settings

Getting started

  • Admins: In the Admin console, go to Account > Admin roles and select the admin role for which you’d like to designate privileges. Click on Calendar.
  • End users: No action required.

Additional details

Existing pre-built and custom roles will NOT be affected by this change. To learn more about the different admin privileges and their definitions, check out the Help Center.

Rollout pace

Availability

  • Available to Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Fundamentals, and Education Plus, as well as G Suite Basic, Business, and Nonprofits customers

Resources

 

New Calendar admin privilege hierarchy in the Admin console

What’s changing

You can now grant admin privileges for Calendar-related settings and resource management separately.

We’re changing the hierarchy of privileges within the Calendar privileges section of the Admin console. Before, to control calendar-related admin privileges, you had to use the "All Settings" checkbox, which controlled both calendar settings and resource management. Now, there's a separate "Settings" checkbox which allows you to assign privileges related to calendar settings separately from resource management.

Old hierarchy

New hierarchy

Who’s impacted

Admins only

Why you’d use it

With this change, admins can now create more specified custom roles to delegate tasks clearly and without worrying who the appropriate user is, for example:
  • An admin who can only manage buildings and resources 
  • An admin who can only see room insights
  • An admin who can only modify calendar-related settings

Getting started

  • Admins: In the Admin console, go to Account > Admin roles and select the admin role for which you’d like to designate privileges. Click on Calendar.
  • End users: No action required.

Additional details

Existing pre-built and custom roles will NOT be affected by this change. To learn more about the different admin privileges and their definitions, check out the Help Center.

Rollout pace

Availability

  • Available to Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Fundamentals, and Education Plus, as well as G Suite Basic, Business, and Nonprofits customers

Resources

 

Enable offline support for Google Calendar on web from your computer

Quick summary 

You can now enable offline support for Google Calendar on Google Chrome from your computer. When enabled, you can view your calendar and events from four weeks prior or any time in the future by week, day, or month. This is particularly useful when you’re offline or have unreliable internet access. 

Getting started 

  • Admins: This feature will be ON by default and can be disabled on domain or OU level. To disable this feature for your organization, in the Admin console go to Workspace > Calendar > Settings for Calendar > Advanced Settings > Calendar web offline and uncheck “Allow using Calendar on the web when offline”. 


  • End users: When enabled by your admin, this feature will be OFF by default and can be enabled on a per device basis. Visit the Help Center to learn more about using Calendar offline on your desktop. 




Rollout pace 

Admin Control 

End User Setting 

Availability 

  • Available to Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, and Enterprise Plus, as well as G Suite Basic, Business, Education, Enterprise for Education, and Nonprofits customers 

Resources 

Turn Google Meet Quick access on or off from Google Calendar

Quick launch summary 

Meeting organizers in G Suite for Education and Enterprise for Education domains can now turn Quick access on or off for a meeting from the event in Google Calendar. The Quick access setting helps organizers control if participants must ask to join the video meeting. By adding controls to calendar events, organizers can configure the setting appropriately in advance of the meeting. Previously, the setting could only be controlled via the Host controls menu during the meeting. 

As announced last week, the Quick access setting is now “sticky” for recurring meetings. That means that if you change the setting—either before the meeting via Google Calendar or during the meeting via in-call settings—it will be saved for any future meetings that use the same meeting code. 
Control Quick access from the event in Google Calendar 


Getting started 

  • Admins: There is no admin control for this feature. 
  • End users: Quick access is turned ON by default for all meetings. It can be turned off or on for each meeting, and any changes will be saved for future meetings that use the same meeting code. Visit our Help Center to learn more about Quick access. 

Rollout pace 

Availability 

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

Resources 

Support for multiple Exchange endpoints on Google Calendar

What’s changing

We’re enabling support for multiple Microsoft Exchange endpoints so Google Calendar users can view calendar availability for Exchange users across multiple Exchange environments within Calendar Interop. Calendar Interop is a feature that lets you sync events and availability between Google Calendar and Exchange (both on-premises and Exchange Online).

Who’s impacted

Admins and end users

Why you’d use it

If your organization has multiple subsidiaries, or if you want to share calendar availability between trusted external partners, you can now add their Exchange server endpoint as an additional endpoint in the Calendar Interop tool. Each new endpoint must have a unique domain.

Getting started

  • Admins: The new setting update can be found in the Admin console at Apps > Workspace > Calendar > Calendar Interop management. Visit our Help Center to learn more about setting up Exchange calendar availability sharing in the Admin console.
  • End users: Once an additional Exchange endpoint is added, end users should be able to view calendar availability within a few hours.

Rollout pace

Availability

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

Resources

Schedule Google Calendar events from Google Chat

Quick launch summary

You can now schedule meetings in Calendar directly from Chat conversations. You’ll see a new icon in the conversation’s compose bar.



Clicking on the icon will start a draft calendar event with the attendees from the chat. You can then customize the invite (including attendees) before sending it to guests.

On mobile, the draft event will open in the Calendar app.


On the web, the draft event will open in the side panel.



This feature is currently rolling out to Chat in the Android Gmail app as well as the Chat Android mobile app and will begin rolling out to the Chat in Gmail on the web and Chat iOS app in the coming weeks.

Getting started

  • Admins: This feature will be ON by default for all domains with Calendar enabled.
  • End users: There is no end user setting for this feature.

Rollout pace


Availability

  • Available to Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, and Enterprise Plus, as well as G Suite Basic, Business, Education, Enterprise for Education, and Nonprofits customers

 

View your personal and work calendars together on Google Calendar with Android 11 work profile

What’s changing

In Google Calendar, when you’re using a work profile on a device with Android 11 and up, you can now see your personal and work calendars together.

Who’s impacted

Admins and end users

Why you’d use it

Android work profile makes it easy to separate your work and personal data on the same device. When it comes to your calendar events, however, it’s useful to be able to manage both work and personal events in a single place. That’s why we’ve added support for viewing your personal calendars in your work Calendar app. We’ve leveraged a new secure mechanism provided by Android 11 to continue to store personal and work calendar data separately with the same work profile privacy protection.

Additional details

Both admins and users must enable this feature before the experience will become available on a user’s work Calendar app.

Once enabled, you’ll be able to view your personal calendars alongside your work calendars in the work Calendar app, and quickly switch back to your personal Calendar app to make edits. Work events will not be shown on your personal Calendar app. Personal calendars on your work Calendar app will be invisible to coworkers and administrators, unless you share your personal calendars directly with your work account.

Getting started

Admins: This feature will be OFF by default. Cross-profile permissions can be enabled at the Google Workspace app level. Please reach out to your Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) provider to learn how. This setting is usually available on the Admin console provided by your EMM provider.

End users: If your organization allows it, you can enable the work Calendar app to display your personal calendars from the personal Calendar app. See the Help Center for instructions.

Rollout pace


Availability

  • Available to Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, and Enterprise Plus, as well as G Suite Basic, Business, Education, Enterprise for Education, and Nonprofits

Resources

Make Google Meet or an add-on your default video conferencing option in Google Calendar

Quick launch summary

We’re giving you more control over how your end users choose between available conferencing providers when creating Calendar events by introducing a new Admin console setting to “Make Google Meet the default video conferencing provider."


Starting November 16, all users in organization units (OUs) with Meet set as the default provider and both with Meet and at least one other 3rd party video conferencing add-on enabled will see a sectioned button to add video conferencing when creating events. The’ll have:
  • The option to add Meet video conference with a single click
  • The option to add third party video conferencing via the separate dropdown
New conferencing UI for users creating events in Calendar



As an administrator you can install add-ons for all users with domain-wide installs via the Google Workspace marketplace or allow users to install add-ons themselves.

Getting started

Admins: This feature will be ON by default and can be disabled at the OU level. Since this feature will not roll out to end users until November 16, admins can use those 30 days to modify their settings as necessary before they take effect.

Visit the Help Center to learn more about controlling video conferencing for Calendar events in your organization. Note, this setting only affects the experience for users with both Google Meet and conferencing add-ons installed.

Video conferencing setting in the Admin console


You will still have the ability to make an Add-on your default video conferencing provider.

If you prefer your users to only use an Add-On provider:

End users: There is no end user setting for this feature. Visit the Help Center to learn more about adding or removing a video conference from your Calendar event.

Rollout pace

Admin setting

End user changes

Availability

  • Available to Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education, Enterprise for Education, and Nonprofits customers

Resources