Google Workspace Changes

New curated categories added to Google Workspace Marketplace

Google has introduced three manually curated categories to the Google Workspace Marketplace: Business essentials, Work from everywhere, and Apps to discover. To facilitate navigation to these new categories, a left navigation menu has been added.

Google Meet expands meeting moderation controls, including co-host assignments and safety features.

Google Meet is introducing expanded moderation controls that allow hosts to assign up to 25 co-hosts per meeting to help manage participants. New safety features enable hosts to limit screen sharing, restrict chat messages, mute all participants, and end meetings for everyone. Additionally, the 'Quick access' setting is being expanded to more Google Workspace customers, and the 'People' panel now includes a search function to quickly find participants and a security shield icon to identify co-hosts.

Google Tasks on mobile now features a tabbed UI for easier switching between multiple lists.

Google has updated the Tasks mobile user interface to display multiple lists simultaneously using a tabbed UI. This update allows users to better organize and manage their tasks on mobile by switching between lists either by selecting the list title or swiping left.

Google Meet support for Internet Explorer 11 (IE11) ends August 17, 2021.

Beginning August 17, 2021, Google Meet will no longer be supported on Internet Explorer 11 (IE11). Users are advised to switch to a supported browser before this date to avoid any service disruptions.

Google Forms now automatically saves response progress as drafts for 30 days.

When responding to a Google Form, Quiz, or Quiz assignment in Classroom while signed into a Google account, progress will be automatically saved as a draft for 30 days from the last edit or until the submission is complete. Form owners and editors have the option to disable this feature via Settings > Presentation > Restrictions.

Smart Compose is now available in comments for Google Slides, Sheets, and Drawings.

Google has expanded Smart Compose functionality to include comments within Google Slides, Sheets, and Drawings. This feature assists users in composing high-quality content more efficiently by suggesting relevant contextual phrases, reducing repetitive typing, and minimizing spelling and grammatical errors.

Shared links to Microsoft Office files in Drive now open directly in Google Docs, Sheets, or Slides.

When creating links to shared Microsoft Office files stored in Google Drive, the files will now open directly in the corresponding Google editor (Docs, Sheets, or Slides) instead of opening in a preview mode first. This streamlines the editing and collaboration process. Additionally, this update modifies the alternateLink and webViewLink fields for shared links within the Google Drive API.

Updated emoji experience in Google Chat with Emoji 13.1 and improved personalization.

Google Chat is updating its emoji experience across web and mobile platforms. The update includes the adoption of the Emoji 13.1 set, the introduction of gender-neutral options for gender-modifiable emojis, and the ability to save skin tone and gender preferences for individual emojis.

Google launched a new standalone Progressive Web Application (PWA) for Google Meet on desktop devices.

Google has introduced a standalone Progressive Web Application (PWA) for Google Meet, which offers the same features as the web version but operates as a standalone app to streamline workflow and eliminate the need to switch between browser tabs. The PWA is compatible with Windows, MacOS, Chrome OS, and Linux devices running Google Chrome version 73 or higher.

Assign SSO profile to organizational units or groups with the new SAML Partial SSO beta

Now, you have the option to specify groups or organizational units (OUs) to authenticate a subset of your users using Google. This feature is available beginning today as an open beta, which means you can use it without enrolling in a specific beta program.

Improvements for braille mode in Google Docs

Improved how suggestions are announced in braille mode in Google Docs. You’ll now hear detailed suggestion information inline with the rest of the text — this includes whether the suggestion is an insertion or deletion, and the author of the suggestion.

Hangouts to Google Chat upgrade beginning August 16th, with option to opt-out.

Beginning August 16, 2021, users who have the “Chat and classic Hangouts” setting selected will be upgraded to “Chat preferred,” unless you explicitly opt out. Classic Hangouts will no longer be supported beginning late 2021, and all remaining users will be migrated to Google Chat.

Backup and Sync users should begin transitioning to Drive for desktop

Now, we want to provide a more detailed timeline for this transition

A new experience for Google Contacts which will help Google Workspace users learn more about their colleagues.

Introducing a new experience for Google Contacts which will help Google Workspace users learn more about their colleagues. Within Contacts or the Contacts sidebar, you can view more detailed information about others, including their management chain, department, and title, A history of your Workspace relationship, including email conversations and meetings.

You can now enable audit logging for Google Cloud Search APIs for improved tracking of usage data.

With deeper tracking, it's now possible to build richer analytics on top of Cloud Search usage to make data driven decisions and improve your user’s search experience.