Tag Archives: Google Calendar

Recurring Calendar meetings will migrate to Hangouts Meet video calling

What’s changing

As part of the migration from classic Hangouts to Hangouts Meet that we announced last year, we’ll now begin migrating the video conferencing for your recurring Calendar events from classic Hangouts to Meet. Previously, we made the change so that new events scheduled in Calendar will use Meet. Now this change is to update previously scheduled events in Calendar as well.

Who’s impacted

End users

Why we’re migrating

We've built Hangouts Meet to have a fast, simple interface with enterprise grade meeting functionality such as livestreaming and meeting with up to 100 people. To ensure you get the best-in-class experience we’re migrating the remainder of your existing recurring Calendar events. This will happen gradually in an effort to limit any disruption and ensure that you can focus on what’s important: meetings where people can be as productive as they are when they’re face-to-face.

How to get started


  • Admins: No action needed.
  • End users: When you join a recurring Calendar event on classic Hangouts, you will see a banner that future occurrences of this meeting will be on Meet.

Additional details

Migrating existing Calendar events
This change will take place gradually as users join affected meetings. They will see a migration banner notifying them future occurrences will be on Meet. After the end of the call, all participants will get an updated event information with the new meeting details. Single instance (non-recurring) Calendar events will remain unchanged.

If your meeting doesn’t migrate
Some of your meetings may not automatically update to Meet. When this happens, you’ll see a banner in the video call notifying end users to update the Calendar event to Meet. This may happen for complex Calendar event setups, such as if different events have the same video link.

Helpful links

Help Center: Migration FAQs

Availability

Rollout details

  • Rapid Release domains: Extended rollout (potentially longer than 15 days for feature visibility) starting on March 11, 2019
  • Scheduled Release domains: Extended rollout (potentially longer than 15 days for feature visibility) starting on March 25, 2019

G Suite editions
Available to all G Suite editions

On/off by default?
This setting will be ON by default.

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Easily enter building locations into the Admin console

What’s changing

You can now input addresses, instead of latitude and longitude coordinates, to enter the locations of your office buildings in the Admin console. This is a more efficient and reliable ways for you, as a G Suite admin, to manage international office locations.

Who’s impacted

Admins only

Why you’d use it

Adding address information immediately unlocks automatic correction of room and resource time zones based on building address. This ensures that you have correct data in the room insights dashboard. Additionally, with this change we’ll now automatically set the correct time zones for all resources in these buildings, and help ensure you see accurate usage by time of day in the room insights dashboard.

In the future, this information will also power other intelligent features such as:
  • Automatic time zone adjustment when you’re working from other buildings
  • Accurate directions from Calendar
  • Room suggestions in nearby buildings

How to get started


Admins: There are three ways to input this information:
  1. Directly from the Admin console user interface: In the Admin console under Manage Resources > Manage Buildings, you can enter addresses directly and be shown a Google map to confirm their location. This is recommended for entering a small number of buildings at a time. 
  2. Bulk upload via CSV file: This is also in the Admin console under Manage Resources > Manage Buildings. The bulk upload spreadsheet supports a general address format, so you can verify your locations in many countries and regions. 
  3. Upload via the Building Resources API
End users: No end user impact.



    Additional details

    Check out the Help Center for complete instructions on adding locations for all three of these methods and read the documentation on how to add building addresses via the API.

    Helpful links

    Help Center: Set up buildings, features, and other resources

    Availability

    Rollout details

    • Rapid Release domains: Full rollout (1-3 days for feature visibility) starting on February 6, 2019
    • Scheduled Release domains: Full rollout (1-3 days for feature visibility) starting on February 6, 2019
    G Suite editions
    Available to all G Suite editions
    On/off by default?
    This feature will be ON by default

    Stay up to date with G Suite launches

    Allow Google Calendar users to book Microsoft Exchange resources

    What’s changing

    You can now let your Google Calendar users book Microsoft Exchange calendar resources, such as meeting rooms, when they schedule a meeting.

    Who’s impacted

    Admins and end users

    Why you’d use it

    We know that some of you manage a coexistence of Google Calendar users and Microsoft Exchange users within your organizations. Last year, we added the ability to share free/busy information across users in these two environments. With this launch, Calendar users can now easily book any resources that are stored in Exchange.

    How to get started


    • Admins: To enable Exchange room booking in the Admin console, please follow these instructions.
    • End users: Once this feature is enabled, Calendar users will see both Calendar and Exchange resources displayed as bookable options.

    Additional details

    For more information about Calendar interop, check out the Help Center.

    Helpful links

    Help Center: Allow Calendar users to book Exchange resources

    Availability

    Rollout details


    G Suite editions
    Available to all G Suite editions

    On/off by default?
    This feature will be OFF by default and can be enabled at the domain level.

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    View Google Calendar attachments in Hangouts Meet

    You can now view the attachments that were included in Google Calendar, directly from a Hangouts Meet meeting. Attachments are available on the web and the Meet mobile apps.


    Clicking on the attachment will open the file in a new tab on the web. If you’re joining the meeting through the Meet mobile app, the attachment will open on the app best suited to that document (Google Docs, Google Sheets, Google Drive, etc).

    Launch Details
    Release track:
    Launching to both Rapid Release and Scheduled Release

    Editions:
    Available to all G Suite editions

    Rollout pace:
    Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility)

    Impact:
    All end users

    Action:
    Change management suggested/FYI

    More Information
    Help Center: Add attachments to your events

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    Google Calendar SMS notifications to be removed January 7, 2019

    Starting on January 7, 2019, SMS notifications from Google Calendar will no longer be available. Since Calendar offers in-app notifications, you can still get notified, regardless of your device or connection.

    If you had previously been receiving Calendar notifications via SMS, they’ll be replaced with in-app and email notifications. You’ll see these notifications:

    • As event notifications in a web browser that has Calendar open or a mobile device if you have the Google Calendar app for Android or iOS.
    • In an email if you had set up SMS notifications for new events, changed events, canceled events, or event responses.
    We’ll also be making some changes to the Calendar API to support this change. Check out the Google Developers’ page to learn more.

    Learn more about different Calendar event & notification settings in the Help Center. More Information Help Center: Change or turn off Calendar notifications

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    Export a CSV file of room insights data from the Admin console

    In August of this year, we announced the room insights dashboard in the Admin console. As a G Suite admin, you can use this dashboard to better understand how meeting resources are being used within your organization.

    We’ve heard from you that you’d like to export this helpful information in order to further analyze it. That’s why we’re now adding an option for you to export the raw data for your selected rooms and timeframe from the dashboard as a CSV file.


    The downloaded file will include:

    • Building
    • Floor
    • Resource name
    • Capacity
    • Total hours the room was booked
    • Average booking rate
    • Average occupancy rate
    • Booking distribution bucket (for example, rooms in the “Overbooked (8+hrs)” bucket were booked more than 8 hours every day)


    Check out the Help Center for more information on how your meeting rooms are used.

    Launch Details
    Release track:
    Launching to both Rapid Release and Scheduled Release

    Editions:
    Available to all G Suite editions

    Rollout pace:
    Full rollout (1–3 days for feature visibility)

    Impact:
    Admins only

    Action:
    Admin action suggested/FYI

    More Information
    Help Center: See how rooms and resources are used

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    Non-Google Calendar users will now always receive update notifications via email

    To make sure all attendees see the most up-to-date event information, we’re changing how Google Calendar communicates event updates to meeting attendees who don’t use Google Calendar. Specifically, users who don’t use Calendar will now always be sent an email when an event is created, updated or deleted in Google Calendar. Previously, some calendar systems would not update these details without an email, meaning event information was sometimes outdated. This feature has been widely requested by customers to help keep event details up to date for all users.

    “Don’t send” option for Google Calendar users

    When you create or change an event, Google Calendar asks if you want to notify attendees. This choice will only apply to Google Calendar attendees. Regardless of what notification choice you make, Google Calendar attendees’ events will be kept up to date.


    We’ll also be making some changes to the Calendar API to support this feature. You can learn more about the new sendUpdates parameter in the Calendar API reference.

    Launch Details
    Release track:
    Launching to Rapid Release, with Scheduled Release coming in two weeks

    Editions:
    Available to all G Suite editions

    Rollout pace:
    Full rollout (1–3 days for feature visibility)

    Impact:
    All end users

    Action:
    Change management suggested/FYI

    More Information
    Help Center: Sending event invitations and updates
    Google Developers: Calendar API

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    Third-party conferencing available in Google Calendar

    We’re adding native support for third-party conferencing tools in Google Calendar with Calendar add-ons. These add-ons allow a user to create, view and join a third-party video conference directly from a Calendar event without requiring a Chrome extension or download.

    Users can simply click a link in the Calendar invite to join on web or mobile.




    We’re launching with four partners whose add-ons are available in the G Suite Marketplace, with more to come in the future:

    • Cisco (Webex integration)
    • Citrix (GoToMeeting integration)
    • Dialpad (UberConference integration)
    • Vonage (Vonage integration)

    G Suite admins can install these add-ons for their entire domains or selected organization units. End users can also install these add-ons directly.

    Once installed, users can use add-ons to seamlessly add third-party conference details to newly created Calendar events. Other guests on these events will be able to see the third-party conferences and join them, even if they don’t have those particular add-ons installed.

    Learn more about third-party conferencing add-ons in the Help Center.

    Launch Details
    Release track:
    Launching to both Rapid Release and Scheduled Release

    Editions:
    Available to all G Suite editions

    Rollout pace:
    Full rollout (1–3 days for feature visibility)

    Impact:
    Admins and end users

    Action:
    Change management suggested/FYI

    More Information
    Help Center: Get extra Calendar tools
    Help Center: Allow add-ons for Calendar



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    Manage meeting rooms efficiently with automatic room release and room insights

    We want to help organizations make the best use of their space. To do that, we’re consolidating all features related to managing buildings and resources in a single dedicated place in the Admin console. We’re also introducing two new tools, room release and room insights, to help you understand your organization’s resource utilization and optimize occupancy.

    A single destination for building and resource management
    All features related to managing buildings and rooms are now united in a new and more prominent entry point in the Admin console called “Buildings and resources.” You can access this directly from the home screen or via Directory > Buildings and Resources in the navigation menu.



    Room release based on event declines
    According to an internal study, up to 40% of rooms are booked but go unused. To help your users reclaim those unused rooms, we’ll now automatically free up meeting rooms when all but one of the guests has declined the Google Calendar invitation. When the room is released, the event organizer will receive an email informing them of the change and suggesting that they reschedule or delete the meeting.



    You can enable this feature for structured rooms in the Admin console by navigating to your resources and selecting the rooms you wish to enable for room releases. You then need to click "EDIT" and turn Calendar-based room releases on for your selection.



    Please note, room release is only available for G Suite Business, Enterprise, Enterprise for Education, and Education editions and can only be enabled for structured rooms that are categorized as “CONFERENCE_ROOM.”

    Room insights dashboard
    We’re also adding a new dashboard in the Admin console for room insights. Here, you can see data such as:

    • The most and least frequently booked rooms
    • The usage and bookage rates of rooms across time zones and various room sizes
    • How many rooms could be freed up automatically with Calendar’s room release feature
    You can filter this data by building, floor, room, room capacity, room features, or time period for more granularity.



    With these reports, you can make better decisions about improvements to your workspace. They provide signals on where to investigate further. Some examples of insights include:

    • What are your most popular rooms?
    • Are your rooms under-utilized or over-utilized?
    • Which room sizes are most popular?
    • Which equipments drive room usage? Which A/V equipment should you invest more into?
    • When are the best times to schedule repairs and maintenance work?
    • At which times are rooms most booked, and can you educate members of your organization to shift the times when they schedule meetings?
    You can access this dashboard in the Admin console in the “Buildings & resources” section.

    With this launch, we’re also adding a new admin privilege, “room insights,” to grant other admins or your dedicated facilities managers the right to only view this dashboard and other resources.

    Please note, this data is only available for structured resources.

    Launch Details
    Release track:
    Both features launching to both Rapid Release and Scheduled Release

    Editions:

    • Room insights: available to all G Suite editions
    • Room release: available to G Suite Business, Enterprise, Enterprise for Education, and Education editions only
    Rollout pace:
    Full rollout (1–3 days for feature visibility)

    Impact:
    Admins and end users

    Action:
    Admin action suggested/FYI

    More Information
    Structuring resources

    Room release

    Room insights


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    Propose a new meeting time in Google Calendar

    Rescheduling in Google Calendar just got easier. We’re introducing a new feature that enables more efficient meeting scheduling. Now, each guest invited to a meeting can propose a new time and the organizer can easily review and accept time proposals. This allows for richer communication between attendees, reduces time spent on meeting practicalities, and makes meetings more productive with key stakeholders in attendance.

    When a user is invited to a Calendar event, they can respond “Yes,” “No,” Maybe,” and now, “Propose a new time.” If calendar access permissions have been granted, guests can see the other attendees' availability side by side, so they can suggest a time that works for everyone.



    Guests can then send their time proposal along with an optional message to the organizer, who can accept the proposed time with just one click.



    This functionality works across domains and with Microsoft Exchange. Guests can send proposals to organizers using Exchange, and organizers can receive proposals from guests using Exchange. Available on the web now, this is coming to mobile on August 13th, so your users can act while on the go.

    For more information, check out the Help Center.

    Launch Details
    Release track:
    Launching to Rapid Release, with Scheduled Release coming on August 13th

    Editions:
    Available to all G Suite editions

    Rollout pace:
    Full rollout (1–3 days for feature visibility)

    Impact:
    All end users

    Action:
    Change management suggested/FYI

    More Information
    Help Center: Respond to event invitations

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