Tag Archives: Google Meet

New Google Meet Hardware Admin console features: peripheral status, default volume, and static URLs

Quick launch summary 

We’re adding three new features to the Google Meet Hardware section of the Admin console: 

Peripheral status: 
In addition to the “Device status” column on the Device list page, we’ve added columns for connection status and peripheral status. These new columns will help you filter your device list in order to easily discover and troubleshoot issues, and identify devices with missing peripherals. 

Additionally, there is a new column management widget which you can use to quickly create customized views and sort through your devices faster. 



Default Volume: 
There are two new options for setting the default volume behavior on Meet Hardware devices: 
  • Preset volume mode: You can set a numerical value between 0 and 100 that devices will automatically use at the beginning of every call. 
  • Smart volume mode: This mode will automatically determine the best volume for the room by averaging the volume set by users in the five most recent calls. 
The default volume behavior for a single device can be set on its Device detail page. For a group of devices, use the bulk action option from the Device list page. 

Note that end users can still modify the volume on a device according to their preference regardless of the default volume selection. 



Static Device list URLs: 
Device list filters will now be uniquely encoded into the page’s URL. This makes it easy for admins who are responsible for specific organizational units or devices to bookmark a customized view or share it among team members. 

Getting started 

  • Admins: You’ll see these updates in the Admin console under Devices > Google Meet Hardware. 
  • End users: No action required 

Rollout pace 

Peripheral status and Default volume 
Static Device list URLs 

Availability 

  • Available to all Google Workspace customers in organizations with Google Meet Hardware

Customize notification frequency with more options in Google Chat and Chat in Gmail

What’s changing 

We’ve added more options for notification settings in Google Chat and Chat in Gmail. The new options affect push notifications on desktop and mobile, as well as notification badges on both the Chat and Gmail apps. You can set your notification preferences to:
  • Notify always: You’ll receive a notification for every message and new messages will be badged.
  • Notify less: You’ll receive notifications and badges for direct mentions, @all mentions, and followed threads. Additionally, there is an option to be notified about new threads in threaded rooms.
  • Notifications off: You will receive no notifications, but you’ll see a badge if you’re directly mentioned.

For existing Rooms, the notification setting may default to a state where you receive more notifications. To review and update your notification settings, simply select the three-dot overflow menu in each room.

Who’s impacted 

End users 

Why you’d use it 

These additional notification settings give you more control over the amount of notifications you’ll receive based on your level of engagement or involvement in specific conversations. We hope that by giving the ability you adjust your notifications as needed, you can stay on top of need-to-know conversations without being overwhelmed by notifications.

Getting started 

  • Admins: There is no admin control for this feature. We recommend that you familiarize yourself with the changes outlined in these Help Center articles and let your users know about the changes they can expect: 
  • End users: 
    • Visit the Help Center to learn more about turning notifications on or off in Gmail and Chat.
    • Make sure your Gmail and Google Chat apps are updated to the latest versions of the respective apps.

Rollout pace

Availability 

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


Resources 


Additional language support for live captions in Google Meet on Android and iOS devices

Quick launch summary 

Users in APAC and Europe can now enable live captions in the following languages in Google Meet on mobile devices: 
  • French 
  • German 
  • Portuguese 
  • Spanish (Spain and Latin America) 
Live captions can help users easily participate in meetings who may speak a different primary language, are in loud noisy environments, are deaf or hard of hearing, or have other disabilities that make listening difficult.


Getting started

  • Admins: No action required
  • End users: Visit the Help Center to learn more about using captions in Meet. Note: your language preference will be saved for future meetings.

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


See more video feeds in Google Meet

Quick launch summary

We’re expanding tile view layouts for Google Meet on iOS and Android to deliver a consistent user experience across platforms. Gradual rollout is in progress now for iOS, with rollout to Android to begin around the end of March. With this update, you can now:
  • Get an identical user experience whether you’re using Google Meet in Gmail or the Google Meet standalone app.
  • See up to 8 video feeds on phones.
  • See up to 48 video feeds on selected iPads.

See 8 video feeds on phones



See up to 48 video feeds on selected iPads


Getting started


Rollout pace


Availability

  • Available to all Google Workspace customers, as well as G Suite Basic and G Suite Business customers. Also available if you're using Google Meet with a personal Google account.

Resources


Roadmap

Google Workspace Education Plus admins can enable Google Meet recording for users with student licenses

Quick launch summary

We’re adding a new setting for Google Workspace for Education Plus (formerly G Suite for Education) admins that will enable Google Meet recording capabilities for users with Education Plus student licenses. Student licenses are available to customers who purchased Education Plus for their staff. 


When turned on, students can record meetings the same way other users can today. This can be helpful for students who want to review a lesson or class presentation later on. Once turned on, meeting recordings will be automatically saved to the student’s Google Workspace for Education Drive account. 


Getting started 

Rollout pace 

Availability 

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


Resources 

Set up Google Meet breakout rooms ahead of meetings in Google Calendar

Quick launch summary

You can now set up Google Meet breakout rooms in advance on Google Calendar. This makes it easier for teachers and meeting facilitators to prepare for differentiated learning, be thoughtful about group dynamics and avoid losing valuable time setting up breakout rooms during the call.

We previously announced this feature at Learning with Google, and it is now rolling out to customers.

Add breakout rooms to Google Meet from Calendar


Getting started

Rollout pace

Availability

  • 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, Teaching and Learning upgrade (launching in April)
  • Not available to Google Workspace Business Starter and Education Fundamentals, as well as G Suite Basic customers

Resources

New Google Meet Global Dialing subscription expands telephony coverage for Meet

What’s changing

We’re introducing a new Google Meet Global Dialing subscription, which will:
  • Enable users to dial out to more than 100 countries directly from a Meet call. This is currently only available to 2 countries.
  • Increase the number of countries users can dial in from to over 80, with more countries coming soon.
  • Make it easy for admins to monitor and audit call usage with the Google Voice audit log.

There is no subscription fee; you only pay for the calls your organization makes at the per-minute rate.

Who’s impacted

Admins and end users

Why you’d use it

This new add-on subscription will help improve access to video calls by enabling outbound calls to global destinations and dial-in to meetings from more countries.

Once enabled, your users will be able to:
  • Quickly add a phone to a meeting by calling someone, or use the “Call Me” feature to use your phone for audio, now available in more than 100 countries.
  • Easily dial in to join a Meet call when you don’t have an internet connection, have limited bandwidth, or are joining from the road, in more than 80 countries.
In addition, the Google Voice audit log will make it easy for admins to see a breakdown of all your call costs across Meet and Voice in a single place.

Additional details

The Meet Global Dialing subscription is currently available to customers based in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, France, Spain, Portugal, Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland, Ireland, Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Austria, and Belgium.

Note that, if you purchase Google Workspace through a reseller, your reseller must also be based in one of those countries to be eligible for the subscription.

Getting started

Rollout pace

  • This feature is available now.

Availability

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

Resources

Join Google Meet calls from third-party video conferencing systems more easily

What’s changing

  • If you’re using third-party video conferencing hardware with a third-party calendar service, you can now enable your users to join Meet video calls with just one click from the device.
  • If you’re using third-party video conferencing hardware with Google Calendar, you can now choose to have SIP meeting codes automatically added to new Calendar events.


Who’s impacted

Admins and end users

Why it’s important

Meet supports SIP URI—a common way to let video conferencing systems know how to join calls—but to date, many customers have found it difficult to use. With this launch, we’re giving admins the option to automatically add SIP join information to new third-party calendar events—thus making it easier for third-party hardware solutions to find and join Meet calls. If the hardware you use doesn’t have a calendar integration, we’ll automatically add SIP join information to new Calendar events. This should make it easier for users to join Meet calls on third-party video conferencing hardware.

Getting started

  • Admins: These features will be off by default. To take advantage of them, you need to download and install Pexip Infinity gateway and turn on Meet interoperability in the Admin console. You must then choose to use long meeting IDs. Visit the Help Center for instructions on how to use Meet with third-party video conferencing systems.
  • End users: There is no end user setting for these features. They will only work for users with interop enabled.

Rollout pace

  • This feature is available now for all domains.

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. A gateway license from Pexip or a Pexip partner is required for Meet interoperability.

Resources

End a Google Meet video call for everyone at once

What’s changing

When a Google Workspace for Education Fundamentals or Education Plus host leaves their meeting, they can now choose to keep others on the call or to end the call instead, ejecting everyone else.


We’ll launch this feature to additional Google Workspace editions in the coming months.

Who’s impacted

End users

Why you’d use it

In some cases, a host may not want people to continue a meeting without them present. For example, teachers may want to prevent students from having unsupervised meetings.

Additional details

When a host is done with a meeting and wants to leave, they now have two options:
  • Leave meeting: The host will leave the meeting, but the meeting will continue.
  • End meeting for all: Everyone, including people in breakout rooms, will be ejected from the meeting. Participants will be informed that the host has ended the meeting. Once the meeting has been ended, people will not be able to rejoin, unless the host rejoins first.

We recommend that, after ending a meeting, if a host wants to meet with a new group of people, that they create a new meeting. This can help prevent previous participants from joining.

Getting started

  • Admins: There is no admin control for this feature.
  • End users: There is no end user setting for this feature. Visit the Help Center to learn more about ending a video call in Meet.

Rollout pace

Availability

  • Available to Google Workspace for Education Fundamentals and Education Plus 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

Changes to information visibility in Meet quality tool, Meet audit log, and Reports API

Quick launch summary

We’re updating how information is displayed in the Meet quality tool, Meet audit log, and Reports API. This makes it easier for admins to follow up on calls hosted within their domains, as all three tools will use the same identifiers for external participants.

For in-domain users, admins will get access to richer information, including a user's country and IP address, and the email address of the meeting organizer. This will allow them to perform certain tasks, like troubleshooting a user connection or following up an abuse report.

For calls hosted in external domains, we’ve improved how these tools obscure or entirely hide participant information, creating consistency and better protecting external participant information.

Getting started

  • Admins: These changes will be available by default for all new meetings. Visit the Help Center to learn more about using the Meet quality tool, Meet audit log, and Reports API. to troubleshoot and analyze meeting data.
  • End users: No impact

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