Tag Archives: Google Meet Hardware

Configure Chromebase for Meetings display to automatically turn off when not in use

Quick summary 

Admins can now configure Chromebase for Meetings in their fleet to automatically turn off the display when not in use. We’ve heard from our customers that reducing power consumption is increasingly important — we hope this helps customers achieve their sustainability goals or comply with local energy efficiency requirements. 




Getting started 

  • Admins: This feature will respect the current power saving setting for Chromebase for Meetings devices, and can be changed at the organizational unit level. Visit the Help Center to learn more about managing power-saving settings. 
  • End users: No action required — to wake a device, simply tap on the screen. 

Rollout pace 


Availability 

  • Available to all Google Workspace customers, as well as G Suite Basic and Business customers with Google Meet hardware devices 

Resources 

View bandwidth availability and usage during meetings via the Meet quality tool

What’s changing 

Admins can now use the Meet quality tool to view inbound and outbound bandwidth information—both used and available—for their users. Surfacing this information helps admins visualize participants bandwidth compared to the quality of a call, making it easier for them to determine where a bandwidth bottleneck could be causing low quality. 


Admins can use the graphs to view sent and received bandwidth, used bandwidth, and the bandwidth availability over time.



Hovering over a data point surfaces numerical readouts and exact timestamps. 


Who’s impacted


Admins


Why it’s important

Knowing which bitrates are available or being used for specific endpoints is critical data when performing troubleshooting or working to improve call quality in your domain. Previously, this data was only available as an average across entire calls, which can make it difficult to narrow down problems during specific points in time. 


We hope by surfacing this detailed information, Admins can easily troubleshoot or improve call quality for their users.


Getting started


  • Admins: This feature will be available by default. From the Admin console, navigate to Apps > Google Workspace > Google Meet > Meet quality tool. Alternatively, you can search for a meeting code, organizer, or participant from the search bar to access the Meet quality tool. Visit the Help Center to learn more about tracking meeting quality and statistics.
  • End users: There is no end user impact.


Rollout pace

  • This feature is currently available

Availability

  • Available to all Google Workspace customers, as well as legacy G Suite Basic and Business customers

Resources


Roadmap


Google Workspace Updates Weekly Recap – February 22, 2022

New updates 

Unless otherwise indicated, the features below are fully launched or in the process of rolling out (rollouts should take no more than 15 business days to complete), launching to both Rapid and Scheduled Release at the same time (if not, each stage of rollout should take no more than 15 business days to complete), and available to all Google Workspace and legacy G Suite customers. 



Japanese grammar suggestions for Google Docs 
You'll now see grammar suggestions as you type in Japanese in Docs. Grammar suggestions can help you write faster and more accurately. | Learn more.



Previous announcements 

The announcements below were published on the Workspace Updates blog earlier this week. Please refer to the original blog posts for complete details. 



Manage overdue tasks in Google Calendar You can now easily see and manage your overdue tasks in Google Calendar. 
If you have uncompleted tasks that were due in the past 30 days, you will have an all day entry that will tell you how many tasks are pending from that timeframe. | Learn more. 



Participate in Google Meet polls and Q&As on Chromebase for meetings 
You can now participate in Google Meet polls and Q&As when joining from a Chromebase for meetings all-in-one touchscreen device. | Learn more.



The future of Currents and the next generation of collaboration in Spaces 
With Spaces now available, starting in 2023 we are planning to wind down Google Currents and bring remaining content and communities over to the new Spaces experience. | Learn more here and here. 



Google Voice calls between many European numbers are now included in Google Voice licenses
Beginning February 8, 2022, calls from European Google Voice numbers to mobile and landline numbers in many European countries will be included with the cost of the Google Voice license. | Learn more. 



For a recap of announcements in the past six months, check out What’s new in Google Workspace (recent releases).

Participate in Google Meet polls and Q&As on Chromebase for meetings

What’s changing 

You can now participate in Google Meet polls and Q&As when joining from a Chromebase for meetings all-in-one touchscreen device.


Who’s impacted

End users



Why you’d use it

This update can foster more inclusive hybrid meetings by giving participants in conference rooms and classrooms a way to engage in these key activities from Chromebase for meetings devices.



Additional details

Q&A
When using a Chromebase device:
  • Meeting participants can view, sort, and upvote questions.
  • Note: meeting organizers can start Q&As from Meet on web, Android, and iOs devices only.

View and upvote questions on Chromebase for meetings




Polls
When using a Chromebase device:
  • Meeting participants can vote on any poll during the meeting. Note that the vote will be attributed to your Chromebase device.
  • Note: meeting organizers can create a poll from Meet on web, Android, and iOS devices only. 

Participate in meeting polls by voting on Chromebase for meetings




Visit the Help Center to learn more about conducting polls and asking participants questions in Meet, and the supported Google Workspace editions.


Getting started

  • Admins: There is no admin control for this feature.
  • End users: Visit the Help Center to learn more about using polls and Q&As in Google Meet.


Rollout pace


Availability



Resources



Improvements to Google Meet hardware issue troubleshooting

What’s changing 

We’ve made several improvements to the issue detection engine which notifies admins about peripheral and connectivity issues in their Google Meet hardware fleet. These improvements will make alerts more reliable and cut down on noise and false signals.

Furthermore, we’ve made a number of significant visual changes to the Google Meet hardware section of the Admin console in order to display more detailed information regarding device issues.  We expect these new features will allow admins to better troubleshoot issues in their fleets.  They include:

  • Issue history page
  • Device list quick-filters
  • Issue detail sidebar
  • New aggregated issue count columns

See below for more information.


Who’s impacted

Admins



Why it’s important

We hope that by improving the accuracy and information associated with alerts and providing additional troubleshooting tools, Admins can resolve Google Meet hardware issues faster across their fleet.



Additional details


New issue history page
To provide admins with more information and context about a device’s health over time, we’ve added a new Issue History page in the Admin console. Here, admins can see a visual timeline and table of issues for specific devices, which can be filtered further by a specific date or issue type.




Improvements to the Google Meet hardware Devices section of the Admin console
We’ve added new quick-filters at the top of the Device list page to help quickly filter your devices down to the most common views, such as offline devices, those approaching end-of-life, and more.



You can also surface richer information about device issues in the sidebar by clicking an issue from the Device list or Device detail page. This information includes:

  • Description
  • Type
  • Detection time
  • Closed time
  • Duration
  • Related events
  • Troubleshooting recommendations


Additionally, we’ve added two new columns to the Device list page: Device issues in last 28 days and Peripheral issues in last 28 days, which can help you isolate persistently problematic devices in your fleet. To add these columns to your current view, you can select the appropriate quick-filter or manually use the column management widget.


Getting started

  • Admins: These updates will be automatically available. Visit the Help Center to learn more about turning on connectivity and peripherals alerts.
    • Note: As these updates roll out, there may be instances in which future resolution alerts for issues open longer than 30 days contain a different Alert ID than the ID originally included in the initial alert. We anticipate these occurrences to be rare, but Admins who have built custom task-tracking integrations based on these alerts should be aware of this in case they contain logic that relies upon the Alert ID. Newly created alerts going forward will not be affected.
  • End users: There is no end user impact or action required.

Rollout pace


Availability

  • Available to all Google Workspace customers, as well as G Suite Basic and Business customers with Google Meet hardware devices

Resources