Tag Archives: Google Voice

Additional admin controls for Google Voice ring groups

What’s changing

We’ve added new ways for admins to manage their Google Voice ring groups. Specifically, admins can now:
  • Configure a “Fixed order” pattern where incoming ring group calls will ring members in a predetermined order.
  • Change the maximum duration that a call should ring before proceeding to the "unanswered call" behavior — previously this was fixed at 30 seconds.

Set your Call Routing Pattern, Ring Duration, and Order of Call Ringing




Setting the Call Routing Pattern to Simultaneous




Who’s impacted

Admins


Why you’d use it

We've heard from you that you'd like more options to customize the ringing behavior for your ring groups. With the new “Fixed order” pattern, you can define exactly what order to ring your members when the ring group receives a call, skipping members who are already in a call or have “Do not disturb” enabled. You can also customize the maximum ringing duration for fixed and round robin patterns that allows you to limit how long an incoming call should ring, which may be particularly useful for large ring groups.


Getting started


Rollout pace


Availability

  • Available to all Google Workspace and G Suite customers with Google Voice standard and premier licenses.
  • Not available to Google Workspace and G Suite customers with Google Voice starter licenses.

Resources

Additional admin controls for Google Voice ring groups

What’s changing

We’ve added new ways for admins to manage their Google Voice ring groups. Specifically, admins can now:
  • Configure a “Fixed order” pattern where incoming ring group calls will ring members in a predetermined order.
  • Change the maximum duration that a call should ring before proceeding to the "unanswered call" behavior — previously this was fixed at 30 seconds.

Set your Call Routing Pattern, Ring Duration, and Order of Call Ringing




Setting the Call Routing Pattern to Simultaneous




Who’s impacted

Admins


Why you’d use it

We've heard from you that you'd like more options to customize the ringing behavior for your ring groups. With the new “Fixed order” pattern, you can define exactly what order to ring your members when the ring group receives a call, skipping members who are already in a call or have “Do not disturb” enabled. You can also customize the maximum ringing duration for fixed and round robin patterns that allows you to limit how long an incoming call should ring, which may be particularly useful for large ring groups.


Getting started


Rollout pace


Availability

  • Available to all Google Workspace and G Suite customers with Google Voice standard and premier licenses.
  • Not available to Google Workspace and G Suite customers with Google Voice starter licenses.

Resources

Admins will now be alerted when there is an issue with their Google Voice auto attendants or ring groups

Quick launch summary 

Admins will now receive an alert in the Admin console’s Alert Center when an issue is detected with their auto attendant or ring group configuration along with instructions on how to quickly resolve the issue. These issues include: 
  • No valid members in a ring group, 
  • No valid auto attendants or ring groups to forward the call to, 
  • No voicemail recipients. 


Getting started 

Rollout pace 


Availability 

  • Available to all Google Workspace and G Suite customers with Google Voice standard and premier licenses 

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

Google Workspace Updates Weekly Recap – January 8, 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.


Google Voice now generally available in Germany and Italy
Google Workspace customers based in Germany and Italy can now sign up for Google Voice. These customers, as well as international customers with Google Voice Premier edition, can assign and port numbers with Germany country codes (+49) and Italy country codes (+39) to users. | 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.


Smart compose and spelling autocorrect available when adding comments in Google Docs
Smart compose and spelling autocorrect are now available when adding comments in Google Docs. | Learn more.


Join a meeting with new options on the Google Meet landing page
We’re changing the options for a more tailored experience when Google Workspace users join or start a meeting from meet.google.com. | Learn more.

Vault for Google Voice now generally available

Quick launch summary 

Google Vault now supports Google Voice. This means you can use Vault to retain, hold, search, and export Google Voice data including text messages, call logs, voicemails, and voicemail transcripts. 

This provides you with expanded control over your organization’s data, and can help you meet regulatory or legal obligations for your Google Voice data. 


Getting started 

Example of creating a custom retention rule for Google Voice in the new Vault interface 

Example of creating a custom retention rule for Google Voice in the classic Vault interface 

Example of searching for Google Voice data in the new Google Vault interface 

Example of searching for Google Voice data in the classic Google Vault interface 


Rollout pace 

Availability 

Resources 

The latest on Google Hangouts and the upgrade to Google Chat

Over the past few years, we’ve invested in building helpful and secure products you can use to communicate and stay connected with the people in your life. This month, we unveiled Google Workspace, which includes everything you need—Gmail, Calendar, Drive, Chat, Meet and more—to get anything done, now in one place. Google Workspace is generally available to all our business customers and next year we’ll bring it to everyone else, too. 


Today we’re sharing an update on what this change means for Hangouts users, including those who use Hangouts with Google Fi and Google Voice. And we’re providing details about the future upgrade from Hangouts to Chat.

Google Chat for everyone coming next year

Next year, Chat will become available as a free service—both in the integrated experience in Gmail and the Chat standalone app. Chat includes familiar Hangouts features like direct and group messaging, with helpful additions like send to inbox, faster search, emoji reactions and suggested replies. With Chat, you can more easily plan with others on goals and similar interests, share and collaborate on files, and assign tasks to help keep everyone on the same page. In addition, Chat features the same strong phishing protections we built in Gmail, so if a link is sent to you via Chat, it will be checked against real-time data from Safe Browsing and flagged if it’s found to be malicious.


Starting in the first half of 2021, everyone can begin upgrading from Hangouts to Chat. To ensure a smooth transition, we will help automatically migrate your Hangouts conversations, along with contacts and saved history. We'll share more specific guidance on what steps you can take when we begin the transition process.

UpdatedHangoutsChat1.jpg

We will help automatically migrate your Hangouts conversations, along with contacts and saved history.

Changes to Hangouts with Google Fi

As we’ve improved the texting and calling experiences available to Fi users over the years, we’ve seen more users shift away from using Hangouts to manage their texting and calling needs. Early next year, we’ll remove Fi support in Hangouts.


Fi users have historically been able to manage SMS and phone calls from Hangouts. In the next few weeks, Messages by Google will provide a similar experience. Fi users will be able to make voice calls and check voicemail from Messages for web, manage conversations from Messages across devices (even when their phone is off) and migrate their existing Hangouts conversations. Beginning this month, we’ll provide guidance about these changes and direct Hangouts Fi users to Messages or the default SMS app on their phone.

Changes to Hangouts with Google Voice 

Similarly, Voice users have historically been able to get calls to their Google Voice number using Hangouts. Over the years, we’ve improved the native Voice experience to offer easy switching between internet and carrier calls, enhanced internet calling reliability, and updated experiences on web and mobile platforms to help users manage everything from one place. Beginning this month, we’ll direct Hangouts Voice users to the Voice app for text messaging and calling going forward, and early next year, we’ll remove Voice support in Hangouts.

Upcoming feature changes in Hangouts

New telecommunications regulations are being introduced in the EU and U.S. beginning in 2021. To comply with these new regulations, we need to remove the call phones feature in Hangouts. In October, we’ll start showing affected users an in-product notification with guidance on how to receive refunds on their remaining calling credits, and early next year, we’ll remove the feature entirely. Separately, in November, we’ll update the group video calling experience in Hangouts with Meet to provide better quality meetings.

Changes to Hangouts for business users

Last June, we introduced the Chat preferred setting in the Admin console to allow any admin to opt-in to migrate all end users to Chat in Google Workspace. We also made Chat preferred configurable at the organizational unit level. In the coming months, we’ll send notifications to Google Workspace admins to detail the final migration stages. Learn more in our Google Workspace Updates blog post.

Empowering our users going forward

As with any engineering project, it’s important to note that timing may shift. Yet we want to give you as much specific information as we can so you know what to expect. We’d like to thank all our users for staying on this journey with us, and we remain committed to delivering a more helpful communications experience for all.

Dark theme now available for Google Voice on iOS

Quick launch summary

Google Voice will now support dark theme on iOS. Dark theme is already available for Voice on Android. 

Dark theme for Google Voice


Getting started

Admins: There is no admin control for this feature.

End users: The latest Google Voice update for iOS (version 20.36) will adopt the dark or light theme as set in iOS Settings. Learn more.

Rollout pace

Availability

  • Available to all G Suite customers with Google Voice licenses and Voice users with personal accounts.

 

Assign Google Voice numbers before a port is completed

Quick launch summary

Admins can now assign Google Voice numbers to users while a port is still in progress, and users can start using their assigned numbers immediately once porting is completed. Previously, admins had to wait to assign the numbers until after the port completed, and only then could the user activate the application.

This reduces downtime for users, allowing them to start making calls more quickly and ensuring they don’t miss incoming calls once the port is complete.

Numbers can also be assigned to auto attendants and ring groups ahead of time allowing a seamless transition once the port is complete.

Search for and assign numbers that are in the process of being ported.

Review number assignments for users


Getting started

Admins: This feature will be ON by default. During number porting, we’ll inform admins that numbers are available for immediate assignment. Visit the Help Center to learn more about porting business numbers to Voice.

End users: There is no end user setting for this feature. Users will automatically get welcome info once the port completes.

Rollout pace

Availability

  • Available to all G Suite customers with Google Voice licenses

Resources

Assign Google Voice numbers before a port is completed

Quick launch summary

Admins can now assign Google Voice numbers to users while a port is still in progress, and users can start using their assigned numbers immediately once porting is completed. Previously, admins had to wait to assign the numbers until after the port completed, and only then could the user activate the application.

This reduces downtime for users, allowing them to start making calls more quickly and ensuring they don’t miss incoming calls once the port is complete.

Numbers can also be assigned to auto attendants and ring groups ahead of time allowing a seamless transition once the port is complete.

Search for and assign numbers that are in the process of being ported.

Review number assignments for users


Getting started

Admins: This feature will be ON by default. During number porting, we’ll inform admins that numbers are available for immediate assignment. Visit the Help Center to learn more about porting business numbers to Voice.

End users: There is no end user setting for this feature. Users will automatically get welcome info once the port completes.

Rollout pace

Availability

  • Available to all G Suite customers with Google Voice licenses

Resources