U-M Google Updates

Introducing Google Hangouts Meet

3/14/2017

Hangouts Meet is a new video meeting service designed to make joining meetings effortless. It allows you to smoothly run large and small video conferences by a shared link—no accounts, plugins, downloads, or hassles. Meet provides a place to join from Google Calendar, an email invite, or a web link. Classic Hangouts are not affected with the addition of Meet and continue to function as before.

With Meet, native, full-screen presenting makes it easy to showcase your team’s research and projects. And as Meet integrates directly with U-M Google, information you need about each meeting is automatically pulled from Calendar.

Streamlining Group Chat Creation in Google Hangouts

1/24/2017

Last year, Google implemented a change to Hangouts that allows your team to opt-in to a chat, rather than having to invite people one by one. Now Google is improving how you create group chats for projects or teams. You can name your group chats more easily when creating them. Once the group chat has a name, you can create "placeholder" group chats which can be shared with a link.

These improvements will be available in all three Hangouts user interfaces on the web. In Hangouts in Gmail, a "+" button will be next to the contacts list in Hangouts. In hangouts.google.com and in the Chrome extension, you will see a "New conversation" option. By clicking "New group" or "New conversation" you can name the group or start adding members.

Gmail Phishing Scam

1/23/2017

You might have seen recent reports in the news about a phishing scam making use of Gmail. This is similar to many common phishing scams, so please exercise caution whenever you are asked to enter your UMICH password. Read Safe Computing's NOTICE: Watch for hard-to-spot GMail phishing scam for full details.

The Collaboration Services Team

Save Time With New Custom Templates

1/12/2017

Hello,

Using templates can make work faster and easier, which is why Google is introducing custom templates in G Suite for Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Forms. Submit files to shared template galleries in the Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Forms home screens for co-workers to adapt and use as needed. These templates will help your team focus less on formatting and more on getting the work done quickly and efficiently. To use a template, go to the Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Forms homepage. There will be a selection of templates available at the top of the screen. Click on the template you want to use. The template will open in a new tab and you can get to work!

To save a file as a template you simply submit files to shared template galleries in the Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Forms home screens. This will allow your co-workers to adapt and use them as needed.

Note: The old templates gallery will be turned off early 2017. This will give you time to transition to the new galleries. A message will be shared in the old gallery letting you know the exact date. It will not take place before February 1, 2017. The Collaboration Services Team

Custom URLs Not Available in New Google Sites

1/11/2017

Custom URLs make it easier for people to remember and find websites. Although popular, Google does not allow for custom URLs in the new version of Sites. Additionally, new Google Sites cannot be moved back to the Classic Sites version. The U-M Google team will monitor Google’s progress in this space and let you know if and when Google provides this functionality. If you feel strongly about this feature being missing from the New Sites, we encourage you to provide feedback to Google by selecting Report an Issue from the More Actions (gear icon) drop-down list in Google Sites.

The Collaboration Services Team