Get ready to be wowed by the latest and greatest from Google!

Google has unleashed a wave of exciting updates, from user-friendly improvements to innovative firsts. Our colleague Max has reviewed and compiled all the new features from July for you.

Ready? These are Google's latest updates at a glance (check the video out for more details).

1. Use companion mode to check into a Google Meet room

Previously, when joining a virtual meeting from a conference room, people were identified by the conference room's name rather than their name. Now, with the new companion mode check-in feature with Google Meet, individuals can be identified by name in a conference room meeting. Not only does this strengthen inclusivity and community team building, but it also allows for better communication between individuals.

2. Improved meeting room suggestions in Google Calendar

Previously there were two types of room suggestions based on a company’s Google Calendar settings: 1) frequently used rooms and 2) suggested structured rooms based on meeting attendees' self-selected working locations.
Google combines the two options in an updated structured meeting room setting to optimize meeting rooms better and foster greater collaboration, especially in a hybrid work environment.

Room suggestions will be based on inputted user location, and in case location data is unavailable, proposed meeting rooms will be based on frequently used rooms.

3. Negotiate time directly in Gmail to schedule meetings faster

Google is adding a feature to Gmail that helps you find convenient meeting times with others much quicker. This is especially convenient with scheduling meetings with customers, partners or others in your organization whose calendars are not visible to you.

4. Add hyperlinks to text in Google Chat

You can now hyperlink text when composing or editing a massage on Google Chat. This update also includes the ability to copy over hyperlinks from other places such as Gmail, Google Docs, Google Sheets, and Google Slides.

5. Adding flexibility to email collection in Google Forms

Previously when adding or modifying a Google Form - i.e. editing the response section, form creators only had the option to toggle the collect email addresses option on or off. To add flexibility, Google introduced the ability to choose between the following email collection options:

1. Verified email collection, previously known as the automatic collection email;
2. Responder input, previously known as manual email collection;
3. No collection.

When submitting the Google Form, the verified user option will now have users check which email addresses are being collected.

6. Quickly access more features during meetings

Google introduced a new quick feature action to access popular features in Google Meet. By hovering over your video feed, you can instantaneously add a background or filter or have access to the reframe option to improve your position in your video feed.

7. Paid appointment booking in Google Calendar

The Google Calendar feature that allows users to share their availability is now integrating paid appointments to improve appointment-making capabilities.

8. Revamping the “First Open Experience” in Sheets and Slides on Android

The Sheets App will have larger tap targets - for example, a single tap will now expose the formula and contextual formatting bars.

9. Easily duplicate Groups and objects in Google Sites

You can now duplicate images, text boxes, buttons and groups!

10. Making Focus time more productive with new Google Calendar settings

To increase concentration, you can now directly mute all Chat notifications during your focus time under the Do Not Disturb setting.

11. Adding flexibility to working locations in Google Calendar

9 am - 1 pm in the Office? 2 pm - 4 pm at home? Tell people where you are. Google has made enhancements to the location feature. Now you can indicate where you work from at specific times throughout the day. This feature allows you to reflect your availability based on your physical location accurately.

12 Introducing membership search and the option to add up to 55,000 members to spaces in Google Chat

To boost collaboration and communication between teams of all sizes, Google is increasing the number of users you can add to a space in Google Chat from 8,000 to 55,000. Now you can easily make company-wide announcements, event-based announcements, and large support groups in Google Spaces.

13.  Convert email addresses and links into smart chips in Google Sheets

Now you can insert a link and tap the Tab key to convert the link into a smart chip in Google Sheets. This is a great feature when copying and pasting email addresses to links to Google Drive, files or YouTube videos into a sheet.

14. Google Sheets is now integrated with mail merge in Gmail

Last year, Google made sending individualized emails to many recipients easier with mail merge tags like @firstname or @datejoined. Now, mail merge will support Google Sheets in the web version of Gmail. You can link a sheet of up to 1,500 recipients with any column in your Google Sheet as a mail merge tag.

Keeping up with Google updates

That was a lot of updates! What are you excited to try out? Do you have any questions or are you not clear about some features? Then check out our YouTube video where our colleagues from the Google team go into even more detail about the Google updates.

Make sure to give the video a like and subscribe to our account for more Google updates!

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Further Reading

• Summer Slump: Over 20 Hot Updates from Google Workspace
• All articles in the Google Hybrid Work series
• Google Workspace: Bringing Productivity and Well-being Together
• Google – Increase Productivity and Wellbeing at Work by Making Meetings More Meaningful
• According to Google, You Can Increase Your Productivity and Wellbeing By Transforming your Inbox