Tag Archives: Google Workspace

Workspace Individual adds storage, mail merge and global regions

Since launching Google Workspace Individual last year, we’ve seen customers from around the world grow their businesses, connect with their customers in more meaningful ways, collaborate with partners, get organized and look more professional. Business owners have told us the familiarity of our tools helps them get more done. And today, we’re offering even more features for Workspace Individual users. We’re announcing an increase to storage capacity and advances in email personalization for all customers. We’re also expanding our regional availability to bring Google Workspace Individual to even more business owners around the world.

Grow your business — and the number of files you can store

Soon every Google Workspace Individual account will come with 1 TB of secure cloud storage. You don’t have to lift a finger to get the upgraded storage: Every account will be automatically upgraded from their existing 15 GB of storage to 1 TB as we roll this out.

As you grow your business, it’s only natural that you’ll have more docs, data and digital assets to manage and store, and Google Drive allows you to do so securely from any device. You can store over 100 file types in Drive, including PDFs, CAD files and images, and you can easily collaborate on and edit Microsoft Office files without converting them. Plus, Drive comes with built-in protections against malware, spam and ransomware so you don’t need to worry about accidentally opening the door to malware just by opening a doc.

A laptop and mobile device showing a variety of file types in Google Drive.

Store over 100 file types in Google Drive

Personalize emails with built-in mail merge

We previously launched multi-send mode, which allows you to easily email many recipients while maintaining their privacy, making it great for sending newsletters and announcements. Now you can add mail merge tags like @firstname to multi-send emails, so each recipient receives a unique email that feels individually crafted just for them. By default, multi-send emails also include an unsubscribe link so recipients can opt out of future messages.

Try mail merge in web Gmail with other premium Workspace features like customizable email layouts to better engage your audience.

Animated image of mail merge tags being used within a single Gmail that offers the recipient a discount when they refer a friend.

Mail merge tags makes it easy to personalize multi-send emails

Expanding the reach and helpfulness of Workspace Individual

We're also launching Google Workspace Individual in a number of new countries and regions: the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Taiwan, Thailand, the Netherlands, Portugal, Belgium, Finland, Greece and Argentina. These new countries join a growing list of places business owners can sign up for Workspace Individual, including the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Japan, Australia and six countries across Europe.

As we expand the footprint for Workspace Individual, we’re also deepening the functionality, building on Premium Meet, eSignature in Google Docs, appointment scheduling, and flexible layouts and multi-send in Gmail. See thefull list of new and coming-soon features.

Sign up today with a 14-day trial

Sign up for Google Workspace Individual today with a 14-day trial, or learn more about Google Workspace Individual on our website. If you’re not a business owner but still want premium productivity capabilities and more storage for personal use, check out our Google One plans.

Source: The Official Google Blog

Increasing access to mental healthcare in Ireland

Mental health illnesses impact more than 84 million people across the European Union, with Ireland being one of the most affected countries. Across Ireland, but particularly in rural communities, access to support services can change everything. Turn2Me is an Irish nonprofit on a mission to offer safe and timely mental health services online and break the stigma. Google.org sat down with Fiona O’Malley, CEO, to learn more.

What is Turn2Me’s story?

Oisin and Diarmuid Scollard funded Turn2Me in 2009, six years after their brother Cormac committed suicide. The vision was to create a safe space for anyone in need to get professional help online. In 2013, Turn2Me gained the support of the HSE National Office for Suicide Prevention to deliver counseling online. Over the years, we have assisted more than 110,000 people with one-to-one and group support services online and our website now has 45,000 active users.

How is Turn2Me increasing access to mental healthcare in Ireland?

Our online-first, year-round free assistance helps us reach people who might otherwise be excluded because of the cost of counseling services or their location. We also join forces with other nonprofits to make our services known in rural areas across Ireland – and among young generations, LGBTQIA+ groups, and more.

Fiona O’Malley, CEO, Turn2Me

Technology is at the core of what you do. Can you tell us more about how tech solutions can drive social impact?

We know that peer support, awareness and timely access to help and information play a crucial part in mental health. Turn2me is one of the first online mental health services in the world and a great example of how investments in technology can help people feel more connected and heard.

We have invested in a custom-built platform where our users can book one-to-one counseling and support groups, but also share their thoughts and experiences 24/7 in a moderated, safe community. The Thought Catcher is an online mood diary popular with younger generations – users can select their mood, share feelings anonymously, track mood changes and receive supportive, uplifting messages. Our trained staff moderates the community and points users to resources and services.

Last but not least, we also use Ad Grants to run ads on Google Search at no cost and reach a wider audience – our sign-ups are dependent on word of mouth and online reach, and about 60% of our new website users come through ads.

A team of only six people runs Turn2Me. How do you manage?

Again technology, which helps us run things smoothly and efficiently. We’ve been part of Google for Nonprofits for years, which has given us access to Google Workspace for Nonprofits, improving operations and collaboration. For example, we use Docs to update our policies and share minutes of Board meetings and Meet to regularly keep in touch with other mental health nonprofits and find synergies.

Not having to pay for Ad Grants or Google Workspace means that resources can be reinvested in our programs, which helps us support between 30 and 100 more people every year.

We’re also incredibly lucky to have many wonderful volunteers along with our Board, which includes Oisin and Diarmuid Scollard, our founders. Like many families in Ireland, they know first-hand the importance of adequate mental health services and are passionate about driving change.

As a CEO, what would be your best advice to someone who’s just getting started in the nonprofit space?

I believe vision matters. Our belief in our cause combined with the immense support of the many people who help us are what help us thrive. With a bold vision, you can achieve so much.

Source: Google in Europe

Making it even easier to manage your tasks

We all know how it feels to have countless to-dos, making it hard to know where to start. With all the daily demands, having a simple way to organize and keep track of various tasks helps you get one step closer to checking them off your list.

The ideal solution meets you where your thoughts and your productive moments happen — whether you’re in the midst of working on your laptop, making a to-do list on your phone, or just need a way to capture thoughts while on the go. This is why we’re making it easier for our products to work better together, no matter where or how you work.

Millions of people use Google to help them stay on top of their everyday to-dos across Google Assistant, Calendar and Tasks. Soon, we’ll be simplifying our task management solutions by migrating Assistant and Calendar Reminders to Google Tasks. This means you will now have an easy way to view and manage all your to-dos in one place through Google Tasks, regardless of whether you create them using Assistant or Calendar.

Get it all done with Google Tasks

Google Tasks helps users get stuff done with a simple and productive solution across their personal and professional lives. It can sync across your devices, so your lists and tasks go with you, wherever you are. Plus, you can easily access Tasks from your favorite Google Workspace apps like Gmail, Calendar and Chat.

Here are a few ways you can get more done with Google Tasks:

Use the “Add to tasks” button in Gmail so important action items don’t get lost in your inbox
Create tasks directly from Google Chat to turn a thought into a clear action
Create a task in Google Calendar so you can pick the perfect time to get it done
Sort the tasks you create into lists and star the ones that are most important to you

Animation of using the “Add to Tasks” button in Gmail, then starring the task to mark as important

Once you’ve captured and organized your tasks, you can keep track of your progress by marking them as complete to show what you’ve accomplished.

Source: The Official Google Blog

Planning a family reunion with Google Workspace

For my Texan family, anything is an opportunity to barbecue: a long weekend, some good weather, or just a good day in general. For years, a barbecue has been our simple way to get our loved ones together — and there wouldn’t be much planning involved.

We’d have an invitation sent around with a date and a suggested time, and that’s about it. Yet after years of barbecues, questions like “who’s coming again?” and “can someone send me the group photos?” still circled the picnic table. Somehow we didn’t have a system for our tradition, which got frustrating when we started having more guests than space.

I decided to do something about it. Encouraged by memories of our growing tradition (and the chance to become the favorite grandchild), I started researching tools to plan family gatherings. Thanks to lessons from Google’s Applied Digital Skills program, I’ve learned how to add some coordination to our barbecues. Now, I can easily keep track of plans and many of my family’s memories using some of my favorite apps in Google Workspace. Here’s how to do it when you’re planning your own family barbecue or reunion picnic.

Kick off your planning with Google Calendar

The most important part of any family reunion is… family! If it’s your responsibility to invite them, you want to let them know early, even though you might not have all the details finalized. Thankfully, Calendar lets you send modifiable invitations. So if later you decide to hold the picnic in your aunt’s backyard instead of the park, you can easily change the location in the invite and send an email update to guests.

And to make sure you’re on top of everything, Calendar helps you remember events and things on your to-do list through notifications and Google Tasks. To learn how to use both features, I took the Organize Your Day with Google Calendar and Create Task in Calendar lessons. Afterwards, I knew how to customize notifications that only alerted me about an event when it was most helpful for me. I also learned about calendar entries called Tasks that you can use to prompt yourself to remember small things like “pick up groceries for the family reunion.” Like events, you can even make these entries repeat for the tasks that require frequent attention.

How to make a Task repeat in Google Calendar

Use folders in Google Drive to organize your memories and documents

Once you’ve scheduled everything, you’ll want a place to store your important documents and memories. Fortunately, Drive offers a place to keep all of your family reunion files, and a way to organize them through folders, subfolders and color coding.

With so many options, I took the Use Google Drive to Organize Files and Folders lesson to learn the best way to organize my family’s memories. I needed a system that made the Google Sheet with everyone’s contact information and all of the photos from the barbecue easy to find. I started with one overall folder to share with my family and then created color-coded subfolders to separate order receipts from recipes and nostalgic videos. Before I knew it, our family reunion folder started to resemble a digital scrapbook. As pictures of my grandpa as a child, a candid photo of my mom hugging my sister, and my grandma’s pound cake recipe poured into the folder, my heart began to melt. And with the option to star files that especially remind me of home, I’m able to easily revisit those memories when I miss family.

A folder to hold family reunion files with color-coded subfolders

Use Gmail to stay in touch

Whether it’s to organize the potluck or make travel arrangements, you’ll need to send information to family members. Gmail can help you keep up with all your communication. Worried that everything might get buried in your inbox? The Communicate Using Email lesson teaches you how to label and look up emails so you can keep up with it all.

With labels, you can tag emails so they’re organized into folders where you can easily find them later. You can also search for an email by subject line, contact name or even a keyword. This comes in handy when you’re looking for all those pesky order confirmations. And when the reunion is over, you can archive all of the emails you don’t need anymore to take them out of your inbox. But they’ll still be available in a folder named “All Mail” if you need to look at them again.

Keep making memories

Since I’ve taken the Applied Digital Skills lessons, I’ve taught my family to use Google Workspace to keep track of guests, events and memories. It’s become a way to digitally log our growing family interactions. If you want to learn even more about Calendar, Drive and Gmail, check out the Google Calendar for Beginners, Google Drive for Beginners and Gmail for Beginners in the Google Workspace for Beginners collection.

Source: The Official Google Blog

6 back-to-class tips for every educator

Whether you’re in Mexico preparing to start classes, or in Australia with your school year in full swing, going back to school can be exciting and overwhelming for students and teachers all over the world. We know that learning is not one size fits all - it is personal. To help amplify educators’ impact, we’ve created a new Back to School Guide to help educators meet each learner where they are – geographically, developmentally and academically.

Use new Classroom tools to support your students

Many educators are searching for new ways to help them create and deliver instruction efficiently, while supporting students effectively. With Google Workspace for Education and Google Classroom, you can set up classes to do everything from creating coursework to distributing assignments and grading. To get started, check out this Classroom training course.

We’ve added many new features to Classroom that we announced during our event, The Anywhere School 2022. For instance, integrated add-ons let you use your favorite education tools like Kahoot! and IXL right in Classroom. And, in partnership with Clever, admins can sync class rosters from most major student information systems (SISs) to Classroom. Schools with Education Plus can sign up for our beta pilot of Elevate Data Sync as we expand into 15 more countries.

YouTube video describing Classroom add ons

Inspire creativity through video

Distance learning taught us the value of being creative while teaching and learning, from using Google Meet to stay connected to taking students on virtual field trips to explore arts and culture.

A great way to inspire creativity is through video. Our new Screencast app, built into ChromeOS, helps students and teachers share their ideas in class by creating their own screencasts, with built-in transcription. Educators can also record, trim, transcribe and share recordings for their students to review anytime.

Another way to connect is by using the livestream feature in YouTube to share school events with your whole community, in addition to livestreams with Meet.

Those same tools present new ways to reengage students as schools return to in-person environments. Keep exploring ways to use tools like Jamboard, Forms, Sites, Docs, Slides and Sheets to better communicate with students and understand their needs.

Make lessons more personal with adaptive learning technology

Adaptive learning provides students with customized resources and activities to address their unique learning needs. For example, if a student struggles with adding fractions, a teacher might offer additional practice problems. By applying artificial intelligence to adaptive learning, we can explore new possibilities to make the learning experience more personal for each student.

A new Classroom feature called practice sets, globally available in beta, offers students a more personal path to learning. Now, educators can easily transform their own teaching content into interactive assignments and use the autograding tool to cut down on manual grading time. When working on assignments, students receive instant feedback on their answers, and real-time support if they get stuck along the way. Take this new tool for a spin and explore the possibilities.

YouTube video describing practice sets in Google Classroom

Help every student succeed with accessibility features

Many of the people behind Google for Education are former educators who bring their passion for inclusive learning to their work every day. So we know learners benefit greatly from tools that meet their unique needs.

Accessibility features built into Google Workspace for Education and Chromebooks help students learn in the ways that work for them. Students can utilize visual aids, spoken feedback and Acapela text-to-speech voices on Chromebooks, or use voice typing, captioning, Braille displays, screen readers and magnifiers in Google Workspace for Education.

Not yet familiar with our accessibility features? Take the Tools for Diverse Learners Training to help everyone participate and develop a love of learning.

Keep families involved and in the loop

One of the greatest predictors of student success is family engagement. Easily communicate with families using guardian email summaries in Classroom, schedule meetings with Calendar appointment slots and set up virtual conferences with Meet.

It’s also important to work alongside families to help students use technology responsibly and be critical consumers of digital content. You can share the Be Internet Awesome site, our Guardian’s Guides and the Google for Education Family Tech FAQ for back to school night to teach parents more about this topic. Students have Chromebooks at home? Families can use Family Link to help manage their child’s school account on a Chromebook.

YouTube video explaining Family Link on Chromebooks

Join the conversation with professional learning communities

Who better to learn from than other teachers? Join one of our Google Educators Groups, professional learning communities of educators from around the globe. Share teaching resources, discuss ideas and keep up with new technology developments. Boost your skills with our Teacher Center training courses and certifications – and be sure to sign up for the latest Google for Education updates.

Have a great, safe and healthy school year, no matter where in the year (or world) you are. And for more tips, be sure to explore our Back to School Guide.

Source: The Official Google Blog

Google Workspace Individual is now available in Europe

We launched Google Workspace Individual over a year ago to help solo business owners reach new customers and bring their big ideas to life. Since then, customers in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Japan and Australia have all used it to grow, run and protect their businesses.

They’ve used Google Meet for consultations, Calendar for scheduling and customized layouts in Gmail to easily communicate in ways that reflect their brands. We’ve loved seeing how businesses of all stripes have brought their passions to the world — from caterers, creative consultants and real estate agents to pet sitters, hair stylists and life coaches.

Now, we’re launching Google Workspace Individual in Europe. This means that customers in France, Italy, Spain, Germany, the U.K., and Switzerland can benefit from new and upcoming capabilities designed to help individual business owners stay focused on what they love, and spend less time on tasks like scheduling appointments and sending emails.

We’ve recently added powerful new capabilities to Workspace Individual, including:

The ability to live stream from Google Meet to YouTube so customers can reach a bigger audience
Professional layouts and multi-send for email newsletters, campaigns and announcements
Better appointment booking with customizable reminders, durations and exceptions
Improvements to secure video conferencing over Google Meet, with immersive backgrounds, improved sound and lighting, and the ability to bring meetings directly into the flow of work by integrating Meet with Docs, Sheets, and Slides.

And soon, customers will have the ability to add e-signatures directly to Google Docs. They’ll be able to quickly execute agreements from the familiar interface of Docs, without having to switch tabs or apps. See the full list of new and coming-soon features.

With this expansion of Google Workspace Individual, solo business owners in Europe can run, grow and protect their businesses with apps they’re already familiar with. This means more time helping customers and less time scheduling, emailing and updating calendars. In the months ahead, we’ll continue to bring Workspace Individual to an expanding list of countries.

Sign up today with a 14-day trial

Sign up for Google Workspace Individual today with a 14-day trial, or learn more about Google Workspace Individual on our website. If you’re not a business owner but still want premium capabilities for personal use, Google Workspace premium is also now available with Google One 2TB+ plans[5a49a0], which include expanded cloud storage, advanced Photos editing features and more.

Source: The Official Google Blog

Duo, meet Meet: One upgraded app for video calling and meetings

As we announced in June, we’re upgrading the Google Duo experience to include all Google Meet features and bringing our two video calling services together into a single solution. This upgrade, which started rolling out last month, gives everyone access to new features like scheduling and joining meetings, virtual backgrounds, in-meeting chat and more, in addition to your current video calling features.

Smartphone screen showing home screen of Meet app, leading to a video chat

Additional meeting features let you start an instant video call with your entire study group or connect with your colleagues at a recurring scheduled time. Before you join a meeting, you’ll be able to change your background or apply visual effects. During the meeting, you’ll also be able to use in-meeting chat and captions for more ways to participate.

Animation showing different background options on Google Meet

We’re also launching live sharing for Google Meet. Live sharing allows all meeting participants to interact with the content that’s being shared. So whether you’re co-watching videos on YouTube, curating a playlist on Spotify, taking turns while playing games like Heads Up!, UNO! Mobile or Kahoot! during an ice breaker, everyone will be able to join in on the action.

Animation of Google Meet live sharing with Spotify on a smartphone screen

What to expect

Over the past few weeks, we’ve started rolling out these new features to your Duo app, and now, users are beginning to see their app name and icon update to Google Meet. This upgrade will take place throughout the month across mobile and tablet devices, and will come later for other devices. To ensure a smooth transition, keep your app updated to the latest version.

Animation of Google Duo icon changing to a Google Meet icon

If you’re using the existing Google Meet app, there will be no change to your experience. Your existing Meet app and icon will change to Google Meet (original). You can continue using this app to join and schedule meetings, but we recommend using the updated Google Meet app to get combined video meeting and calling features all in one place. We will continue to invest in bringing more features to Google Meet to help people to connect, collaborate and share experiences on any device, at home, at school and at work.
We're committed to making the transition as smooth as possible. For more information, please see our Help Center.

Source: The Official Google Blog

Use your favorite education tools in Classroom with add-ons

We know that educators have go-to digital tools to make their lessons more engaging. But with that comes the challenges of managing multiple accounts and passwords, helping students navigate other websites, and handling grading on different platforms. Now, educators will be able to easily find, add, use and grade content from popular EdTech tools, right within Google Classroom. Add-ons provide a better end-to-end experience to not only save time for educators, but also simplify the digital classroom experience for students, too.

Use popular education tools, right within Classroom

To make EdTech tools work better together, we partnered with 18 partners to offer add-ons for Classroom. You can do things like assign a trivia game from Kahoot!, browse content from IXL’s repository by subject or grade level, and make it easy for students to access interactive Pear Deck presentations, all within Classroom. With the content and activities of these educational partners accessible within Classroom, we hope it’s even easier to diversify your lessons and help students learn in new ways.

Animation showing that students can find a Pear Deck presentation from within Classroom, interact with it, then turn it in.
With just a few clicks, students can access, and turn in, interactive Pear Deck presentations from within Classroom.
Animation showing that an educator can use add-ons to create an assignment, browse skills in the IXL add-on by subject or grade level, then add it to an assignment within Classroom.)
The IXL add-on allows you to browse IXL skills by subject or grade level before adding it to a Classroom Assignment or Stream, and even assign skills to a specific student.
Animation showing that teachers can search for kahoots that they have made or save, all within Classroom.
With the Kahoot! add-on, teachers can access kahoots they made or saved, and make them easy for students to use, all without leaving Classroom.

To start, we’ll have add-ons from Adobe Express for Education, BookWidgets, CK-12, Edpuzzle, Formative, Genially, Google Arts & Culture, Google Play Books, IXL, Kahoot!, Nearpod, Newsela, PBS LearningMedia, Pear Deck, SAFARI Montage, Sora from OverDrive Education, WeVideo and Wordwall. If you don’t see a particular add-on within Classroom, email your admin to ask if your district can set up that add-on, or give feedback within Classroom to request new add-ons partners that aren’t on this list.

Simplify your grading workflows

To make grading easier for educators, many of the add-ons have integrated time-saving features like auto-grading, insights and grade syncing. Various add-ons also provide the opportunity to grade right within Classroom and include personalized feedback when sharing a grade back with students. All add-ons sync with the Classroom gradebook, too.

Animation showing the CK-12 add-on and how it enables teachers to view insights and actionable recommendations related to students).
The CK-12 add-on lets you create interactive assignments, track class performance across assignments, see auto-graded results and view insights that show concept-level performance patterns and actionable recommendations for each student.
Animation depicting the Nearpod add-on and how educators can see how much students participated in a lesson and how well they scored on assignments.)
With the Nearpod add-on, teachers can assign lessons to their class or individual students, review reports of student engagement and activity, and record grades directly within Google Classroom.
Animation of the Edpuzzle add-on and how a quiz can be auto-graded because it uses multiple choice questions.)
Edpuzzle makes it easy to find or create video lessons, measure progress with real-time information on student engagement and comprehension and save time with auto-grading for certain question types.

Source: The Official Google Blog

Use your favorite education tools in Classroom with add-ons

Use popular education tools, right within Classroom

Animation showing that students can find a Pear Deck presentation from within Classroom, interact with it, then turn it in.
With just a few clicks, students can access, and turn in, interactive Pear Deck presentations from within Classroom.
Animation showing that an educator can use add-ons to create an assignment, browse skills in the IXL add-on by subject or grade level, then add it to an assignment within Classroom.)
The IXL add-on allows you to browse IXL skills by subject or grade level before adding it to a Classroom Assignment or Stream, and even assign skills to a specific student.
Animation showing that teachers can search for kahoots that they have made or save, all within Classroom.
With the Kahoot! add-on, teachers can access kahoots they made or saved, and make them easy for students to use, all without leaving Classroom.

Simplify your grading workflows

Animation showing the CK-12 add-on and how it enables teachers to view insights and actionable recommendations related to students).
The CK-12 add-on lets you create interactive assignments, track class performance across assignments, see auto-graded results and view insights that show concept-level performance patterns and actionable recommendations for each student.
Animation depicting the Nearpod add-on and how educators can see how much students participated in a lesson and how well they scored on assignments.)
With the Nearpod add-on, teachers can assign lessons to their class or individual students, review reports of student engagement and activity, and record grades directly within Google Classroom.
Animation of the Edpuzzle add-on and how a quiz can be auto-graded because it uses multiple choice questions.)
Edpuzzle makes it easy to find or create video lessons, measure progress with real-time information on student engagement and comprehension and save time with auto-grading for certain question types.

Source: The Official Google Blog

Use your favorite education tools in Classroom with add-ons

Use popular education tools, right within Classroom

Animation showing that students can find a Pear Deck presentation from within Classroom, interact with it, then turn it in.
With just a few clicks, students can access, and turn in, interactive Pear Deck presentations from within Classroom.
Animation showing that an educator can use add-ons to create an assignment, browse skills in the IXL add-on by subject or grade level, then add it to an assignment within Classroom.)
The IXL add-on allows you to browse IXL skills by subject or grade level before adding it to a Classroom Assignment or Stream, and even assign skills to a specific student.
Animation showing that teachers can search for kahoots that they have made or save, all within Classroom.
With the Kahoot! add-on, teachers can access kahoots they made or saved, and make them easy for students to use, all without leaving Classroom.

Simplify your grading workflows

Animation showing the CK-12 add-on and how it enables teachers to view insights and actionable recommendations related to students).
The CK-12 add-on lets you create interactive assignments, track class performance across assignments, see auto-graded results and view insights that show concept-level performance patterns and actionable recommendations for each student.
Animation depicting the Nearpod add-on and how educators can see how much students participated in a lesson and how well they scored on assignments.)
With the Nearpod add-on, teachers can assign lessons to their class or individual students, review reports of student engagement and activity, and record grades directly within Google Classroom.
Animation of the Edpuzzle add-on and how a quiz can be auto-graded because it uses multiple choice questions.)
Edpuzzle makes it easy to find or create video lessons, measure progress with real-time information on student engagement and comprehension and save time with auto-grading for certain question types.