Welcome to this month’s recap of Google updates that are available now, or will be available shortly, within Google Workspace in Glow accounts.
What’s new?
Introducing a better filter by condition experience for tables in Google Sheets
Tables in Google Sheets will now provide users with a smarter filter by condition experience. Sheets offers 21 options for users to filter by condition, such as “Date is” or “Text ends with”. However, there are scenarios in which certain filters might not be applicable based on the type of data in a spreadsheet. Based on the set column type, users will now only see relevant filter by condition options. For example, if your column type is set to number, the filter options will be number-based only.
Release date: this is now a live feature.
Visit the Help Centre to learn more about sorting & filtering your data.
Introducing a refreshed library of high-quality Google Slides templates that elevate your presentations
Google are introducing a new collection of modern, professionally designed templates in Google Slides to help users build presentations much faster. These new templates cater to a wide range of use cases that provide users with the perfect starting point for their presentations. For example, there are:
- Sales pitches, product roadmaps and strategic plans templates for business users.
- Lesson plans, book reports and project reports templates for education users.
- Milestone celebrations, workshop facilitation and team game templates for anyone looking to build collaborative teams.
Access these templates using the new “Templates” button in the Slides toolbar or by going to Insert > Templates. Once clicked, you can browse the collection, select a template that aligns with your vision and style, and choose to insert all slides or just the ones you need before personalizing the template with your own content.
Release date: this is now a live feature.
Respond to conversations without leaving the home view in Google Chat
Following the recent announcement of summaries in home and other features that help you find what you need much faster using home, we’re introducing the split pane in the home view.
Using the split pane, you can now respond directly to a space, group or direct message without ever navigating away from the home view in Chat.
Visit the Help Centre to learn more about sending and replying to messages.
Release date: full rollout (up to 15 days for visibility) starting on 2 December 2024
More ways to get started quickly with building blocks in Google Docs
For the last few years, users have added building blocks, including custom blocks, to their Google Docs to quickly spin up email drafts, meeting notes, reusable templates and more.
Today, we’re excited to introduce a new collection of building blocks designed to help you manage important business workflows in Docs, including team task management, project tracking, hiring, and more.
- Task trackers quickly add and track tasks at a glance with titles, assignees, due dates, and status, in a cleanly organised format. Additionally, users can add their own columns for more personalisation, and new tasks with an assignee and title can be synced with Google Tasks individually or by syncing the whole table at once.
- Use a Contact list to organise contact information for applicants, sales contacts, team members, project assignments and more. Contact lists offer a structured table format that breaks out critical contact information into glanceable columns that are clear and easier to read.
- Decision logs centralise open questions, aid in decision-making, and organise final decisions in an easily-digestible table. With decision logs, teams can quickly align around a single source of truth with clear owners.
- Get started with building blocks by clicking the buttons at the top of a newly created document or via Insert > Building blocks. In addition, a new Docs sidebar, accessible by going to Insert > Building blocks > View more or by clicking “More” at the top of a new document, makes it easier to browse, find, and preview building blocks in context.
- Lastly, Google are improving table building blocks by adding table title rows, a formatted, full-width row with heading styling.
Visit the Help Centre to learn more about inserting smart chips & building blocks in your Google Doc.
Release date: gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on 12 December 2024
As Google continue to enhance the user experience in Google Chat over the last year, they’re now announcing that users can organise Chat conversations into custom sections. A highly requested feature, custom sections are useful for scenarios in which users want similar conversations about a topic or project to be in the same location in the left-hand menu of Chat.
To make a custom section, go to the direct messages or spaces section in Chat > hover over the three dot menu > select Create new section > name the custom section > hit enter. You can add conversations from a direct message or space to a custom section by:
- Dragging and dropping it in from another section
- Hovering over a conversation > clicking the three dot menu > selecting Move conversation > Move to [Name of the custom section]
Previously the direct messages and spaces sections in the left-hand menu were independent, individually-scrollable lists. With this update, users can navigate specific sections of their conversations by scrolling across all of their sections as one unified conversation list, view top conversations across each section, and find older conversations within each section by expanding via “Show all.”
Visit the Help Centre to learn how to use Google Chat
Release date: gradual rollout (up to 15 days) starting on 6 January 2025
