Tag Archives: Google Workspace

Year in review: the Google Workspace Platform 2021

Posted by Charles Maxson, Developer Advocate

In 2021, we saw many changes and improvements to the Google Workspace Platform geared at helping developers build new solutions to keep up with the challenges of how we worked, like hybrid and fully remote office work. More than ever, we needed tools for virtual collaboration and digital processes to keep our work going. As paper processes in the office were less viable and we continued to go see digital transformations become necessary, many new custom solutions like desk reservation systems and automated test logging have evolved.

2021 was also a year for Platform milestones, Google Workspace grew to more than 3 billion users globally, we reached more than 5,300 public apps in the Google Workspace Marketplace, and we crossed over 4.8 billion apps installed (up from 1 billion in 2020)! We were also busy bringing Platform innovations and improving our developer experience to help building for Google Workspace easier and faster. Here’s a look at some of the key enhancements the Google Workspace Platform brought to the developer community.

Google Cloud Champion Innovators program

Community building is one of the most effective ways to support developers, which is why we created Google Cloud Innovators.This new community program was designed for developers and technical practitioners using Google Cloud and we welcome everyone.

And when we say everyone, it’s not just professional developers, data scientists, or student developers and hobbyists, we also mean non-technical end users. The growing Google community has something for everyone.

GWAO Alternate Runtimes goes GA

Google Workspace Add-ons are customized applications that tightly integrate with Google Workspace applications, and can be found in the Google Workspace Marketplace, or built specifically for your own domain. The development of these applications were limited to using Apps Script, our native scripting language for the Google Workspace Platform. With the launch of Alternate Runtimes you can now develop add-ons with your preferred hosting infrastructure, development tool chain, source control system, coding language, and code libraries; it was a highly requested update from the developer community, opening up the Platform to many new developer scenarios.

Card Builder UI Application

The GWAO Card Builder tool allows you to visually design the user interfaces for your Google Workspace Add-ons and Google Chat apps projects. It is a must-have for Google Workspace developers using either Apps Script or Alternate Runtimes, enabling you to prototype and design Card UIs super fast without hassle and errors of hand coding JSON or Apps Script on your own.

Card Builder tool for building Google Workspace Add-ons and Chat Apps

Recommended for Google Workspace

This program showcases a selection of market-leading applications built by software vendors across a wide range of categories, including project management, customer support, and finance in our Google Workspace Marketplace. These apps undergo rigorous usability and security testing to make sure they meet our requirements for high quality integrations. They must also have an exemplary track record of user satisfaction, reliability, and privacy.

Recommended for Google Workspace program showcases high quality applications

Chat Slash Commands and Dialogs

Slash commands simplify the way users interact with your Chat bot, offering them a visual leading way to discover and execute your bot’s primary features. As a developer, slash commands are straightforward to implement, and essential in offering a better bot experience. In addition to Slash Commands, Dialogs were a new capability introduced to the Chat App framework that allows developers to build user interfaces to capture inputs and parameters in a structured, reliable way. This was a tremendous step forward for bot usability because it simplified and streamlined the process of users interacting with bot commands. Now with dialogs, users can be led visually to supply inputs via prompts, versus having to rely on wrapping bot commands with natural language inputs.

Forms API beta

Google Forms enables easy creation and distribution of forms, surveys, and quizzes. Forms is used for a wide variety of use cases across business operations, customer management, event planning and logistics, education, and more. With the Google Forms API Beta announcement, developers were able to provide programmatic access for managing forms and acting on responses, empowering developers to build powerful integrations on top of Forms.

Google Workspace Marketplace updates

We made many updates to the Google Workspace Marketplace to improve both the user and developer experience. We added updates to the application detail page that included pricing and when the listing was last updated. The homepage also saw improvements with various curated categories by the Google team under Editor’s Choice. Finally, we launched the marketplace badges for developers to promote their published applications on websites and marketing channels. Oh, and we also had a logo update if you hadn’t noticed.

Google Workspace Marketplace Badges for application promotion

Farewell 2021 and here’s to welcoming in 2022

2021 brought us many innovations to the Google Workspace Platform to help developers address the needs of their users and it also brought more empowerment to knowledge workers to build the solutions they needed with our no-code and low-code platforms. These are just the highlights for the Google Workspace Platform and we look forward to more innovation in 2022. To keep up with all the news about the Platform, please subscribe to our newsletter.

Tools to help you tackle your New Year’s resolution

You always hear the standard New Year resolutions: Work out more. Run a marathon. Learn a new language. For me this year, it’s to learn three new party tricks (I’m optimistically hoping for more social interaction in 2022!). No matter what the goal is, it often feels that by February, I’ve lost some steam. Resolutions take time, and new habits and skills are (let’s admit) hard to build.

So this year, my New Year's resolution is to stick to a New Year’s resolution. So I did a little digging, and found a few tools that I have at my fingertips to get that resolution to stick.

First things first: Write down your goal

Don’t justthink about your resolution — write it down. If you live by your inbox, schedule send a January 1 New Year’s resolution email to yourself. What better way to kickstart the new year than with an email to your future self?

If you’re not into email, Google Keep is a great way to jot down resolution ideas. If you’re on the go when inspiration strikes, you can even create a Google Keep note with your voice.

And don’t forget good ol’ pen and paper. Recording something on paper is easy, and the physical movement of writing something down can make it stick in a certain way. So write it down, literally.

Read Article

Why is paper still so magical?

So many of our tools today are visual, but a Google researcher says there's still so much we can learn from paper.

Read Article

Next, create reminders

The hard part about keeping resolutions for me is changing my daily routine. So I decided to

break down my resolution into smaller goals, and set up check-ins on Google Calendar. Twice a month, I put aside time to learn a party trick (my first one is going to be rolling a coin across my knuckles), and half way through the year I set up a “dry run” performance with friends (whether that ends up being in-person or virtual) to keep myself accountable.

Aside from checkpoints, crossing items off a checklist also keeps me on track. So I further broke down my twice-a-month trick-learning efforts using Tasks. This means my smaller, bite-sized agenda items will show up everywhere, from Gmail to Google Slides (so I can’t ignore them!).

Screenshot of Google Slides with a right-hand side bar with the Tasks feature popped up.

If you wrote down your resolution on Google Keep, that’s also a good place to create a to-do list and hit your smaller target goals on your way to your resolution. You can even set up timed reminders for each of the items to make sure you hit your goals.

Build satisfaction by tracking your progress

You can track your progress anywhere, like Keep or even Google Docs, but if you’re looking for more, try AppSheet . With AppSheet, you can build custom apps without any coding required. Need a custom app to track your workout progress? Looking for a journaling app on the go? AppSheet has a few templates you can try — or you can build your own if you want to get hyper-specific.

Make sure to reward yourself along the way

New habits and skills are hard to build, especially when you don’t see immediate results. So celebrating mini-milestones along the way (practiced 10 sessions ☑...rehearsed for my dry run ☑) help me stay motivated.

How you reward yourself is up to you — maybe it’s taking a day for self care, or simply exchanging words of encouragement with your friends and family – a little kudos goes a long way. And if at any point along the way toward your goal you begin to feel a little weary, try some of the advice from our resilience expert at Google, who talks about breaking tasks into smaller challenges that are easier to tackle.

Here’s to 2022 — and sticking with our New Year resolutions.

You’re cordially invited to use my hybrid holiday party tips

Eight cousins. Six aunts and uncles. A couple of toddlers (both mine). Two (adorable) felines. Some of us will be together, while others will be staying home for the holidays this year.

Sound familiar? Thankfully, many of us have learned a thing or two about “hybrid” gatherings over the past two years. I figured if it could work for…well, work, why not for the holidays?

I’ll be using Google tools to help me host with ease no matter where my friends and family are this year, and I’ve come up with a list of tips so you can, too.

Ready to soirée? Follow these four steps to fête across technical devices and state lines.

Step 1: Draft up a pun-heavy holiday invitation in Gmail. Tailor it for your party and include a Google Calendar invite and link to the Google Meet in the invite. And if you want to keep things extra organized as responses come in, you can make a group and label it “Holiday Party 2021.” Pro tip: Set up an automated reminder to go out to your guests 24 hours before the party.

Step 2: Ahead of party time, send a note to guests attending via Google Meet about the itinerary and let them know what they’ll need to participate. For instance, if you’re hosting a cookie-making party, send the recipe ahead of time. Or if you’re going to vote on ugly sweaters, let them know about Meet’s hand raise feature and polling features so they can be sure to get their vote in (available with Google Workspace Individual).

Step 3: Make everyone feel like they’re together. Whether you host the Google Meet call from your laptop, Pixel or Google Nest Hub Max, you can cast the party to your TV using Chromecast so everyone who’s there IRL can get a good view. Ahead of party time, scope out a good spot for the device that’s hosting the meeting so those on the other end of the call can see and hear everyone. (And so your virtual guests feel present, include the instructions for casting a call to a TV in the note you send before the big day, too.)

Animated GIF showing a Google Meet call with the cursor selecting the captions option and turning it on. Then, the words "Yep, I took it last night. It all seemed pretty clear but I did have one or two questions." Then the cursor selects to translate this into Spanish, which the screen does.

Adding captions to your hybrid get-together is an inclusive, and easy, step.

Step 4: Welcome your guests and make room for all. With Google Workspace Individual, you can show off the hand raise feature so everyone gets a turn to tell a story or joke, enable live captions so all guests can follow the conversation flow easily, and cut out background sounds (like noisy pets!) to reduce distractions. Kindly point out where the mute button is at the start of the party, too. Distracted by the mirror image of yourself on the video call screen? Turn it off with a few clicks! Use the Layout feature so everyone is on the screen at once — no matter where they are.

Step 5: Make it fun! Tap your much cooler niece to create a party playlist on YouTube, and then screen share the tab open to your YouTube playlist for the party. (You can let your guests know they can unpin the shared tile so it doesn’t take up the whole screen.) You and your guests can also use a virtual background (you could even upload a festive backdrop like your favorite photo memories!) You can use Google Jamboard — a free-to-use, virtual whiteboard —and play an IRL-meets-online edition of Pictionary.

Step 6: Give thanks. Send a thank you email after the party wraps. If you have a Google Workspace Individual account, you can record the party for your loved ones who couldn't attend live — just make sure to let attendees know ahead of time.

Hope you enjoyed this crash course in hybrid holiday hosting.

Supporting digital education in Europe

The way we teach and learn has changed. We have all seen the world shift beneath our feet during the pandemic, as homes became classrooms and teachers found new ways to connect with their students while using technology in new ways.

While schools around the world are now moving back towards in-classroom learning, the importance of access to digital tools has been brought into focus, not only to support hybrid learning practices but also to ensure students are equipped with the tools and skills that set them up for success in building the future they want for themselves.

We’re excited to see that many EU member states, guided by the Digital Education Action Plan, have allocated a significant portion of Recovery and Resilience Facility funds towards national digital education transformation plans. However, large-scale projects in digital education sometimes struggle to deliver expected benefits or outcomes, and investments in digital equipment for schools are often under-utilized. To address this challenge and to support countries with their digital education transformation plans, Google is thrilled to announce the €15 million Google for Education EU Digital Support Fund.

Working with SMEs to support digital education

The Google for Digital Education Fund is designed to foster the development of a high-performing digital education ecosystem, including the provision of infrastructure, connectivity and digital equipment, enabling digitally competent and confident teachers, and training staff. The Fund is open to local SMEs who are supporting national education projects funded by the EU’s Recovery and Resilience Facility program. They can apply for funding from Google for the duration of the program (or until the funds have been exhausted) to cover Google's digital equipment and software. In this way, the Fund will contribute to addressing key digital education priorities in the EU by stimulating local innovation ecosystems in education and training.

A picture of a teacher wearing a mask teaching children in a classroom who all have their laptops open

The fund can be used towards supporting teacher training to help them leverage the most out of devices in the classroom

What does that look like in practice?

We have already seen impactful ways this could work across the EU region. The Municipality of Plovdiv in Bulgaria exemplifies the type of digital education transformation program that the Google Digital Education Fund intends to support. The aim of the Municipality of Plovdiv’s program was to successfully implement a cloud platform in order to deliver on the “digitalization and modernization of the learning process” and elevate the digital skills of educators and learners in all 77 of the schools in the Municipality. This program was delivered over three years from 2017-2019 and was the first digital education program of its kind in Bulgaria. Plovdiv’s School in the Cloud program has become the benchmark for all of Bulgaria and has led to widespread use of the Google for Education platform, with more than 10,000 teachers trained (over 1,000 of them certified by Google), and thousands of Chromebook devices being used across the country in accordance with acceptable use policies established by the Ministry of Education in Bulgaria.

Looking to the future

Our goal is to provide the information, tools and services that help students build knowledge, fuel curiosity, and prepare for what’s next. We are proud and excited to support the European Digital Education Action Plan, and look forward to helping EU Member States deliver successful digital education transformation programs.

The Google for Education EU Digital Support Fund is available to qualifying SMEs that are supporting EU Member State national digital education transformation programs funded through the Recovery and Resilience Facility and related to the provisioning of Chromebooks (with the associated Chrome Education Upgrade license) and Google Workspace for Education. Click here to learn more and to apply.

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Helping European small businesses grow and succeed

As European SME Week kicks off, we look at how Google can continue to support small and medium businesses continue to grow and thrive.

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Stay productive with these Google features on iOS

If you use Google apps to get work done on your iPhone or iPad, we’re making some improvements to help you stay organized and productive.

Keep on top of your inbox with the new Gmail widget

Thanks to your helpful feedback on our first Gmail widget, we’re adding a new one so you can better manage your inbox on iOS. With the new widget, you’ll see the senders and subjects of your most recent emails right on your Home Screen.

Gif of the Gmail widget, fading from a gray to a black background. It shows an icon with a picture of a dog next to three emails. Each email shows the sender and subject line.

The new Gmail widget will put more of your inbox on your Home Screen

Multitask with Google Meet

ICYMI, we recently made multitasking easier on Google Meet. With Picture-in-Picture support, you can still participate in your meeting as you move between apps on your iOS device.

For example, you might want to forward an email, share a document or just look something up while you’re chatting. Simply navigate out of the Google Meet app, and your meeting will be minimized in a window that you can move around your Home Screen. You can also resize the meeting window, or slide it off to the side if you need more space to get something else done.

We’re launching this same feature on the Gmail app in the next few weeks. Stay tuned.

A gif showing different examples of the Picture-in-Picture screen floating above other screens on the iPhone. It transitions from Gmail, to Photos, to a Google Doc while the Google Meeting screen is in the foreground.

Picture-in-picture supports multitasking with Google Meet

Do more with Google Sheets

If you work with spreadsheets, keyboard shortcuts can be really useful. So we’re adding shortcut support to Google Sheets on iOS.

Shortcuts make it easier to complete common and advanced tasks on Google Sheets using a small keyboard — like selecting a whole row or finding and replacing certain values. Shortcuts will also work if you’re using a Bluetooth or Magic Keyboard on your iPad. Just hold down the command key to see the available shortcuts.

A gif cycling through Google Sheets screens, showing the pop-up keyboard shortcut menu on an iPad.

Get more done in Google Sheets for iOS, with new keyboard shortcuts

We hope you enjoy these new features launching in the next few weeks, and that they help make it easier to get your work done on iOS devices.

Enable advanced context-aware access to Google Workspace in the Admin console

What’s changing 

You can now configure context-aware access (CAA) custom access levels using advanced attributes directly from the Google Workspace Admin console. You can use more advanced signals such as time/date restrictions, credential strength, Chrome browser attributes or verified ChromeOS as well as third-party signals via BeyondCorp Alliance partners. 

Who’s impacted 

Admins 

Why you’d use it 

By making more attributes available, and by enabling set up and management of advanced access levels in the Admin console, it will be easier to help ensure your Google Workspace configuration is more secure.

Getting started 

Admin console screen to create an access level

Admin console screen to create an access level

Rollout pace 

Availability 

  • Available to Google Workspace Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Standard, and Education Plus. Also available to Cloud Identity Premium customers. 
  • Not available to Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Education Fundamentals, Frontline, and Nonprofits, as well as G Suite Basic and Business, and Cloud Identity Free customers. 

Resources 

Email is 50 years old, and still where it’s @

50 years ago this month, Ray Tomlinson sent the very first email. He was a programmer working on ARPANET, the system that laid the groundwork for what would become the internet as we know it today. He tested the messaging system by sending emails to himself, and later said that the first note was probably something like “QWERTYUIOP.”

More than 30 years after this breakthrough, a Google engineer named Paul Buchheit conducted his own email experiments. In a 2005 blog post, Paul described the problem he was trying to solve:

“My email was a mess. Important messages were hopelessly buried, and conversations were a jumble…I couldn't always get to my email because it was stuck on one computer, and web interfaces were unbearably clunky. And I had spam. A lot of it.” These pain points are part of what motivated Paul to come up with a better system — Gmail.

Buchheit created Gmail as a browser-based email program that allowed users to easily search their own messages. “With Gmail, I got the opportunity to change email — to build something that would work for me, not against me.” He wasn’t sure what the reception would be like, but when he released a beta to fellow Googlers, they wanted more.

Eventually, Gmail launched to the public on April 1, 2004. Its search function was lightning fast and it came with 1 GB of storage — 500 times more than prevailing inboxes of the time. But that wasn’t enough to convince people it wasn’t a joke. (The date — April Fool’s Day — likely had something to do with it.)

Despite the launch day hijinks, Gmail won consumers over, and became a central part of the work we do at Google. But we never could have done it if Ray Tomlinson hadn’t hit that @ sign and started it all 50 years ago. To celebrate, we asked a few Googlers to share their favorite Gmail hacks.

Laura Mae Martin, Executive Productivity Advisor

“It's hard to answer old emails when there are shiny new ones coming in. Use features like Snooze and Starred emails and different inbox setups to make it easier to stay on task.”

John Shriver-Blake, Senior Product Manager, Gmail Enterprise

“I’m a fan of confidential mode in Gmail. It lets you protect sensitive information in messages and attachments and ensures that whoever receives the confidential email can’t forward, copy or print it.”

Neena Kamath, Product Lead, Gmail

"What I love about Gmail is how it's evolved over the years. Fifteen years ago, I was obsessed with Conversation View! Back then, having all your emails about a single topic in one place hadn't been done before, and it saved me so much time. Now, I'm obsessed with Smart Reply. It not only saves me time, but also makes me more polite : )!"

Bao Lam, Head of Marketing, Gmail & Chat

“Schedule send in Gmail means that I don’t clutter up people’s inboxes if I’m catching up on emails at odd moments — which is especially helpful when so many of us are working across different time zones.”

You can learn more about the history of email, Gmail and the power of the @ sign over on the Cloud blog.

Extend Google Apps Script with your API library to empower users

Posted by Keith Einstein, Product Manager

Banner image that shows the Cloud Task logo

Google is proud to announce the availability of the DocuSign API library for Google Apps Script. This newly created library gives all Apps Script users access to the more than 400 endpoints DocuSign has to offer so they can build digital signatures into their custom solutions and workflows within Google Workspace.

The Google Workspace Ecosystem

Last week at Google Cloud Next ‘21, in the session “How Miro, DocuSign, Adobe and Atlassian are helping organizations centralize their work”, we showcased a few partner integrations called add-ons, found on Google Workspace Marketplace. The Google Workspace Marketplace helps developers connect with the more than 3 billion people who use Google Workspace—with a stunning 4.8 billion apps installed to date. That incredible demand is fueling innovation in the ecosystem, and we now have more than 5,300 public apps available in the Google Workspace Marketplace, plus thousands more private apps that customers have built for themselves. As a developer, one of the benefits of an add-on is that it allows you to surface your application in a user-friendly manner that helps people reclaim their time, work more efficiently, and adds another touchpoint for them to engage with your product. While building an add-on enables users to frictionlessly engage with your product from within Google Workspace, to truly unlock limitless potential innovative companies like DocuSign are beginning to empower users to build the unique solutions they need by providing them with a Google Apps Script Library.

Apps Script enables Google Workspace customization

Many users are currently unlocking the power of Google Apps Script by creating the solutions and automations they need to help them reclaim precious time. Publishing a Google Apps Script Library is another great opportunity to bring a product into Google Workspace and gain access to those creators. It gives your users more choices in how they integrate your product into Google Workspace, which in turn empowers them with the flexibility to solve more business challenges with your product’s unique value.

Apps Script libraries can make the development and maintenance of a script more convenient by enabling users to take advantage of pre-built functionality and focus on the aspects that unlock unique value. This allows innovative companies to make available a variety of functionality that Apps Script users can use to create custom solutions and workflows with the features not found in an off-the-shelf app integration like a Google Workspace Add-on or Google Chat application.

The DocuSign API Library for Apps Script

One of the partners we showcased at Google Cloud Next ‘21 was DocuSign. The DocuSign eSignature for Google Workspace add-on has been installed almost two-million times. The add-on allows you to collect signatures or sign agreements from inside Gmail, Google Drive or Google Docs. While collecting signatures and signing agreements are some of the most common areas in which a user would use DocuSign eSignature inside Google Workspace, there are many more features to DocuSign’s eSignature product. In fact, their eSignature API has over 400 endpoints. Being able to go beyond those top features normally found in an add-on and into the rest of the functionality of DocuSign eSignature is where an Apps Script Library can be leveraged.

And that’s exactly what we’re partnering to do. Recently, DocuSign’s Lead API Product Manager, Jeremy Glassenberg (a Google Developer Expert for Google Workspace) joined us on the Totally Unscripted podcast to talk about DocuSign’s path to creating an Apps Script Library. At the DocuSign Developer Conference, on October 27th, Jeremy will be teaming up with Christian Schalk from our Google Cloud Developer Relations team to launch the DocuSign Apps Script Library and showcase how it can be used.

With the DocuSign Apps Script Library, users around the world who lean on Apps Script to build their workplace automations can create customized DocuSign eSignature processes. Leveraging the Apps Script Library in addition to the DocuSign add-on empowers companies who use both DocuSign and Google Workspace to have a more seamless workflow, increasing efficiency and productivity. The add-on allows customers to integrate the solution instantly into their Google apps, and solve for the most common use cases. The Apps Script Library allows users to go deep and solve for the specialized use cases where a single team (or knowledge worker) may need to tap into a less commonly used feature to create a unique solution.

See us at the DocuSign Developer Conference

The DocuSign Apps Script Library is now available in beta and if you’d like to know more about it drop a message to [email protected]. And be sure to register for the session on "Building a DocuSign Apps Script Library with Google Cloud", Oct 27th @ 10:00 AM. For updates and news like this about the Google Workspace platform, please subscribe to our developer newsletter.

Make the most of hybrid work with Google Workspace

As Google’s Productivity Advisor, I’ve spent a lot of time over the past 18 months advising people on how to be their most productive selves while maintaining their wellbeing and working from home. With hybrid work emerging as a new model for many of us, it’s especially important to get the most out of each place you work.

In our recent Google Workspace Guide to Productivity and Wellbeing, I talked about how you can plan your days, and even create themes for them. For example, maybe Monday is your “ramp-up day” with lots of meetings and collaboration in the office, and Friday is your “consolidation day,” when you work from home and cross things off your to-do list. The guide also gets into the importance of knowing your tools inside and out. With that in mind, here’s a deeper dive on how to make the most of hybrid work with Google Workspace.

Participate from anywhere using Google Meet

Google Meet has a few new features designed especially for hybrid teams, so you can collaborate wherever you’re working from — even if it’s in a different time zone.

Add your location to meeting invites: When you’re responding to a meeting invite, you can let everyone know whether you’ll be attending from the meeting room in the office or if you’re joining virtually. Knowing where people are located helps presenters set up the meeting so everyone can participate equally.

Use companion mode (coming in November): Hybrid meetings often feel like there are two different meetings happening — one in the office and one online. Companion mode lets you join a meeting in the office from your personal device, while using the audio and video systems in the physical meeting room. Companion mode also lets every in-office participant send chat messages, raise their hands for a question and vote on polls.

Start a Google Jamboard: A Jamboard is a virtual whiteboard that lets people brainstorm live with others. It’s a great tool for hybrid collaboration and you can launch it directly in Google Meet.

Animated GIF illustrating Jamboard in Companion Mode.

Streamline collaboration with Spaces

Spaces (formerly Rooms in Google Chat) are a central place for teams to collaborate in Google Workspace. Spaces work with all the Workspace tools like Meet, Calendar, Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides and Tasks.

Spaces allow people to work in real time on a project, or on their own when they have time. All conversations, context and content in Spaces are preserved for future reference, so team members can jump in and out of the project when it works best for them. This is a great way to organize your team’s projects, so you can stay focused on what needs immediate attention while still making progress on group efforts.

Screenshot of Google Spaces.

Let people know your availability and location with Calendar

Google Calendar has been updated to meet the flexibility required for hybrid work. Working from home on Tuesday? Your Calendar now allows you to show where you will be working on specific days. You can also set your availability on specific hours of the day in Calendar, allowing you to block off periods to focus on your own projects or to take care of personal responsibilities.

Animated GIF showing the cursor selecting available hours within Google Calendar.

Remember to take care of yourself

Remote work can sometimes feel like a deluge of meetings and notifications that never stop. And now, as many of us begin navigating hybrid work, here are a few ways to ease any pain points in the transition.

Find your focus: Meeting fatigue can be exacerbated by the fact that you have a little image of yourself on the screen during video meetings. You can turn that setting off in Meet so you can focus on presenters and their presentations.

Schedule speedy meetings: In the Calendar, you can change the default meeting from 30 minutes to 25 minutes. Or schedule meetings to end five to 10 minutes before the top of the hour. It might not seem like a lot of time, but it can often seem like an unexpected gift, letting people mentally reset before their next meeting.

Use Time Insights in Calendar: Time Insights in Calendar lets you analyze how much time you’ve spent in meetings over the last days, weeks or months. Understanding how you’re allocating your time can help you plan ahead.

For more tips on how to optimize for hybrid work environments, visit our Workspace Support pages. And if you want to keep up with all the ways work is changing, our new Future of Work site can help.

App pricing, update details, and Editor’s choice now available on Google Workspace Marketplace.

Posted by Mike Rhemtulla, Product Manager

Banner image that shows the Google Workspace logo

Google Workspace Marketplace is proud to announce the availability for developers to display pricing for their applications published in the Google Workspace Marketplace, and the date their application listing was last updated.

Launched over 11 years ago, Google Workspace Marketplace has been helping developers connect with the more than 3 billion people who use Google Workspace—with a stunning 4.8 billion apps installed to date. That incredible demand is fueling innovation in the ecosystem, and we now have more than 5300 public apps available in the Google Workspace Marketplace, plus thousands more private apps that customers have built for themselves.

App Pricing

For developers, you can now specify the app pricing choosing from Free, Paid with a Free trial, Paid with free features or Paid. The app pricing can be updated in the Google Workspace Marketplace SDK - Store Listing tab. We encourage you to specify this in order to provide more information about your Marketplace application for Workspace administrators and end users to evaluate and install your app.

Screenshot of app pricing drop down menu shows different pricing models to choose from

Developers can select which app pricing model is available to users

Screenshot of additional information section now shows pricing

Pricing will now be shown in the application information in Google Workspace Marketplace

App listing update

When a developer updates the app listing or configuration in the Google Workspace Marketplace SDK, administrators and users are now able to see when the application listing was last updated by the developer.

Screenshot of app listing shows a date when the listing was last updated

When the application listing was last updated will now be shown in the application details in Google Workspace Marketplace

Editor’s choice

We have also added a new Editor’s choice section in the Google Workspace Marketplace. This new section has three curated categories; Work from everywhere, these apps help your organization be more productive, Business essentials, these apps help increase workflow productivity, and Apps to discover, these apps are new and innovative. You can find out more about the eligibility for these categories here.

Screenshot shows new Editor's Choice section in Google Workpace Marketplace

New “Editor’s choice” section contains three curated categories in Google Workspace Marketplace

If you’d like to stay informed about updates like these and others to the Google Workspace platform please subscribe to the developer newsletter. And find us at Next ‘21, where we have sessions, demos, and labs covering the latest updates to the Google Workspace platform.