Google Workspace chooses new features designed for remote work

Google is adding a New features are on the rise in Google Workspace today, Google Calendar and Chat include new tools to classify their focus times, better ways to join Google Meet videoconferences with multiple devices, and a version of its office suite for frontline workers. It is taking Google Assistant out of beta for the workplace and making it generally available.

Company try Classify these features As part of a new push for what they call “collaboration equity”. For Google, this is a high-minded way of explaining the tools people are trying to build so that people working from home can work from an office (when people are allowed back to the offices Be harmless than).

The idea that comes closest to hitting that mark are Google’s tools to set your position in a suite of products. In addition to setting out-of-the-office and working hours, users will also be able to create a new event type called Focus Time. When you set a block of focus time, Google states that it will “limit notifications during these event windows.” You can also set your location, giving colleagues a better understanding of your availability and time zone.

The key is that the various tools in the workspace, such as Gmail and Chat, will be aware of your current position and location and adjust to suit your notifications. It’s not an almost ideal universal status indicator, but it’s a step in the right direction – as long as you mostly live in the Google workspace and don’t mix in other devices like Slack.

New types of statuses on the calendar also allow Google to create a type of task-focused “time well spent” chart, only showing how much time you’re wasting in meetings every week. Google says that this “Time Insights” breakdown will only be available to workers, not their owners.

Picture: Google

Google is also offering “second screen experiences” for Google Meetings. This essentially allows people to enter a meeting from multiple devices, making it easy to share screens (or do other tasks) without having to take your entire laptop. The idea is that houseworkers can use Google Nest Hub Max or their phone to log in to the meeting, but will still be able to render from their main computer.

On the phone, Google Meet is taking a mobile tile view for video calls, picture-in-picture support, and split screens. It is not clear whether those devices will work on both Android and iOS.

Google is also building on its low cost Google Workspace Compulsory Offer These were strange omissions at launch – with support for chat, jamboard and calendar.

Finally, Google says that it is launching “Google Workspace Frontline”, which it calls a “custom solution” for frontline workers. This seems to be a simple way for administrators to configure Google workspace setup for retail or in-field workers. It will also be possible to make AppSheet App (Simple, form-based apps) within Google Sheets.

Put together, the set of feature updates that Google updates today mostly seem to have made the meetings either less painful (because you can multitask more easily during them) or easier to avoid (because you You can set the focus time and also find out how much time you have ‘given in the Time Insights sidebar).