Google Drive

Google is Introducing a new Home view in Drive. The streamlined Home page will make it easier and faster to find the files and collaborate with others. This feature will be on by default and can be opted-out by the user. If a user chooses to opt-out, their default page will be My Drive. To opt-out, go to My Drive and click on the “Change to My Drive” option in the banner.

Google Slides

Shareable video presentations in Google Slides are coming soon. Slides recordings is a new feature that lets you record yourself presenting and share the presentation with others. This tool can be useful for webinars, employee training, events, and more.

Notes:

• There’s a 30-minute limit to every recording.
• You can only record presentations in Google Chrome browsers. However, any browser can be used to view, share, and delete recordings.

Google Slides makes it easy to add images in presentations, including now the ability to add GIFs and stickers.

Google Docs

Timezone for date/time smart chips is coming soon to Google Docs. Support for accurate time will help users work with collaborators around the world.

Google Sheets

In Google Sheets, you will be automatically prompted to convert inserted links to a smart chip with the tab key when the text matches files, people, calendar events, YouTube, or places.

Google Calendar

Improvements for scheduling large meetings in Google Calendar on the web are on the way. The changes add context to the event by adding status updates as the invitations are sent. Guests begin to appear in the list as soon as they are successfully added.

Google Chat

Google Chat rolled out a new user experience earlier this month. If you use Chat, you’ve already seen the redesigned navigation panel, including a Home page which provides an overview of all conversations from one location.  Searches in Chat will also be more useful with improved query suggestions based on historical activity and sorted by relevance. 

Finally, you can now take action on Drive requests directly from Google Chat if you have the Google Drive for Chat app installed. This is a great way to @mention colleagues and collaborate on Docs, Sheets, and Slides without leaving Chat.

Summary

Roll-out of Workspace updates to Berkeley Lab is determined by Google. We’ll do our best to maintain this list as the features are released but be aware that the status may not be accurate at all times.