Tag Archives: Rapid Release

Expanding Google Workspace extensions available in open beta for the Gemini app

What’s changing

Earlier this year, we launched Google Workspace extensions for Gmail, Google Drive and Google Docs in open beta for the Gemini app. Beginning today, we’re pleased to announce that Google Calendar, Google Keep and Google Tasks are also available as Workspace extensions in the Gemini app.

Who’s impacted

Admins and end users

Why you’d use it

Extensions allow the Gemini app to interact with other Google apps and services, helping to provide more contextual and relevant responses to your prompts and take certain actions across apps. For example, you can use extensions to:

Calendar
  • Create an event in Google Calendar based on specific details or based on your conversation with the Gemini app
  • Find events for a specific day, date range, or based on event details
  • Edit or cancel events in Calendar

Tasks
  • Add reminders and tasks, including those based on your conversation with the Gemini app
  • View a list of your tasks and update your tasks

Keep
  • Create notes and lists, including those based on your conversation with the Gemini app
  • Add an item to your existing list
  • Find content from your notes and lists
  • Reference your notes and lists in your conversation with the Gemini app

Additional details

  • If your prompt includes multiple actions that require separate apps or services, but one or more of the required services are not enabled, neither of the actions will be completed. For example, if you prompt Gemini to create an event on your calendar and a reminder for that event but the Tasks extension is not enabled, the event will not be added to your calendar and you will not get a reminder.
  • As a reminder, during the open beta period, Context-Aware Access (CAA) for Gmail, Drive, Docs, Calendar, Keep and Tasks isn’t supported with Google Workspace extensions. Context-Aware Access gives you control over which apps a user can access based on their context, such as whether their device complies with your IT policy. Learn more about Context-Aware Access.
  • Google Workspace extensions is not available to Google Workspace users accessing Gemini as an additional Google service.
  • Note that Google Workspace personal content the Gemini app gets from extensions is not reviewed by anyone to improve AI models, not used to train AI models, and not shared with other users or institutions.

Getting started

  • Admins: 
    • Google Workspace extensions in Gemini are OFF by default and can be enabled at the OU or Group level.
      • If Google Workspace extensions are already enabled, then the Workspace extensions for Calendar, Keep and Tasks will show up automatically for your users.
    • Visit the Help Center to learn more about turning Google Workspace extensions on or off for your organization. 

  • End users: If enabled by your admin, connecting Google Workspace allows users to summarize, get quick answers, and find information from Calendar, Keep and Tasks in addition to Gmail, Docs, and Drive directly in Gemini. Visit the Help Center to learn more about using Google Workspace extensions.

Rollout pace


Availability

Available for Google Workspace customers with these add-ons:
  • Gemini Business
  • Gemini Enterprise
  • Gemini Education
  • Gemini Education Premium


Resources


Preview summaries of unread conversations in the Google Chat home view with the help of Gemini

What’s changing 

We’re excited to announce Gemini in Google Chat can now help you catch up on unread conversations in the Chat home view with summaries. 

Upon navigating to an unread conversation in home, click the “Summarize” button to see a quick, bulleted synopsis of the message content. This enables you to quickly review recent activity across all active conversations to determine where best to focus your time and attention. 

Summarize conversations in Google Chat on web

Who’s impacted 

End users 


Why it matters

Since introducing a more streamlined user experience in Chat to help you find what you need much faster, we’re adding more ways to help you prioritize the most important conversations. This new summaries in home feature does just that by helping you catch up more quickly. 

Summarize conversations in Google Chat on mobile

Additional details 

Summaries in the home view are available for any group conversation, space, or thread in home that contain unread messages. 


Getting started 

Rollout pace 

Web,  Android & iOS:

Availability

Available for Google Workspace customers with these add-ons:
  • Gemini Business, Enterprise, Education, Education Premium 
  • AI Meetings & Messaging 

Resources 

Google Drive inventory reporting is now generally available

What’s changing 

Earlier this year, we launched Google Drive inventory reporting in beta — beginning today, this feature is generally available. Compared to APIs, exporting inventory reports to BigQuery empowers admins to understand their data more deeply, providing insights into how their data is classified, accessed, and used. Understanding these metrics can help admins to identify security risks, ensure compliance with regulatory requirements, and more. For more information, please reference our original announcement. 


Alongside general availability, we’re pleased to announce new functionality: 
  • When generated, inventory reports will follow the data regions settings established by admins. 
  • Within reports, you can now view the email address of the file creator, what organizational unit the file owner belongs to, and inherited permissions for shared drive items. 
  • For greater admin visibility into inventory reporting related actions, audit events are now captured for configuration updates, configuration deletion & creation, as well as completed and failed reports.


Getting started

  • Admins: Visit the Help Center to learn more about Drive inventory reporting.
  • End users: There is no end user impact or action required.

Rollout pace


Availability

Available* for Google Workspace:
  • Enterprise Standard and Plus
  • Education Standard and Plus
  • Enterprise Essentials Plus
  • Cloud Identity Premium

*Note that this availability refers to the ability to generate a report. All end users will be included in the report and are not limited to any specific Google Workspace edition.

Resources


Now generally available: Migrate users’ emails from Google Workspace, Gmail and other IMAP enabled mail servers

What’s changing 

In March 2024, we launched an open beta for the ability to migrate your users’ email data from Google Workspace, Gmail, or IMAP enabled mail servers to another Google Workspace account. This includes the ability to run delta migrations, to smartly bring over newly generated or modified emails from the source without duplicating previously migrated content. 

Beginning today, this data migration experience is now generally available, helping admins migrate email data in a more secure, reliable, and efficient manner.

Admin console > Data > Data Import & Export > Data Migration


Additional details

You can find more information in our Help Center about migrating other forms of data from different types of source accounts.

Getting started


Rollout pace


Availability

  • Available to Google Workspace:
    • Business Starter, Standard, and Plus
    • Enterprise Standard and Plus
    • Education Fundamentals, Standard, Plus, and the Teaching and Learning Upgrade
    • Essentials Starter, Essentials, Enterprise Essentials, and Enterprise Essentials Plus
    • Nonprofits

Resources


Improve Google Meet livestreaming experience with more insight on eCDN performance

What’s changing 

In July 2024, we introduced Enterprise Content Delivery Network (eCDN) support for Google Meet, which helps reduce live streaming bandwidth consumption to a fraction of the traffic volume. Today, we are announcing enhancements that will give admins greater insight to better optimize their eCDN configuration. 


eCDN is deployed according to settings and rules configured by admins to control and optimize peering across their network topology. Beginning today, admins can turn on client debug logs in the Admin console to get detailed information and better understand how configurations affect the way clients use eCDN in different parts of their private network. This information includes:
  • Device status: information about the client's current state.
  • Network: information about the network assigned to the client (potentially through a custom rule configuration).
  • Stats: performance information about how the client has used the eCDN such as transfer rates and peer connections.

Who’s impacted

Admins

Why you’d use it

Understanding how peering rules affect the way clients use eCDN is vital for achieving bandwidth savings targets. Access to detailed information lets administrators deploy eCDN faster across their subnets while all the time being able to monitor that their rules have the intended effect. Additionally, in cases where support is needed, the information contained in the debug logs helps with troubleshooting to resolve issues faster.

Getting started

Available in open beta: Easily migrate files from Microsoft OneDrive to Google Drive

What’s changing

Under the umbrella of our data migration services, we’re introducing a new file migration service for Admins to transfer files between OneDrive data to Google Drive for up to 100 users at a time. Available directly under the Admin console, super admins can now migrate all your files and folders, as well as their corresponding access permissions with shared members. Starting a migration entails a few simple steps:

  • First, connect to the Microsoft OneDrive account you want to transfer files from
  • Next, set the migration scope by identifying the email addresses of Microsoft OneDrive users that you wish to migrate.
  • Finally, create an identity map to connect users on the source account to users on the target account.


Admin console > Data > Data import & export > Data migration > Go to data migration > Microsoft OneDrive





The console will provide reporting on the migration progression and metrics such as how many users have been processed, how many files have been migrated or skipped, and more. You’ll also have the option to export a migration report to further investigate errors and access troubleshooting tips directly from the tool. You can also make delta updates to migrate any new files that were added or updated after a previous migration. 

Example of a completed migration

Who’s impacted

Admins

Why you’d use it 

Data migrations play a critical role in ensuring a seamless transition between various tools and Google Workspace for both admins and end users. Workspace now offers a first party solution that allows our customers to migrate their data at scale, and without the need for third-party workarounds or on-premises infrastructure. This will significantly reduce the overall migration process and onboarding time to Google Workspace, saving customers considerable administrative and infrastructural costs. Additionally, it ensures minimal interruption for end users, who will be able to access all of their files and documents within Google Drive.

Getting started

  • Admins: This feature is available in open beta - no additional sign-up is required to use the feature. This migration can only be performed by super admins. Visit the Help Center to learn more about migrating files from a OneDrive account.
  • End users: There is no end user action required.

Rollout pace

Availability

Available to Google Workspace 
  • Business Starter, Standard, Plus
  • Enterprise Standard, Plus
  • Education Fundamentals, Standard, Plus, the Teaching and Learning Upgrade
  • Essentials Starter, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Essentials Plus
  • Nonprofits

Resources


Easily find and connect to featured partner apps from the Google Workspace Marketplace

What’s changing 

We’re adding a new category within the Google Workspace Marketplace: Featured partner apps. Here, you can quickly find and install the most popular Google Workspace apps.


Getting started



Third-party smart chips now available in Google Sheets

What’s changing 

Last year, we introduced the ability to pull rich data from apps directly into Google Docs with third-party smart chips. Since then, many users have embedded content from partner apps, including Asana, Jira & Confluence, Canva, Lucid, Loom, Whimsical, and Zoho Projects, and now we’re expanding the capability to Google Sheets. 

Starting today, users can add smart chips that pull information from third party apps into Sheets. Users can also paste third-party chips inserted in Docs directly into a spreadsheet. 

To access third-party smart chips, an admin or user must first install a partner’s add-on from the Google Workspace Marketplace. After that, simply paste a link from the third-party source into your spreadsheet and click “tab”. You will then see a smart chip populate in your sheet that previews critical information from the app, right in the flow of your work. 
Third-party smart chips in Google Sheets

Getting started 

  • Admins: You can only create and use a third-party smart chip if a developer has enabled it for that application. You will also need to install or allowlist the specific add-on for that application to ensure end users have access. Visit the Help Center to learn how to install Marketplace apps in your domain and managing Google Workspace Marketplace apps. 
  • Developers: Visit the Help Center to learn more about how to make third-party smart chips. 
  • End users: 
    • Specific add-ons for third-party applications must be installed by your admin or allowlisted for you to use this feature. Visit the Help Center to learn more about inserting third-party smart chips from other applications. 
    • To convert a link to a third-party into a smart chip, you can either: 
      • Paste a link from the third-party source into your spreadsheet and select “tab” 
      • Replace the link with a chip within the hover card that appears when you place your cursor over the link. 
Users who have installed a third-party add-on will see a hovercard of information defined by the third-party upon hovering over the chip: 
Users who have installed a third-party add-on will see a hovercard of information defined by the third-party upon hovering over the chip

Rollout pace


Availability 

  • Available to all Google Workspace customers, Workspace Individual Subscribers, and users with personal Google accounts 

Resources 

Automate meeting recording, transcripts and notes for your Google Meet meetings

What’s changing

Admins now have the option to configure meeting recordings, meeting transcripts, and “take notes for me”* as on by default for newly created meetings. Meeting hosts and co-hosts can edit these settings in the Calendar invite, as well as turn these artifacts off during the meeting. We hope these settings help ensure artifacts are created for specific meetings or series of meetings, like sales calls or town hall meetings, without relying on manual intervention. When these meeting artifacts are turned on, attendees will be notified when they join the green room and when they join the meeting. 

Apps > Google Workspace > Google Meet > Meet video settings > Automatic transcription

Apps > Google Workspace > Google Meet > Meet video settings > Automatic recording


Apps > Google Workspace > Google Meet > Meet video settings > Automatic note taking




*”Take notes for me” requires a Gemini add-on. See below for more information.

Getting started


Rollout pace


Availability

  • Available to Google Workspace 
    • Business Standard and Plus
    • Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Essentials Plus
    • Enterprise Standard and Plus
    • Education Plus, and the Teaching and Learning Upgrade

  • “Take notes for me” requires a Gemini Business, Enterprise, Education, Education Premium, or AI Meetings & Messages add-on.

Transcriptions now available for voice messages in Google Chat

What’s changing 

Earlier this year, we introduced the ability to send voice messages in Google Chat to help users save time, convey more information, and emphasize the most important information for the message receiver. To build upon this highly requested communication feature and increase accessibility in Chat, we’re excited to announce voice messages transcription. 


Starting today, users will be able to see an automatic transcription of voice messages in Chat on web and mobile. This update enables content consumption in a user’s preferred format or the format that is most convenient at that particular moment. 
Transcriptions for voice messages in Google Chat on web

Getting started 

Transcriptions for voice messages in Google Chat on mobile

Rollout pace 

Android, iOS, and web: 

Availability 

  • Available to all Google Workspace customers and Google Workspace Individual subscribers 

Resources