Google Workspace News Updates

Soon, the interface for adjusting sharing settings on various Google docs will be updated. These changes are being made to help streamline and simplify the process of sharing a document. The visual updates will affect Google Docs, Google Sheets, Google Slides, and Google Forms. For more information on these changes, please visit the G Suite Updates Blog post.

Search chips are an easily accessible filter that can be applied to search results in Gmail. After typing in your query, you will see search chips appear below the search bar. Clicking on any of these will narrow down the results and help you find what you’re looking for quickly. You can read more about this feature on this G Suite Updates blog post.

Google has rolled out integration between Google Classroom and Google Meet, a real-time video conferencing service. As the instructor of a Google Classroom, you have the option to generate a unique Meet link to use for your Classroom. You can choose whether to display the link to your students. If so, it will be accessible on your Classroom's Stream page as well as in the Classwork page. Only teachers will be allowed to create Meet links, and only students from within the CCA domain will be able to join them.

For more information on this update, you can check out the Classroom Help Center article or the announcement post.

In a response to help educators and students better communicate during the spread of COVID-19, Google has temporarily extended premium Hangouts Meet features to every G Suite customer, which includes us at CCA. Until September 30, 2020, Hangouts Meet will have the following premium features enabled:

• Meetings of up to 250 participants per call, for every account
• Record meetings to Google Drive
• Live stream for up to 100K viewers within domain

Hangouts Meet can be accessed at meet.google.com, and you can read more about these changes on the G Suite Updates Blog.

Google is changing the appearance of footers in Google Sites. Where previously it was a large bar with “Made with new Google Sites…” and an option to create a site, now it is a simple information icon that shows when the site was last updated. Visit the G Suite Updates blog post for more information.

The Stream is an area for you to post announcements to your students, or for your students to start discussions. Any assignments or questions you create in the Classwork page will appear here automatically. You can also schedule and draft posts for a later time, and control whether students are able to use the space as well. Visit the Google Help Center page for more on using the Stream in your Classroom.

Google has added the ability to display a persistent word count while typing in Docs. Before, you had to check the word count by going to Tools > Word Count, but now you can choose to keep the word count displayed in the lower left corner of your screen that updates as you type. Visit the G Suite Updates blog post for more information.

Did you know that you can delay announcements to your Google Classroom? Any assignment or post you want to create in Classroom can be scheduled or saved as a draft. This way, you can control exactly when students will have access to a new quiz or assignment. Visit the Google Help Center page for more information on scheduling your posts.

If you’re using the Google Chrome browser, you will now start to see suggestions in the address bar for Google Drive files. You can search for specific owners or types of files, and they will appear in the box. Note that only files you have opened in Chrome previously will show in this list. Visit the G Suite Updates blog for more information.

The profile photos for Gmail and the rest of G Suite are being merged together. Previously, a profile picture uploaded to Gmail would only appear in Gmail, and was separate from the rest of the G Suite apps. This simplifies the process by allowing you to set a single photo across all apps. You can change your Gmail photo in Settings > General > My picture, and if your current photo is different than other apps, you’ll see a window to confirm which one to use. You can read more about this change on the G Suite Updates blog.

Two new features are being added to Google Docs. You will be able to insert section breaks at the cursor’s location, and see the section breaks in the View menu. You will also be able to manually adjust the margins of a document and have separate margin settings per section. Visit the G Suite Updates blog post for more information.

A new feature has been added to Google Sheets that will help you easily see the edit history of a cell, including who made the last edit, when that edit was made, and the cell’s previous value. This is helpful for collaborators in a Sheet, and can be found in the “Show edit history” option of a cell after right clicking it. You can read more about this update on the G Suite Updates blog post.

You can now fill our structured PDF forms from the Google Drive mobile app on iOS and Android devices. You’ll be able to fill out fields, select options from a dropdown menu, and mark checkboxes or radio buttons. Once you’re done, you can save the PDF as a new file or update the original. If applicable, you will see a Fill out form button on the bottom center of the PDF. Visit the G Suite Updates blog post for more information.

Three new tools are being added to Google Sheets to help more clearly display data:

• Slicers: A new way of filtering reports by conditions and values
• Scorecard Charts: A new way to call out key metrics, such as a percentage change over time
• Themes: A new look for your entire spreadsheet. Use a template or create your own!

You can read more about these new features in this G Suite Updates blog post.

Google has added the ability to import questions from previously created Forms into new Forms. You can import either from Forms you have created yourself, or from Forms shared with you by someone else. This is great for reusing questions for quizzes and is much faster than copying the questions manually. You can find this on the toolbar on the right hand side of the new Forms creation. Visit the G Suite Updates blog post for more information.

When opening a Docs, Sheets, or Slides file, you may notice a new dialog box open near the top right of your screen. This shows which Google account is currently active while looking at the file, and is especially helpful if you are signed in to multiple Google accounts at the same time. Visit the G Suite Updates blog post for more information.

Google has made it even easier to create a new Doc, Keep note, and more very quickly. To take advantage, all you need to do is add “.new” into your browser’s address bar after a variety of G Suite services. This “.new” domain will also work for the following:

• Docs.new
• Sheets.new
• Slides.new
• Forms.new
• Cal.new
• Keep.new
• Sites.new

You can read more about this update on this G Suite Updates blog.

Soon, Google Forms will be getting a refreshed look that will bring it inline with the look of the rest of the Google Docs apps. This is just a visual change, all of the functionality of Google Forms will remain the same. For more information, see the Community Help Forums post in the Google Docs Editors Help Center.

More customization to headers and footers is now available in Google Docs. Previously, headers and footers could be added to an entire Google Doc with the option to have a different first page only. Now, you can have different headers and footers for different sections of your document, or for odd / even numbered pages. You can visit the G Suite Updates blog for more information.

If you’re managing many Classrooms at once, it can be frustrating to re-type a post over and over for each class. Luckily, Classroom has a built-in function to help you save some time by Reusing old posts. You can do this in either the Stream or the Classwork pages, and the post can even be from one of your other classes. Visit the Google Help Center page for more information on reusing posts.

A new “Linked objects” sidebar will be appearing in Docs and Slides that lets you manage files you have imported into your document. If any of these files are changed or updated, the sidebar will alert you that these changes haven’t been reflected in your document, and will allow you to quickly update them with a single click. Visit the G Suite Updates blog post for more information.

Three new features are being added to Google Sheets to help you better organize and clean up your data. These three features are: Remove duplicates, trim whitespace, and adding shortcuts to compatible spreadsheets. You can see a demonstration of removing duplicates in the image, and you can visit the G Suite Updates blog post for more information.

With Office editing, you can now edit, comment, and collaborate on Microsoft Office files just like you would when using Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides. This feature brings the collaboration benefits of G Suite to Office files while streamlining workflows by eliminating the need to convert file types. Visit the G Suite Updates blog page for more information.

Google has launched an official add-on for Forms that sends you an email notification when you receive a set number of responses. You can also use it to set up an automated follow-up email to anyone who responds to one of your Forms. You can find the add-on in the G Suite Marketplace, and read more about it in this Google Help Center article.

Google is updating the way you create meetings with other people to help you save time. When you add a calendar to your view, you can temporarily view their calendar to better help schedule a meeting time. Additionally, more options will be available directly in the pop-up event creation box: Guests, Rooms, Location, Conferencing, and Description. To read more about this update, visit this G Suite Updates blog post.

Two new features are being added to the activity dashboard in Docs, Slides, and Sheets: Sharing History and Comment Trend. Sharing History lets you see who is sharing a document with whom, and what level of access they have. Comment Trend provides a visualization of conversations on a document, showing comments, edits, and suggestions over the document’s lifetime. See the G Suite Updates blog page for more information.

Google is adding a vertical ruler in Google Docs on the web that will help you manipulate tables and control the margins in headers and footers. When you’re using a table, you’ll see your table structure highlighted in a vertical ruler on the left side of the screen. The vertical ruler matches the horizontal ruler, which already exists and is a popular way to control cell width and margins.

You can use the ruler to change the height of rows in the table. When you do so, you’ll see a guide telling you the specific height of the row so you can quickly format it to the specific size you want. You can also use it to control the vertical margins in headers and footers. See the G Suite Updates blog post for more.

You can view email from multiple accounts, be it your work or personal, G Suite or non-G Suite (even third-party IMAP accounts), in the Gmail iOS app. But you’ve traditionally needed to toggle between different inboxes to do so. To save you time, Google has made it possible to view emails from multiple accounts in a single inbox on an iOS device—the same way you can with the Gmail Android app. To see emails from different accounts at one time, simply select the “All Inboxes” view from the left-hand side drawer. This will show all your emails in a single list, but don’t worry—no emails will be shared between your accounts. See the G Suite Updates blog post for more.

Gradebook allows teachers to easily input and view grades across their classes and students. With the ability to view all assignments and grades in one place, teachers can stay organized and holistically follow the performance of an entire class over time. To read more, visit the blog post here. If you have any questions, please contact the Help Desk.