U-M Google Updates

The monthly U-M Google Summaries inform the university community of Google releases for Core Apps as well as the Non-Core Apps (those that are not part of the G Suite for Education agreement). We communicate important information on Core Apps throughout the month. Core and Non-Core Apps are listed on the G Suite website.

Core Apps:

• How to secure a Hangouts Meet session

In order to help the university community secure their Hangouts Meet sessions, the ITS Collaboration Services team created a quick guide with steps to ensure your meetings stay private and free of unwanted attendees.

• Fix images to a certain location on a page in Google Docs

In Google Docs, you will soon be able to position an image in a fixed place, ensuring it stays in a certain spot on the page and is not disrupted by text and other elements. Google has also added a new sidebar where you can quickly access other image formatting options such as size, rotation, and brightness/contrast settings.

To position an image on a Doc page, click the image and select “Fix position on page” from the menu bar below it. To open the “Image options” sidebar, click the three-dot overflow menu and then select “All image options” from the same menu bar below the image. To learn more about formatting images in Google Docs, see this article from Google's Help Center.

• Set custom table ranges for charts in Google Sheets

In Google Sheets, it will soon be easier to locate and select the data you need when creating a dashboard over a dataset with slicers, pivot tables, charts, and more. Previously, all data ranges on a table would be used when creating a chart. Now, you’ll be able to select which columns to use for the chart axis and series. This allows you to quickly customize your charts so that they display the most relevant data.

In the chart editor, you can select a column as the X-axis. Under “Series” then select additional columns to populate your chart.

At the beginning of March, Google announced they would extend temporary access to some premium Hangouts Meet features until July 1, 2020. These features are now available within the U-M domain:

• Increased participant limit of 250 participants per video call
• Livestream a video call (up to 100,000 viewers)
• Record a video call

Important: U-M Google is not HIPAA-compliant. Review the Sensitive Data Guide for types of data permitted for use with Hangouts Meet. If HIPAA-compliance is needed, check out the BlueJeans conferencing service  (retiring May 1, 2021).

To learn more about using Hangouts Meet:

• U-M documentation
  • Getting Started with Google Hangouts Meet
• Google support articles
  • Hangouts Meet training and help
  • Hangouts Meet cheat sheet

You can now use different sources for your audio and video feeds in a Hangouts Meet video call. Specifically, you can use a phone for audio while still using your computer's camera and web browser for video.

This can be done by dialing into the call directly, or by having Meet call your phone. You can use your phone for audio immediately upon joining, or anytime after joining if you’d like to switch.

You can use your phone for audio on Hangouts Meet calls to ensure you have consistent and reliable audio quality, even if your network connection is poor, or if your computer’s microphone and speaker aren’t working. You’ll still be able to share and see video and presentations in the meeting.

Additional details

• Please note that the Meet dial-out option is currently only available in the US and Canada.
• Visit the Help Center to learn more about using a phone for audio in a video meeting.
• According to Google, this feature could take 15 days or longer to become fully visible.

To better accommodate the need for team-based chat and collaboration, Google Hangouts Chat is now available for use at the University of Michigan. Hangouts Chat is a G Suite for Education core service. It is free and covered under U-M’s agreement with Google and also can be used for certain kinds of sensitive data. It should not be used for protected health information (PHI) or HIPAA-regulated data.

For several years, Google classic Hangouts has been a part of Google at U-M and is integrated into Google Mail. Hangouts Chat is an updated, team-based experience, and will eventually replace classic Hangouts. This will happen sometime in late 2020, until then, the two services will co-exist.

How to Access Google Hangouts Chat

• Install the Hangouts Chat desktop and mobile applications on your devices. Visit Google’s Hangouts Chat download page for more information. Note: You need to use a 64-bit version of your preferred web browser to download the desktop application.
• Use a web browser and visit https://chat.google.com

Getting Started

To learn more about Hangouts Chat, visit the U-M’s “Getting Started with Google Hangouts Chat” documentation article or U-M Google support site. You can also visit Google’s Hangouts Chat Help Center or Learning Center for additional information.

Current Limitations

• Hangouts Chat does not yet integrate directly into U-M Google Mail but is expected to later this year.
• There are a number of constraints related to interoperability between classic Hangouts and Hangouts Chat:
  • Direct messages: Direct messages can be viewed and replied to across both services.
    • Note:  Currently, messages from people outside of U-M only appear in classic Hangouts, and not in Hangouts Chat.
  • Group messages: Group messages of more than two people do not cross between both services. Wherever you made that group message is where that group message now lives.
    • Google recommends recreating any classic Hangouts group messages in Hangouts Chat.

This service has been activated and should be available now for campus-wide use.

To provide the best experience scheduling Zoom sessions from within Google Calendar, the Zoom for GSuite add-on is now available to install in U-M Google. To learn more about how to install and use this add-on, visit our U-M Google documentation page.

With the Zoom for GSuite add-on, you can use Zoom to easily schedule, join, manage, and customize meetings from Google Mail and Google Calendar.

• Schedule a Zoom meeting with details from any email, automatically adding the topic, attendees, and attachments based on subject, recipients, and sent documents.
• Automatically add Zoom meeting details to your Google Calendar invitation. 
• Customize meeting options like join with video on, join with audio muted, and more.

Note: This add-on is not usable by Michigan Medicine users of U-M Google, as they do not use Google Calendar or Mail.

If you currently use the Zoom Scheduler Google Chrome extension, we recommend that you uninstall the extension from your web browser and use the Zoom for GSuite add-on. The add-on provides the same user experience across all web browsers and the Google Calendar mobile application. For more information on how to uninstall a Chrome extension, visit Google’s Help Center.

Note: Add-ons/apps within the G Suite Marketplace are currently disabled for the University of Michigan domain, with a few exceptions, like Zoom for GSuite. ITS is currently developing a formal process for requesting and evaluating add-ons/apps for U-M Google.