In Hangouts Chat, you’ll also see a small notification in the chat compose window alerting you that the person you’re trying to message is out of office.
Who’s impacted
End users
Why you’d use it
With this launch, before people even hit “send,” your time out of office is visible in more places across G Suite, meaning you get more uninterrupted time away. As a sender, you’ll also have more confidence that you’re messaging people at an appropriate time.
How to get started
Admins: No action required.
End users: No action required. These notices will automatically start showing up when anyone whose calendar you have access to has an out of office event scheduled.
Additional details
If you’d like to disable sharing of availability information to other G Suite apps, you can do so in Calendar under Calendar settings > Access permissions. Just deselect “Show calendar info in other Google apps, limited by access permissions.”
Existing users of unmigrated add-ons will continue to be able to use them. However, if they uninstall Editors add-ons or Drive apps, they won’t be able to reinstall them. Moreover, if an existing user creates a template with one of these add-ons, any users who don’t already have the add-on installed won’t be able to use the add-on within the template.
How to get started
Admins and end users: No action is required. To check whether an add-on has been migrated, search for it in the G Suite Marketplace.
Developers: Drive apps and Editor Add-ons must have a G Suite Marketplace listing prior to September 9, 2019. For more information on how to migrate your add-ons, see here for Drive developers and here for Editors developers.
While presenting, press “B” to turn your screen black or “W” to turn your screen white. You can resume presenting by using any other keyboard or mouse action. To see more keyboard shortcuts for Google Slides, see this article in our Help Center.
Looping and auto advance time options for presentations New options allow you to set auto advance time in present mode and presentation looping. You can access these options by clicking Settings (gear icon) in the presentation navigation bar. Your settings will be applied once you hit play and begin your presentation.
With these settings, you can easily set your presentation to loop, which is useful when presenting at a conference or for displaying information on a kiosk. To learn more about presenting in Slides, see our Help Center.
Availability
Rollout details
Rapid Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on August 27, 2019
Scheduled Release domains: Full rollout (1-3 days for feature visibility) starting on September 10, 2019
We will stop supporting the old “Team Drives” related API fields on June 1, 2020.
G Suite editions
Google Vault is available to G Suite Business, Enterprise, Education, and Enterprise for Education editions, as well as other G Suite customers with the Vault add-on license.
See Gmail content directly in the investigation tool
“Group-by” option around specific search attributes when querying logs in the investigation tool When customizing a search in the investigation tool, you can group items by a particular search attribute to quickly understand the breadth of an issue. For example, when conducting a search based on device log events, you can group the search criteria based on the device model. Use our Help Center to find out how to add a group-by option when customizing a search.
Save and share investigations in the investigation tool We want to make sure admins are able to work together to assess their organization’s exposure to security issues. Admins can now save their investigations in the security investigation tool and share them with other admins to improve collaboration. Use our Help Center to learn how to save, share, and change ownership of investigations.
User logs in the security center
There are new charts in the Security Dashboards and new data sources in the investigation tool related to user login logs and the state of users in the organization. Use our Help Center to see more about how to search and investigate user log events.
To begin filling out a form, tap the pencil button in the PDF preview or tap the form field directly. When you’re done, save edits or save a copy of the form.
Note that this feature is not available on XFA forms, and does not support e-signature.
Availability
Rollout details
Rapid Release domains: Extended rollout (potentially longer than 15 days for feature visibility) starting on August 22, 2019
Scheduled Release domains: Extended rollout (potentially longer than 15 days for feature visibility) starting on August 22, 2019
In the interim, we’ll continue to improve the transition experience of classic Hangouts group conversations, as well as add new Chat features like Read receipts. We’ll also provide advance notice once we have a more definitive date, so please monitor the G Suite Updates blog for updates. We’ll also have a detailed breakdown of the transition timeline in the Help Center.
Migrate sooner with the Accelerated Transition Program Admins who prefer to fully migrate to Chat sooner can still request an invitation to the Accelerated Transition Program, which disables classic Hangouts and migrates all users to Hangouts Chat, while providing early access to new Chat features.
This program is great for domains that:
Want to simplify communications and get all users on the same chat experience
Are new G Suite customers or haven’t used classic Hangouts before
Migration by organizational unit is not available at this time, and classic Hangouts group conversations will need to be recreated in Chat. Please review the Deployment Guide and Known Limitations to determine if this migration experience is right for you.
For admins who have already signed up for early access through the Accelerated Transition Program, we are adding domains to this program on a rolling basis.
To see live edits, open the Accessibility settings by going to Tools > Accessibility settings and check “Turn on screen reader support.” Then, select “Show live edits” from the Accessibility menu. To learn more, see this article in our Help Center.
Update (August 23, 2019) - We've updated this article to clarify that the grammar suggestion feature is only available to G Suite users, not personal Gmail accounts. The as-you-type autocorrection feature is available to all users, including G Suite and personal Gmail accounts.
What’s changing
We're introducing new spelling and grammar correction capabilities for Gmail to help you compose emails quickly with confidence.
As you type your message, Gmail will use artificial intelligence to make smarter spell-check suggestions while also detecting potential grammar issues. For some common spelling mistakes, we've also added as-you-type autocorrection for improved accuracy. Read more here about how grammar suggestions work.
Autocorrection of common spelling errors
Detecting spelling and grammar mistakes as you type
Who’s impacted
End users
Why you’d use it
If you're working against deadlines to write a lot of emails daily, correct spelling and grammar probably isn’t top of mind. These capabilities can also help you write and edit with more confidence if you’re a non-native speaker. With our AI-first approach, you can communicate smarter and faster, without sweating the small stuff.
How to get started
Admins: No action required.
End users: No action required. All suggestions and corrections take place automatically as you type. If you’d like to disable this feature, follow the steps in this Help Center article.
Additional details
You’ll now see inline spelling and contextual grammar suggestions in your draft emails as you type. If you’ve made a grammar mistake, a squiggly blue line will appear under the phrase as you write it. You can choose to accept the suggestion by clicking it.
When an auto-correction takes place, we’ll temporarily underline the corrected change so you can easily identify and undo the correction if you’d like. For now, autocorrect is currently only available in English.
We’re launching a new beta that allows you to create shortcuts in Drive, making it easy to reference and organize files and folders outside of a given shared drive.
We’ll begin accepting domains into this program in the coming weeks.
Who’s impacted
Admins and end users
Why you’d use it
Shortcuts are pointers to files that are stored in another folder or in another drive—like a shared drive or another user’s drive—that make it easy to surface content without creating copies of files.
For example, if Paul in marketing shares a document from his team’s shared drive with the entire sales team, Greta in sales can create a shortcut to that document in her own team’s shared drive. Previously, because documents can’t be owned by two shared drives, Greta would need to create a copy of the document for her team’s shared drive, which could then quickly become out of date.
Additionally, the existing “Add to My Drive” option will be replaced with “Add shortcut to Drive”. Note that files currently living in two locations in My Drive will continue to do so at this time (e.g. those that you’ve added to your My Drive previously).
How to get started
Admins: We’ll begin accepting domains into the program in the coming weeks.
End users: Once this feature is enabled for your domain, to create a shortcut:
In Docs, Sheets, and Slides files, you’ll see a new “Add shortcut to Drive” button next to the “Star” button at the top.
From there, you can select where in your Drive you want the shortcut to appear. From Google Drive, you can right click on a file and select “Add shortcut to Drive” or drag and drop an item into a folder in My Drive.
Additional details
You can create a shortcut for the following content types:
Google Docs, Google Slides, and Google Sheets files
JPGs, PDFs, and Microsoft Office files
Folders
Shortcuts are visible to everyone who has access to the folder or drive containing the shortcut. Note that creating a shortcut does not mean sharing access to a file or folder.
Once the feature is generally available, instructors will be able to access originality reports at no charge for up to three assignments in each course they teach. Schools that would like unlimited access can upgrade their instructors to G Suite Enterprise for Education. During the beta, all instructors can use originality reports as much as they would like, at no additional charge.
Regardless of what G Suite for Education edition their instructor is using, students will only be able to create reports up to three times per assignment when enabled by their instructor. This applies to the beta and when the feature becomes generally available.
If your domain has turned on the Assignments LTI tool, you can also use originality reports within Google Assignments in your LMS. Note that when new coursework is set up within Assignments, you’ll need to click the checkbox to add originality reports to the assignment.
While this feature is in beta, originality reports will only work for Google Docs and will only be available in English.
These fonts take into account typographical factors, such as size and spacing, that the font developers hope will improve reading speed. This can be particularly helpful for educators who want to leverage new tools that can improve reading among their students, especially those who are sensitive to visual crowding. We now offer eight different Lexend font families that have varied widths and spacing, so users can choose the font style that’s best for their reading speed. To access these fonts in Google Docs, Sheets, or Slides:
From the Font menu in the toolbar, select “More fonts”.
Then, search for Lexend and select the fonts to add them to your saved fonts. These will now appear in the “My fonts” list and in the Font menu in the toolbar.
Availability Rollout details
These fonts are already available to both Rapid and Scheduled domains.
Simpler ways to open jams from your computer or on Jamboard devices
You can now use your computer to easily open a jam on a Jamboard using the Jamboard name. Simply open the jam on your computer, click “Open on a Jamboard,” then search by Jamboard name. To make this easier, we added the name of the Jamboard to the screensaver on Jamboard devices so it’s quick to open jams when you’re in sight of a Jamboard. See below for more details on how this works.
You can no longer share a Jam by creating a share-code from your computer. Instead, you can share a jam using the standard G Suite Share button, and you can open Jams on Jamboard using the search by Jamboard name feature described above.
We’ve updated the ‘open a jam’ instructions in the main menu on Jamboard devices. The new instructions make it easier to use the search, nearby, and code options to open a jam. See our Help Center for more information on how to open an existing jam on Jamboard.
Also, thank you to all of you who filled out the survey last month to give us feedback on this newsletter. We'll use the results to improve the newsletter in future editions.
Using Slicers, Scorecard Charts, and Themes together to enhance reporting.
Who’s impacted
End users
Why you’d use them
You can use these tools to filter, display key data, and customize the look and feel of your spreadsheets, making it easier and faster to generate more engaging and informative reports.
How to get started
Admins: No action required.
End users: See below for how to use each new tool in Sheets.
Scorecard charts: Scorecard charts is a new way to call out key metrics, such as KPIs or a key stat, within your sheet. You’ll have the option to show your stat in comparison to another number, for instance illustrating percentage increase or decrease over time. See our Help Center for more information on how to insert a Scorecard chart in Sheets.
Themes: You can now quickly alter the look and feel of an entire spreadsheet—including charts, pivot tables, and cells—to ensure a consistent look and feel for your spreadsheets. To apply a preset theme, select Format > Theme and choose an option, or to create a custom theme, select Customize in the top right.
In the Google Cloud Community, connect with Googlers and other Google Workspace admins like yourself. Participate in product discussions, check out the Community Articles, and learn tips and tricks that will make your work and life easier. Be the first to know what's happening with Google Workspace.
On the “What’s new in Google Workspace?” Help Center page, learn about new products and features launching in Google Workspace, including smaller changes that haven’t been announced on the Google Workspace Updates blog.
