Tag Archives: Google Chat

Google Workspace Updates Weekly Recap – April 29, 2022

New updates 

Updated rollout schedule for additional Calendar statuses in Google Chat 
We’d like to provide updated rollout information for additional Calendar statuses in Google Chat, previously announced on March 14, 2022: 
  • Rollout for Rapid release domains will be complete on Wednesday, May 5, 2022. 
  • Rollout for Scheduled release domains will begin on Wednesday, May 11, 2022 and is expected to be complete by Tuesday, May 24, 2022. 


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. 



Easily manage storage related activity and policies through new storage management tools in the Admin console 
In the Admin console, storage related activities can now be accessed and managed from a single source. | Learn more. 



Quick access to additional actions when composing a message in Google Chat on iOS 
When using Google Chat on iOS, you can now easily take additional actions by hovering over the plus (“+”) icon next to the compose bar. You’ll see a variety of options such as: 
  • Sharing a Google Meet link 
  • Creating a meeting in Calendar 
  • Accessing Google Drive Text formatting options and more. 




Enhanced menus in Google Docs improves findability of key features on desktop 
We’re updating the menus in Google Docs to make it easier to locate the most commonly-used features. In this update you’ll notice: 
  • Shortened menus for better navigation 
  • Reorganization for more intuitive feature location 
  • Prominent icons for faster recognition 



Warning banners alert users of suspicious Google Docs, Sheets, or Slides files on web 
Previously, we announced warning banners for potentially malicious or dangerous files in Google Drive. We’re extending these warnings at the file-level — going forward, if you open a Google Docs, Sheets, or Slides file on the web, you’ll see these warnings. | Learn more. 


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

Quick access to additional actions when composing a message in Google Chat on iOS

Quick launch summary 

When using Google Chat on iOS, you can now easily take additional actions by hovering over the plus (“+”) icon next to the compose bar. You’ll see a variety of options such as: 
  • Sharing a Google Meet link 
  • Creating a meeting in Calendar 
  • Accessing Google Drive 
  • Text formatting options and more. 




We hope this makes it easier to do your best work and collaborate when using Google Chat on your mobile device. 

Getting started 

  • Admins: There is no admin action required. 
  • End users: Visit the Help Center to learn more about how to use Google Chat. 

Rollout pace 


Availability 

  • Available to all Google Workspace customers and users with personal Google Accounts 

Resources 

Specify which Google Chat notifications from Chat and Gmail to receive when your iOS device is in Focus mode

Quick summary 

You can now specify which Google Chat and Gmail contacts you still want notifications from when your iOS device is in Focus mode. This is useful in situations where you need to limit screen time, but don’t want to miss an important message when other notifications are silenced. 



Getting started 


Rollout pace 


Availability 

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

Resources 

Enable discovery and sharing of Spaces in Google Chat

What’s changing 

You can now create spaces in Google Chat that you can share with others in your organization to join via link. 

Update a space's access to everyone in an organization when creating a new space

Quickly copy a link to share with others


Easily join a new space with a shared link

Who’s impacted 

End users 


Why it’s important 

With this launch, Spaces are no longer restricted to only people added to the conversation. This update allows for the creation of topic-based conversations that can be shared more broadly within an organization. This can be particularly useful for spaces that are oriented around: 
  • Sharing knowledge widely with others, including team discussions, how-to guides and mentoring opportunities. 
  • Organizational and policy updates. 
  • Situations where you need to quickly gather interested folks or those with relevant expertise, for example to investigate an outage. 
  • Cultural and social topics of interest, like reading, sports, or cooking. 

We hope this feature makes it easier to more broadly share information, build communities and foster discussion across your organization. 


Additional details 

Configuring a space to be shareable 
Users can only enable a space to be shareable within an organization at creation. At this time, users cannot enable discovery for existing spaces and share them via link. 


Access to a shareable space 
Note that users outside of your organization will not be able to join such a space, even with the shared link. 


Getting started 


Rollout pace 


Availability 

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

Resources

How Jira for Google Chat uses the latest platform features for app and bot building

Posted by By Kyle Zhao, Software Engineer and Charles Maxson, Developer Advocate

Nothing breaks the flow of getting work done like having to stop what you’re doing in one application and switch over to another to look up information, log an event, create a ticket or check on the status of a project task. For Google Workspace users who also rely on Atlassian’s Jira Software for their issue tracking and project management needs, Jira for Chat helps bridge the gap between having conversations with your team in Google Chat and seamlessly staying on top of issues and tasks from Jira while keeping everyone in the loop.

Recently, there have been a number of enhancements to the Google Chat framework for developers that allows them to make connections between applications like Jira and Google Chat a whole lot better. And in this post, we’ll take a look at how the latest version of Jira for Chat takes advantage of some of those newer enhancements for building apps and bots for Chat. Whether you are thinking about building or upgrading your own integration with Chat, or are simply interested in getting more out of using Jira with Google Workspace for you and your team, we’ll cover how Jira for Chat brings those newer features to life.

Connections made easy: Improved Connection Flow

One of the most important steps for getting users to leverage any integration is to make it as easy as possible to set up. Setting up Jira to integrate with Chat requires two applications to be installed, 1) the Google Chat bot for Jira Cloud from the Atlassian Marketplace and 2) Jira for Chat (unfortunately there are no direct links available, but you can navigate to it in the Chat catalog) located in the Google Chat application under the “+” icon to start a chat.

In the earlier version of Jira for Chat, the setup required a number of steps that were somewhat less intuitive. That’s changed, with the redesign of the new connection flow process that’s built around an improved connection wizard that provides detailed visual information to connect Jira for Chat to your Jira instance.

The new wizard (made possible by enhancements with the Chat dialogs feature) takes the guesswork of trudging through a number of tedious steps, shows actionable errors if something has been misconfigured or isn’t working and makes it easier by parse out Jira URLs guiding users along the way. See the connection wizard in action below. Now anyone can set it up like a pro!

Jira for Chat Connection Flow Wizard Dialog

Batched Notifications: Taking care of notification fatigue

A user favorite feature of Jira for Chat is its ability to keep you informed via Google Chat of updates to your team's projects, tickets and tasks. But nobody likes a ‘chatty’ app either and notification fatigue is real—and really annoying. Notifications are only useful when they provide valuable information in a timely fashion without being overburdening - otherwise they run the risk of being ignored or even turned off.

To avoid notification fatigue, the Jira Chat bot enables batched notifications that optimizes sending notifications in batches based on the time elapsed since the last activity in an issue. Jira for Chat will send all updates to a ticket with a single card to Google Chat if a lot of activity is happening in Jira until at least 15 seconds have passed since the last update to the issue or 60 seconds have passed since the first update in the group. The latter keeps notifications fresh in case a lot of continuous activity is happening.

Updates to the same Jira issue are grouped in one notification card, until one of the following conditions is true:

  1. 15 seconds have passed without any additional updates to the issue.

    Example: Alice reassigned issue X at 6:00:00, and then added a comment at 6:00:10. Both the “assignee change” and the “new comment” will be grouped into a single notification, sent at 6:00:25.

  1. 60 seconds have passed since the first update in the group (to ensure a timely delivery)

    Example: Alice reassigned issue X at 6:00:00, and kept adding comments every 10 seconds. A notification card should be posted around 6:01:00, with all the changes in the past 60 seconds.

Example, Batching Notifications from 5 down to 1

Link Unfurling: Relevant context where you need it

One of the goals of integrating applications with Google Workspace is streamlining the flow of information with less clicks and fewer open tabs, making the new Link Unfurling feature a welcome addition to any Chat bot. Link Unfurling (also known as Link Previews) preemptively includes contextual information associated with a link passed to a Chat message, keeping the information inline and in context to the conversation while eliminating the need to interrupt your focus by following the link out of the conversation to its original source to gather more information.

Specifically with Jira for Chat, this means when a teammate posts a Jira link in Chat or pings you asking about more information about one of your tickets they’ve just linked in a message, you can now see that information immediately in the conversation along with the link, saving the steps of having to resort back to Jira every time. Link unfurling with the Jira Chat bot happens automatically once the app has been added and configured within a Chat conversation, there’s nothing additional that users need to do, and any links that Jira can preview will automatically get previewed within Chat.

Link Unfurling example in Jira for Chat

Create Issue Dialog: Take action from within Chat

Imagine you are in a lengthy conversation thread with colleagues in Google Chat, when you come to the conclusion that the topic you are discussing warrants a new ticket being created in your Jira instance. Instead of pivoting away from the conversation in Chat to create a new ticket in Jira, you can now quickly create a new Jira issue in Chat thanks to Jira for Chat.

To create an issue from Chat, simply invoke the slash command /jira_create to bring up the Create Issue dialog (enabled by the Chat dialogs feature). Then specify the Project that you would like to assign the ticket to, select Ticket Type, and enter a brief Summary. The rest of the fields are optional such as labels and description, and those, as well as advanced fields can always be filled out within your Jira instance at a later time if you would like. This way you can jump right back into the conversation, knowing you won’t forget to get this ticket logged, but also without missing a beat with what your team is talking about.

Create a Jira Issue Dialog

Takeaway and More Resources

The new enhancements to Jira for Chat make it a super useful companion for teams that rely on Google Workspace and Jira Software to manage their work. Whether it's the new and improved connection flow, the less-is-more batched notifications handling, or the instant gratification of creating issues directly from Chat, it's more than just a productivity booster, but also a great showcase for how the types of apps you can build with Google Chat are evolving.

Get started with Jira for Chat today or learn how you can build your own apps for Google Chat with the developer docs. To keep up with all the news about the Google Workspace Platform, please subscribe to our newsletter.

Expanded Access Management Controls help support your information governance goals

What’s changing 

Google Workspace Assured Controls enables customers to meet strict regulatory information governance requirements. With Access Management, customers can limit the Google staff who can take support actions related to their data. 

Customers can now use Access Management to set policies that support compliance to the Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) standard and the IRS' Publication 1075 (IRS 1075) by restricting access to CJIS-authorized and IRS-1075-authorized personnel within Google. Visit the Help Center to learn more. 

We’ve also extended existing coverage so customers can now apply Access Management Controls to the following applications: 

  • Google Chat 
  • Google Meet 
  • Google Forms 
  • Google Sites 

Visit the Help Center to learn more. 

Finally, we’re adding new information to Access Transparency logs to help you better understand support actions relating to your data. Customers with Access Management policies will see a new field “Access Management Policy” that denotes the validated policy at the time of access. All Access Transparency customers will now see a new “On Behalf Of” field that describes the target user of an access. Visit the Help Center to learn more. 

For more information on this and other Google Workspace Security launches, see our Cloud Blog post.

Who’s impacted 

Admins 

Why you’d use it 

Some customers in regulated industries, particularly the public sector, have compliance requirements related to cloud service provider access to data. Since Assured Controls is available on Google Workspace’s native platform, you don’t need to move to a separate GovCloud environment for access to these capabilities. This can help reduce costs and complexity, while allowing your organization to benefit from the full set of advanced features that Google Workspace offers. 

Additional Details 

Note that we do not access customer data for any reason other than those necessary to provide support services and fulfill our contractual and legal obligations. 

Getting started 

  • Admins: 
    •  Once you’ve purchased the Assured Controls add-on, you can assign licenses and manage the feature at Admin Console > Access Management. Users assigned the policy will have any data owned by them restricted to designated selected personnel within our support teams. 
    • Access Management is surfaced for logging in the Access Transparency logs. 
    • Access Management can also be used to support CJIS and IRIS-1075 requirements. 
  • End users: There is no end user impact 

Rollout pace 

These changes will be rolling out by the end of March 

  • Existing Assured Controls customers will automatically have controls applied to the newly available products on any active Access Management policies 
  • New customers should contact your Google account representative to learn more about availability and timing 

Availability 

  • Google Workspace Assured Controls is available as an add-on to Google Workspace Enterprise Plus customers 
  • Not available to Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, Education Fundamentals, and Education Plus, as well as G Suite Basic, Business, and Nonprofits customers 

Resources 

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


Define and manage Chat Spaces, space descriptions, and guidelines with a new “manager” role

What’s changing 


We're introducing several improvements for Spaces in Google Chat to help you better organize people, topics, and projects. 

These improvements include: 

  • Manager role so certain users have greater control over the management of a space. 
  • Space descriptions so users can set context for their spaces. 
  • Space guidelines to ensure safe and effective communication environments. 


Who’s impacted 

End users 

Why it’s important 

The Manager role provides tools to promote healthy conversations and control the availability of the space within an organization. Space creators will be managers by default and can assign other members in the space this role as well. 


Space managers will have a badge next to their name on the member list

 Space managers will have a badge next to their name on the member list


Managers can also add a description for spaces. This field can be used to describe the purpose of the space, such as ’a place to discuss all things asteroids,’ which is helpful context for members of the space.

You can add a space description when creating a space or by selecting “View space details” for an existing space on both web and mobile. Space descriptions can be viewed when a user is in the “Browse Spaces” view or by selecting “View space details.”


Adding a space decription


Adding a space description


Additionally, Managers can describe space guidelines that establish rules and expectations for members to create a safer community experience. 


Space guidelines

Space guidelines


We hope this feature makes it easier to share the purpose and guidelines for a particular space, making it easier for your collaborators to navigate quickly to the appropriate space. 


Getting started 


Rollout pace 

Space Roles: 

Mobile: 

  • Rapid and Scheduled Release domains: Extended rollout (potentially longer than 15 days for feature visibility) starting on February 28, 2022, with anticipated completion by March 14, 2022 

Web: 

Space Descriptions and Guidelines: 

  • We anticipate rollout for the descriptions and guidelines features to begin later this month. We’ll share an update on the Workspace Updates Blog when rollout begins. 


Availability 

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

Resources 

Roadmap 

This feature was listed as an upcoming release.

Google Workspace Updates Weekly Recap – February 25, 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 G Suite customers.


AppSheet Support is now available through the Workspace Admin console
Available to all  AppSheet customers who have admin user access through Workspace Support. AppSheet Core is available as an add-on paid subscription to all Google Workspace editions. | Available to all  AppSheet customers who have admin user access through Workspace Support. AppSheet Core is available as an add-on paid subscription to all Google Workspace editions. | Learn more here. 



Updated emoji experience in Google Chat on web
Last year we updated the emoji experience on mobile.Now we have brought the ability to express yourself more authentically in Chat on Web. We’re making the following updates to the emoji experience: 
  • The Emoji set is updated to the latest version (Emoji 13.1), reflecting the latest emoji set and diversity and inclusion options.
  • Gender-neutral options for gender-modifiable emojis have been added.
  • Emoji skin tone and gender preferences are saved per individual emoji. 

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.


Classic Hangouts will be upgraded to Google Chat beginning March 22, 2022
Beginning March 22, 2022, we’ll turn on the “Chat preferred” setting for any customers who haven’t already done so, making Google Chat the default chat application. This means that when users visit classic Hangouts in Gmail on the web or the classic Hangouts mobile apps, they’ll be directed to Chat. Hangouts.google.com will continue to work. It is not possible to opt out of this change. | Learn more. 



Google Workspace Migrate is now generally available
Google Workspace Migrate, previously announced in beta in 2019, is now generally available for select Google Workspace Editions. This first-party, on-premise product helps admins assess and plan migration projects, and confidently migrate their users and large amounts of critical content directly into Google Workspace. | Available to Google Workspace Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Standard, Education Plus, and legacy G Suite Business customers only. | Learn more.


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

Classic Hangouts will be upgraded to Google Chat beginning March 22, 2022

What’s changing

 
We're now ready to move into the final phase of the migration from Classic Hangouts to Google Chat for Google Workspace customers. 

Beginning March 22, 2022, we’ll turn on the “Chat preferred” setting for any customers who haven’t already done so, making Google Chat the default chat application. This means that when users visit classic Hangouts in Gmail on the web or the classic Hangouts mobile apps, they’ll be directed to Chat. Hangouts.google.com will continue to work. It is not possible to opt out of this change. If you’d like to export your classic Hangouts and Chat data, learn about exporting your organization’s data. 

NOTE: This phase does not affect the personal use of Hangouts with a Google Account. 


See below for more information and timing. 


Who’s impacted 

Admins and end users 

Why it matters 

Starting March 22, 2022, classic Hangouts users with the following domain settings will be migrated to Google Chat:

Admin console setting

Automatic upgrade timeline

Chat and classic Hangouts

Access groups with both Google Chat and classic Hangouts turned on

Over the course of three weeks starting March 22, 2022

Classic Hangouts only

Access groups with only classic Hangouts enabled

Over the course of five weeks starting April 4, 2022



After domains are upgraded to “Chat preferred,” all classic Hangouts applications, except hangouts.google.com, will be disabled. Additionally, the “Chat and classic Hangouts” and “Classic Hangouts only” settings will be removed from the Admin console. 

Additional details 

  • Vault users: Messages sent in classic Hangouts will continue to be retained and held according to policies set for Chat, and searchable and exportable with Gmail search in Vault. Messages sent in Chat are subject to retention rules and holds you set for Chat, and searchable and exportable with Chat search in Vault.
  • Conversation history: Except for a few special cases, all the conversation history from Hangouts will be available in Google Chat. However, starting mid-March 2022, any newly created spaces in Google Chat within your domain will not appear in classic Hangouts. This means that messages sent in these spaces will only appear in Google Chat for your affected users. You can learn more about Chat and classic Hangouts interoperability. 


Getting started 

  • Admins: 
    •  If you currently have the “Classic Hangouts only” or “Chat and classic Hangouts” Admin console setting enabled for your entire domain or specific access groups, you’ll be automatically upgraded to the “Chat preferred” setting, per the dates listed above. You can upgrade all of your users to “Chat preferred” prior to those dates if you choose. 
    • If you don’t have the “Classic Hangouts only” or “Chat and classic Hangouts” setting selected, you don’t need to do anything. 
  • End user: There is no end user setting for this feature. Visit the Help Center to learn more about the switch from classic Hangouts to Google Chat. 

Availability 

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

Resources