Google Data

Posted by Federico Asara, Software Engineer

Some topics are best discussed in face-to-face meetings, but setting them up takes too much time. Whether you’re coordinating across time zones, hunting for a room, or just trying to find a time that works for more than a couple of people — it really adds up.

If you’re using G Suite, “Find a time” already lets you set up meetings much faster in Calendar on Android. Today it’s coming to iOS and by the end of the year, the web. We’re also adding smart room booking, so you can easily find a place to meet as well.

Powered by Google’s machine intelligence, “Find a time” suggests meeting times and available rooms based on your preferences, which saves you lots of time and gets everyone together faster. Time and room suggestions are smart, too: They don’t just identify the first free slot in a grid, they also locate the next best slots as a back-up. For example, when Calendar doesn’t find availability for your preferred time, it then looks for conflicts across the group that are easier to resolve, such as recurring 1:1 meetings. And although “Find a time” makes smart suggestions, you’re always in control — just tap the grid to pick a time that’s a better fit.

Start saving time for the important things by downloading Google Calendar for Android or iOS (and look out for this update on the web soon).

Posted by Pierce Vollucci, Product Manager

Have you ever opened an email on your phone and something about the formatting just looks … off? Maybe the text is hard to read, or the buttons and links too small to tap. That’s because many emails are still formatted for computers’ larger screens, which means reading them on mobile can be a hassle.

Starting later this month, Gmail and Inbox by Gmail will support emails created with responsive design, meaning their content adapts to fit screens of all sizes. Text, links, and even buttons will enlarge to make reading and tapping easier on a smaller screen. If you’re on desktop, you’ll also see improvements, since emails designed for mobile can also adapt to fit larger screens.

Example of an email before and after responsive design

These changes will make your email experience as comfortable and intuitive as possible. And as responsive design becomes more common, you’ll continue to see emails that fit better on all your screens and devices.

P.S. Are you an email designer? Check out our post on the Google Apps Developer Blog for all the crunchy details on what this update means for you.

Posted by Thijs van As, Product Manager

Staying on top of your to-do list can be a challenge. In order to get things done, you often need to hunt through your inbox to find what you’re looking for, whether it’s info about upcoming events, your next trip, or a news article you want to share with colleagues.

The team behind Inbox has made its mission to help you organize your email and save you time. Starting today, you’ll discover more integrations that make it easier to see what’s happening and then act with organized Trello and GitHub project updates and Google Alerts previews. You’ll also see updates based on your feedback, including Google Drive integration.

Get organized Trello and GitHub project updates
The Inbox team has worked with Trello, a project management application, and GitHub, a software collaboration platform, to improve email notifications. If you use Trello, you’ll get a summary of what’s new with your Trello projects, so you can stay up-to-date on the latest updates. And for those of you who use GitHub, you’ll get a summary of code changes and filed issues for each repository.

Stay on top of your Google Alerts
To help you stay in the know on topics you care about, you can scan through your Google Alerts just like a newsletter. New alerts are summarized right in the inbox. If one of them catches your eye, you can click to read more. If not, you can quickly mark it as done.

Enjoy other updates based on your feedback
You’ll also see a number of highly-requested features based on your feedback (thank you!):

• If you use Google Drive, you can now insert Drive links into emails, check and fix permissions for those links, and save email attachments to Drive.
• You can now drag-and-drop contacts between to, cc, and bcc in compose on web.
• You can delete right from the inbox just as easily as you can mark as done.

What’s next?
If you’re a company that sends emails, and are excited about our Trello and GitHub updates and want to make your emails more useful, contact us here — we are excited to work with more email senders directly over the coming months.

This is just the beginning: The Gmail team will continue to improve the email experience so you can spend less time dealing with email and more time being productive.

Posted by Stella Schieffer, Product Manager

Smartphones have made productivity portable. You no longer have to be at your desk to catch up on meeting notes, dial into a conference call, or send an email. But scheduling meetings on the go is still difficult, as you have to open your laptop to check everyone’s calendar and find a time that works.

Starting today, if you use Google Apps for Work or Edu, you can schedule meetings from anywhere with “Find a time” in Google Calendar for Android.

With a single tap, “Find a time” helps you find meeting times that work for everyone—even if they’re in different time zones—based on their availability and the times they usually have meetings. If there are no times that work, Calendar will look at which conflicting meetings can most easily be rescheduled. Designed specifically for organizations where sharing your calendar with colleagues is the norm, here’s how it works:

“Find a time” makes suggestions, but you’re still in control. You can tap to see everyone’s schedule at a glance—perfect for making sure the timing works for all. And if you manage someone else’s calendar, you can use the feature to schedule meetings on their behalf as well.

Download Google Calendar for Android to get easy, on-the-go scheduling. And yes, we’re also working on bringing “Find a time” to iPhone, as well as easier ways to schedule on the web.