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Who’s impacted

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Getting started

Rollout pace

Availability

Resources

The Google Classroom API enables third-party developers to manage classes, rosters, invitations and more in Google Classroom. Since 2019, teachers have been able to create or reuse a rubric for an assignment, however this capability did not previously exist in the Classroom API. To improve upon this experience, we’re excited to announce that developers can now manage assignment rubrics via the Classroom API. 

More specifically, developers can read and write rubrics using the API, and also see student submission scores broken down by the corresponding rubric criteria, rather than just accessing the total score, enabling deeper insights into student performance. 

Admins and developers 

This update enables developers to create and manage rubrics on behalf of teachers at scale, and retrieve rubric-based grades to support more holistic student performance insights. 

• Admins: The Classroom API provides a RESTful interface for you to manage courses and rosters in Google Classroom. Learn more about the Classroom API overview. 
• Developers:
• Visit the following developer resource to learn more about getting started with rubrics, the general structure of a rubric and how rubric grading is done in the Classroom UI. 
• As part of this change, the Eligibility API has been extended to enable developers to determine which users are able to take advantage of the new rubrics endpoints. 

• Available now. 

Available for Google Workspace: 

• Education Plus 

• Google Help: Classroom API overview 
• Developer Documentation: The Classroom API 
• Developer Documentation: Get started with rubrics

Earlier this year, we introduced a beta for policy visualization across Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Drive. Today, we’re excited to announce this is now generally available, and as a result, users who are interacting with policy-protected content, such as those with data loss prevention (DLP) rules or trust rules, will now be informed about what actions are prevented by those policies. 

For example, if a user is interacting with a document affected by DLP-enforced information rights management (IRM) and a trust rule, they will see a shield icon and side panel that informs them of the restricted actions. 

End users 

With this update, users will be made aware of which actions they are taking that are disabled on a document, spreadsheet, slides or file due to data protection controls. 

• Admins: There is no admin control for this feature. 
• End users: 
• Any user will be able to see policy visualization if relevant restrictions apply to them. Security limitations can be applied by owners of a document, shared drive policies, or admin policies. 
• A shield icon will automatically appear when security controls are present. Users can open the side panel to view all restrictions, either using the shield icon or by going to File > Security limitations. 
• Visit the Help Center to learn more about Policy Visualization and the policies themselves: 
• Policy Visualization
• Drive DLP 
• Drive Sharing Settings 
• Trust Rules 
• Shared Drives 

• Rapid Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on December 2, 2024 
• Scheduled Release domains: Full rollout (1-3 days for feature visibility) starting on January 6, 2025 

Availability

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

Resources

• Google Help: Drive DLP 
• Google Help: Drive Sharing Settings
• Google Help: Trust Rules 
• Google Help: Shared Drives

When writing an email in the Gmail app on your Android device, you can now drag and drop contacts in the addressee fields. This makes it easier for you to move an email address between the “to,” “cc,” and “bcc” fields. | Rollout to Rapid Release domains and Scheduled Release domains is complete. | Available to all Google Workspace customers, Workspace Individual Subscribers, and users with personal Google accounts.

In continuing our effort to make Google Chat your home for team collaboration, we’re excited to introduce a fast and flexible way to connect: huddles. 

Powered by Google Meet, huddles let you start an audio-first meeting, making real-time collaboration easier than ever. Once the huddle has started, you can resize or drag the window, add video, or share your screen for a fuller meeting experience while multitasking in Chat. 

Huddles provide a seamless collaboration experience across Chat and Meet, and can be useful in a variety of scenarios, such as two colleagues syncing quickly to discuss a project they’ve been messaging about in their Chat stream. 

End users 

Huddles help to reduce meeting fatigue for hybrid workers, and eliminates the need for lengthy discussions over email or in Chat. Instead of jumping out of the conversation and into a meeting, huddles integrates directly and smoothly into the Chat experience. The format of huddles also supports multi-tasking while in Chat as you can easily resize or share your screen. 

The Meet video button that’s currently in the compose bar of Chat is moving to the Chat header, giving you multiple options such as the ability to call, start a huddle, or share a Meet link through a single entry point. 

• Admins: If Meet is turned OFF for users in your domain, they will not be able to create Huddles, but they can join Huddles. Visit the Help Center to learn more about turning on Meet meetings and calls for your organization. 
• End users:
• Huddles are available in direct messages, group messages and spaces. 
• To start a huddle in Chat, click the Video icon in the top right corner of your chat message > select Start a huddle. 
• Huddles start audio only as default but you can turn video on at any moment. 
• When you’re requested to join a huddle, you will see a chat chip in your message thread that says [user] has started a huddle, click “Join” to enter the huddle. You will also see the huddles toggle in the Chat header for that conversation. 
• Visit the Help Center to learn more about huddles in Google Chat. 

• Rapid Release domains: Extended rollout (potentially longer than 15 days for feature visibility) starting on November 27, 2024, with expected completion by December 20, 2025 
• Scheduled Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on January 6, 2025 

Available for Google Workspace: 

• Business Starter, Standard, and Plus 
• Enterprise Starter, Standard, and Plus 
• Frontline Starter and Standard 
• Essentials, Enterprise Essentials, and Enterprise Essentials Plus 
• Nonprofits 

Resources 

• Google Workspace Admin Help: Turn on Meet meetings and calls for your organization 
• Google Help: Learn about huddles in Google Chat

Since introducing tables in Google Sheets, we’ve made numerous improvements to ensure users are equipped with the tools they need to accelerate spreadsheet building. Table references, a way to refer to a table or parts of a table in a formula, are just one example of how tables reduce time spent manually formatting data. 

Today, we’re excited to announce updates to table references that enhance discoverability and usability. Specifically, users will now see: 

• Improved table reference availability, which allows users to reference the items below across both single (e.g., =Table2[[#ALL],[Column 1]]) and multiple columns (e.g., =Table2[[#ALL],[Column 1]:[Column 2]] ): 
• Full table columns, including column headers, data, and footers (#ALL) 
• Table headers (#HEADERS) 
• Table footers (#TOTALS) 
• Table data, excluding headers and footers (#DATA) 
  

• Formula suggestions, which help you identify formulas that could be more robust. For example, if a user types a working formula that overlaps with a table range, a table reference suggestion will show. 

• Formula corrections for table references, which show a formula correction with a proper table reference when a formula is written incorrectly. 

Getting started 

• Admins: There is no admin control for this feature. 
• End users: Visit the Help Center to learn more about using table references in Google Sheets. 

Rollout pace 

• Rapid Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on November 19, 2024 
• Scheduled Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on December 10, 2024 

Availability

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

Resources 

• Google Help: Use table references in Google Sheets 
• Google Help: Use tables in Google Sheets

In 2022, we introduced automatic framing for select Google Workspace editions. Beginning today, we’re pleased to announce that we’re expanding this functionality to all users, as well as introducing an improved experience while using a virtual background. This feature will be on by default. 

Depending on their camera placement, some meeting participants might be less visible than others. With automatic framing, Google Meet will automatically center your video before joining a meeting to help ensure equal visibility for all participants. The automatic framing happens only once, so there are no motion distractions that can divert attention from the content of the meeting. Additionally, Meet will now continuously keep you centered when using a virtual background, ensuring your background is fixed and not constantly reframing which can be distracting.

Getting started

Rollout pace

Availability

Resources