One improvement follows the next: Google had barely released more than 20 updates for Google Workspace in June when the technology company released the next wave of useful updates a month later – from user-friendly improvements to innovative new features. Our colleague Nick took a close look at all the new features from July and presented them in a video. We have summarized them in black and white for you in this blog article:
1. Use companion mode to join a Google Meet room
Previously, if you joined a Google Meet from a conference room, you were identified by the name of the conference room, not your name. Now there’s a new check-in feature for Companion Mode that lets other people in the meeting see your name. This makes communication between the individual participants much easier, because it is now clear who is actually present and who is e.g. B. has reported.
2. Improved meeting room suggestions in Google Calendar
Previously, there were two types of room suggestions based on a company’s Google Calendar settings: 1) frequently used rooms and 2) structured room suggestions based on meeting participants’ self-chosen work locations. Google combines the two options in an updated Structured Meeting Room setting to enable better collaboration — especially in hybrid teams.
The room suggestions are based on the user’s entered location, and if no location data is available, the frequently used rooms are suggested.
3. Make appointments directly in Gmail
Gmail has gotten a new feature that makes it much faster to find a suitable time to meet with others. This is especially useful when you want to schedule meetings with clients, partners, or colleagues whose calendars you can’t see.
4. Add hyperlinks to text in Google Chat
When composing or editing a message in Google Chat, you can now add hyperlinks to your text. This update also adds the ability to copy hyperlinks from other sources such as Gmail, Google Docs, Google Sheets, and Google Slides.
5. More flexibility in Google Forms email capture
Previously, when you created or modified a form in Google Forms, you could either toggle the option to collect email addresses on or off. To make things more flexible, you can now choose between the following options:
Verified email capture (formerly: automatic email capture), responder submission (formerly: manual email capture), or no capture.
The verified capture option now requires the user to click a checkbox to confirm which email address will be captured during the discovery.
6. Quick access to more functions during meetings
Google has introduced a new quick action for accessing popular features in Google Meet. When you hover over your video feed, you can now directly access video effects – or use the option to reframe to improve your visibility.
7. Paid appointment booking in Google Calendar
The options for booking appointments via Google Calendar are now even wider, because: The function that allows users to share their availability now also integrates paid appointments. However, this function must first be activated by an administrator and linked to Stripe as the payment service provider.
8. Easily duplicate groups and objects in Google Sites
Thanks to the update, you can now duplicate images, text boxes, buttons, and groups in Google Sites! This way you can create info pages even faster.
9. More productive focus time with new Google calendar settings
To be less distracted by incoming messages, you can now directly mute all chat notifications during your focus time under the “Do Not Disturb” setting.
10. More flexibility with work locations in Google Calendar
In the office from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.? At home from 2pm to 4pm? Tell others where you are. This is now even more accurate in Google Calendar because Google has improved the location function. Now you can specify where you work from at certain times of the day.
11. Introduced member search and the option to add up to 50,000 members to spaces in Google Chat
To encourage collaboration and communication between teams of all sizes, Google is increasing the number of users you can add to a space in Google Chat from 8,000 to 50,000.
12. Google Sheets is now integrated with Gmail with Mail Merge
Last year, Google made it easier to send individualized emails to many recipients with serial mail tags – i.e. personalized placeholders – such as @firstname or @lastname. Now the mail merge also supports Google Sheets in the web version of Gmail. You can link a sheet to up to 1,500 recipients and use any data column from your sheet as a mail merge tag.
Stay up to date with Google Workspace updates
That was a lot of updates! Were there a few that will make your work easier in the future and that you really want to try out now? If you still have questions about one or the other feature, you can also watch our YouTube video, in which our colleagues on the Google team go into more detail about the Workspace updates:
You don’t want to miss any important news about the Google world? Then subscribe to ours YouTube-Kanalto keep up to date with all things Google Cloud and Google Workspace!
If Google-Cloud-Partner we would be happy to advise you on all things Google Cloud and Google Workspace. Just get in touch with us – Kai is an expert in Google Workspace and will be happy to show you how the solution can work for you and your company. Click here for your consultation appointment with him!
Further information
Not because of the summer slump: Over 20 red hot updates from Google Workspace
Duet AI in Google Workspace: Generative artificial intelligence for office and team collaboration
No digital transformation without Google Data Cloud – Part 1
No digital transformation without Google Data Cloud – Part 2