Available to Google Workspace Enterprise Essentials Plus, Enterprise Starter, Enterprise Plus, Enterprise Standard, Education Plus, and the Teaching and Learning upgrade customers
Users of screen readers can now type a keyboard shortcut (ALT + number, 1 - 7) that verbalizes the content of an event, such as the title, date and time, guest list, and much more. These shortcuts greatly improve glanceability because they enable Calendar details to be heard on demand instead of time consuming navigation through information.
Getting started
Admins: There is no admin control for this feature.
End users:
To view keyboard shortcuts in Calendar, type:
Ctrl+/ on Windows and ChromeOS
Cmd+/ on Mac
Use the following keyboard combinations to access Announce Shortcuts:
This feature is available now as an open beta, which means you can use the feature without opting-in to a specific program.
Who’s impacted
Admins and end users
Why it matters
Currently, all shared drives reside in the “root” OU. As such, all shared drives are subject to the same policies. This update gives admins the option to move shared drives to sub OUs within their organizations, such as Marketing or Legal, which allows for more control over the privacy and security of the shared drive's contents on a case-by-case basis. For example, admins can restrict sharing of a shared drive belonging to the legal department because it contains highly confidential information. Additionally, this also gives admins more flexibility over applying default sub OUs to newly-created shared drives, assuring each new shared drive subject to appropriate security policies.
With this update admins will have greater control and more options to control how their data is accessed and shared on a case by case basis.
Getting started
Admins: Admins can assign shared drives to various OUs using the new “Organizational Unit” column found in Apps > Google Workspace > Drive and Docs > Manage Shared Drives. Visit the Help Center to learn more about shared drives and managing shared drive users and activity.
End users: There is no end user setting for this feature — the ability to access or share certain files contained in a shared drive will vary. Visit the Help Center to learn more about sharing files in Google Drive.
Availability
Available to Google Workspace Essentials, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Fundamentals, Education Standard, Education Plus, the Teaching and Learning Upgrade, and Nonprofits customers
Not available to Google Workspace Business Starter, Enterprise Essentials, Frontline, as well as legacy G Suite Basic and Business customers
Not available to users with personal Google Accounts
End users: This feature will be ON by default and can not be disabled by the user. To access reactions in Docs, hover over any message or an existing anchor and click on the “Add reaction” icon. Additionally, emoji preferences are shared with Google Chat, so any preferences set in one app will be reflected in the other. Both apps can be used to update emoji preferences via the picker. Visit the Help Center to learn more about using emoji reactions in Google Docs
Rollout pace
Rapid Release domains:Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on April 5, 2022
Scheduled Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on April 20, 2022
Availability
Available to all Google Workspace customers, as well as legacy G Suite Basic and Business customers, and users with personal Google Accounts.
A new right-click menu to easily view a recipient's full name and email, edit contact names, copy email addresses, open a recipient's information card
Avatar chips for recipients
Better indicators when adding a user outside your organization and contacts
Visual indicators when you’ve already added a user as a recipient, and more
Additionally, these updates may impact some Chrome extensions. See the “Additional details” section below for more information.
Who’s impacted
Admins, developers, and end users
Why it’s important
We hope these improvements will help users connect with their colleagues and stakeholders quickly and with confidence. The improvements will mean you can more easily:
View a recipients entire email address, and edit if needed
Copy an email address
Access a user’s information card. Note that information cards can also be accessed by hovering over recipient chips, or selecting and using the keyboard shortcut Alt/Option + →
See below for more details and information.
Additional details
New options to control what contact name is displayed to email recipients
Additionally, you can use this menu to change how a recipient's name is displayed. For example, if you have a contact saved as “Sales Manager”, you can change what contact name will be displayed to others receiving the email. Note: this will not change the saved name in Contacts, only how the name appears to others included in the email.
You can now change how a recipient's name is displayed in an email.
Important Note: This specific feature is not available for Google Workspace for Education Fundamentals, Education Standard, Education Plus, or the Teaching and Learning Upgrade customers.
Visual indicators when composing emails
We’ve added better visual indicators to help guide users when composing emails. Each recipient will now have an avatar chip, which is helpful for identifying who’s been added to the email.
Avatar chips will be displayed for each recipient.
Highlighting external recipients
We’ve also made it more obvious when users outside of your enterprise have been added to your recipient list:
External contacts that you’ve interacted with before will be highlighted in a deep, yellow color.
External contacts that you have not interacted with before will also be highlighted along with an out of organization avatar and warning banner.
Improved visual indicators for recipients outside of your enterprise
Changing display for domains within your organization
Additionally, different domain names within the same organization will no longer be marked as “external”. For example: users from @google.com will not appear as out of organization if added to an email from an @youtube.com user. This will help eliminate unnecessary warnings and confusions for users communicating across different brands under the same umbrellas or during the process of one company acquiring another.
Improved interface for duplicate recipients
We’ve also added a checkmark to better indicate a recipient who has already been included on the email. Also, when hovering over or scrolling through contacts within the dropdown menu, you’ll notice a grey tone to better indicate where your mouse or keyboard is. Additionally, Gmail will automatically remove duplicate entries within the same fields, when dragging and dropping between the To, Cc, and Bcc fields.
If you've already included a recipient on the email, you'll see a checkmark indicator.
Improving email and formating validation
To prevent errors, Gmail will now validate that email addresses are typed in the correct email format (e.g. username@domain.com), and will prevent any strings from becoming recipient chips if they are are not formatted correctly. Previously, users had to double click to correct an error. Further, if you do maintain an invalidly formatted email address in the address bars, you’ll see an error message prompting you to fix the error before sending. Note: validation is only performed on email address formatting and does not check the validity of the email address itself.
Impact to Chrome extensions using the current compose interface
This update changes the underlying structure of the addressing fields in Gmail Compose. Therefore, admins that maintain Chrome extensions that depend on the current Gmail UI, around recipient search, selection or authoring, should check their integrations against the updated UI. Be sure to change your release track on a test account to Rapid release to get access to the new UI so that you can test your integration before it is made more broadly available (see below).
Getting started
Admins: There is no admin control for this feature. If your organization maintains Chrome extensions that depend on the current Gmail UI for recipient search, selection or authoring, check your integrations against the updated UI.
Developers: Developers that maintain Chrome extensions that depend on the current Gmail UI, around recipient search, selection or authoring, should check their integrations against the updated UI.
End users: There is no end user setting for this feature. Visit the Help Center to learn more about sending an email in Gmail.
Rollout pace
Rapid Release Release domains: Extended rollout (potentially longer than 15 days for feature visibility) starting on October 20, 2021.
Scheduled Release domains: Extended rollout (potentially longer than 15 days for feature visibility) beginning no earlier than November 8, 2021.
We anticipate rollout to be complete by the end of year, and will complete rollout to Rapid Release domains at least two weeks before beginning rollout to Scheduled Release domains. We will provide updates here when rollout for Rapid and Scheduled release domains is complete.
Availability
Available to all Google Workspace customers, as well as G Suite Basic and Business customers
Note: The menu option to edit a recipient's display name is not available for Google Workspace for Education Fundamentals, Education Standard, Education Plus, or the Teaching and Learning Upgrade customers.
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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.