Tag Archives: Google Workspace

Create a work of heart on Valentine’s Day with Google

Every February, I tell myself I’m going to make homemade Valentine’s Day cards for my family and friends…and every February 13, I realize I’m nearly out of time. Add the fact that these days it’s ultimately easier to deliver digital gifts, and I’m ready to give up on the whole thing.

This year I’ve come up with a few new ideas, courtesy of apps and tools from Google. They might be made for the office or school, but there are some truly impressive ways you can use these apps for your creative endeavors. Here are five ways you can make Valentines with Google products.

  1. Use Google Sheets to make some lovely pixel art (emphasis on love). You might think of invoices and project tracking when you think of Google Sheets, but it can also be a pixel art palette. These can be as simple or as complex as you want — do it yourself by selecting and coloring in Sheets cells to make an image, or search the Google Workspace Marketplace by hitting the right-hand sidebar and selecting “add ons.” (If words are more your thing, you could even try making a cute crossword puzzle.)
A screenshot of a Google Sheet with the title “Happy Valentine’s Day!” at the top. The pixels of the Sheet are colored in shades of gray, white, and pink to reveal a picture of a hand holding a balloon that says “love.”

2. Create a digital card with Google Slides. This is an especially useful option if you aren’t able to see someone on Valentine’s Day. Make a digital slideshow full of photos, videos and notes; then you can either send the file or publish it to the web.

3. Set up a shared library with Google Photos. Use partner sharing in Google Photos to create a shared library of photos and videos for you and your better half. You can choose if you want to share all your photos or just shots of specific loved ones or pets, as well as the date you want to start sharing and Google Photos will automatically take care of the rest.

4. Send a fun Google Form to your partner. More than a couple of Google Forms used for dating purposes have gone viral, and you can put your own spin on one for the big day. Be sure to check out the Template gallery to find a look you like, or add your own images and choose a different font to make your form stand out.

A screenshot of a Google Form with a header photo of a hand holding a balloon that says “love.” The Form is titled “A Valentine’s Day quiz!”

5. Reminisce on romantic trips with Google Maps. Feeling nostalgic? Take a walk down memory lane with the Trips tab in Timeline to see all of the places — from beaches to cute cafes - that you visited on your last vacay.

6. Get some material from Google Assistant. Ask Google Assistant how to say “I love you” in another language, or ask for a Valentine’s Day joke or a “fact about love” to impress someone.

Or maybe you’re more interested in watching a few rom-coms on February 14. According to Google Trends, the most-searched types of romantic movies in the U.S. since 2004 are:

  1. Teen romance movies
  2. Black romance movies
  3. Romance comedy movies
  4. Sad romance movies
  5. Christmas romance movies

You could take some inspiration from a few of Google Search’s trending Valentine’s Day terms from the past week — like “chick fil a valentines day tray” (+1,650%), “valentine lovebirds lego” (+600%) or “valentines crocs” (+400%). A few more breakout terms from the past month include: “valentines converse,” “starbucks valentines 2022,” “valentines coloring pages” and “nike valentines day shoes 2022.”

And if you’re still not quite sure how to celebrate, there’s one fail-safe option: chocolate. According to Google Trends, Godiva just barely took the lead over Ghiradelli in search interest in the U.S. this past week.

Google Trends graph showing the U.S. search interest in Godiva versus Ghiradelli chocolate, with Godiva taking the lead this past week.

Also in the U.S., Google Maps searches for flower shops spike nearly 120% leading up to February 14. And if you’re thinking about celebrating with a date night…maybe start planning early: In the U.S., February 13 marks the day people most use Google Maps to search for “romantic restaurants.”

Create a work of heart on Valentine’s Day with Google

Every February, I tell myself I’m going to make homemade Valentine’s Day cards for my family and friends…and every February 13, I realize I’m nearly out of time. Add the fact that these days it’s ultimately easier to deliver digital gifts, and I’m ready to give up on the whole thing.

This year I’ve come up with a few new ideas, courtesy of apps and tools from Google. They might be made for the office or school, but there are some truly impressive ways you can use these apps for your creative endeavors. Here are five ways you can make Valentines with Google products.

  1. Use Google Sheets to make some lovely pixel art (emphasis on love). You might think of invoices and project tracking when you think of Google Sheets, but it can also be a pixel art palette. These can be as simple or as complex as you want — do it yourself by selecting and coloring in Sheets cells to make an image, or search the Google Workspace Marketplace by hitting the right-hand sidebar and selecting “add ons.” (If words are more your thing, you could even try making a cute crossword puzzle.)
A screenshot of a Google Sheet with the title “Happy Valentine’s Day!” at the top. The pixels of the Sheet are colored in shades of gray, white, and pink to reveal a picture of a hand holding a balloon that says “love.”

2. Create a digital card with Google Slides. This is an especially useful option if you aren’t able to see someone on Valentine’s Day. Make a digital slideshow full of photos, videos and notes; then you can either send the file or publish it to the web.

3. Set up a shared library with Google Photos. Use partner sharing in Google Photos to create a shared library of photos and videos for you and your better half. You can choose if you want to share all your photos or just shots of specific loved ones or pets, as well as the date you want to start sharing and Google Photos will automatically take care of the rest.

4. Send a fun Google Form to your partner. More than a couple of Google Forms used for dating purposes have gone viral, and you can put your own spin on one for the big day. Be sure to check out the Template gallery to find a look you like, or add your own images and choose a different font to make your form stand out.

A screenshot of a Google Form with a header photo of a hand holding a balloon that says “love.” The Form is titled “A Valentine’s Day quiz!”

5. Reminisce on romantic trips with Google Maps. Feeling nostalgic? Take a walk down memory lane with the Trips tab in Timeline to see all of the places — from beaches to cute cafes - that you visited on your last vacay.

6. Get some material from Google Assistant. Ask Google Assistant how to say “I love you” in another language, or ask for a Valentine’s Day joke or a “fact about love” to impress someone.

Or maybe you’re more interested in watching a few rom-coms on February 14. According to Google Trends, the most-searched types of romantic movies in the U.S. since 2004 are:

  1. Teen romance movies
  2. Black romance movies
  3. Romance comedy movies
  4. Sad romance movies
  5. Christmas romance movies

You could take some inspiration from a few of Google Search’s trending Valentine’s Day terms from the past week — like “chick fil a valentines day tray” (+1,650%), “valentine lovebirds lego” (+600%) or “valentines crocs” (+400%). A few more breakout terms from the past month include: “valentines converse,” “starbucks valentines 2022,” “valentines coloring pages” and “nike valentines day shoes 2022.”

And if you’re still not quite sure how to celebrate, there’s one fail-safe option: chocolate. According to Google Trends, Godiva just barely took the lead over Ghiradelli in search interest in the U.S. this past week.

Google Trends graph showing the U.S. search interest in Godiva versus Ghiradelli chocolate, with Godiva taking the lead this past week.

Also in the U.S., Google Maps searches for flower shops spike nearly 120% leading up to February 14. And if you’re thinking about celebrating with a date night…maybe start planning early: In the U.S., February 13 marks the day people most use Google Maps to search for “romantic restaurants.”

Your hybrid meetings could be better — here’s how

As we explored in a recent global survey we commissioned from Economist Impact, employees around the world are looking for new ways of working and connecting with each other and their organizations as remote and hybrid work models continue to evolve. Creating a blueprint for more inclusive and collaborative meetings can help teams feel more connected—wherever and however they work together.

Scheduling meetings

If you work with people in other time zones, then you know scheduling can be a logistical headache. At Google, we follow a few guidelines to optimize participation.

Share information for better scheduling: Encourage your team to add working hours, location and focus time into Calendars.

Only invite those who can contribute: If you aren’t sure, invite less meeting-essential teammates as “optional.”

Choose dates and times that work for more people: For teams in distant time zones,add other timezones to your calendar to schedule global meetings well in advance and discuss alternating host time zones for regular calls.

Add an agenda to the Calendar invite: Let people know at least 24 hours in advance what a meeting will be about — for example: “This meeting will be successful if we leave with four great ideas from the brainstorming session” — so participants can prepare. And don’t forget you can schedule send the agenda to arrive right before the meeting or at the correct time for different timezone attendees.

Encourage RSVPing with location: Have attendees share whether they will attend “in a meeting room” or if they are “joining virtually” so everyone, including the organizer, knows what to expect.

Rotate facilitator and note-taker roles: Having team members alternate roles lessens the burden on one person and gives everyone a chance to participate more fully.

Prep with Spaces

Spaces is Google Workspace’s central place for team collaboration. It works closely with tools like Gmail, Calendar, Chat, Drive and Meet so coworkers can digitally work on projects, share ideas and even connect on a personal level better. Participants can prepare for meetings by reviewing documents and presentations side-by-side and collaborate with questions and suggestions, with everything saved in Spaces for future reference.

A screenshot showing Google Spaces in use.

Accessing content directly from Spaces can help meeting attendees stay up to date.

During the meeting

Good hybrid meetings shouldn’t feel like two different conversations that happen in the room and remotely. To keep them feeling like a single inclusive experience, try the following:

Help virtual team members connect: Acknowledge when remote teammates join and use the first five minutes to connect. Some Google teams start by asking questions like “what was the best thing you ate this weekend?” or playing interesting YouTube videos.

Keep and share meeting notes: Notetakers can use a pre-populated notes Doc in the Calendar invite or even meeting recordings to share what happened with attendees and anyone who couldn’t attend.

Collaborate with Companion mode: Google Meet’s Companion mode can help everyone participate, no matter where they are. For people in the conference room, Companion mode turns off the video and audio on laptops so participants can use functions like chat, screen sharing, hand-raising, polls, host controls and more, while avoiding feedback with the conference room hardware. Additionally, team members can also enable captions and translations in their preferred language and view presentations up-close on their own device.

Foster inclusivity: Facilitators can make sure everyone feels heard by encouraging remote contributions, avoiding “in the room” side conversations and reminding mixed language teams to use translated captions.

Provide multiple ways to give feedback: Not everyone is comfortable speaking in a meeting, so make sure people know they can use the chat option, or try using the poll feature to engage everyone in offering input.

Use virtual rather than physical whiteboards: With Jamboard or the Jamboard app, remote attendees can also view and contribute.

An image of a person looking into the camera and smiling in a Google Meet call.

Join Companion mode by selecting “Use Companion mode” under Other joining options.

After the meeting

Many of us have experienced meeting fatigue as our teams became more distributed during the last two years. But it’s always crucial to make sure attendees feel like their time is well spent, and there are a few ways you can do that. For starters, try sending a follow-up note thanking attendees for coming, asking for feedback and sharing any notes, recordings, action items, and decisions. You can also post meeting assets to the relevant Spaces so absent team members can contribute. It’s also a good idea to gather general feedback for recurring meetings — try polling people once a quarter using Google Forms, possibly anonymously — about how the meeting could be made more productive and inclusive.

Discover more tips and best practices

As hybrid meetings become the norm for millions of people, discovering and encouraging best practices that make meetings more inclusive is an essential part of the evolving future of work.

Discover more hybrid work tips and best practices on our future of work site.

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Make the most of hybrid work with Google Workspace

A guide for getting the most out of Google Workspace for hybrid work.

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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.

Tools to help you tackle your New Year’s resolution

You always hear the standard New Year resolutions: Work out more. Run a marathon. Learn a new language. For me this year, it’s to learn three new party tricks (I’m optimistically hoping for more social interaction in 2022!). No matter what the goal is, it often feels that by February, I’ve lost some steam. Resolutions take time, and new habits and skills are (let’s admit) hard to build.

So this year, my New Year's resolution is to stick to a New Year’s resolution. So I did a little digging, and found a few tools that I have at my fingertips to get that resolution to stick.

First things first: Write down your goal

Don’t justthink about your resolution — write it down. If you live by your inbox, schedule send a January 1 New Year’s resolution email to yourself. What better way to kickstart the new year than with an email to your future self?

If you’re not into email, Google Keep is a great way to jot down resolution ideas. If you’re on the go when inspiration strikes, you can even create a Google Keep note with your voice.

And don’t forget good ol’ pen and paper. Recording something on paper is easy, and the physical movement of writing something down can make it stick in a certain way. So write it down, literally.

Read Article

Why is paper still so magical?

So many of our tools today are visual, but a Google researcher says there's still so much we can learn from paper.

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Next, create reminders

The hard part about keeping resolutions for me is changing my daily routine. So I decided to

break down my resolution into smaller goals, and set up check-ins on Google Calendar. Twice a month, I put aside time to learn a party trick (my first one is going to be rolling a coin across my knuckles), and half way through the year I set up a “dry run” performance with friends (whether that ends up being in-person or virtual) to keep myself accountable.

Aside from checkpoints, crossing items off a checklist also keeps me on track. So I further broke down my twice-a-month trick-learning efforts using Tasks. This means my smaller, bite-sized agenda items will show up everywhere, from Gmail to Google Slides (so I can’t ignore them!).

Screenshot of Google Slides with a right-hand side bar with the Tasks feature popped up.

If you wrote down your resolution on Google Keep, that’s also a good place to create a to-do list and hit your smaller target goals on your way to your resolution. You can even set up timed reminders for each of the items to make sure you hit your goals.

Build satisfaction by tracking your progress

You can track your progress anywhere, like Keep or even Google Docs, but if you’re looking for more, try AppSheet . With AppSheet, you can build custom apps without any coding required. Need a custom app to track your workout progress? Looking for a journaling app on the go? AppSheet has a few templates you can try — or you can build your own if you want to get hyper-specific.

Make sure to reward yourself along the way

New habits and skills are hard to build, especially when you don’t see immediate results. So celebrating mini-milestones along the way (practiced 10 sessions ☑...rehearsed for my dry run ☑) help me stay motivated.

How you reward yourself is up to you — maybe it’s taking a day for self care, or simply exchanging words of encouragement with your friends and family – a little kudos goes a long way. And if at any point along the way toward your goal you begin to feel a little weary, try some of the advice from our resilience expert at Google, who talks about breaking tasks into smaller challenges that are easier to tackle.

Here’s to 2022 — and sticking with our New Year resolutions.

You’re cordially invited to use my hybrid holiday party tips

Eight cousins. Six aunts and uncles. A couple of toddlers (both mine). Two (adorable) felines. Some of us will be together, while others will be staying home for the holidays this year.

Sound familiar? Thankfully, many of us have learned a thing or two about “hybrid” gatherings over the past two years. I figured if it could work for…well, work, why not for the holidays?

I’ll be using Google tools to help me host with ease no matter where my friends and family are this year, and I’ve come up with a list of tips so you can, too.

Ready to soirée? Follow these four steps to fête across technical devices and state lines.

Step 1: Draft up a pun-heavy holiday invitation in Gmail. Tailor it for your party and include a Google Calendar invite and link to the Google Meet in the invite. And if you want to keep things extra organized as responses come in, you can make a group and label it “Holiday Party 2021.” Pro tip: Set up an automated reminder to go out to your guests 24 hours before the party.

Step 2: Ahead of party time, send a note to guests attending via Google Meet about the itinerary and let them know what they’ll need to participate. For instance, if you’re hosting a cookie-making party, send the recipe ahead of time. Or if you’re going to vote on ugly sweaters, let them know about Meet’s hand raise feature and polling features so they can be sure to get their vote in (available with Google Workspace Individual).

Step 3: Make everyone feel like they’re together. Whether you host the Google Meet call from your laptop, Pixel or Google Nest Hub Max, you can cast the party to your TV using Chromecast so everyone who’s there IRL can get a good view. Ahead of party time, scope out a good spot for the device that’s hosting the meeting so those on the other end of the call can see and hear everyone. (And so your virtual guests feel present, include the instructions for casting a call to a TV in the note you send before the big day, too.)

Animated GIF showing a Google Meet call with the cursor selecting the captions option and turning it on. Then, the words "Yep, I took it last night. It all seemed pretty clear but I did have one or two questions." Then the cursor selects to translate this into Spanish, which the screen does.

Adding captions to your hybrid get-together is an inclusive, and easy, step.

Step 4: Welcome your guests and make room for all. With Google Workspace Individual, you can show off the hand raise feature so everyone gets a turn to tell a story or joke, enable live captions so all guests can follow the conversation flow easily, and cut out background sounds (like noisy pets!) to reduce distractions. Kindly point out where the mute button is at the start of the party, too. Distracted by the mirror image of yourself on the video call screen? Turn it off with a few clicks! Use the Layout feature so everyone is on the screen at once — no matter where they are.

Step 5: Make it fun! Tap your much cooler niece to create a party playlist on YouTube, and then screen share the tab open to your YouTube playlist for the party. (You can let your guests know they can unpin the shared tile so it doesn’t take up the whole screen.) You and your guests can also use a virtual background (you could even upload a festive backdrop like your favorite photo memories!) You can use Google Jamboard — a free-to-use, virtual whiteboard —and play an IRL-meets-online edition of Pictionary.

Step 6: Give thanks. Send a thank you email after the party wraps. If you have a Google Workspace Individual account, you can record the party for your loved ones who couldn't attend live — just make sure to let attendees know ahead of time.

Hope you enjoyed this crash course in hybrid holiday hosting.

Supporting digital education in Europe

The way we teach and learn has changed. We have all seen the world shift beneath our feet during the pandemic, as homes became classrooms and teachers found new ways to connect with their students while using technology in new ways.

While schools around the world are now moving back towards in-classroom learning, the importance of access to digital tools has been brought into focus, not only to support hybrid learning practices but also to ensure students are equipped with the tools and skills that set them up for success in building the future they want for themselves.

We’re excited to see that many EU member states, guided by the Digital Education Action Plan, have allocated a significant portion of Recovery and Resilience Facility funds towards national digital education transformation plans. However, large-scale projects in digital education sometimes struggle to deliver expected benefits or outcomes, and investments in digital equipment for schools are often under-utilized. To address this challenge and to support countries with their digital education transformation plans, Google is thrilled to announce the €15 million Google for Education EU Digital Support Fund.

Working with SMEs to support digital education

The Google for Digital Education Fund is designed to foster the development of a high-performing digital education ecosystem, including the provision of infrastructure, connectivity and digital equipment, enabling digitally competent and confident teachers, and training staff. The Fund is open to local SMEs who are supporting national education projects funded by the EU’s Recovery and Resilience Facility program. They can apply for funding from Google for the duration of the program (or until the funds have been exhausted) to cover Google's digital equipment and software. In this way, the Fund will contribute to addressing key digital education priorities in the EU by stimulating local innovation ecosystems in education and training.

A picture of a teacher wearing a mask teaching children in a classroom who all have their laptops open

The fund can be used towards supporting teacher training to help them leverage the most out of devices in the classroom

What does that look like in practice?

We have already seen impactful ways this could work across the EU region. The Municipality of Plovdiv in Bulgaria exemplifies the type of digital education transformation program that the Google Digital Education Fund intends to support. The aim of the Municipality of Plovdiv’s program was to successfully implement a cloud platform in order to deliver on the “digitalization and modernization of the learning process” and elevate the digital skills of educators and learners in all 77 of the schools in the Municipality. This program was delivered over three years from 2017-2019 and was the first digital education program of its kind in Bulgaria. Plovdiv’s School in the Cloud program has become the benchmark for all of Bulgaria and has led to widespread use of the Google for Education platform, with more than 10,000 teachers trained (over 1,000 of them certified by Google), and thousands of Chromebook devices being used across the country in accordance with acceptable use policies established by the Ministry of Education in Bulgaria.

Looking to the future

Our goal is to provide the information, tools and services that help students build knowledge, fuel curiosity, and prepare for what’s next. We are proud and excited to support the European Digital Education Action Plan, and look forward to helping EU Member States deliver successful digital education transformation programs.

The Google for Education EU Digital Support Fund is available to qualifying SMEs that are supporting EU Member State national digital education transformation programs funded through the Recovery and Resilience Facility and related to the provisioning of Chromebooks (with the associated Chrome Education Upgrade license) and Google Workspace for Education. Click here to learn more and to apply.

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Helping European small businesses grow and succeed

As European SME Week kicks off, we look at how Google can continue to support small and medium businesses continue to grow and thrive.

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Stay productive with these Google features on iOS

If you use Google apps to get work done on your iPhone or iPad, we’re making some improvements to help you stay organized and productive.

Keep on top of your inbox with the new Gmail widget

Thanks to your helpful feedback on our first Gmail widget, we’re adding a new one so you can better manage your inbox on iOS. With the new widget, you’ll see the senders and subjects of your most recent emails right on your Home Screen.

Gif of the Gmail widget, fading from a gray to a black background. It shows an icon with a picture of a dog next to three emails. Each email shows the sender and subject line.

The new Gmail widget will put more of your inbox on your Home Screen

Multitask with Google Meet

ICYMI, we recently made multitasking easier on Google Meet. With Picture-in-Picture support, you can still participate in your meeting as you move between apps on your iOS device.

For example, you might want to forward an email, share a document or just look something up while you’re chatting. Simply navigate out of the Google Meet app, and your meeting will be minimized in a window that you can move around your Home Screen. You can also resize the meeting window, or slide it off to the side if you need more space to get something else done.

We’re launching this same feature on the Gmail app in the next few weeks. Stay tuned.

A gif showing different examples of the Picture-in-Picture screen floating above other screens on the iPhone. It transitions from Gmail, to Photos, to a Google Doc while the Google Meeting screen is in the foreground.

Picture-in-picture supports multitasking with Google Meet

Do more with Google Sheets

If you work with spreadsheets, keyboard shortcuts can be really useful. So we’re adding shortcut support to Google Sheets on iOS.

Shortcuts make it easier to complete common and advanced tasks on Google Sheets using a small keyboard — like selecting a whole row or finding and replacing certain values. Shortcuts will also work if you’re using a Bluetooth or Magic Keyboard on your iPad. Just hold down the command key to see the available shortcuts.

A gif cycling through Google Sheets screens, showing the pop-up keyboard shortcut menu on an iPad.

Get more done in Google Sheets for iOS, with new keyboard shortcuts

We hope you enjoy these new features launching in the next few weeks, and that they help make it easier to get your work done on iOS devices.

Enable advanced context-aware access to Google Workspace in the Admin console

What’s changing 

You can now configure context-aware access (CAA) custom access levels using advanced attributes directly from the Google Workspace Admin console. You can use more advanced signals such as time/date restrictions, credential strength, Chrome browser attributes or verified ChromeOS as well as third-party signals via BeyondCorp Alliance partners. 

Who’s impacted 

Admins 

Why you’d use it 

By making more attributes available, and by enabling set up and management of advanced access levels in the Admin console, it will be easier to help ensure your Google Workspace configuration is more secure.

Getting started 

Admin console screen to create an access level

Admin console screen to create an access level

Rollout pace 

Availability 

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

Resources 

Email is 50 years old, and still where it’s @

50 years ago this month, Ray Tomlinson sent the very first email. He was a programmer working on ARPANET, the system that laid the groundwork for what would become the internet as we know it today. He tested the messaging system by sending emails to himself, and later said that the first note was probably something like “QWERTYUIOP.”

More than 30 years after this breakthrough, a Google engineer named Paul Buchheit conducted his own email experiments. In a 2005 blog post, Paul described the problem he was trying to solve:

“My email was a mess. Important messages were hopelessly buried, and conversations were a jumble…I couldn't always get to my email because it was stuck on one computer, and web interfaces were unbearably clunky. And I had spam. A lot of it.” These pain points are part of what motivated Paul to come up with a better system — Gmail.

Buchheit created Gmail as a browser-based email program that allowed users to easily search their own messages. “With Gmail, I got the opportunity to change email — to build something that would work for me, not against me.” He wasn’t sure what the reception would be like, but when he released a beta to fellow Googlers, they wanted more.

Eventually, Gmail launched to the public on April 1, 2004. Its search function was lightning fast and it came with 1 GB of storage — 500 times more than prevailing inboxes of the time. But that wasn’t enough to convince people it wasn’t a joke. (The date — April Fool’s Day — likely had something to do with it.)

Despite the launch day hijinks, Gmail won consumers over, and became a central part of the work we do at Google. But we never could have done it if Ray Tomlinson hadn’t hit that @ sign and started it all 50 years ago. To celebrate, we asked a few Googlers to share their favorite Gmail hacks.

Laura Mae Martin, Executive Productivity Advisor

“It's hard to answer old emails when there are shiny new ones coming in. Use features like Snooze and Starred emails and different inbox setups to make it easier to stay on task.”

John Shriver-Blake, Senior Product Manager, Gmail Enterprise

“I’m a fan of confidential mode in Gmail. It lets you protect sensitive information in messages and attachments and ensures that whoever receives the confidential email can’t forward, copy or print it.”

Neena Kamath, Product Lead, Gmail

"What I love about Gmail is how it's evolved over the years. Fifteen years ago, I was obsessed with Conversation View! Back then, having all your emails about a single topic in one place hadn't been done before, and it saved me so much time. Now, I'm obsessed with Smart Reply. It not only saves me time, but also makes me more polite : )!"

Bao Lam, Head of Marketing, Gmail & Chat

“Schedule send in Gmail means that I don’t clutter up people’s inboxes if I’m catching up on emails at odd moments — which is especially helpful when so many of us are working across different time zones.”

You can learn more about the history of email, Gmail and the power of the @ sign over on the Cloud blog.