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Quick Summary

In 2021, Google launched Time Insights, a feature that gives you the ability to better understand how you’re spending your time in Google Calendar. You can now categorize your time by naming and assigning a corresponding color label to an event within Time Insights in Calendar. 

We hope this customizable breakdown feature will allow you to track time spent on specific activities or strategic areas, such as project work, staff meetings, or meetings with specific colleagues and stakeholders. 

Quick Summary

In Google Docs, you can now assign a checklist item to yourself or a colleague that will then show up in the assignee’s Tasks list. When edits are made to an assigned item in Tasks, such as a change to the title, due date or completion state, those updates will show in the Doc, and vice versa.

Quick Summary

Google is making it even easier to use RSVPs in Google Calendar and let others know how you’re planning to join a meeting. 

You can now select a RSVP join method that’s powered by your working location, whether that’s joining in a particular meeting room or virtually. With the new RSVP option, Calendar will automatically update how you intend to join the meeting if your working location changes. In addition, your colleagues will now see your working location or out-of-office status directly in the guest list section of a Calendar event. 

We hope this feature improves how you and your colleagues utilize your planned working location for meetings and events, especially in a hybrid work environment. 

Quick Summary

Many utilize Office editing mode to collaborate on Microsoft Office files in Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides. 

Google is improving the notifications you see when editing a Microsoft Office-formatted file. 

Specific updates include: 

• An Office-formatted warning symbol for compatibility details that will appear throughout your entire time within a document, spreadsheet, or slide deck. This indicates potential compatibility issues or if any Office features are unavailable.

Example of a document with compatibility issues

Example of a document without known compatibility issues 

• An option to easily view and restore earlier versions of the document, spreadsheet, or slide deck. New options to view version history and restore a document 

New options to view version history and restore a document

What’s changing 

In Google Docs, you can now choose to receive email notifications for document changes on a per-file basis. Edit notification emails detail what changes were made, when the changes were made, and who made them. 

You can configure these notifications in multiple places:

• Gmail 
• In Docs via the Notification settings dropdown (bell icon) or Tools > Notification settings. 

Why you’d use it

Staying on top of relevant changes and comments across multiple documents can be difficult. By giving you the option to specify which comments and changes to be notified about, you can more easily stay on top of what needs your attention most and keep track of collaboration. You can configure these settings from Gmail using the new “Notification settings” dropdown:

They’re also accessible within Docs in the “Notification settings” dropdown (bell icon). This will open a dialogue box with the notification settings options, which you can adjust as needed. Please note that edit notifications are off by default and can be enabled on a per-document basis. When enabled, you will be notified when anyone adds or removes content from the document.

You can also access these settings in Tools > Notification settings.

Rollout pace

• Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on July 19, 2022

Quick summary 

The appointment scheduling feature allows people to share their availability via a booking page, which can be used by external stakeholders, clients, and partners to schedule a meeting. 

Starting today, Google is making it easier to share appointment schedules on web through a new Share button. This update allows appointment hosts to copy a short link to all appointment schedules or a specific booking page, and add HTML to embed a booking page on their website. 

Quick summary 

In Google Meet, you can now see participants who were invited to the meeting but have yet to join the call. These participants can be found under the “Also invited” heading. Additionally, you’ll also be able to see the RSVP status of everyone on the invite, including “optional” attendees and RSVP notes. 

From here, you can reach out to those users via Chat to confirm whether they will be joining directly from Meet, eliminating the need to open additional tabs or switch to another app. 

Quick summary 

Google is bringing picture-in-picture to Google Meet to Chrome browsers on the web. You’ll be able to see up to four video tiles of meeting attendees in a floating window on top of other applications. 

Additionally, you can now pin multiple video feeds. This will provide greater flexibility in how you combine people and content, allowing you to adjust the view in a way that best serves your meeting. 

We hope these features make it easier for presenters and meeting attendees to stay engaged with their meeting. 

Quick summary 

Google is updating the user experience for removing participants from a meeting in Google Meet. Now, when a host or co-host removes a participant from a call, they will be prompted with additional actions. Specifically, they can opt to: 

• Simply remove the user from the call 
• Fill out an additional abuse report 
• And/or block the user from rejoining 
  • Note: We recommend using the “block” functionality only when absolutely necessary. Blocked users can be manually back to the call from the “People” panel. 

We hope these additional options make it easier to manage your meetings and avoid further disruptions. This update will be available for Google Meet on laptop and desktop devices, as well as Android and iOS devices. 

Quick summary

Google is refreshing the layout of emails sent by Google Calendar. By making key event details more accessible and useful, this update enables you to quickly find and act on an event’s most important information. 

In addition, when you receive an email notifying you of a modification to an event, such as a time or location change, it will display both the old and updated information

Quick summary 

In addition to filtering out background noises like keyboard typing, Google Meet will now remove reverberations from sound recorded by your microphone. De-reverberation will automatically filter out echos created by spaces with hard surfaces, such as a basement or a kitchen, helping to ensure optimal audio quality. 

Quick summary

In addition to seeing a file’s name, owner, modification date, and size, Google has added a column to include location information in the Search, Recent, Starred, and Trash web views of Google Drive. 

This feature makes it easier for you to differentiate between similarly-named files stored in different locations and find exactly what you’re looking for at a much faster rate. 

Quick summary 

In Google Tasks, you can now mark important tasks with a star. This is similar to functionality that already exists in Drive today. Additionally, you’ll be able to view or sort your starred items across various tasks lists in the new starred view. 

We hope this update makes it easier for you to prioritize your tasks and quickly navigate to important tasks across your projects.

Quick summary 

In Google Docs, you can now make multiple text selections at once, and apply actions such as delete, copy, paste, or format to all selections. This will make formatting and editing documents faster by eliminating the need to make repetitive changes, increasing your overall productivity. 

What’s changing

In Google Chat, you can now create personal tasks from individual or group messages. These will then be viewable by you in Google Tasks, the quick-access side panel, and Google Calendar if the task has a set date.

Why you’d use it 

This feature allows you to more easily stay on top of tasks that come out of conversations with your coworkers via Chat. Once you’ve created a personal task, you can add a due date and description, then quickly navigate back to the conversation.