U-M Google Updates

New features and education updates in Google Meet

10/15/2020

Google has announced several new features in Google Meet. These features are intended to increase participant engagement, provide hosts with additional moderator controls, and add more ways to customize your Meet experience.

  • Block participants from knocking again

Google has made two changes to “knocking” (i.e., requesting to join a Google Meet session):

  • If a meeting moderator rejects a knock twice from the same participant, the participant will be blocked from knocking again. This means the moderator won’t see any other knocks from that user for the existing meeting duration.
  • If the moderator removes a participant, that participant will be unable to:
    • Rejoin the existing meeting (even if they are on the calendar invite).
    • Knock to request rejoining the existing meeting.
Note: If you mistakenly remove a participant, you can still add that participant to the meeting by manually inviting them.

Previously, when disruptive participants were removed from a meeting, they could continue disrupting the meeting by either re-joining or continuously knocking.

  • Additional host safety controls

Google has added new host (i.e., meeting creators and calendar owners) meeting controls to manage better who can share their screen and send chat messages within the Google Meet session. To learn more about how to manage these settings, see Google’s Start a video meeting for education.

Google Meet session with 6 people; on the left-side, showing participant list and "Host controls" settings menu.

 

  • More Google Meet participant controls for education meetings

Google has added new host (i.e., meeting creators and calendar owners) meeting controls to manage better who can join your Google Meet sessions. To control access, you can toggle the "Quick access" setting on or off. When it is on:

  • Participants in the U-M domain can join the meeting without knocking. 
  • Phone-in participants can join the meeting without knocking.
  • Participants can dial out from within the meeting.

To learn more, see Google’s Start a video meeting for education.

  • Blur your background

You can now blur the background of your video in Google Meet. When it’s turned on, Meet will intelligently separate you from the background, blurring your surroundings while keeping you in focus. Learn more about how to blur your background in Meet.

GIF, opening text is "Background blur in Google Meet". Proceeds to show the backgrounds of 4 people blurring.

 

  • See up to 49 people in Tiled view

You can now see up to 49 people simultaneously in the Auto and Tiled layout options in Google Meet. In addition, you can now see yourself as a tile on the call. When you hover over your thumbnail in the top right corner, you’ll now see the option to add or remove yourself from the grid.

This feature is only available in Meet on the web. By default, the maximum number of tiles you’ll see in Auto layouts is 9, and in Tiled layouts is 16. You will need to adjust these numbers, as needed, in every meeting.

To learn more about Google Meet, check out these resources:

U-M Google September Monthly Summary

10/12/2020

The monthly U-M Google Summaries inform the university community of Google releases. We communicate important information throughout the month.

Updates:

Earlier this year, Google announced shortcuts in Google Drive. Now, they have announced three updates to shortcuts:

  • Expanding use of shortcuts: Removing some specific actions which still created multiple locations for files. 
  • A migration update: Finalizing the migration of existing files in multiple locations to shortcuts will begin in 2021. (No action required.)
  • Improving file management and reducing “unorganized” files: Ensuring files that have their last location removed are now placed in the owner’s My Drive folder.
  • Quickly add a contact into a Gmail message on Android

You can now automatically add a contact (i.e., recipient) to the “To” line of an email by typing "+" or “@” in the body of the email and then choosing the contact's/recipient’s name from the list that appears within Gmail on Android. (This feature was previously only available on the web.)

You can now see when your Google Chat direct messages have been seen. This will only apply in active chat windows for one-on-one conversations on Android, iOS, and the web. In these messages, you'll see the avatar of the person you're chatting with to the right of the last message they've seen. Read receipts won’t be visible in group messages or rooms.

You can now edit and collaborate on Microsoft Office files in Google Drive on Android. (This feature was previously only available on the web.) For more information, see Google’s Work with Office files using Office editing.

Google will now adjust line spacing in Google Docs based on the font used. Previously, line spacing was based only on the font size and line spacing you chose. This update will only apply to new documents created, existing documents will not be affected.

Google is updating the user interface (UI) of the Google Meet mobile apps for Android and iOS. The new mobile UI will have the same look and feel as that of the Meet in Gmail feature. In addition to the revamped design, you’ll now see a New Meeting button. When you tap the button, you’ll see three options:

Google has announced Sheets Smart Cleanup, which are two features that help to prepare and analyze data in Google Sheets: 

  • Cleanup suggestions: This helps ensure your data is accurate by identifying and suggesting fixes for common data errors. To use, in Sheets, go to Data > Cleanup suggestions.
  • Column stats: This provides automated insights about the values within a column, so you can identify outliers and quickly see what your data looks like. To use, in Sheets, go to Data > Column stats.

See Google’s Use Sheets Smart Cleanup to prepare your data for analysis for more information. 

You can now use Dark theme with Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides on iOS devices. Dark theme is already available for Android users. See Google’s Use Dark theme in Google Docs, Sheets & Slides for more information.

Previously Communicated:

Folder sharing in Google shared drives now available!

10/8/2020

Google has announced that you can now share folders in shared drives! Until now, all permissions were set at the shared drive level or the individual file level, and it wasn’t possible to share specific folders within a shared drive.

"Share with people" dialog box that appears when sharing a folder in a Google shared drive. Mouse pointer is hovering over "Contributor"

Important notes regarding this update:

  • Commenter role available in My Drive: To align My Drive and shared drives access levels, the Commenter role will now be available when sharing folders in My Drive. Previously, only Viewer and Editor roles were available.
  • Manager role needed to share folders: Folders in a shared drive can only be shared by Managers of that shared drive. Other shared drive access levels (e.g., Content Manager) are not eligible to share folders, because they aren’t allowed to control broad access to content. Folders in shared drives have the same access levels as the shared drives themselves, with the exception of the Manager. The Manager role is also required to move folders between shared drives and My Drive. You must be a Manager in both the original shared drive as well as the target location.
  • Folder access levels can only be expanded, not reduced, from the shared drive level: Access levels assigned at the shared drive level represent the minimum level of access users will have to all files and folders within that shared drive. As a result, a user’s access level for a folder within a shared drive can only ever be greater than the user’s access level for the shared drive itself.
  • Moving files/folders often changes content access: When shared files or folders are moved in, within, or between shared drives or from a shared drive to My Drive, inherited access to content will be updated accordingly, and direct access (i.e., access to a specific file/folder) will be preserved.

For additional information regarding Google shared drives, see:

According to Google, this feature began showing up in U-M Google on October 6, 2020, but could take 15 days or longer to become fully visible.

Use Jamboard with the new Google Meet integration!

9/30/2020

Google has introduced a new Google Jamboard integration with Google Meet! You can now create or open an existing jam while on a Meet video call making it easier to collaborate in real-time, virtually. You’ll also be able to save, share, and continue working on the jam at any time in a new Meet session or at jamboard.google.com.

Google Meet session, Jamboard jam is visible in the left-center of the screen, participants are tiled on the right screen.

Note: You can only start or open a jam during a Google Meet session if you joined the call on a computer. Video call participants on a mobile device or tablet will receive a link to the jam file and be directed to the Jamboard mobile app to collaborate.

To learn more about “jamming” in a Google Meet, see Google’s Use a whiteboard in Google Meet documentation.

Visit the U-M Google Jamboard site for additional resources to help you get started using Jamboard.

According to Google, this feature began showing up in U-M Google on September 22, 2020, but could take 15 days or longer to become fully visible.

Google Drive will automatically delete trash after 30 days

9/24/2020

Starting October 13, 2020, Google will automatically delete items in your Google My Drive trash after 30 days. Previously, items in your trash folder were retained indefinitely until you permanently deleted them. This change matches the policies of other G Suite products and services, such as Gmail, and will help make sure that items you trash are actually deleted as expected.

If you have not already, you may begin to see banners or pop-ups across Google Drive and Google Drive File Stream alerting you of the upcoming changes.

"My Drive trash is changing. Starting October 13, items will be automatically deleted forever after they've been in your trash for 30 days. Learn more."

"My Drive trash is changing. Starting October 13, 2020, items will be automatically deleted forever after they've been in your trash for 30 days."

Any items already in trash on October 13, 2020, will remain there for 30 days. After the 30-day period, items that have been in trash for longer than 30 days will begin to be automatically deleted.

Furthermore,

  • These changes affect items that are trashed from any device.
  • Items deleted via Google Drive File Stream will be purged from the system trash after 30 days. There is no impact to Google Backup and Sync behavior.
  • Items in a Google shared drive’s trash are already automatically deleted after 30 days.

For more information, see Google’s Delete and restore files in Google Drive.