Google updates Workspace’s ‘smart canvas,’ shutters Currents
AI-generated Doc summaries and Google Maps “smart chips” are coming to the Workspace productiveness suite, whereas the Currents enterprise social community will likely be changed by Spaces in 2023.
Google has added new options to its Workspace productiveness apps, together with automated doc summaries and the flexibility to embed Google Maps into paperwork.
The modifications construct on the “smart canvas” idea the corporate unveiled final 12 months to modernize its utility suite by connecting the assorted instruments in a shared, all-in-one workspace. Among the preliminary options introduced final 12 months have been “smart chips” that allow customers hyperlink data between paperwork utilizing the “@” image, as an illustration.
One new addition introduced Tuesday is a great chip for Google Maps, which lets Docs customers embed a map preview right into a doc extra simply. The sensible chip generates a thumbnail that gives a fast view of location data, in addition to a hyperlink to entry Maps in a sidebar. It was not instantly clear when that characteristic can be typically accessible.
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Another new characteristic is Google Docs summaries, an mechanically generated textual content overview of the details inside a doc. The abstract is created for the consumer by a man-made intelligence (AI) algorithm, although the textual content will also be manually edited by the consumer. The new abstract characteristic is out there to Workspace customers now.
Email draft templates, set for common availability in “the coming weeks,” present a button to export pre-written content material right into a draft message in Gmail with related fields already stuffed in.
Topic-voting tables permit customers to collect crew suggestions; project-tracker tables can seize milestones and statuses.
Two beforehand introduced options are additionally now set for common availability. The “pageless format” in Docs, which removes the boundaries of a doc web page, can be utilized now, whereas system corrections in in Sheets spreadsheets will arrive quickly, stated Google.
“The updates to Workspace reflect a much-needed revamp, not just for Google but for the document, which has been in need of a major overhaul for several years,” stated Raúl Castañón, senior analyst at 451 Research, a division of S&P Global Market Intelligence.
He stated the sensible canvas updates assist Google shut the hole with Microsoft and with rising rivals equivalent to Coda and Notion which have taken new approaches to doc creation.
An absence of interconnectedness throughout apps is an on-going downside for a lot of employees, based on findings from 451 Research’s “Voice of the Enterprise: Workforce Productivity & Collaboration: Work Execution Goals & Challenges 2021” survey. The survey discovered that obstacles to productive use of enterprise instruments and purposes embrace: data that continues to be siloed in several purposes (28%); the general lack of integration between purposes (26%); and difficulties in cross-app collaboration (21%).
The modifications to Workspace mirror the altering manner folks collaborate, stated Angela Ashenden, principal analyst at CCS Insight. “It’s not all about formal and traditional word processor documents — content takes all sorts of shapes and is used in all manner of ways,” she stated.
“This also further sees the blurring of the boundaries between the different apps in Google Workspace, leveraging the capabilities of the apps to support real-world employee workflows, rather than simply conforming to traditional technology categories and forcing people to be the integration point between these apps.”
Currents makes manner for Spaces
In one other change coming to Workspace, Google introduced final week that consumer accounts on its enterprise social community, Currents, will likely be migrated to Spaces in early 2023. (Currents launched in 2019 as a piece model of the consumer-oriented Google+.)
Spaces, unveiled final summer time, successfully rebrands Google Workspace Chat Rooms to present a “central place to engage in topic-based discussions, share knowledge and ideas, move projects forward, and build communities and team culture,” stated Google.
As it prepares emigrate accounts, Google will start eradicating options from Currents that it stated are not often accessed by customers, together with “follower” and “following” counts, publish analytics, and cellular notifications.
The choice to exchange Currents isn’t a surprise, stated Ashenden — notably given Google’s new product technique for Workspace, with Spaces changing into the first middle of gravity for product innovation.
“Currents…never really found its niche in the enterprise market, and while a small number of clients still rely on it to support online communities, it didn’t really fit well in the broader collaboration and productivity strategy for Google,” she stated.
“It will be interesting to see exactly how the Currents capabilities around online communities and top-down communication are incorporated into Spaces, however; channel-based collaboration tends to be better suited to day-to-day teamwork than building relationships and networking.”
Castañón stated that it is sensible for Google to streamline its portfolio to enhance the general consumer expertise. Currents and its predecessor, Google+, emerged throughout the context of the enterprise social community; that idea has largely fallen out of favor, with most of the options migrating into different purposes.
“Spaces better reflects current workplace dynamics, with a virtual environment that enables real-time and asynchronous engagement – as opposed to one-way, top-down communications which is how enterprise social networks are largely positioned,” Castañón stated.