What’s changing 

You can now view embedded Microsoft Office files in your documents when you’re working with Office files in Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides.. This feature allows you to:  
View your embedded files from Office in your documents



Rollout pace 

Availability 
Available to all Google Workspace customers, as well as G Suite Basic and Business customers. Also available to users with personal Google Accounts 

Resources
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Time Insights in Google Calendar appearing on the right side of a week view
Time Insights experience for an example calendar week view




Please note, you can only view Time Insights on a computer.

Who’s impacted

Admins and end users

Why you’d use it

With the changes to our working environments in the past year, some people have more meetings and may feel less control over how their work time is spent. Time Insights can show you this data, and help you plan your time better.

Additional details

With Time Insights, you’ll see information such as:
  • Time breakdown: Based on your working hours and the types of meetings you have
  • Time in meetings: Highlighting meeting-heavy days and time frames, as well as meeting frequencies
  • People you meet with: Showing who you spend the most time meeting with. You can also pin key stakeholders to make sure you’re keeping in touch with them. Hovering over an individual will also highlight the meetings on your calendar that include that person
This information is visible to you, not your manager—so you can assess how you’re spending your time against your own priorities.

If you manage other people’s calendars and have “manage sharing access” permission to those calendars, you can view their Time Insights.

Getting started

  • Admins: This feature will be ON by default and can be disabled at the domain/OU level. Visit the Help Center to learn more about turning Time Insights on or off for your organization. Please note, there is no admin control for Google Workspace Business Standard domains.
  • End users: There is no end user setting for this feature but users can close the right hand bar out of view at any time. Visit the Help Center to learn more about Time Insights in Calendar.

Rollout pace

Admin setting
End user feature

Availability

  • Available to Google Workspace Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Plus, and Nonprofits customers
  • Not available to Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Enterprise Essentials, Education Fundamentals, and Frontline, as well as G Suite Basic and Business customers

Resources

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App starter window with right-click menu options on Google Chat app
Right click on the Chat app to select this new option


Please note, ​this feature is not supported on Chrome OS.

If you don't have the Chat PWA app already, you’ll first have to install the Chat PWA app.

Before this launch, you’d have to manually start the Chat PWA app by searching for and clicking on it every time you restart your computer. With the new feature, you can simply choose to launch the PWA app at system startup every time.

Getting started

  • Admins: There is no admin control for this feature.
  • End users: This feature will be OFF by default and can be enabled by the user. Once turned on, the Chat PWA app will automatically start when the user logs into their computer.

Rollout pace

  • This feature is available now for all users.

Availability

  • Available to all Google Workspace customers, as well as G Suite Basic and Business customers

Resources

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Formula suggestions will make it easier to write new formulas accurately and help make data analysis quicker and easier.

Simply begin inserting a formula in Sheets—suggestions will be automatically displayed and as you continue to type. You can view additional incremental suggestions in the drop-down menu.





We hope these formula suggestions make it easier and faster for you to work with and analyze your data.

Getting started

  • Admins: There is no admin control for this feature.
  • End users: This feature will be available  by default and can be disabled by going to Tools > Enable formula suggestions or from the three-dot menu of the suggestion dialog box. Visit the Help Center to learn more about using formulas and functions in Google Sheets. 

Rollout pace


Availability

  • Available to all Google Workspace customers, as well as G Suite Basic and Business customers
  • Available to users with personal Google accounts

Resources

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When using Google Meet on iOS, you have the option to replace your background with a video.
Use a video background to make calls more fun.

Who’s impacted 

Admins and end users 

Why you’d use it 

Custom backgrounds can help you show more of your personality, as well to help hide your surroundings to maintain privacy. With the option of replacing your background with video, we hope this makes your video calls more fun. 

Getting started 


Rollout pace 

  • This feature is available now for all users. 

Availability 

  • Available to all Google Workspace customers, as well as G Suite Basic and Business customers 
  • Available to users with personal Google Accounts 

Resources 

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Simply hover over the task on the web or select the task on mobile and then select the Chat. We hope this feature makes it easier to surface context for your tasks, and re-engage your stakeholders with updates, questions or further collaboration. 



Select a task in the "Tasks" portion of a Google Chat room — you can select the chat icon to navigate to relevant messages.
The new "View in Chat" icon within the Tasks section of a Google Chat room.

When viewing tasks on mobile, the chat icon will be in the top right hand corner.
When viewing tasks on mobile, the chat icon will be in the top right hand corner.


Getting started 

  • Admins: There is no admin control for this feature. 
  • End users: This feature will be available by default. 

Rollout pace 


Availability 

  • Available to all Google Workspace customers, as well as G Suite Basic and Business customers 

Resources 

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Smart Reply suggestions appear below the reply box on comment threads in English. You can choose a suggested reply or write your own. Smart Reply joins Smart compose and spelling autocorrect announced in January 2021 to help you compose comments in Docs quickly and with confidence. 

Smart reply suggests replies to comments in Google Docs
Smart Reply can help saves you time replying to comments in Docs by suggesting relevant replies


Getting started 

  • Admins: There is no admin control for this feature. 
  • End users: This feature will be ON by default To turn it off, go to Tools > Preferences > Show Smart Reply suggestions. If turned on, click on a comment thread in Google Docs, and Smart Reply will suggest responses if available. It may not present suggestions in all cases, and the comment thread must be in English. Simply click on a suggestion to use it, once you click, you can send it as-is or edit it before sending. Visit the Help Center to learn more about using Smart Reply in Google Docs, and replying to comments in Google Docs. 

Rollout pace 

Availability 

  • Available to all Google Workspace customers, as well as G Suite Basic and Business customers. Also available to users with personal Google Accounts 

Resources 


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In 2020, we launched security groups to beta. Beginning today, this feature is now generally available. Security groups help you easily regulate, audit, and monitor groups used for permission and access control purposes. They enable admins to: 

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Users may see a notification alerting them when they’re causing an echo
Users may see a notification alerting them when they’re causing an echo 




If you click on the notification, there’s troubleshooting steps you can take which might help reduce the echo

If you click on the notification, there’s troubleshooting steps you can take which might help reduce the echo 


Getting started 

Rollout pace 
Availability 
  • Available to all Google Workspace customers, as well as G Suite Basic and Business customers 
Resources
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Getting started

  • Admins: There is no admin setting for this feature.
  • End users: Within the chat.google.com or the Google Chat PWA, go to Settings > Theme settings and select “Dark mode”.  

Rollout pace


Availability

  • Available to all Google Workspace customers, as well as G Suite Basic and Business customers




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Who’s impacted 
Admins 


Why it’s important
Trusted domains for Chat gives admins more fine grained control over external chat in their organization. This can help the right users communicate with the stakeholders they need to work with, while helping to prevent inappropriate or undesired external chats. 


Additional details
Trusted domains only allows communication with domain managed accounts in those domains. Email verified consumer accounts will not be trusted. 

Getting started 
  • End users: There is no end user setting for this feature. 




Rollout pace 

Availability 
  • Available to [Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Fundamentals, Education Plus, Frontline, and Nonprofits, as well as G Suite Basic and Business customers 

Resources 
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Set where you're working in your Calendar settings




Show your working location on your calendar


Starting August 18, admins will be able to control how the feature is used in their organization. Read more below.

Who’s impacted

Admins and end users

Why you’d use it

By showing others which days of the week you plan to be in the office, working from home, or working from another location, it’s easier to plan in-person collaboration or set expectations in a hybrid workplace.

Additional details

Anyone with free/busy access to your calendar can view your working locations. This can be turned off at any time in your calendar settings.

Getting started

  • Admins: This feature will be ON by default and can be disabled at the domain or OU level. If you’d like to disable this feature setting and prevent the onboarding promo from being shown automatically for your users, be sure to disable the setting in the Admin console before August 30, 2021. Visit the Help Center to learn more about turning working location off for your organization.
  • End users: Unless disabled by your admin, this feature will be OFF by default. You’ll be shown an onboarding dialog with the option to enable the feature starting on August 30, 2021. The feature can be enabled with the initial onboarding dialog or in your Calendar settings.


Onboarding dialog to set up your working location

Rollout pace

Admin setting
End user feature

Availability

  • Available to Google Workspace Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Plus, and Nonprofits, as well as G Suite Business customers
  • Not available to Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Enterprise Essentials, Education Fundamentals, Frontline customers as well as G Suite Basic customers

Resources


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The theme colors section is now at the top color picker, and the “theme” placeholder has now been enhanced to show the name of the theme. Now you can easily identify your company brand and use the theme colors of the brand.


To select theme colors, go to any color picker dropdown and click the edit button for your theme color palette. In the theme color sidebar, select a color from the dropdown to begin editing. Note that color changes apply only to the current theme you selected and will not create a new theme.


Example of selecting customized theme colors. In this case the theme is named “Simple Light.”


We hope this new feature will help you customize your presentations in Sheets and Slides and enable you to incorporate your company’s brand colors.


Getting started

  • Admins: There is no admin control for this feature.
  • End users: This feature will be ON by default. There is no end user setting for this feature.

Rollout pace

Rapid Release and Scheduled Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on August 17, 2021


Availability

  • Available to all Google Workspace customers, as well as G Suite Basic and Business customers 
  • Available to users with personal Google Accounts

Resources

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Who’s impacted

Admins


Why you’d use it

We’ve heard from you that you’d like to use your own pre-recorded prompts and greetings instead of using the existing text-to-speech option when setting up Google Voice automated attendant. Now, you can upload custom prompts and greetings for a greater degree of customization. Once you upload recordings, we offer immediate playback and automatic transcriptions to help you more easily keep track of and manage uploads.


Gif showing an example of how to upload a recorded sales greeting audio file to Voice auto attendant
Example of how to upload a recorded sales greeting audio file to Auto Attendant


Getting started

  • End users: There is no impact to end users.

Rollout pace


Availability


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See below for more information.


Who’s impacted

Admins


Why it’s important

We hope that by surfacing important information in these cards, admins are able to easily complete their setup process and stay on top of managing Google Workspace for their organization.


Getting started

  • Admins: This feature will be available by default.
  • End users: No action required.

Rollout pace


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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.

Reminder: Google Meet support for IE11 ending August 17, 2021
Beginning August 17, 2021, you will no longer be able to use Google Meet on IE11. To avoid disruption, please switch to a supported browser before that date. | Learn more. 


Easily switch between lists in Google Tasks on mobile
We have now updated the current Tasks Mobile user interface to display multiple lists at the same time in a tabbed UI. | Learn more.


Add up to 25 co-hosts per meeting and expanded safety features for Google Meet
We’re expanding meeting moderation controls in Google Meet with several highly requested features, including assigning co-hosts, new safety features, and more. | See the original announcement for more details and full availability. | Learn more.


For a recap of announcements in the past six months, check out What’s new in Google Workspace (recent releases).

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[August 30, 2021]: 
We’d like to provide some additional clarification on how this update impacts meeting records: 

  • When Host Management is turned on, only the main host and any designated co-host can start a meeting recording if given the permission by Admin. 
  • When Host Management is turned off, only users with permission by Admin to record a meeting can start a recording. 

For Workspace for Education users, we strongly recommend turning Host Management on to ensure your meetings run smoothly with minimal disruption. For instance, if you turn Host Management off, your students will be able to remove each other from the meeting.

 

What’s changing 

We’re expanding meeting moderation controls in Google Meet with several highly requested features. You’ll now be able to: 
  • Assign up to 25 co-hosts per meeting, allowing them to access and utilize the host controls. 
  • Use safety features to limit who can share their screen, send chat messages, mute all users and end meetings 
  • Use the “Quick access” setting to easily control who needs to request permission to join a meeting.
Previously, these safety features were only available to Google Workspace for Education customers. These controls will now be available for all Google Meet users on the desktop and mobile. See below for more information and availability.



Who’s impacted

Admins and end users



Why it’s important

We hope these expanded controls make it easier for you to keep meetings productive, safe, and help prevent potential disruptions. Additionally, delegated co-hosts can handle responsibilities such as—muting participants, launching polls, managing Q&As—giving you more time to focus on leading discussions and guiding attendees through presentations. 



Additional details

New controls for meeting hosts, which can be extended to co-hosts
In the Google Meet settings, select “Host controls” and ensure the “Host management” option is toggled ON. When enabled, hosts can now:
  • Limit who can share their screen,
  • Limit who can send chat messages,
  • Mute all with one click,
  • End the meeting for all,
  • Control who can join the meeting and how they can join with the “Quick access” setting. Note: This feature is only available to specific Workspace editions — see below for more information.
To get access to the Moderation Controls make sure the Host Management toggle is enabled in the Setting menu

For applicable Workspace editions (see more below), Meeting hosts can share hosting privileges with other meeting participants—up to 25 per meeting—by granting them host controls in the People panel.

Promoting a meeting participant to a co-host through the People Panel in Google Meet.




Quick access Control
We’ve expanded the “quick access” control for Meet to most Google Workspace Customers (see below for full availability). The quick access control will be ON by default. When quick access is enabled, meeting participants from your domain can automatically join the meeting from a mobile or desktop device, and by dialing in. 



When quick access is disabled:
  • The host must join the meeting first.
  • Only invited participants can join without asking — all other attendees and those dialing in must ask to join the meeting.
  • No anonymous users can join the meeting.
  • Only the host can dial out of the meeting.

Visit the Help Center to learn more about controlling access to a video meeting using the quick access control.



In the coming weeks, we will introduce a new setting in the admin console that will control Host Management. We will provide an update here on the Workspace Updates Blog when that setting becomes available.



Updates to the “People” panel
Additionally, we’ve added the ability to search for a meeting participant. This will allow you to quickly navigate to a specific user to mute them, remove them from the call, or assign host privileges. The updated people panel will be available on web and mobile.



If you have assigned co-hosts in your meeting, they will be  indicated as such with a security shield icon.

People panel Search option


Getting started


Rollout pace

Web, Android, and iOS 
Use this post in our community forum for more information on rollout progression and additional FAQs.


Availability

Moderation and Safety Controls
  • Available to Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Fundamentals, Education Plus, Education Standard, the Teaching and learning Upgrade, Frontline, and Nonprofits, as well as G Suite Basic and Business customers
  • Also available to users with personal Google Accounts

Quick access settings:
  • Available to all Google Workspace customers, as well as G Suite Basic and Business customers
  • Not available to Google Workspace Individual customers or users with personal Google Accounts

Ability to add co-hosts
  • Available to Google Workspace Essentials, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Business Standard, Business Plus, Education Fundamentals, Education Standard, Education Plus, and Teaching and Learning Upgrade customers
  • Not available to Google Workspace Business Starter, Frontline, and Nonprofits, as well as G Suite Basic and Business customers

Resources


Roadmap


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We have now updated the current Tasks Mobile user interface to display multiple lists at the same time in a tabbed UI. This update allows users to organize their tasks in multiple lists and allows for better management of tasks on mobile. 

Tasks Mobile displays multiple lists at the same time
Getting started 
  • Admins: There is no admin control for this feature 
  • End users: To switch between task lists, select the title of the list or swipe left 
Rollout pace: Rapid & Scheduled Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 16 days for feature visibility) starting on August 9, 2021 

Availability:Available to all Google Workspace customers, as well as G Suite Basic and Business customers
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Gif showing a form being filled out and saved



Who’s impacted

End users


Why it matters

This highly requested feature helps ensure you won’t have to start over if:
  • You can’t complete a form or quiz in one sitting,
  • You have to switch between multiple devices,
  • You have low internet connectivity.

Additional details

Form owners and editors can disable this feature for responders to a specific form. You may want to disable the feature on forms that are:
  • Used for repeated data entry,
  • Embedded in websites,
  • On certain shared devices, such as registration or information kiosks.

To disable this feature, within Google Forms, go to Settings > Presentation > Restrictions and select “Disable autosave for all respondents”.


Getting started

  • Admins: There is no admin control for this feature.

Rollout pace

  • Rapid Release domains: Extended rollout (potentially longer than 15 days for feature visibility) starting on August 3.
  • Scheduled Release domains: Extended rollout (potentially longer than 15 days for feature visibility) starting on September 15.

Availability

  • Available to all Google Workspace customers, as well as G Suite Basic and Business customers
  • Available to users with personal Google accounts

Resources

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  • Emoji set is updated to the latest version (Emoji 13.1), reflecting the latest emoji set and diversity and inclusion options
  • Addition of a gender-neutral option for gender-modifiable emojis
  • Emoji skin tone and gender preferences are saved per individual emoji

Image of emoji picking on Android phone showing the Add Reaction optionImage of emoji picking on Android phone showing the emojis available
Two screenshots showing the emoji picking experience on an Android phone: Choosing the Add reaction option and the listing of emoji available to react to a message.


Who’s impacted

End users


Getting started

  • Admins: There is no admin control for this feature.
  • End users: This feature will be ON by default and can not be disabled by the user.

Rollout pace

  • Web and iOS:
    • We anticipate this feature to become available for Google Chat on web and iOS in the coming weeks. We will provide an update on the Google Workspace Updates Blog at that time.

Availability

  • Available to all Google Workspace customers, as well as G Suite Basic and Business customers
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Now, when you create links to shared Microsoft Office files stored in Drive, they will open directly in Google Docs, Sheets or Slides. Previously, Office files would open in a preview mode first — this streamlined experience allows you to begin editing and collaborating on these files faster. 

This change also updates the alternateLink and webViewLink fields for shared links in the Google Drive API. 


               Office files opening without preview                                                 
Getting started 


Rollout pace 

Availability 
  • Available to all Google Workspace customers, as well as G Suite Basic and Business customers 
Resources 
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Now, Smart Compose is available in comments for Google Slides, Sheets, and Drawings.

Image of Smart Compose offering a suggestion in a comment
Smart Compose offering a suggestion in a comment.



Getting started

  • End users: This feature will be ON by default and can be disabled by going to Tools > Preferences and unchecking “Show Smart Compose Suggestions.” When enabled, you’ll automatically see Smart Compose suggestions. To accept a suggestion you like, press “tab” or press the right arrow key. Visit the Help Center to learn more about using Smart Compose in Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Drawings.

Rollout pace

  • This feature is available now for all users.

Availability

  • Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Frontline, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Fundamentals, Education Plus, Nonprofits, Cloud Identity Free, Cloud Identity Premium

Resources

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