by | Oct 3, 2024 | News
What's changing
Google Workspace customers with a Gemini add-on can now watermark presented content and video feeds in Google Meet. Watermarking in Google Meet will appear as a subtle text overlay that displays the meeting code and the email address of the viewer over the shared content and video feeds of participants. Using a watermark can help discourage unauthorized copying and sharing, protecting both users’ video images and content shared during meetings. Hosts and co-hosts can turn on watermarking at any time in the meeting. Once watermarking is turned on, it shows on all participants’ screens.
Additional details
Watermarking is available to meeting participants signed into a Google account using the latest Chrome browser, Android or iOS apps, or Google Meet hardware devices. Only participants using supported browsers and apps will see video feeds when watermarking is turned on.
Additionally, watermarking cannot be used when recording a meeting or live streaming a meeting. If you turn on a recording during a meeting, you’ll see a dialog box notifying you that watermarking stops when recording starts.
Getting started
Admins: There is no admin control for this feature.End users: To turn watermarking, go to Host controls > Add a watermark. Visit the Help Center to learn more about how to
apply watermarks to your meeting.
Host controls > Add a watermark
Rollout pace
Availability
Available for Google Workspace customers with these add-ons:
Gemini Enterprise Gemini Education Premium AI Security AI Meetings & Messaging
Resources
by | Sep 19, 2024 | News
What's changing
Admins can now enable content sharing on personal Workspace accounts while preventing data sharing from corporate Workspace accounts on iOS devices.
Additionally, admins can now prevent data sharing from unknown sources (typically non-Google Workspace apps) to personal Workspace accounts on Gmail, Drive, Docs, Sheets, Chat, and more, by setting a
managed configuration.
The {customer_id} is a unique customer ID that’s assigned to your account. You can find it in your Admin console at Account > Account settings > Profile.
Getting started
Admins: Blocking sending of work data to personal apps, including all non-Google Workspace apps on the iOS share sheet, will be OFF by default and can be enabled at the OU level. These settings can be configured in the Admin console under Devices > Mobile and endpoints > iOS settings > Data Sharing. Visit the Help Center to learn more about
data protection on iOS devices. Use this article in our Help Center to learn more about how to
set up the managed configuration, go to set up iOS apps with managed configurations.
End users: Sharing of data between Google Workspace apps and non-Google Workspace apps depends on your admin configuration. If you’re unable to share data between apps, you may see a warning message. Visit the Help Center to learn more about how your iOS device is managed.
Rollout pace
Availability
Available for Google Workspace:
Enterprise Standard and PlusEducation Standard and PlusEnterprise Essentials PlusFrontline StandardCloud Identity Premium
Resources
by | Sep 19, 2024 | News
What's changing
Currently, Google Calendar automatically pulls in birthday information from Google Contacts. However, it is not currently possible to create birthday events directly in Calendar.
To ensure a birthday is never missed, we’re introducing the ability to create and modify birthday events in Google Calendar on Android devices.
Who's impacted
End users and developers
Additional details
Birthday events do not support all event properties. If you’re using the Calendar API, we recommend reviewing your code so you don’t apply any non-supported properties.
Creating dedicated birthday events in Google Calendar will also become available on web and iOS devices in the future.
Getting started
Rollout pace
Web:
Mobile:
Availability
Available to all Google Workspace customers, Workspace Individual Subscribers, and users with personal Google accounts.
Resources
by | Sep 6, 2024 | News
What's changing
To help our customers continue to understand and measure the carbon intensity of their cloud computing, we have partnered with Electricity Maps to provide hourly emissions data within the Carbon Footprint report. Since we launched the Google Workspace Carbon Footprint report at Cloud Next 2023, we have continued our collaboration with Electricity Maps to further help users understand their emissions. Directly within the Admin console, admins can track the carbon footprint and emissions of using Google Workspace, down to specific tools such as Google Meet, Gmail, Google Docs, and more.
We've also added a new admin role for accessing Carbon Footprint reports. Previously, only Workspace admins with reporting privileges had access to the carbon footprint dashboard. However, we know our customers have specialists, such as a dedicated Sustainability team, who rely on this information to inform their work. Now, admins can grant access to the Workspace Carbon Footprint report to select users by creating a customised role.
Who's impacted
Admins
Why it's important
Cloud computing has immense significance for powering global business operations and innovation. But, in a world facing the accelerating impacts of climate change, it is increasingly important to keep an eye on its environmental impact. The dynamic and global nature of cloud computing creates challenges for precisely measuring its emissions and requires granular data that captures the carbon emissions of electricity at every hour in locations around the world. Partnering with Electricity Maps gives our customers a way to monitor their cloud emissions over time by product - giving IT teams and developers the high quality metrics they need to monitor, improve, and reduce their carbon emissions.
Electricity Maps gathers real-time and historical power generation and power exchange data from multiple sources around the globe, calculating the hourly consumption mix available on the grid and its carbon intensity. Electricity Maps follows a highly granular approach, combined with a transparent and scientific methodology and a strict collective vetting process of their open-source community. This guarantees high-quality and trustworthy data that aligns with Google's ambition for a realistic and science-backed perspective on climate impact. For maximum transparency, emissions can be viewed on either location-based or market-based Scope 2 accounting standards. Location-based emissions show the emissions linked to the actual electricity used for the operations, whereas the market-based emissions represent emissions from the purchased electricity, including Google's annual renewable energy purchases. More information about the methodology behind Google's Workspace and Cloud Carbon Footprints can be found here.
Additional details
More about Google's sustainability commitments
In 2020, we set a goal to run on 24/7 carbon-free energy-every hour of every day on every grid where we operate-by 2030. We continue to make product and operational improvements to reduce environmental impact and we're sharing technology, methods, and funding to enable organisations around the world to transition to more carbon-free and sustainable systems - see here for
more information about our sustainability commitments.
Google uses the Greenhouse Gas Protocol, the global standard for carbon accounting to generate the Workspace Carbon Footprint reports. We recommend that admins familiarise themselves with the GHG terminology - you can find more information in our Help Center or the video below.
Getting started
Admins: You can find your Carbon Footprint report in the Admin console under Reporting > Carbon footprint. Visit the Help Centre to learn more about the
Workspace Carbon Footprint.
Rollout pace
Availability
by | Sep 7, 2024 | News
1 New update
Unless otherwise indicated, the features below are available to all Google Workspace customers, and are fully launched or in the process of rolling out. Rollouts should take no more than 15 business days to complete if launching to both Rapid and Scheduled Release at the same time. If not, each stage of rollout should take no more than 15 business days to complete.
Improved user experience for Google Meet on Android devices
If you're joining a Google Meet call from Android phone, tablets or large screen devices, you'll now see a more streamlined, space-efficient experience with edge-to-edge video. We've expanded the video feed to encompass spaces where there were previously margins around the video feed. This helps provide a richer, more immersive viewing experience. You'll also notice a sleeker user interface for meeting controls, and clearer indicators for information such as the meeting title. | Rollout to
Rapid Release and Scheduled Release domains is complete. | Available now for all Google Workspace customers, Workspace Individual Subscribers, and users with personal Google accounts. | Visit the Help Centre to learn more about
joining a meeting.
Previous announcements
The announcements below were published on the Workspace Updates blog earlier this week. Please refer to the original blog posts for complete details.
Gemini (gemini.google.com) now shows related content links in its responses
You can now access additional information on topics directly in Gemini's (gemini.google.com) responses to your prompts. Specifically, you'll see links to related content in responses to fact-seeking prompts - you can click the arrow chips to dive deeper into the topic. If you have a Gemini for Workspace licence and Google Workspace extensions in Gemini are enabled, Gemini will also now include inline links to relevant emails referenced in responses where the Gmail extension is used. | Learn more about
related content links shown in Gemini.View your most relevant Google Drive folders and files on a single page
You will now see a combined, unified view for file and folder suggestions on the Drive homepage that leverages machine learning to help you find and organise your most relevant content faster and intuitively. | Learn more about the
view in Drive.
Empowering Google Workspace customers to take control of their emissions with Electricity Maps
To help our customers continue to understand and measure the carbon intensity of their cloud computing, we have partnered with Electricity Maps to provide hourly emissions data within the Carbon Footprint report. | Learn more about
Electricity Maps.
by | Sep 9, 2024 | News
What's changing
We're incorporating additional data in
Gemini reports to help our customers gain a deeper understanding of Gemini usage and adoption across their organisations.
Gemini reports now include user and app level Gemini usage and adoption data based on the last 28 days of usage. These insights can help admins identify power users in their organisation, whom they can tap into for practical use cases and best practices, which can then be shared broadly with other users to drive adoption. Identifying users with lower adoption rates is equally important and can provide helpful context for creating training, change management programmes and materials, and more.
From Menu > Generative AI > Gemini Reports > User-led usage you can track active Gemini usage days and how that usage is spread across various apps. You can also export this information for further analysis.
As of August 22, usage of gemini.google.com is now captured in the org-level usage portion of the report under the "Chat with Gemini" label, as well as in the new user-level usage reports. Including gemini.google.com usage and adoption information provides a more complete picture of how users are interacting with all Gemini tools across Workspace.
Gemini.google.com adoption data can be found under the "Chat with Gemini" label. Data reported as of August 9, 2024
Note: Gemini reports are denoted as 'beta' as we continue to optimise reporting functionality based on customer feedback. These are subject to the "Pre-General Availability Offerings Terms" section of the
Google Workspace Service Specific Terms"
Getting started
Rollout pace
Availability
Available for Google Workspace customers with these add-ons:
Gemini Business, Enterprise, Education, Education Premium
Resources
by | Sep 10, 2024 | News
What's changing
Getting started
Admins:
Google Cloud Directory Sync will automatically respect your existing Admin console settings for handling conflicting unmanaged accounts. We do not recommend turning this feature off in GCDS, rather you should configure these settings as you see fit in the Admin console. Visit the Help Centre to learn more about
handling conflicting unmanaged accounts with Google Cloud Directory Syncas well as
unmanaged accounts in general. End users: Depending on your admin configuration: You'll be invited to transfer your account - if accepted, your admin will have the ability to manage your account. If you do not accept the request, your admin may replace your unmanaged account with a managed one. In that case, you'll receive a new @gmail.com address and retain your content in this unmanaged, personal Google account.
Rollout pace
Availability
Available for all Google Workspace customers
Resources
by | Sep 10, 2024 | News
What's changing
Earlier this yearIn 2009, we improved upon the file management experience in Google Chat spaces by creating the Shared tab, a central place to manage all conversation-related artifacts including files, links and media. Today, we're excited to announce that the Shared tab is now available in 1:1 direct messages and group messages, enabling easier collaboration across all conversation types.
Who's impacted
End users
Why you'd use it
The Shared tab provides a centralised and visible method to access shared content shared within a conversation.
Additional details
Using the new sort drop-down, you can narrow down the list of documents displayed based on category (file, link, media) or date shared.
Getting started
Admins: There is no admin control for this feature. End users: At the top of a Google Chat message, you will see the following tabs: Chat and Shared. Upon clicking Shared, you will see three sections: Files, Links and Media. Visit the Help Centre to learn more about
sending & sharing files in Google Chat messages.
Rollout pace
Web:
Android & iOS:
Availability
Available to all Google Workspace customers, Workspace Individual Subscribers, and users with personal Google accounts
Resources
by | Sep 11, 2024 | News
What's changing
We're pleased to announce that beginning today, the Meet Add-ons SDK is now generally available for the web. This SDK allows developers to iframe their app into Meet, and lets meeting participants interact with the app's content directly inside the Meet canvas.
Who's impacted
Admins, end users, and developers
Why it matters
The Add-ons SDK expands Meet's existing platform capabilities, providing the opportunity for developers to build interactive and collaborative experiences for their users in Google Meet which they can find and install from the Google Workspace Marketplace. These experiences allow for users to launch, install, and engage with the app's content during their meetings, all without ever leaving Google Meet. Examples of already built add-ons include whiteboarding experiences with Figjam, Lucidspark and Miro; note taking experiences with Read Notetaker; and also polling and surveying experiences via Polly.
Add-ons can be displayed in two ways during a meeting:
The main stage allows apps to be the focal point of a meeting experience, unlocking the opportunity for add-on users to supercharge collaboration while in a meeting. The side panel allows users to do actions such as share data, take surveys, or update records and notes while keeping the meeting and the discussion with other participants the focal point of this experience.
Additional details
The Google Workspace Marketplace automatically respects any controls that have been configured by admins, including whether their users can download and install add-ons. Additionally, all apps on the Marketplace have been reviewed and approved by the Google Marketplace team before they're published.
Getting started
Admins: The availability of Google Meet Add-ons in meetings can be controlled through the Google Meet Admin Controls. Visit the Help Centre to learn more about
admin controls for Add-ons. Developers: Our Developer Documentation has more information about using the
Meet Add-Ons SDK. End users: Visit the Help Centre to learn more about
using add-ons with Google Meet. Meeting hosts can control the availability of add-ons during meetings by going to Host Controls (lock icon) > Meeting Activities > Let contributors share add-on activities. Refer to
this announcement on the Workspace Updates blog for more information.
Rollout pace
Availability
Available to all Google Workspace customers, Workspace Individual Subscribers, and users with personal Google accounts
Resources
by | Sep 12, 2024 | News
What's changing
To improve upon the publishing experience, we're excited to announce that developers can now make changes to their app listing, save them as a draft, and send the draft version to review. This will allow developers to preview changes and share drafts with specific users to help with validation before publishing a listing.
Who's impacted
Developers
Why you'd use it
This update allows developers to test and preview their
Google Workspace Marketplace app listing prior to publishing, which enables feedback collection and ultimately makes updating an app listing much easier.
Additional details
While changes are under review in the draft state, the original app listing remains available on the Google Workspace Marketplace.
Getting started
Rollout pace
Availability
Available to all Google Workspace customers, Workspace Individual Subscribers, and users with personal Google accounts
Resources
