Tag Archives: Google Workspace Add-ons

New and updated third-party DevOps integrations for Google Chat, including PagerDuty

What’s changing

We’re introducing and updating a variety of additional DevOps integrations, which will allow you to take action on common workflows directly in Google Chat: 

  • Apps such as Google Cloud Build, Asana, GitHub, Jenkins and more, have been updated with new functionality: 
    • Using Slash commands for quick actions such as creating a new Asana task or triggering a build in Jenkins or Google Cloud Build. 
    • Ability to use Dialogs for important flows such as setting up the app, or entering detailed info such as creating a GitHub issue. 
  • Operations and incident response professionals can use the new PagerDuty integration to take action on PagerDuty incidents from Chat. From Chat, you’ll be able to: 
  • Receive notifications of PagerDuty incidents right from Google Chat. 
  • Take action, including acknowledging and resolving incidents without leaving the conversation. 



You can find these integrations and a complete list of other Google-developed Chat apps here. 


Who’s impacted 

Admins and end users 


Why you’d use them 

We hope these additional third-party integrations within Chat help you collaborate and get work done faster by eliminating the need to switch between various apps and browser tabs. 


Additional details 

We plan to introduce the ability to create dedicated spaces to collaborate with teammates on important incidents to resolve them quickly, with the right people. We will provide an update on the Workspace Updates blog when that functionality becomes available. 


Getting started 


Rollout pace 


Availability 

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

Resources 

Develop Google Workspace add-ons to attach files to Calendar events from third-party services

Quick summary 

Google Workspace developers can now create Google Workspace add-ons that attach files to a Google Calendar event from any third-party service. This feature enables developers to create add-ons that support attachments from a wide range of sources beyond Google Drive, such as digital whiteboard, content creation, or file management tools. 


Users who have the relevant add-ons installed will be able to attach files from these sources to a Calendar event, and attendees can view the event with the attachment on the web or on mobile.



Attach files from a third-party service to a Calendar event


After attaching files in Calendar on the web, users can view the event with the attachment on the web or on mobile. 


Getting started 


Rollout pace 

  • This feature is available now for all developers and users. 

Availability 

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

Resources 

Year in review: the Google Workspace Platform 2021

Posted by Charles Maxson, Developer Advocate

In 2021, we saw many changes and improvements to the Google Workspace Platform geared at helping developers build new solutions to keep up with the challenges of how we worked, like hybrid and fully remote office work. More than ever, we needed tools for virtual collaboration and digital processes to keep our work going. As paper processes in the office were less viable and we continued to go see digital transformations become necessary, many new custom solutions like desk reservation systems and automated test logging have evolved.

2021 was also a year for Platform milestones, Google Workspace grew to more than 3 billion users globally, we reached more than 5,300 public apps in the Google Workspace Marketplace, and we crossed over 4.8 billion apps installed (up from 1 billion in 2020)! We were also busy bringing Platform innovations and improving our developer experience to help building for Google Workspace easier and faster. Here’s a look at some of the key enhancements the Google Workspace Platform brought to the developer community.

Google Cloud Champion Innovators program

Community building is one of the most effective ways to support developers, which is why we created Google Cloud Innovators.This new community program was designed for developers and technical practitioners using Google Cloud and we welcome everyone.

And when we say everyone, it’s not just professional developers, data scientists, or student developers and hobbyists, we also mean non-technical end users. The growing Google community has something for everyone.

GWAO Alternate Runtimes goes GA

Google Workspace Add-ons are customized applications that tightly integrate with Google Workspace applications, and can be found in the Google Workspace Marketplace, or built specifically for your own domain. The development of these applications were limited to using Apps Script, our native scripting language for the Google Workspace Platform. With the launch of Alternate Runtimes you can now develop add-ons with your preferred hosting infrastructure, development tool chain, source control system, coding language, and code libraries; it was a highly requested update from the developer community, opening up the Platform to many new developer scenarios.

Card Builder UI Application

The GWAO Card Builder tool allows you to visually design the user interfaces for your Google Workspace Add-ons and Google Chat apps projects. It is a must-have for Google Workspace developers using either Apps Script or Alternate Runtimes, enabling you to prototype and design Card UIs super fast without hassle and errors of hand coding JSON or Apps Script on your own.

Card Builder tool for building Google Workspace Add-ons and Chat Apps

Recommended for Google Workspace

This program showcases a selection of market-leading applications built by software vendors across a wide range of categories, including project management, customer support, and finance in our Google Workspace Marketplace. These apps undergo rigorous usability and security testing to make sure they meet our requirements for high quality integrations. They must also have an exemplary track record of user satisfaction, reliability, and privacy.

Recommended for Google Workspace program showcases high quality applications

Chat Slash Commands and Dialogs

Slash commands simplify the way users interact with your Chat bot, offering them a visual leading way to discover and execute your bot’s primary features. As a developer, slash commands are straightforward to implement, and essential in offering a better bot experience. In addition to Slash Commands, Dialogs were a new capability introduced to the Chat App framework that allows developers to build user interfaces to capture inputs and parameters in a structured, reliable way. This was a tremendous step forward for bot usability because it simplified and streamlined the process of users interacting with bot commands. Now with dialogs, users can be led visually to supply inputs via prompts, versus having to rely on wrapping bot commands with natural language inputs.

Forms API beta

Google Forms enables easy creation and distribution of forms, surveys, and quizzes. Forms is used for a wide variety of use cases across business operations, customer management, event planning and logistics, education, and more. With the Google Forms API Beta announcement, developers were able to provide programmatic access for managing forms and acting on responses, empowering developers to build powerful integrations on top of Forms.

Google Workspace Marketplace updates

We made many updates to the Google Workspace Marketplace to improve both the user and developer experience. We added updates to the application detail page that included pricing and when the listing was last updated. The homepage also saw improvements with various curated categories by the Google team under Editor’s Choice. Finally, we launched the marketplace badges for developers to promote their published applications on websites and marketing channels. Oh, and we also had a logo update if you hadn’t noticed.

Google Workspace Marketplace Badges for application promotion

Farewell 2021 and here’s to welcoming in 2022

2021 brought us many innovations to the Google Workspace Platform to help developers address the needs of their users and it also brought more empowerment to knowledge workers to build the solutions they needed with our no-code and low-code platforms. These are just the highlights for the Google Workspace Platform and we look forward to more innovation in 2022. To keep up with all the news about the Platform, please subscribe to our newsletter.

Google Workspace Updates Weekly Recap – August 13, 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.


New Categories in Google Workspace Marketplace
Four manually curated categories have been added to the Google Workspace Marketplace: Business essentials, Work from everywhere, Apps to discover, Tools for teachers. A left navigation menu will be included to show new categories. 

You'll notice new categories in the Google Workspace Marketplace, which allows users to sort through specific categories to find relevant add-ons.

Updated emoji experience in Google Chat on iOS
It’s now easier to express yourself more authentically in Chat on iOS. 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.

Reminder: Google Meet support for IE11 ending August 17, 2021
Beginning August 17, 2021, you will no longer be able to use Google Meet on IE11. To avoid disruption, please switch to a supported browser before that date. | Learn more. 


Easily switch between lists in Google Tasks on mobile
We have now updated the current Tasks Mobile user interface to display multiple lists at the same time in a tabbed UI. | Learn more.


Add up to 25 co-hosts per meeting and expanded safety features for Google Meet
We’re expanding meeting moderation controls in Google Meet with several highly requested features, including assigning co-hosts, new safety features, and more. | See the original announcement for more details and full availability. | Learn more.


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

Google Workspace Updates Weekly Recap – June 11, 2021

New updates 

Google Voice is now available in Belgium 
Google Workspace customers based in Belgium can now sign up for Google Voice, and customers who have purchased Google Voice Premier can get phone numbers for their users in Belgium. With this launch, Voice is now available in these countries. | Learn more. 



Easily view the number of Google Meet hardware devices in your organization in the Admin console 
In the Admin console under Devices > Google Meet Hardware, admins will now see a simple count on the device list page of the number of devices that meet the criteria of the currently selected filters. | 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. 



Replace your background with a video in Google Meet 
In addition to replacing your Google Meet background with a static image, you can now replace your background with a video. | Learn more. 



Option to replace your background in Google Meet is now available on Android 
You can now blur or replace your background with an image in Google Meet on Android. This feature is already available on the web. | Learn more.



Find admin approved applications in the “Approved for you” section in the Google Workspace Marketplace 



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

Find admin approved applications in the “Approved for you” section in the Google Workspace Marketplace

What’s changing 

The new “Approved for You” section in the Google Workspace Marketplace allows users to quickly see and install applications that have been approved and allowlisted by their admins. 


Who’s impacted 

Admins and end users 


Why it’s important 

Admins can specify which third-party apps their users can install from the Google Workspace Marketplace. With the addition of the “Approved for you” section in the Marketplace, users can quickly find and install pre-approved apps for Gmail, Drive, Editors, Calendar, and more. 


Getting started 


Rollout pace 


Availability 

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

Resources 

Find admin approved applications in the “Approved for you” section in the Google Workspace Marketplace

What’s changing 

The new “Approved for You” section in the Google Workspace Marketplace allows users to quickly see and install applications that have been approved and allowlisted by their admins. 


Who’s impacted 

Admins and end users 


Why it’s important 

Admins can specify which third-party apps their users can install from the Google Workspace Marketplace. With the addition of the “Approved for you” section in the Marketplace, users can quickly find and install pre-approved apps for Gmail, Drive, Editors, Calendar, and more. 


Getting started 


Rollout pace 


Availability 

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

Resources 

Evolving Google Workspace Add-ons with Alternate Runtimes

Posted by Charles Maxson, Developer Advocate

Google Workspace Add-ons offer developers a simplified, structured, and safe way of integrating your solutions right within the Google Workspace user experience, allowing you to bring the logic and data of your application right within the reach of billions of Google Workspace users. So whether your goal is to help users avoid switching context from their inbox to your application, or to easily bring in data from your solution to Google Sheets, developing your own Google Workspace Add-ons makes a lot of sense to keep users productive, engaged and focused.

While the concept of Add-ons for Google Workspace isn’t new per se, building add-ons for Google Workspace has come a long way since they were first introduced some years back. Originally designed to allow solution developers to extend our collaboration apps: Google Docs, Sheets, Forms and Slides, it’s now possible to create a single add-on project for Google Workspace that spans the entire suite, including Gmail, Drive and Calendar.

The original design created for our collaboration apps also required you to use HTML, CSS and Google Apps Script to ‘hand roll’ elements like the user interface and events, requiring a bit more do-it-yourself effort (aka code) for developers, resulting in more inconsistency across the add-on market. That has evolved as Google Workspace Add-ons adopted Card-based interfaces more recently, allowing developers to simplify and standardize add-on building by leveraging just their knowledge of Google Apps Script.

Introducing Alternate Runtimes for Google Workspace Add-ons

Today we are pleased to announce that building Google Workspace Add-ons has evolved once again, this time to offer developers an alternative to using Apps Script for building add-ons with the general availability of Alternate Runtimes for Google Workspace Add-ons. Announced via an early access program mid last year, the release of Alternate Runtimes is a major breakthrough for Google Workspace developers who want to use their own development stack: hosting, tools, languages, packages, processes, etc.

While Alternate Runtimes enables the same functionality that Apps Script does for building add-ons, the flexibility and the freedom to choose your dev environment plus the opportunity to decouple from Apps Script will likely yield greater developer productivity and performance gains for future projects. This commonly requested feature by Google Workspace solution developers has finally become a reality.

Technically, there’s a little more effort in using the Alternate Runtimes method, as Apps Script does mask much of the complexity from the developer, but it's essentially swapping in JSON for Apps Script in rendering the Cards service-based interfaces needed to drive Google Workspace Add-ons. Learn more about getting started with Alternate Runtimes here or try the five minute Quickstart for Alternate Runtimes to see it in action.

Also note, whether you are just getting started or you are an experienced add-on builder, we have recently released the GWAO Card Builder tool that allows you to visually design the user interfaces for your Google Workspace Add-ons projects. It is a must-have for add-on developers using either Apps Script or Alternate Runtimes, enabling you to prototype and design Card UIs super fast without hassle and errors of hand coding JSON or Apps Script on your own.

Google Workspace Card Builder Design Tool

Further Introducing the Google Workspace Add-ons Cloud API

Included with this launch of Alternate Runtimes for general availability is also the debut of the Google Workspace Add-ons Cloud API, which allows you to completely forgo using Apps Script for managing Google Workspace Add-on deployments using Alternate Runtimes. Unlike using Alternate Runtimes during the beta program where you still needed to create an Apps Script project to stub out your project endpoints via the manifest file, the Google Workspace Add-ons Cloud API allows you to create and manage your add-on deployment lifecycle with a series of command line instructions.

With the Google Workspace Add-ons Cloud API you can create a deployment, install or delete a deployment, get a list of deployments, manage permissions and more. These are straightforward to use from a CLI like gcloud, which will help simplify developing and deploying Google Workspace Add-ons built via Alternate Runtimes. For documentation on how to use the new Add-ons Cloud API, refer back to the Quickstart: Create an add-on in a different coding language example.

Showcase: Alternate Runtimes in Action

While Alternate Runtimes for Google Workspace Add-ons is officially generally available as of today, a number of Google Cloud partner teams have already been working with the technology via our early adopter program. One of those Google Cloud partners, Zzapps based out of the Netherlands, has already been creating solutions using Alternate Runtimes in their work building Add-ons for customers.

We asked Riël Notermans, owner of Zzapps (and Google Developer Expert), whose teams have been developing on Google Workspace for over a decade, to share his team’s key takeaways on Alternate Runtimes. He offered not only his insights, but added a few screenshots of one of their recent projects to illustrate as well. In Riël’s own words: “Now that we can use Alternate Runtimes for Add-ons, it changes how we approach projects from start to finish. Prototyping with GSAO makes it possible for us to quickly draft an add-on’s functionality, creating trust and clearness about what we will deliver. Alternate Runtimes makes it possible to tap into our existing applications with almost no effort. We only need to create a JSON response to push a card to interact with add-ons. Our developers are able to work in their own environment, keeping our own tools and development flow. Here’s an example below using a Node.js Express server project that we used to set email signatures, adding a few routes for the card but using our existing logic. The add-on is used to control the functionality.”

Routing Add-on requests to existing logic

“Being able to update your deployment for local development for live testing, without having to create new versions constantly, drastically improves the development experience.”

Introduces advantage of instant testing of add-ons

“Because the Add-on runtimes has built-in authorization and tokens, it is really easy to safely interact with the users data without building complex backend authentication.”


Maximizing use of existing UI with Add-ons

“In the end, we still offer our users solutions for a great experience with a Google Workspace Add-on, while our developers get to use the tools and processes that make them more productive, capable and accomplished”

Creating Add-ons with Alternate Runtimes allows flexible, fast UI design

For More Information

If you want to learn more about using Alternate Runtimes for building Google Workspace Add-ons, here are some essential links for Google Workspace Add-on resources to get you started:

Building a Google Workspace Add-on with Adobe

Posted by Jon Harmer, Product Manager, Google Cloud

We recently introduced Google Workspace, which seamlessly brings together messaging, meetings, docs, and tasks and is a great way for teams to create, communicate, and collaborate. Google Workspace has what you need to get anything done, all in one place. This includes giving developers the ability to extend Google Workspace’s standard functionality like with Google Workspace Add-ons, launched earlier this year.

Google Workspace Add-ons, at launch, allowed a developer to build a single integration for Google Workspace that surfaces across Gmail, Google Drive, and Google Calendar. We recently announced that we added to the functionality of Google Workspace Add-ons by enabling more of the Google Workspace applications with the newer add-on framework, Google Docs, Google Sheets, and Google Slides. With Google Workspace Add-ons, developers can scale their presence across multiple touchpoints in which users can engage, and simplifies processes for building and managing add-ons.

One of our early developers for Google Workspace Add-ons has been Adobe. Adobe has been working to integrate Creative Cloud Libraries into Google Workspace. Using Google Workspace Add-ons, Adobe was able to quickly design a Creative Cloud Libraries experience that felt native to Google Workspace. “With the new add-ons framework, we were able to improve the overall performance and unify our Google Workspace and Gmail Add-ons.” said Ryan Stewart, Director of Product Management at Adobe. “This means a much better experience for our customers and much higher productivity for our developers. We were able to quickly iterate with the updated framework controls and easily connect it to the Creative Cloud services.”

One of the big differences between the Gmail integration and the Google Workspace integration is how it lets users work with Libraries. With Gmail, they’re sharing links to Libraries, but with Docs and Slides, they can add Library elements to their document or presentation. So by offering all of this in a single integration, we are able to provide a more complete Libraries experience. Being able to offer that breadth of experiences in a consistent way for users is exciting for our team.

Adobe’s Creative Cloud Libraries API announced at Adobe MAX, was also integral to integrating Creative Cloud with Google Workspace, letting developers retrieve, browse, create, and get renditions of the creative elements in libraries.

Adobe’s new Add-on for Google Workspace lets you add brand colors, character styles and graphics from Creative Cloud Libraries to Google Workspace apps like Docs and Slides. You can also save styles and assets back to Creative Cloud.

With Google Workspace Add-ons, we understand that teams require many applications to get work done, and we believe that process should be simple, and those productivity applications should connect all of a company’s workstreams. With Google Workspace Add-ons, teams can bring their favorite workplace apps like Adobe Creative Cloud into Google Workspace, enabling a more productive day-to-day experience for design and marketing teams. With quick access to Creative Cloud Libraries, the Adobe Creative Cloud Add-on for Google Workspace lets eveyone easily access and share assets in Gmail and apply brand colors, character styles, and graphics to Google Docs and Slides to keep deliverables consistent and on-brand. There’s a phased rollout to users, first with Google Docs, then Slides, so if you don’t see it in the Add-on yet, stay tuned as it is coming soon.

For developers, Google Workspace Add-ons lets you build experiences that not only let your customers manage their work, but also simplify how they work.

To learn more about Google Workspace Add-ons, please visit our Google Workspace developer documentation.