Tag Archives: Google Workspace

How companies are using .new shortcuts

It’s been a year since we introduced .new as a domain extension to help businesses build memorable shortcuts to their products. And since then, people from all walks of life have been using these shortcuts to get things done. We recently checked in with three teams that started using .new early on — Adobe, Glitch and Google Workspace — to see if their customers are enjoying the shortcuts they created.


Adobe

Adobe launched 14 .new shortcuts to help their users create, convert, compress, sign and design elements within their apps. In this video, you’ll see why pdf.new is a convenient way for anyone to find their favorite Acrobat tools on the fly:

Video of Adobe Product Manager Ashu Mittal explaining why her team launched .new shortcuts like pdf.new for Adobe Acrobat.
10:25

Glitch

Glitch makes it possible for anyone to build a web app right in their browser and instantly publish their application. Reception for glitch.new has been enthusiastic, with more than 8,000 apps already created through their shortcut. They also received positive community feedback, which led them to add new features, including the ability to remix any of their starter apps:
Video of Jenn Schiffer, Director of Community at Glitch, sharing how the glitch.new shortcut has been positively received and how community feedback has led to new features.
10:25

Google Workspace 

The Workspace shortcuts (docs.new, sheets.new, slides.new, and more) were the original inspiration for launching .new. Since October 2018, we’ve seen over 30 million docs created with the docs.new and doc.new shortcuts alone:


Video of Jaime Schember, the social media lead for Google Workspace, sharing how social media has played a key role in spreading the popularity of their .new shortcuts.
10:25

What’s one thing the Adobe, Glitch and Workspace .new shortcuts have in common? They’re helpful in the classroom, for both students and teachers. So as we head into fall, here’s a roundup of some of our favorite shortcuts to help with back-to-school season:

  1. Quizlet.new makes it easy to learn any subject with study tools like flash cards, practice tests and explanations proven to help with learning.

  2. Kahoot.new allows you to easily create and host educational games on any topic.

  3. Slides.new makes it easy to create a presentation for that big school project.

  4. Fundraiser.new lets you design and sell custom apparel for your next school fundraiser.

Any company or organization can register its own .new domain. Get inspired at whats.new/shortcuts.

Related Article

Do something new with whats.new

More than 200 .new domains are now live, providing shortcuts to common tasks within apps like Medium, Asana, and GitHub.

Read Article

Safer learning with Google for Education

When the Google for Education team designs products, we put the safety, security and privacy needs of our users first. This means keeping schools’ data safer with built-in security features that provide automated protection, compliance visibility and control, to ensure a private, safe and secure learning environment. We aim to support and protect the entire education community, and particularly teachers and students, so they can focus on what matters most: teaching and learning.

Everything we build is guided by three important principles:

  1. Secure by default: Protecting your privacy starts with the world’s most advanced security. Even before you set up security controls for your school’s digital environment specific to your needs, our built-in security is automatically protecting you from threats, like ransomware. 

  2. Private by design: We uphold responsible data practices designed to respect your privacy. Our products can be used in compliance with the most rigorous data privacy standards, including FERPA, COPPA and GDPR.  Google does not use data from Google Workspace for Education Core Services for advertising purposes, and users’ personal information is never sold.

  3. You’re in control: You own your data in Core Workspace Services, which means that you retain full intellectual property rights over your customer data, and you control who can download it, and when. You can get real-time alerts so you can act immediately if an incident occurs, and customize the security dashboard to get reports on your security status at any time. 

Introducing new features to provide more visibility and control

To help admins and teachers as they build safe digital learning environments, we’re adding additional features to provide more visibility and control. We are also updating ourprivacy notice to to make it easier for teachers, parents and students to understand what information we collect and why we collect it. Nothing is changing about how your information is processed. Rather, we’ve improved the way we describe our practices and privacy controls with a simpler structure and clearer language.

Tailor access based on age

We’re launching a new age-based access setting to make it easier for admins to tailor experiences for their users based on age when using Google services like YouTube, Photos and Maps. Starting today, all admins from primary and secondary institutions must indicate which of their users, such as their teachers and staff, are 18 and older using organizational units or groups in Admin Console. After September 1, 2021, students who are under 18 will see changes in their experience across Google products. 

For example, after September 1, students designated as under 18 in K-12 domains can view YouTube content assigned by teachers, but they won’t be able to post videos, comment or live stream using their school Google account. Administrators should ensure that Google Takeout is turned on so that end users can download their data, like previously uploaded videos, using Google Takeout.

If admins don’t make a selection by September 1, primary and secondary institutions users will all default to the under-18 experience, while higher-education institutions users will default to the 18-and-older experience. These age-based settings are not locked and admins can always adjust them according to the age of their users.

New default experiences for Chrome users in K-12 institutions

Many schools already have policies in place for SafeSearch, SafeSites, Guest Mode and Incognito Mode, and we are updating their defaults to ensure a safer web browsing experience for K-12 institutions. Now, SafeSearch and SafeSites will be on by default, and Guest Mode and Incognito Mode will be off by default. Admins can still change each of these policies on Chrome OS for individual organization units, for example allowing the use of Guest Mode for users in their domain. 

The Google for Education team is committed to creating tools and services that are secure by default and private by design, all the while giving you complete control over your environment. 

Launching a new online community for Google Workspace admins

What’s changing 

We’re launching a new community for Google Workspace admins. The new Google Cloud Community will replace the old Cloud Connect Community (CCC). Alongside all the communities you used on the CCC, you’ll also be able to use it to participate in: 
  • Workspace Discussion Forums: Join peer-to-peer discussions with other Workspace experts 
  • Ideation and UX Research: Help drive product enhancements by contributing feature ideas and finding research participation opportunities
  • Community Events: Virtual and in-person meetups and events which will enable you to engage directly with Product Managers and experts 
  • Community Blogs: Read and react to thought leadership and technical content from Google Cloud teams and customers. 
See below for instructions on how to migrate your existing profile, and set up notifications for the communities you want to follow. 


Who’s impacted 

Admins 


Why it’s important 

Specifically compared to the old Cloud Connect Community, we hope you’ll notice 
  • Improved navigation and user experience which makes it easier to find and consume content 
  • Improved communities, including feature ideas, which makes it easier to contribute to the discussion 
  • More content, including community blogs & events 
  • Rich user profiles to learn more about fellow Google Workspace admins 


Getting started 

  • Admins: To sign up for a new Google Cloud Community account, go to googlecloudcommunity.com and click on Workspace for Admins Community link. You can use Single Sign-On (SSO) with your Google Workspace credentials. 
    • As part of the transition process, you can migrate your user profile, access to private areas (like Feature Ideas) and your feature ideas posted after July 15, 2020 from the original Community to the new site. To migrate your profile: 
      1. Go googlecloudcommunity.com and click Login to Ask A Question. Follow the instructions on the next page. 
      2. Add [email protected] to your list of approved senders 
      3. If you have trouble claiming your migrated account, please contact [email protected] 
  • End Users: No end user impact 

Additional details 

Set up notifications in the new CCC Note that notifications are not on by default in the new CCC, even if you had them on in the old platform. To re-establish community notifications, after you migrate your profile: 
  1. Go to the area of the community you want to get notifications from. 
  2. Optionally, you can also filter for a specific label such as ‘Drive’ or ‘Google Meet’ (depending on which area of the community you’re in)
  3. Click Topic Options at the top right on the page, then click Subscribe. 
  4. You’ll then get email notifications when there’s new activity in the topic or label


Resources 

Helping schools prepare for what’s next in education

Today at The Anywhere School, we shared great new ways to use Google Classroom, Google Workspace for Education, Google Meet, and Chrome OS - all focused on helping teachers and school leaders continue to do the amazing work they do.

Classroom is adapting for the future of learning and teaching

Classroom strives to be the simplest, easiest to use learning platform, but we’re continuously making improvements to make it even better. Roster Import will enable admins to set up classes at scale (and save a significant amount of time!) while Classroom add-ons will give educators a simple way to integrate their favorite content and activities. And the new student activity dashboard, the ability to schedule assignments across multiple classes and improvements to the Meet and Classroom integration will make it far easier to engage with students. Learn more in the Classroom blog.

Google Workspace for Education improves collaboration and security

Smart canvas makes Docs, Sheets and Slides more interactive and intelligent. With features like smart chips, checklists, table templates and assisted analysis, smart canvas enables stronger collaboration with anyone, from anywhere. We’re also strengthening the security of all Google Workspace for Education editions with Drive security improvements and additional advanced security for Education Plus and Education Standard customers. Learn more in the Workspace blog.

Google Meet is getting more secure, easy to use and engaging

Google Meet is adding features to continue supporting the evolving needs of school communities. Moderators and admins will have new controls, like the ability to force breakout room participants back into the main meeting and end any meeting from the investigation tool. Meet will also be easier to use now that it supports multiple moderators and the ability to pin multiple presenters at the same time. Video calls will be more engaging and inclusive with public live streaming to YouTube, hand-raising improvements and live translated captions. Learn more in the Meet blog.

Chromebooks get more personalized

As schools transition from shared Chromebook carts to assigned devices, they are also getting much easier to use and manage. Signing in securely is now a breeze with PIN logins. Admins can now easily see when Automatic Update Expiration dates are reached across their fleet with Chrome Insights Reports. And with new built-in accessibility features like Point Scanning mode with Switch Access, and the new panning method for the full-screen magnifier, teachers and students alike can present and access information in a way that works for them. Learn more in the Chromebook blog.

We are constantly humbled by the amazing ways educators use our tools to better collaborate, manage classes, and create safe learning environments. Whether you’re about to wrap up your school year or still have a few months left, we hope that by sharing these updates now, we can help you be better prepared to use these tools in your institution. To get regular product updates, please sign up for our newsletter and follow us on Twitter.

Classroom adapts for the future of learning and teaching

Over the last year, the use of education technology skyrocketed as schools hustled to keep students learning. As some students return to their classrooms and others continue learning from home, we’re optimistic about the role education technology can play to help teachers and school leaders as they make up for lost time. 

We saw Classroom become a center for teaching and learning for millions of teachers and students this year, with many schools now using Classroom as their learning management system (LMS). This was only possible thanks to the support and feedback of teachers around the world. We were amazed by how quickly they learned the tools and put them into practice. 

Change in education is inevitable. As the needs of institutions evolve, Classroom will keep pace. Today, we’re sharing some important updates to features we previously shared on our roadmap as well as some new ones we developed with input from teachers and education leaders: 

Roster import:Starting this summer, U.S. districts with Google Workspace for Education Plus will be able to automatically set up classes and keep rosters in sync with their Student Information System, powered by Clever. IT admins will be able to create and populate classes via Clever, saving teachers valuable prep time. 

Classroom add-ons:Coming to beta later this year for districts with the Teaching and Learning Upgrade or Education Plus, Classroom add-ons allow you to bring your favorite content and activities from top edtech tools right inside Classroom. Admins will be able to pre-install add-ons for multiple teachers or groups at once.

We’re starting with nine partners including Adobe Spark for Education, BookWidgets, CK-12 Foundation, Edpuzzle, IXL, Kahoot!, Nearpod, Newsela and SAFARI Montage, with plans to expand to many more. Here's an example of how Bookwidgets is using add-ons to make it  easier for teachers to assign an activity and students to complete it, without ever leaving Classroom.

Animated gif showing the Bookwidget add-on right inside Classroom.

Scheduling assignments across multiple classes:Coming later this year, this top-requested feature will help teachers and co-teachers easily schedule assignments to multiple classes. 

Animated gif showing scheduling assignments to multiple classes

Offline capabilities: Coming to the Classroom Android app in a few months, offline mode will allow students to start their work offline, review their assignments and attachments as well as  write assignments in Google Docs — all without an internet connection. 

Student engagement activity: Later this year, teachers will easily be able to see when a student was last active, including when they last submitted work or participated in the class through comments with a student engagement activity dashboard.

Animated gif showing the student engagement activity in a class dashboard.

Google Meet in Classroom: In the coming months you’ll see updates to how teachers can use Google Meet in Classroom, making it easier, safer and more secure. First, all co-teachers in a class will also automatically be co-hosts in the meeting, and only students listed in the Classroom roster will be able to join the Meet. Next, students will have to sit in a “waiting room” until a teacher has joined the meeting link. And finally, guests outside the class roster will have to “ask to join” so no unwanted participants get into meetings. 

Educators' feedback makes Classroom better every year. With your feedback and insights, we’ll keep working together to make sure teaching and learning are possible for every teacher and student from every device anywhere in the world.

Google Meet is more secure, easy to use and engaging

Over the past year, video conferencing became essential for teaching, learning and staying connected. Whether you’re still teaching remotely, in a hybrid setting or have returned to in-person instruction, Meet provides an easy, reliable and secure way for your school community to connect. Today, we're announcing new features to Meet to continue supporting the evolving needs of school communities. 

Secure by design

Meetings initiated from Google Classroom will soon be safer and more secure by design, with these updates coming in the next few months: 

  • Every teacher and co-teacher in a Classroom class will be meeting hosts in Meet by default, so multiple teachers can share the load of managing a class.
  • Once a teacher is present, students who are on the Classroom roster will be automatically admitted to the meeting. Students will be placed into a “waiting room” and won't be able to see or communicate with other participants until a teacher is present.
  • Anyone who’s not on the Classroom roster will have to “ask to join” and only the teacher(s) can allow them into the meeting.

All meetings, including those started from Meet or Calendar, will get the following additional security updates in the coming months: 

  • When a host ends breakout rooms, participants will get a warning and then will be forced back into the main meeting.
  • Hosts can match the breakout room safety settings with the safety settings from the main meeting.
  • To quickly prevent distractions, hosts will be able to turn off everyone’s video at once with “video lock.” 
  • For hosts using tablets and mobile phones, we’re adding important meeting safety controls, like the ability to end meetings for everyone on the call and mute everyone at once. 
Google Meet and Google Classroom integration

Improved integration makes meetings started from Classroom safer and more secure by default  

In Meet, participants are forced back into the main meeting when breakout rooms end

When hosts end breakout rooms, participants will be forced back into the main meeting

To give admins more control, starting this month we’re adding settings to the Admin console so school leaders can set policies for who can join their school’s video calls and whether people from their school can join video calls from other schools. This helps admins create the right boundaries for different aged students, facilitate external speakers and more. Note that this update doesn't change your default experience — your experience will only change if your admin changes the current setting. Admins will also soon have a new setting to control whether Quick access is enabled by default, and another setting to control whether people can use the chat in meetings. 

And in the coming weeks, admins with Education Standard and Education Plus can end any meeting in their organization directly from the investigation tool, and Quick access will be automatically turned off so nobody can rejoin the meeting without the host present.

An admin ending meetings in their organization directly from the investigation tool

Admins can end any meeting in their organization directly from the investigation tool

Easier to use

To make it easier for you to connect with your students while presenting, we recently rolled out a refreshed Meet experience that allows you to see your presentation content and students at the same time. You can unpin your presentation or minimize your self feed to see more of your students on the call, and names are always visible so you can see who’s who. You can also use different layout options to customize what you want to focus on.

New Google Meet user experience showing how to unpin your presentation

The refreshed user interface makes it easier to engage with your students while presenting

We also recently announced that meetings not initiated from Classroom will soon start supporting multiple hosts, making it easier for you to partner with other people helping manage a class. You’ll be able to choose co-hosts in meetings, and all meeting hosts will have access to safety controls. Multiple hosts will be rolling out in the coming months.

Adding a co-teacher as a co-host in Google Meet

Add co-hosts to share the load of managing class 

More engaging and inclusive for all types of learners

We recently launched an improved hand-raise icon and sound so students can participate with even more confidence, and teachers can more easily see and hear who raised their hands. People who raise their hands show up in the grid and there is a persistent notification so you can see how many people raised their hands and in what order. And once a student with a raised hand is done talking, their hand automatically lowers.

Improved hand-raising experience with a new icon and sound

An improved hand-raising experience makes it easier for students to engage with confidence

Meet now supports closed captions in five languages so people can more easily follow along and stay engaged. And in the coming months, you’ll be able to pin multiple tiles to customize what you want to focus on. For example, students can easily pin a sign language interpreter and the teacher so they can see both at the same time.

Pinning multiple participants in Google Meet

Pin multiple tiles to customize what you want to focus on

For educators with the Teaching and Learning Upgrade or Education Plus, we’re introducing features that take engagement and inclusivity to the next level. Later this year, Meet will offer live translated captions. With live translations enabled, you can listen to someone speaking one language and see real-time captions in another language. We expect this will be especially helpful in multilingual classrooms or when meeting with parents who speak a different language.

Live translated captions from English to Spanish

Make classes and conversations more accessible with live translated captions 

In the coming months, you’ll be able to use closed captions during livestreams. You’ll also soon be able to host public livestreams streamed right to YouTube so anyone outside of your institution can attend, ideal for school board meetings, school events and more. Public live streaming will be rolling out in beta later this year and will be widely available for customers with the Teaching and Learning Upgrade or Education Plus in early 2022. 

Creating a public livestream in Google Meet

Host school board meetings, events and more with public livestreams on YouTube

Using Meet beyond distance learning

We’ve been inspired to see how educators are using Meet to improve the student learning experience, professional development and engage their whole school community. As the needs of school communities change, Meet will keep adapting to help people teach, learn and stay connected — whether they’re remote or in person.

Collaboration and security in Google Workspace for Education

Google Workspace for Education, previously known as G Suite for Education, offers simple and flexible tools so your school community can better collaborate, manage classes and create safe learning environments. Our latest updates include improved collaboration across our products and security improvements for all Google Workspace for Education customers.

The next evolution of collaboration

Last month we announced smart canvas, a new experience that enhances collaboration in the tools that you use every day — like Docs, Sheets and Slides—by making them even more interactive and intelligent. 

One new feature of this experience is smart chips, which allows you to pull in helpful information from other Google Workspace products while working in a document. For example, if you’re a student working on a group project, you can quickly embed files from Drive or tag other students in your group right into your document by typing the ‘@’ sign. Once people are tagged, just hover over their name to quickly chat, email or set up a meeting. 

Adding smart chips to a Google Doc

Smart chips allow you to pull in helpful information from other Google Workspace products while working in a document

We also recently added interactive checklists to Docs to help you stay on track. Checklists are similar to bulleted lists, except you can mark items once they are complete. In the coming months, we’re introducing table templates in Docs to help you collaborate faster and more effectively. For example, topic-voting templates let you easily gather feedback directly in docs.

Adding a checklist to a Google Doc

Stay on track with interactive checklists in Docs

Last year we introduced grammar suggestions in Docs to help provide tips and catch tricky grammatical errors. For Education Plus customers, we’re rolling out the next phase of writing tips in Docs and adding assisted analysis in Sheets later this year. In Docs, this includes warnings about offensive language and stylistic suggestions. Admins can easily turn this off if they prefer. In Sheets, assisted analysis provides formula suggestions that make it easier for everyone to derive insights from data. These suggestions can help guide students and reinforce concepts that improve their writing and analysis skills.  

Google Docs suggesting more inclusive language

Docs will provide warnings about offensive language and stylistic suggestions

Our products will also work together better so teachers can focus on what they do best. You can now easily present content to Google Meet directly from Docs, Sheet, and Slides with the click of a button. You can quickly present and see both participants and your content in the Meet tab. Later this year we’ll take this a step further and allow Education Plus customers to embed live Meet video calls in Docs, Sheets and Slides, making it even easier to see each other while collaborating.

Embedding a live Google Meet call in a Google Doc

Embed live Meet video calls in Docs, Sheets and Slides

We’re also making our tools easier to use so you can get valuable time back. In Forms, we’re simplifying settings in the coming months so you can quickly and easily set up Forms the way you want. For example, you’ll see a new ‘Settings’ tab at the top of Forms with key settings that are easy-to-find, like the option to make a Form a Quiz, and ways to control default settings that apply to all your new Forms and Quizzes. We’re also launching more than 20 new fonts so you can add fun and personal touches.

Exploring the new settings navigation in Forms

Quickly and easily set up Forms the way you want with simplifying settings 

Earlier this year we announced that Forms would start automatically saving your draft responses for 30 days or until your submission was complete. This feature is starting to roll out next month and will be available to everyone this summer.

Improving security for everyone using Google Workspace for Education

Providing your school community with a safe digital learning environment is a commitment and responsibility we take very seriously. We’re strengthening the security of all Google Workspace for Education customers with Drive security improvements and additional advanced security for Education Plus and Education Standard customers. 

Every Google Workspace for Education customer already benefits from the built-in protections in Google Drive that help block phishing and malware content from external users and organizations. In the coming weeks, we’re adding enhanced protections to Drive that allow all Google Workspace for Education admins to turn on this kind of protection within their organizations' internal Drive to further defend against insider threats and accidental sharing of malware.

Additionally, new Drive trust rules will give admins more advanced controls around how files can be shared within and outside of their organization. For example, an admin can allow a subset of faculty to share documents with anyone in their district, but only allow students to share files with people in their specific school. Drive trust rules are rolling out in beta for Education Standard and Education Plus customers in the coming months.

Illustrating how to use Drive trust rules to control how files are shared in your organization

Drive trust rules will give admins more advanced controls around how files can be shared within and outside of their organization

Admins will soon have access to Drive labels, allowing them to classify files stored in Google Drive to make sure they’re handled correctly. Drive labels integrate with Google Workspace’s data loss prevention (DLP) capabilities so admins can set rules at the appropriate sensitivity level. Even if teachers or staff forget to classify content on their own, files can be automatically classified based on administrator-defined DLP rules. This can help admins be more proactive about protecting some of your communities’ most sensitive data, like personally identifiable information or proprietary research. Drive Labels will be planned to also work with Google Vault, allowing admins to set retention policies for a given sensitivity level. Drive labels are now available in beta for Education Standard and Education Plus customers.

Altogether, these improvements are going to change the way we get things done, making it easier and safer to collaborate with anyone, from anywhere. By using these tools at school and at home, your students will build important collaboration skills to be better prepared for the workplace of the future.


Add dialogs and slash commands to your Google Workspace Chat bots

Posted by Charles Maxson, Developer Advocate


Developing your own custom Google Chat bot is a great way for users and teams to interact with your solutions and services both directly and within context as they collaborate in Chat. More specifically, Chat bots can be used in group conversations to streamline workflows, assist with activities in the context of discussions, and provide information and notifications in real time. Chat bots can also be used in direct messages, offering a new way to optimize workflows and personal productivity, such as managing project tasks or reporting time activity. Because use cases for bots are varied, you can consistently reach a growing audience of Chat users over time, directly where they work and uh-hum, chat.

Once you’ve identified your specific use case for your custom Chat bot, how you design the bot itself is super important. Bots that are intuitive and easy to use see better adoption and develop a more loyal following. Those that are not as fluid or approachable, or come across as confusing and complicated to use, will likely miss the mark of becoming an essential “sticky” tool even if your back end is compelling. To help you build an engaging, must-have Google Chat bot, we recently added a one-two feature punch to the Chat bot framework that allows you to build a much richer bot experience than ever before!

(Re)Introducing slash commands for Google Chat bots

The first new(er) feature that you can leverage to enhance the usability of your Chat bots are slash commands. Released a few months back, 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. Unlike bots created prior to slash commands, where users had to learn what features a bot offered and then invoke the bot and type the command correctly to execute them, slash commands make Chat bot usage faster and help users get the most out of your bot.

Users can now simply type “/” in the message line to reveal a list of all the functions offered by the bots available to the room or direct message, and select the one to their liking to execute it. Slash commands can be invoked standalone (e.g. /help) or include user added text as parameters (e.g. /new_task review project doc ) that the developer can handle when invoked. To help make bot command discovery even simpler, the slash commands list filters matching commands once the user starts typing beyond the / (e.g. “/h” shows all commands beginning with H). This is super helpful as more and more bots are added to a room, and as more bots with slash commands are introduced by developers. Also included directly in the Slash Command UI is a description of what each command does (up to 50 characters), easing the guesswork out of learning.

Example of implementing slashbot in Google Chat

As a developer, slash commands are straightforward to implement, and daresay essential in offering a better bot experience. In fact, if you have an existing Google Chat bot you’ve built and deployed, it’s likely more than worthwhile to revise your bot to include slash commands in an updated release.

To add slash commands to any Chat bot, you will need to register your commands in the Hangouts Chat API configuration page. (e.g. https://console.cloud.google.com/apis/api/chat.googleapis.com/hangouts-chat?project=<?yourprojectname?>) There is a section for slash commands that allows you to provide the /name and the description the user will see, along with the important Command Id unique identifier (a number between 1-1000) that you will later need to handle these events in your code.

Example of editing slash command

When a user invokes your bot via a Slash Command, there is a slashCommand field attached to the message sent to the bot that indicates the call was initiated from a Slash Command. Remember users can still @mention your bot to call it directly by name without a / command and this helps you distinguish the difference. The message also includes the corresponding commandId for the invoked command based on what you set up in the bot configuration page, allowing you to identify the user’s requested command to execute. Finally, the message also offers additional annotations about the event and includes any argumentText supplied by the user already parsed from the command text itself. 

{
  ...
  "message": {
    "slashCommand": {
      "commandId": 4
    },
    "annotations": [
      {
        "length": 6,
        "slashCommand": {
          "type": "INVOKE",
          "commandId": 4,
          "bot": {
            "type": "BOT",
            "displayName": "Slashbot"
          },
          "commandName": "/debug"
        },
        "type": "SLASH_COMMAND"
      }
    ],
    ...
    "argumentText": " show code",
    "text": "/debug show code",
    ...
}

Here is a simple example used to determine if a Slash Command was invoked by the user, and if so, runs the requested command identified by its Command Id.

function onMessage(event) {

  if (event.message.slashCommand) {

    switch (event.message.slashCommand.commandId) {
      case 1: // Command Id 1
        return { 'text': 'You called commandId 1' }

      case 2: // Command Id 2
        return { 'text': 'You called commandId 2' }

      case 3: // Help
        return { 'text': 'You asked for help'  }

    }
  }
}

Introducing dialogs for Google Chat bots

The second part of the one-two punch of new Google Chat bots features are dialogs. This is a brand new capability being introduced to the Chat bot framework that allows developers to build user interfaces to capture inputs and parameters in a structured, reliable way. This is a tremendous step forward for bot usability because it will simplify and streamline 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 -- and hoping they correctly executed syntax the bot could decipher.

For developers, you can design UIs that are targeted to work precisely with the inputs you need users to supply your commands, without having to parse out arguments and logically infer the intent of users. In the end, dialogs will greatly expand the type of solution patterns and use cases that Chat bots can handle, as well as making the experience truly richer and more rewarding for users and developers alike.

Slashbot project notifier

Technically, Chat bot dialogs leverage the aforementioned slash commands combined with the existing Google Workspace Add-on Card framework to support the creation and handling of dialogs. To get started, you create a Slash Command that will invoke your dialog by designating it’s Slash command triggers a dialog setting to true in the Slash Command configuration process, as seen below:

Example of enabling the slash command triggers a dialog setting

Once you have configured a Slash Command to trigger a dialog, it will send an onMessage event when it’s invoked as it would before, but now it includes new details that indicate it is representing a dialog request. To handle this event you can use the example above with non-dialog Slash Command, using the commandId you can use a switch to determine what the user requested.

Designing the actual elements that the dialog renders is where you draw from the Google Workspace Add-on Card-based framework. If you’ve built a new generation of Google Workspace Add-on, this part will be familiar where you construct widgets, add headers and sections, create events, etc. In fact, you can even reuse or share some of your Add-on UIs within your Chat bots, but do note there currently is a lighter subset of elements available for bots. The benefits of using Cards allows you to build modern, consistently-styled user interfaces for your bots that doesn’t require that you get bogged down in low level details like managing tags or CSS. You can learn more about working with Cards starting here. To make building your Cards-based interfaces for Add-ons and Chat bots even easier, we have also just introduced the GWAO Card Builder tool, which employs a drag-n-drop visual designer to boost your development efforts.

Once you’ve assembled your Card’s widgets, to make it render as a dialog when invoked you must specify that its a DIALOG type within the action_response as seen stubbed out here below: 

{
  "action_response": {
  "type": "DIALOG",
  "dialog_action": {
    "dialog": {
      "body": {
        "sections": [
          {
           "widgets": [
             {
               "textInput": {
                 "label": "Email",
                 "type": "SINGLE_LINE",
                 "name": "fieldEmail",
                 "hintText": "Add others using a comma separator",
...

Now with a working dialog, all there is left to do is handle user events once it's displayed. Again this is similar to how you would handle events working with Cards within Add-ons. Your bot will receive an event that is type CARD_CLICKED with a DialogEventType set to SUBMIT_DIALOG. The actionMethodName value will let you know what element the user clicked to process the request, e.g. ‘assign’ as depicted below. The response includes the formInputs details which are the user provided inputs returned from the dialog, which you can process as your solution needs to. 

{ dialogEventType: 'SUBMIT_DIALOG',
  type: 'CARD_CLICKED',
  action: { actionMethodName: 'assign' },
  ...
  common: 
   { hostApp: 'CHAT',
     formInputs: 
      { 'whotochoose-dropdown': [Object],
        whotochoose: [Object],
        email: [Object] },
     invokedFunction: 'assign' },
  isDialogEvent: true }

Once your bot is finished processing its task, it can respond back to the user in one of two ways. The first is with a simple acknowledgement (aka OK) response letting them know their action was handled correctly and close out the dialog.

{
    "action_response": {
      "type": "DIALOG",
      "dialog_action": {
        "action_status": "OK",
...

The other option is to respond with another dialog, allowing you to follow-up with a new or revised dialog useful for complex or conditional input scenarios. This is accomplished as it was originally when you called a dialog using a dialog card within an ActionResponse to get started.

{
  "action_response": {
  "type": "DIALOG",
  "dialog_action": {
    "dialog": {
...

Next Steps

To get started building Google Workspace Chat bots, or to add slash commands and dialogs to your existing Chat bots, please explore the following resources:

Add dialogs and slash commands to your Google Workspace Chat bots

Posted by Charles Maxson, Developer Advocate


Developing your own custom Google Chat bot is a great way for users and teams to interact with your solutions and services both directly and within context as they collaborate in Chat. More specifically, Chat bots can be used in group conversations to streamline workflows, assist with activities in the context of discussions, and provide information and notifications in real time. Chat bots can also be used in direct messages, offering a new way to optimize workflows and personal productivity, such as managing project tasks or reporting time activity. Because use cases for bots are varied, you can consistently reach a growing audience of Chat users over time, directly where they work and uh-hum, chat.

Once you’ve identified your specific use case for your custom Chat bot, how you design the bot itself is super important. Bots that are intuitive and easy to use see better adoption and develop a more loyal following. Those that are not as fluid or approachable, or come across as confusing and complicated to use, will likely miss the mark of becoming an essential “sticky” tool even if your back end is compelling. To help you build an engaging, must-have Google Chat bot, we recently added a one-two feature punch to the Chat bot framework that allows you to build a much richer bot experience than ever before!

(Re)Introducing slash commands for Google Chat bots

The first new(er) feature that you can leverage to enhance the usability of your Chat bots are slash commands. Released a few months back, 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. Unlike bots created prior to slash commands, where users had to learn what features a bot offered and then invoke the bot and type the command correctly to execute them, slash commands make Chat bot usage faster and help users get the most out of your bot.

Users can now simply type “/” in the message line to reveal a list of all the functions offered by the bots available to the room or direct message, and select the one to their liking to execute it. Slash commands can be invoked standalone (e.g. /help) or include user added text as parameters (e.g. /new_task review project doc ) that the developer can handle when invoked. To help make bot command discovery even simpler, the slash commands list filters matching commands once the user starts typing beyond the / (e.g. “/h” shows all commands beginning with H). This is super helpful as more and more bots are added to a room, and as more bots with slash commands are introduced by developers. Also included directly in the Slash Command UI is a description of what each command does (up to 50 characters), easing the guesswork out of learning.

Example of implementing slashbot in Google Chat

As a developer, slash commands are straightforward to implement, and daresay essential in offering a better bot experience. In fact, if you have an existing Google Chat bot you’ve built and deployed, it’s likely more than worthwhile to revise your bot to include slash commands in an updated release.

To add slash commands to any Chat bot, you will need to register your commands in the Hangouts Chat API configuration page. (e.g. https://console.cloud.google.com/apis/api/chat.googleapis.com/hangouts-chat?project=<?yourprojectname?>) There is a section for slash commands that allows you to provide the /name and the description the user will see, along with the important Command Id unique identifier (a number between 1-1000) that you will later need to handle these events in your code.

Example of editing slash command

When a user invokes your bot via a Slash Command, there is a slashCommand field attached to the message sent to the bot that indicates the call was initiated from a Slash Command. Remember users can still @mention your bot to call it directly by name without a / command and this helps you distinguish the difference. The message also includes the corresponding commandId for the invoked command based on what you set up in the bot configuration page, allowing you to identify the user’s requested command to execute. Finally, the message also offers additional annotations about the event and includes any argumentText supplied by the user already parsed from the command text itself. 

{
  ...
  "message": {
    "slashCommand": {
      "commandId": 4
    },
    "annotations": [
      {
        "length": 6,
        "slashCommand": {
          "type": "INVOKE",
          "commandId": 4,
          "bot": {
            "type": "BOT",
            "displayName": "Slashbot"
          },
          "commandName": "/debug"
        },
        "type": "SLASH_COMMAND"
      }
    ],
    ...
    "argumentText": " show code",
    "text": "/debug show code",
    ...
}

Here is a simple example used to determine if a Slash Command was invoked by the user, and if so, runs the requested command identified by its Command Id.

function onMessage(event) {

  if (event.message.slashCommand) {

    switch (event.message.slashCommand.commandId) {
      case 1: // Command Id 1
        return { 'text': 'You called commandId 1' }

      case 2: // Command Id 2
        return { 'text': 'You called commandId 2' }

      case 3: // Help
        return { 'text': 'You asked for help'  }

    }
  }
}

Introducing dialogs for Google Chat bots

The second part of the one-two punch of new Google Chat bots features are dialogs. This is a brand new capability being introduced to the Chat bot framework that allows developers to build user interfaces to capture inputs and parameters in a structured, reliable way. This is a tremendous step forward for bot usability because it will simplify and streamline 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 -- and hoping they correctly executed syntax the bot could decipher.

For developers, you can design UIs that are targeted to work precisely with the inputs you need users to supply your commands, without having to parse out arguments and logically infer the intent of users. In the end, dialogs will greatly expand the type of solution patterns and use cases that Chat bots can handle, as well as making the experience truly richer and more rewarding for users and developers alike.

Slashbot project notifier

Technically, Chat bot dialogs leverage the aforementioned slash commands combined with the existing Google Workspace Add-on Card framework to support the creation and handling of dialogs. To get started, you create a Slash Command that will invoke your dialog by designating it’s Slash command triggers a dialog setting to true in the Slash Command configuration process, as seen below:

Example of enabling the slash command triggers a dialog setting

Once you have configured a Slash Command to trigger a dialog, it will send an onMessage event when it’s invoked as it would before, but now it includes new details that indicate it is representing a dialog request. To handle this event you can use the example above with non-dialog Slash Command, using the commandId you can use a switch to determine what the user requested.

Designing the actual elements that the dialog renders is where you draw from the Google Workspace Add-on Card-based framework. If you’ve built a new generation of Google Workspace Add-on, this part will be familiar where you construct widgets, add headers and sections, create events, etc. In fact, you can even reuse or share some of your Add-on UIs within your Chat bots, but do note there currently is a lighter subset of elements available for bots. The benefits of using Cards allows you to build modern, consistently-styled user interfaces for your bots that doesn’t require that you get bogged down in low level details like managing tags or CSS. You can learn more about working with Cards starting here. To make building your Cards-based interfaces for Add-ons and Chat bots even easier, we have also just introduced the GWAO Card Builder tool, which employs a drag-n-drop visual designer to boost your development efforts.

Once you’ve assembled your Card’s widgets, to make it render as a dialog when invoked you must specify that its a DIALOG type within the action_response as seen stubbed out here below: 

{
  "action_response": {
  "type": "DIALOG",
  "dialog_action": {
    "dialog": {
      "body": {
        "sections": [
          {
           "widgets": [
             {
               "textInput": {
                 "label": "Email",
                 "type": "SINGLE_LINE",
                 "name": "fieldEmail",
                 "hintText": "Add others using a comma separator",
...

Now with a working dialog, all there is left to do is handle user events once it's displayed. Again this is similar to how you would handle events working with Cards within Add-ons. Your bot will receive an event that is type CARD_CLICKED with a DialogEventType set to SUBMIT_DIALOG. The actionMethodName value will let you know what element the user clicked to process the request, e.g. ‘assign’ as depicted below. The response includes the formInputs details which are the user provided inputs returned from the dialog, which you can process as your solution needs to. 

{ dialogEventType: 'SUBMIT_DIALOG',
  type: 'CARD_CLICKED',
  action: { actionMethodName: 'assign' },
  ...
  common: 
   { hostApp: 'CHAT',
     formInputs: 
      { 'whotochoose-dropdown': [Object],
        whotochoose: [Object],
        email: [Object] },
     invokedFunction: 'assign' },
  isDialogEvent: true }

Once your bot is finished processing its task, it can respond back to the user in one of two ways. The first is with a simple acknowledgement (aka OK) response letting them know their action was handled correctly and close out the dialog.

{
    "action_response": {
      "type": "DIALOG",
      "dialog_action": {
        "action_status": "OK",
...

The other option is to respond with another dialog, allowing you to follow-up with a new or revised dialog useful for complex or conditional input scenarios. This is accomplished as it was originally when you called a dialog using a dialog card within an ActionResponse to get started.

{
  "action_response": {
  "type": "DIALOG",
  "dialog_action": {
    "dialog": {
...

Next Steps

To get started building Google Workspace Chat bots, or to add slash commands and dialogs to your existing Chat bots, please explore the following resources:

Google Workspace for everyone

Since the launch of Gmail in 2004, and Google Docs two years later, we’ve been building flexible, helpful and innovative solutions that allow people to connect, create and collaborate securely — from anywhere on the planet and on any device. When we debuted Google Workspace last October, we not only introduced a new brand, but also our vision for a single, integrated experience for everyone: Everything you need to get anything done, now in one place. Across apps like Gmail, Chat, Calendar, Drive, Docs, Sheets, Meet and more, our consumer, enterprise and education users choose Google Workspace to stay in touch, share ideas and get more done together every day. 

Over the last year, we’ve delivered innovations that bring together the content, communications and tasks that help millions of businesses, nonprofits and classrooms transform how they collaborate, make the most of their time, and have more impact. Now we’re bringing those same innovations to everyone else. Starting today, all of Google Workspace is available to anyone with a Google account.

Bring your projects and passions to life in Google Workspace

By bringing Google Workspace to everyone, we’re making it easy for people to stay connected, get organized and achieve more together, whether it’s advancing a cause, planning your family reunion, assigning next steps for the PTA or discussing this month’s book club pick. 

You can create a secure collaboration space in Google Chat to keep everyone up-to-date, share ideas, and keep track of all your important info in one place, from videos and pictures of your last trip, to a Google Sheet of your family’s annual budget. Smart suggestions help you bring in recommended files and quickly include the right people with @-mentions, whether you’re drafting a message in Gmail to the whole group or scheduling a meeting invite in a shared Calendar. To keep things moving, you can use smart canvas to generate a checklist in Google Docs and quickly assign roles and next steps. And if your project calls for a spontaneous conversation, you can present the Doc, Sheet or Slide you’re working on together directly into a Google Meet call with just one click. 

What’s more, you’ll have peace of mind as you work with others knowing that we designed Google Workspace to operate on a secure foundation, with the protections needed to keep you safe, your data secure, and your information private.

Screenshot of Spaces in Google Workspace, showing a family planning a reunion

Planning the family reunion in Spaces

Starting today, you can enable the integrated experience in Google Workspace by turning on Google Chat. Use Rooms in Google Chat as a central place to connect, create and collaborate with others. Over the summer, we’ll evolve Rooms to become Spaces and introduce a streamlined and flexible user interface that helps you stay on top of everything that’s important. Powered by new features like in-line topic threading, presence indicators, custom statuses, expressive reactions, and a collapsible view, Spaces will seamlessly integrate with your files and tasks, becoming your new home in Google Workspace for getting more done — together. Learn more about our vision for collaborating in Spaces.

Introducing Google Workspace Individual

For some people, pursuing their passion and getting involved in the community leads to great business ideas. For other entrepreneurs, a single Google account is the basis for managing their long-established businesses or getting the word out about their next big endeavor. With Google Workspace Individual, we’re delivering a powerful, easy-to-use solution that was built to help people grow, run and protect their business.

With this new Google Workspace subscription offering, individual small business owners can get more done, show up more professionally and better serve their customers. Building on the integrated Google Workspace experience now available to everyone, the solution provides premium capabilities, including smart booking services, professional video meetings, personalized email marketing and much more on the way. Within their existing Google account, subscribers can easily manage all their personal and professional commitments from one place with access to Google support to get the most out of their solution.

Workspace Individual was created to help people focus their time on doing what they love — like meeting with customers and designing personalized services — and less time on everyday tasks like scheduling appointments and emailing customers. Workspace Individual is rolling out soon to six markets, including the United States, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Australia and Japan.Sign up to receive updates on Google Workspace Individual. 

GIF of appointment booking page in Calendar

Easily set up and share appointment booking pages in Calendar

Google Workspace: How it’s done

Every day, the world's most innovative companies, schools and nonprofits use Google Workspace to transform how people work and achieve more together. It’s a daily part of how leading healthcare providers revolutionize patient care, schools turn remote learning into an immersive, personalized experience, and aerospace companies rethink flight. Now, with Google Workspace for everyone, you can organize your junior sports league with ease, take that fundraiser to the next level, or even turn your hobby into a business. Whatever it is, Google Workspace helps people (teams, families, friends, volunteers, neighbors...) connect, create and collaborate. Google Workspace is how it’s done.