Tag Archives: Google Workspace

Duet AI for Google Workspace Enterprise add-on is now generally available

This announcement was made at Google Cloud Next ‘23. Visit the Workspace Blog to learn more about the next wave of AI innovation in Workspace. This feature is exclusive to the Duet AI for Google Workspace Enterprise add-on.

What’s changing

From the beginning, Google Workspace was built to allow you to collaborate in real time with other people. And with the launch of Duet AI, we’re making it possible to collaborate just as easily with AI. Duet AI is a powerful collaborator that can act as a coach, thought partner, source of inspiration, and productivity booster — all while ensuring every user and organization has control over their data.


Beginning today, Duet AI for Workspace Enterprise is now generally available. You can preview the power of Duet AI with a no-cost trial.


Who’s impacted

Admins


Why it’s important

Duet AI for Google Workspace Enterprise enables organizations to create, connect, and collaborate like never before.

You can use Duet AI to:
  • Help you write and refine emails in Gmail - even on the go from your mobile device
  • Help you write, refine, and proofread content in Google Docs
  • Generate original images for your presentations directly in Google Slides
  • Create plans for projects in Google Sheets with just a simple prompt
  • Look your best in Google Meet with studio look 
  • Generate  background images in Google Meet
  • Use translated captions in Google Meet

In the coming months, we’ll be introducing more features for Duet AI such as studio lighting and sound for Meet, Enhanced Smart Fill for Google Sheets and more. We’ll share more details here on the Workspace Updates blog as those features become available.

Getting started


Availability

The Duet AI for Google Workspace Enterprise add-on is available for purchase with the following Google Workspace editions:
  • Business Standard and Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Essentials Plus, Enterprise Standard and Enterprise Plus, Education Fundamentals, Education Standard, Education Plus, Education Fundamentals, Frontline Starter and Frontline Standard
Note: Duet AI features are only available for users over the age of 18.


Programmatically access working locations with the Calendar API

Posted by Chanel Greco, Developer Advocate

Giving Google Workspace users the ability to set their working location and working hours in Google Calendar was an important step in helping our customers’ employees adapt to a hybrid world. Sending a Chat message asking “Will you be in the office tomorrow?” soon became obsolete as anyone could share where and when they would be working within Calendar.

To improve the hybrid working experience, many organizations rely on third-party or company-internal tools to enable tasks like hot desk booking or scheduling days in the office. Until recently, there was no way to programmatically synchronize the working location set in Calendar with such tools.


Image showing working locations visible via Google Calendar in the Robin app
Robin displays the working location from Google Calendar in their application and updates the user's Google Calendar when they book a desk in Robin

Programmatically read and write working locations

We are pleased to announce that the Calendar API has been updated to make working locations available and this added functionality is generally available (feature is only available for eligible Workspace editions). This enables developers to programmatically read and write the working location of Google Workspace users. This can be especially useful in three use cases that have surfaced in discussions with customers which we are going to explore together.

1.     Synchronize with third-party tools

Enhancing the Calendar API enables developers to synchronize user’s working location with third-party tools like Robin and Comeen. For example, some companies provide their employees with desk booking tools so they can book their workplace in advance for the days they will be on-site. HR management tools are also common for employees to request and set “Work from home” days. In both situations the user had to set their working location in two separate tools: their desk booking tool and/or HR management system and Google Calendar.

Thanks to the working location being accessible through the Calendar API this duplicate work is no longer necessary since a user’s working location can be programmatically set. And if a user's calendar is the single source of truth? In that case, the API can be used to read the working location from the user’s calendar and write it to any permissioned third-party tool.


Image showing Google Workspace Add-on synchronizing users' working locations in the Comeen app.
Comeen’s Google Workspace Add-on synchronizes the user’s’ working locations whenever the user updates their working location, either in Google Calendar or in Comeen's add-on

2.     Display working location on other surfaces

The API enables the surfacing of the user's working location in other tools, creating interesting opportunities. For instance, some of our customers have asked for ways to better coordinate in-office days. Imagine you are planning to be at the office tomorrow. Who else from your team will be there? Who from a neighboring team might be on-site for a coffee chat?

With the Calendar API, a user's working location can be displayed in tools like directories, or a hybrid-work scheduling tool. The goal is to make a user’s working location available in the systems that are relevant to our customers.

3.     Analyze patterns

The third use case that surfaced from discussions with our customers is analyzing working location patterns. With many of our customers having a hybrid work approach it’s vital to have a good understanding of the working patterns. For example, which days do locations reach maximal legal capacity? Or, when does the on-campus restaurant have to prepare more meals for employees working on-site?

The API answers these and other questions so that facility management can adapt their resources to the needs of their employees.


How to get started

Now that you have an idea of the possibilities the updated Calendar API creates, we want to guide you on how you can get started using it.

  • Check out the developer documentation for reading and writing a user's working locations.
  • Watch the announcement video on the Google Workspace Developers YouTube channel.
  • Check the original post about the launch of the working location feature for a list of all Google Workspace plans that have access to the feature.

What’s new for developers building solutions on Google Workspace – mid-year recap

Posted by Chanel Greco, Developer Advocate Google Workspace

Google Workspace offers tools for productivity and collaboration for the ways we work. It also offers a rich set of APIs, SDKs, and no-code/low-code tools to create apps and integrate workflows that integrate directly into the surfaces across Google Workspace.

Leading software makers like Atlassian, Asana, LumApps and Miro are building integrations with Google Workspace apps—like Google Docs, Meet, and Chat—to make it easier than ever to access data and act right in the tools relied on by more than 3 billion users and 9 million paying customers.

At I/O’23 we had some exciting announcements for new features that give developers more options when integrating apps with Google Workspace.


Third-party smart chips in Google Docs

We announced the opening up of smart chips functionality to our partners. Smart chips allow you to tag and see critical information to linked resources, such as projects, customer records, and more. This preview information provides users with context and critical information right in the flow of their work. These capabilities are now generally available to developers to build their own smart chips.

Some of our partners have built and launched integrations using this new smart chips functionality. For example, Figma is integrated into Docs with smart chips, allowing users to tag Figma projects which allows readers to hover over a Figma link in a doc to see a preview of the design project. Atlassian is leveraging smart chips so users can seamlessly access Jira issues and Confluence pages within Google Docs.

Tableau uses smart chips to show the user the Tableau Viz's name, last updated date, and a preview image. With the Miro smart chip solution users have an easy way to get context, request access and open a Miro board from any document. The Whimsical smart chip integration allows users to see up-to-date previews of their Whimsical boards.

Moving image showing functionality of Figma smart chips in Google docs, allowing users to tag and preview projects in docs.

Google Chat REST API and Chat apps

Developers and solution builders can use the Google Chat REST API to create Chat apps and automate workflows to send alerts, create spaces, and share critical data right in the flow of the conversation. For instance, LumApps is integrating with the Chat APIs to allow users to start conversations in Chat right from within the employee experience platform.

The Chat REST API is now generally available.

Using the Chat API and the Google Workspace UI-kit, developers can build Chat apps that bring information and workflows right into the conversation. Developers can also build low code Chat apps using AppSheet.

Moving image showing interactive Google Meet add-ons by partner Jira

There are already Chat apps available from partners like Atlassian’s Jira, Asana, PagerDuty and Zendesk. Jira for Google Chat to collaborate on projects, create issues, and update tickets – all without having to switch context.

Google Workspace UI-kit

We are continuing to evolve the Workspace UI-kit to provide a more seamless experience across Google Workspace surfaces with easy to use widgets and visual optimizations.

For example, there is a new date and time picker widget for Google Chat apps and there is the new two-column layout to optimize space and organize information.

Google Meet SDKs and APIs

There are exciting new capabilities which will soon be launched in preview for Google Meet.

For example, the Google Meet Live Sharing SDK allows for the building of new shared experiences for users on Android, iOS, and web. Developers will be able to synchronize media content across participant’s devices in real-time and offer shared content controls for everyone in the meeting.

The Google Meet Add-ons SDK enables developers to embed their app into Meet via an iframe, and choose between the main stage or the side panel. This integration can be published on the Google Workspace Marketplace for discoverability.

Partners such as Atlassian, Figma, Lucid Software, Miro and Polly.ai, are already building Meet add-ons, and we’re excited to see what apps and workflows developers will build into Meet’s highly-interactive surfaces.

Image of interactive Google Meet add-on by partner Miro

With the Google Meet APIs developers can add the power of Google Meet to their applications by pre-configuring and launching video calls right from their apps. Developers will also be able to pull data and artifacts such as attendance reporting, recordings, and transcripts to make them available for their users post-meeting.

Google Calendar API

The ability to programmatically read and write the working location from Calendar is now available in preview. In the second half of this year, we plan to make these two capabilities, along with the writing of sub-day working locations, generally available.

These new capabilities can be used for integrating with desk booking systems and coordinating in-offices days, to mention just a few use cases. This information will help organizations adapt their setup to meet the needs of hybrid work.

Google Workspace API Dashboard and APIs Explorer

Two new tools were released to assist developers: the Google Workspace API Dashboard and the APIs Explorer.

The API Dashboard is a unified way to access Google Workspace APIs through the Google Cloud Console—APIs for Gmail, Google Drive, Docs, Sheets, Chat, Slides, Calendar, and many more. From there, you now have a central location to manage all your Google Workspace APIs and view all of the aggregated metrics, quotas, credentials, and more for the APIs in use.

The APIs Explorer allows you to explore and test Google Workspace APIs without having to write any code. It's a great way to get familiar with the capabilities of the many Google Workspace APIs.

Apps Script

The eagerly awaited project history capability for Google Apps Script will soon be generally available. This feature allows users to view the list of versions created for the script, their content, and different changes between the selected version and the current version.

It was also announced that admins will be able to add an allowlist for URLs per domain to help safer access controls and control where their data can be sent externally.

The V8 runtime for Apps Script was launched back in 2020 and it enables developers to use modern JavaScript syntax and features. If you still have legacy scripts on the old Rhino runtime, now is the time to migrate them to V8.

AppSheet

We have been further improving AppSheet, our no-code solution builder, and announced multiple new features at I/O.

Later this year we will be launching Duet AI in AppSheet to make it easier than ever to create no-code apps for Google Workspace. Using a natural-language and conversational interface, users can build an app in AppSheet by simply describing their needs as a step-by-step conversation in chat.

Moving image of no-code app creation in AppSheet

The no-code Chat apps feature for AppSheet is generally available which can be used to quickly create Google Chat apps and publish them with 1-click.

AppSheet databases are also generally available. With this native database feature, you can organize data with structured columns and references directly in AppSheet.

Check out the Build a no-code app using the native AppSheet database and Add Chat to your AppSheet apps codelabs to get you started with these two new capabilities.

Google Workspace Marketplace

The Google Workspace Marketplace is where developers can distribute their Workspace integrations for users to find, install, and use. We launched the Intelligent Apps category which spotlights the AI-enabled apps developers build and helps users discover tools to work smarter and be more productive (eligibility criteria here).

Image of Intelligent Apps in Google Workspace

Start building today

If you want early access to the features in preview, sign up for the Developer Preview Program. Subscribe to the Google Workspace Developers YouTube channel for the latest news and video tutorials to kickstart your Workspace development journey.

We can’t wait to see what you will build on the Google Workspace platform.