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What’s changing 
In May 2023, we announced several changes for Contacts delegates, specifically that they will be able to update labels and manage “Other” contacts. We’d like to share an updated timeline for this change and provide additional clarity around what’s required of users. 
Between now and November 13, 2023, you’ll be prompted in Contacts to review your existing delegates.


Who’s impacted
Admins and end users


Why it matters 
For many of our customers, administrative support for managing inboxes is business critical — this includes making sure that contacts are properly sorted and labeled. Since updating labels and managing “Other” contacts are new functions for delegates, it’s important that you review existing delegates to ensure that access to these features is appropriate.


Additional details
Does this change impact Gmail delegation?
No — while similar functionality is available in Gmail, there are no changes or impact for Gmail delegates. This change is specific to Contacts and contacts delegates only.


Getting started
  • End users: 
    • Delegators:
      • You’ll see a prompt in Contacts to review those who currently have Contacts delegation for your contacts. 
      • Beginning November 13, 2023, those with assigned and approved delegation will be able to update labels and manage Other contacts on your behalf. If you do not submit your approval, delegates will lose their access.
Rollout pace
  • You must review and approve delegates by November 13, 2023

Availability
  • This update impacts all Google Workspace customers

Resources

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4 New updates 

Unless otherwise indicated, the features below are available to all Google Workspace customers, and are fully launched or in the process of rolling out. Rollouts should take no more than 15 business days to complete if launching to both Rapid and Scheduled Release at the same time. If not, each stage of rollout should take no more than 15 business days to complete.


Insert links in the Google Sheets app on iOS devices 
We’re adding the ability to insert a hyperlink into a cell in the Google Sheets iOS app by selecting a cell > clicking “+” in the top left corner > Insert > Link. If a cell contains a link, you’ll see options to edit or remove the link. | Available to all Google Workspace customers and users with personal Google Accounts. | Visit the Help Center to learn more about working with links & bookmarks. 
Insert links in the Google Sheets app on iOS devices


Enhanced spam protection through automatic labeling of suspected spam messages in Google Voice 
If you're using Google Voice, you're familiar with our suspected spam caller warnings. We're extending this feature to SMS messages on Android and iOS devices. You'll see these labels within the message, and you can either: 
  • Confirm a suspected spam message, which causes future messages from that number to go directly into the spam folder. 
  • Mark a labeled message as not spam, after which the suspected spam label is never displayed for that number again. 
Available to Voice Starter, Standard, and Premier customers, as well as users with personal accounts in the US. | Rolling out now to Rapid Release and Scheduled Release domains at an extended pace (potentially longer than 15 days for feature visibility). 
Enhanced spam protection through automatic labeling of suspected spam messages in Google Voice



Birthday decorations for people cards 
In Google Contacts and across various Google Workspace products, you’ll begin to notice birthday decorations when hovering over another user’s people card. This small change can have a big impact on building deeper connections with your colleagues and stakeholders. Birthday decorations will be displayed on your birthday if you’ve added your birthday to your Google Account profile and you’ve set the information to be visible to others. | Available now for all Google Workspace customers and users with personal Google Accounts. | Visit the Help Center to learn more about your Google Account profile and what information others can see.
Birthday decorations for people cards
Add an organizational unit as an attribute in your external directory 
When using Directory Sync, you can now place users from the Azure Active Directory or Active Directory to a specific organizational unit on the Google Workspace side. To do so, you’ll need to add an organizational unit as an attribute in your external directory. This makes it easier to sync users who will be mapped to different organizational units on the Google Workspace side. | Directory Sync is available as an open beta to all Google Workspace customers. | Visit the Help Center to learn more about setting up users to sync based on an organizational unit attribute.
Add an organizational unit as an attribute in your external directory


Previous announcements

The announcements below were published on the Workspace Updates blog earlier this week. Please refer to the original blog posts for complete details.


Dual Display on Poly Studio X Series Makes Video Meetings More Productive 
We are excited to announce dual display support for Google Meet on the Poly Studio X Series to help make video meetings more productive. With dual displays, you can see more meeting participants, presentations, and documents at once, which can help you stay focused and engaged in meetings. | Available to Google Workspace customers with Poly Studio X50, X52, and X70 devices only. | Learn more about Dual Display on Poly Studio X Series.

Completed rollouts

The features below completed their rollouts to Rapid Release domains, Scheduled Release domains, or both. Please refer to the original blog posts for additional details.


Rapid Release Domains:
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2 New updates 

Unless otherwise indicated, the features below are available to all Google Workspace customers, and are fully launched or in the process of rolling out. Rollouts should take no more than 15 business days to complete if launching to both Rapid and Scheduled Release at the same time. If not, each stage of rollout should take no more than 15 business days to complete.



Including the Alt text option in the Image options sidebar of Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Drawings
Currently, users add alternative text to images in Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Drawings by right-clicking an image and selecting “Alt text,” which then opens a box for them to input the text. Starting this week, we’re making this feature more discoverable by adding it to the “Image options” sidebar. 
Screenshot of alt text options newly located in the image options sidebar

Reminder: delegators must re-approve contacts delegates by August 2023 
In May 2023, we announced that delegated users can manage contact labels on behalf of their delegator via contacts.google.com. As part of this update, delegators need to review existing delegates, as well as add new delegates. This must be completed by July 31, 2023 or delegates will lose access to manage contacts. Admins can also make these adjustments for users in their domain using the Admin SDK API to remove and re-add the contacts delegate privilege. | Learn more about managing contact labels. 


Previous announcements

The announcements below were published on the Workspace Updates blog earlier this week. Please refer to the original blog posts for complete details.


Ability to create spaces, memberships, group chats, and more using the Google Chat API is now generally available 
Last year, we announced that developers could use the Google Chat API to programmatically create new spaces and add members to those spaces through the Google Workspace Developer Preview Program. Those features are now generally available for all Google Workspace developers. | Learn more about Google Chat API. 

AppSheet Core licenses will be included by default for more Google Workspace editions, along with a new Admin security setting 
We’re expanding AppSheet Core license access to additional Google Workspace editions and also giving Admins a new org-level setting, which controls how users are able to use their AppSheet Core licenses, including whether app data can be shared externally. | AppSheet Core licenses are already included for domain-verified Google Workspace Enterprise Plus, Enterprise Essentials Plus, and Education Plus users. AppSheet Core licenses will now be included for domain-verified Google Workspace Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Starter, Enterprise Standard, Frontline Starter and Standard, Nonprofits, and Education Standard customers. | Learn more about AppSheet Core licenses. 

Improved meeting room suggestions in Google Calendar 
To better optimize meeting rooms and foster greater collaboration, especially in a hybrid work environment, we’ve introduced an updated structured meeting room setting. The working location set by a user is taken into account for all room suggestions, and in cases where location data is unavailable, proposed meeting rooms will be based on frequently used rooms. | Available to Google Workspace Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Fundamentals, Education Plus, and Nonprofits only. | Learn more about room suggestions in Google Calendar. 

Introducing membership search and the option to add up to 50,000 members to spaces in Google Chat 
We’re increasing the number of users you can add to a space in Google Chat from 8,000 to 50,000. We’re also introducing the ability to easily search for members within a space. | Learn more about new capabilities in spaces. 

Programmatically read and write working locations for a portion of the day with the Calendar API 
Recently, we introduced the ability for users to set working locations in Calendar that indicate where they’re working for specific portions of the day. Now, we’re adding the ability to programmatically read and write working locations for specific portions of the day. This update expands on the existing reading and writing functionality announced earlier this year. | Available to Google Workspace Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Fundamentals, Education Plus, Education Standard, the Teaching and Learning Upgrade and Nonprofits customers only. | Learn more about the Google Calendar API.

Completed rollouts

The features below completed their rollouts to Rapid Release domains, Scheduled Release domains, or both. Please refer to the original blog posts for additional details.



Rapid Release Domains: 

For a recap of announcements in the past six months, check out What’s new in Google Workspace (recent releases).


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[Update - October 12, 2023]: Please refer to this post for an updated timeline and more information regarding this change.


What’s changing 
We’re updating the functionality for delegated users to manage contact labels on behalf of their delegator via contacts.google.com. While this functionality was previously available in Gmail, they can now be managed directly at the source: Contacts. This will happen in two phases: 


Beginning this month, delegators will be prompted to review and re-approve access for their existing delegates. If existing delegates are not re-approved before July 2023, they will lose access to manage contacts. See below for guidance.




Additionally, Admins can make these adjustments for users in their domain using the Admin SDK API to remove and re-add the contacts delegate privilege.


Beginning July 2023,  all users who have been approved or assigned as Contacts delegates will be able to update labels and manage Other contacts.  


Who’s impacted
Admins and end users


Why it’s important
For many of our customers, administrative support for managing inboxes is business critical — this includes making sure that contacts are properly sorted and labeled. 

Getting started

Rollout pace

Availability
  • Available to all Google Workspace customers

Resources
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2 New updates

Unless otherwise indicated, the features below are fully launched or in the process of rolling out (rollouts should take no more than 15 business days to complete), launching to both Rapid and Scheduled Release at the same time (if not, each stage of rollout should take no more than 15 business days to complete), and available to all Google Workspace and G Suite customers.


360 degree video backgrounds available for Google Meet on mobile
Adding to our existing library of immersive backgrounds, Meet users on mobile can use several new 360 degree video backgrounds. These backgrounds—which include a beach and a temple—use your device's gyroscope to create a dynamic experience that moves with you. Note that Admins can turn backgrounds on or off for their users. | Available on Android and iOS devices for all Google Workspace users and users with personal Google Accounts. 
Editable widgets now available for Chat app cards 
Developers can now include interactive widgets like checkboxes, radio buttons, and dropdowns in Chat app cards that are posted in the Chat message stream. This will allow you to quickly modify information sent from Chat apps, such as: 
  • Changing the assignee on a task card or changing the due date on a task card
  • Selecting or deselecting options on a card
This feature is available now to Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Fundamentals, Education Plus, Education Standard, the Teaching and Learning Upgrade, Frontline, as well as legacy G Suite Basic and Business customers only.



Previous announcements

The announcements below were published on the Workspace Updates blog earlier this week. Please refer to the original blog posts for complete details.


New setting for content managers to modify shared drives now on by default
Last December, we announced an upcoming shared drive setting for content managers to modify shared drives. Starting today, all content managers will have the ability to share folders by default, in addition to their current capabilities of editing, reorganizing, and deleting shared drive content. | Available to Google Workspace Essentials, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Fundamentals, Education Plus, Education Standard, the Teaching and Learning Upgrade, and Nonprofits, as well as legacy G Suite Business customers only. | Learn more. 


Client-side encryption for Google Calendar is now generally available
Client-side encryption for Google Calendar is now generally available to eligible Workspace editions. Additionally, based on feedback from beta, we’ve extended client-side encryption to support Key Migration and Google Takeout. | Available to Google Workspace Enterprise Plus, Education Plus, and Education Standard customers only. | Learn more.


Improving accessibility of the “connect device” feature on Google Meet hardware devices
We’re updating the home screen on Series On Desk 27 and Board 65 devices to feature a “Connect device” button as a quick action. | Learn more. 


Google Calendar and Assistant Reminders will migrate to Google Tasks soon
As previously announced, in the coming months, we’ll migrate Reminders from Google Calendar and Google Assistant to Google Tasks to create a single experience for managing to-dos across Google. | Learn more.


Improving the Google Contact management experience
We’re introducing a new feature available in the Google Contacts sidebar that lets you create new contacts and edit existing contacts. Whether you want to edit contacts faster or create contacts more easily, this update streamlines the contact management experience. | Learn more. 


Control the visibility of warning banners in Gmail with a new admin control
We’re giving admins more control over whether warning banners for incoming email messages are displayed for their end users. Specifically, admins can choose to disable spam filters and hide warning banners for: All users and a specific allowlist of senders. | Learn more. 


Completed rollouts

The features below completed their rollouts to Rapid Release domains, Scheduled Release domains, or both. Please refer to the original blog post for additional details.


Rapid Release Domains:
Scheduled Release Domains:
Rapid and Scheduled Release Domains:
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What’s changing
Previously, visiting contacts.google.com was the only way to edit or add a Google Contact. Today, we’re introducing a new feature available in the Contacts sidebar that lets you create new contacts and edit existing contacts. Whether you want to edit contacts faster or create contacts more easily, this update streamlines the contact management experience.
Getting started 
  • Admins: There is no admin control for this feature. 
  • End users: 
    • To edit an existing contact: 
      • Expand the side panel in Google Workspace and open the Contacts app 
      • Click on a contact 
      • Click the Edit icon at the top right 
      • Edit the information Click “Save” 
    • To create a contact from scratch: 
      • Open the Contacts app from the vertical App bar on the right 
      • Click “Create contact” 
        • Note: “Create contact” will only be available while in “Contacts” mode, not “In this thread” when opening a contact’s detailed view through Gmail 
      • Enter the contact’s name and add any contact information 
      • Click “Save” 
    • To create a contact from search: 
      • Open the Contacts app from the vertical App bar on the right 
      • Click the Search icon at the top right 
      • Enter a contact’s name 
      • If there is no existing contact, click on the “Create contact” button at the top of the search results to automatically create a contact with the name you entered 
      • Add additional information to the contact 
      • Click “Save” 
    • Visit the Help Center to learn more about Google Contacts. 
Rollout pace 
Availability 
  • Available to all Google Workspace customers, as well as legacy G Suite Basic and Business customers 
  • Available to users with personal Google Accounts 
Resources 
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2 New updates

Unless otherwise indicated, the features below are fully launched or in the process of rolling out (rollouts should take no more than 15 business days to complete), launching to both Rapid and Scheduled Release at the same time (if not, each stage of rollout should take no more than 15 business days to complete), and available to all Google Workspace and G Suite customers.


Google Vault support for client-side encrypted emails
Vault now supports retention, search, and export of client-side encrypted emails. Note that admins can't preview the email body and attachments, including inline images — they’ll only be able to see the subject line, sender, and receiver.

Google Workspace already uses the latest cryptographic standards to encrypt all data at rest and in transit between our customers and Google facilities. Client-side encryption helps strengthen the confidentiality of your data while helping to address a broad range of data sovereignty and compliance needs. Visit the Help Center for more information on client-side encryption and our original announcement regarding client-side encryption for Gmail.

Admins can use the Help Center to learn more about client-side encryption and encrypted emails in Vault. End users can use the Help Center to learn more about setting up client-side encryption for Gmail.

Available to Google Workspace Enterprise Plus, Education Plus, and Education Standard customers only.


Set and share personal pronouns across Google Workspace products
Google Workspace admins can now give their users the option to set their pronouns and choose who can see them from their Google Account at aboutme.google.com. 

This is opt-in only and can be enabled for all users or a subset of them (such as for a specific location or department). Admins can use this Help Center article to learn more about enabling this feature for their users.
User-defined pronouns will appear in personal information cards displayed when hovering over or clicking someone’s profile photo across Workspace apps like Gmail, Calendar, Docs, Sheets, Slides, Chat, and Drive. Support for pronouns in Google Meet will roll out in the coming months. Pronouns will also appear in Google Contacts, accessed by clicking “Open detailed view” from the personal information cards. If enabled by their admin, end users can use this Help Center article to learn more about changing their pronouns in their Google Account settings.

If enabled by the admin, users can set pronouns from aboutme.google.com and specify who they are visible to.





Available to Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Frontline, and Nonprofits, as well as legacy G Suite Basic and Business customers only. 


Previous announcements

The announcements below were published on the Workspace Updates blog earlier this week. Please refer to the original blog posts for complete details.


New beta to move folders from My Drive to shared drives now available 
Following the announcement of an improved admin experience for moving folders from My Drive to shared drives, we’ve introduced a beta that will allow end users to move folders from My Drive into shared drives. | Available to Google Workspace Essentials, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Fundamentals, Education Plus, Education Standard, the Teaching and Learning Upgrade, and Nonprofits, and legacy G Suite Business customers only. | Learn more. 


New built-in interoperability between Google Meet and Zoom 
As previously announced in October, we’re introducing video conferencing device interoperability for Google Meet with Zoom, which will allow you to join Zoom Meetings from Google Meet hardware devices and join Google Meet meetings from Zoom Rooms. | Zoom interop on Google Meet hardware is available to all Google Workspace customers, as well as G Suite Basic and Business customers with Google Meet hardware. | Learn more.


Completed rollouts

The features below completed their rollouts to Rapid Release domains, Scheduled Release domains, or both. Please refer to the original blog post for additional details.


Rapid Release Domains:

Rapid and Scheduled Release Domains:

For a recap of announcements in the past six months, check out What’s new in Google Workspace (recent releases).

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Quick summary
In 2021, we introduced a new Google Contacts (contacts.google.com) experience that provides rich information about your colleagues and stakeholders. Starting today, every contact with a Workspace email has a new profile link that is easy to copy, share, and send within an organization. This new profile link helps everyone in your organization get in touch and stay connected. 

shareable profile links


Getting started 
  • Admins: 
  • End users: 
    • Once available, access “Copy profile link” by one of two ways: 
      • In the detailed view for a contact, select the "3-dot-menu" and click the "Copy profile link" button. 
      • In a contact list view (e.g. contacts.google.com), select the "3-dot-menu" for a contact row and click the "Copy profile link" button. 
    • You can also enter "contacts.google.com/emailaddress" into the web browser address bar to look for a person in your organization. Email formats include: jane.smith@domain.com, jane.smith@domain, and jane.smith. 
Rollout pace 
  • Rapid Release and Scheduled Release domains: Extended rollout (potentially longer than 15 days for feature visibility) starting on June 30, 2022, with anticipated completion by July 18, 2022. Due to the staggered nature of this rollout, end users may be able to copy profile links from their browser address bar before having access to the "Copy profile link" button.

Availability 
  • Available to all Google Workspace customers, as well as legacy G Suite Basic and Business customers 
  • Not available to users with personal Google Accounts 
Resources 
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Update
[January 28, 2022]: We’d like to clarify rollout for several features mentioned in this announcement:

  • The rollout for custom attributes is complete.
  • The rollout for shared drive files, local time and working hours, and non-manager relationships is paused while we optimize performance. We apologize for the delay and we will share an update once rollout resumes.

Quick launch summary 
Google Contacts will include additional information about people in your organization: 
  • Local time: The the local time for a user’s time zone will be displayed 
  • Working hours: You’ll see a crescent moon indicator and purple banner if it’s outside the working hours a user has set in Google Calendar 
  • Non-manager relationships: You can view relationships such as an administrative business partner or a dotted line manager 
  • Shared files: You’ll see a list of any Drive files a user has shared with you Custom attributes: any custom attributes your organization has added, such as Team, Skills, or other information specific to your organization
In Contacts, you'll see additional information about people in your organization, such as the local time in their area, their working hours, shared files, and more.



Getting started
Admins: 
  • To share non-manager relationships in Google Contacts, populate the “Relationships” section of the User resource using the Admin SDK.

  • Custom Attributes can be configured in the “Users” section in the Admin console and the Directory API. 

  • Local Time and Outside Working Hours is automatically shown when Calendar availability is enabled and working hours are set.

  • Shared Drive files will automatically be displayed; no additional action is required.
End users: To open the Contacts Sidebar, click “Open detailed view” while hovering over a user’s information card, or select the Contacts icon in the side panel. Visit the Help Center to learn more about using Google products side by side. 

Rollout pace
  • Rapid Release and Scheduled Release domains: Extended rollout (potentially longer than 15 days for feature visibility) starting on October 18, 2021. 
  • Note: Each card (custom fields, shared files, non-manager relationships, and local time) will be rolled out separately.

Availability
  • Available to all Google Workspace customers, as well as G Suite Basic and Business customers

Resources

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What’s changing 
We’re introducing a new experience for Google Contacts which will help Google Workspace users learn more about their colleagues. Within Contacts (contacts.google.com) or the Contacts sidebar, you can view more detailed information about others, including: 
  • Their management chain, department, and title, 
  • A history of your Workspace relationship, including email conversations and meetings. 


Who’s impacted 
Admins and end users 

Why it’s important 
More than ever, our work requires a higher level of collaboration, connection and interaction. To collaborate effectively with those in our wider network, it’s helpful to learn more about them, what they work on, who they work with, and what’s important to them. The redesigned Google Contacts experience gives you the ability to easily learn more about your colleagues and stakeholders, making it easier to collaborate and turn ideas into impact. 

Additional details 
To maximize this feature’s value, it’s helpful to have user data fully populated across Google Workspace apps. Workspace admins can populate this data in a few locations: 

Getting started 
Rollout pace 

Availability 
  • Available to all Google Workspace customers, as well as G Suite Basic and Business customers  

Resources 
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Quick launch summary 
Shared external contacts are users outside of your domain who you add to your company directory. Previously, there was a limit of 50,000 external contacts. Now that limit is 200,000. Additionally, the total storage limit has been increased from 20MB to 40MB. 

Shared external contacts help enable collaboration between users in your organization and any external users who they may need to communicate with frequently, such as consultants and partners. When a user is added as a shared external contact, users in your organization can find the profile information for them in many Google services, such as when they enter addresses in Gmail. 


Getting started 
Rollout pace 
Availability 
  • Available to Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, and Enterprise Plus, as well as G Suite Basic, Business, Education, Enterprise for Education, and Nonprofits customers 
Resources Google Workspace 
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What’s changing 
You can now find additional information about people within your organization, your Contacts, and people who email you in the Gmail side panel. This includes: 
  • Contact information, such as phone number and email address, 
  • Team and manager, 
  • Office and desk location, 
  • Whether you’ve received email from them before, and more. 
Additional information will appear in the Gmail side panel.



You can also add people to your contacts and send them an email or message. 

Who’s impacted 
Admins and end users 

Why you’d use it 
This feature expands upon information you can already view when hovering over a person’s name in Gmail. In the side panel, you can learn more about who the person you’re collaborating with is, what team they’re on, and whether you’ve interacted with them before. We hope this feature makes collaboration and connecting with key stakeholders easier. 

Additional details 
To maximize this feature, it’s helpful to have user data fully populated across Google Workspace apps. Workspace admins can populate this data in a few locations: 

Getting started 
Rollout pace 

Availability 
  • Available to Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, and Enterprise Plus, as well as G Suite Basic, Business, Education, Enterprise for Education, and Nonprofits
  • Available to users with personal Google Accounts

Resources 
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Quick launch summary 
We’re adding Trash to Google Contacts. Now, when you delete a contact, it will go into Trash, where it will stay for 30 days before being permanently deleted. In that time, you can view, restore, or permanently delete the contact. Trash will contain contacts deleted on any device—web, Android, iOS, and more—but you can only view and manage Trash on the web. Trash makes it much easier for users to recover contacts they've accidentally deleted. 


Getting started 
  • Admins: There is no admin control for this feature. 
  • End users: This feature will be ON by default. Find it in the left-hand menu when you go to Google Contacts on the web (contacts.google.com). The Trash view is not available yet in the Google Contacts apps for mobile devices. Visit the Help Center to learn more about using Google Contacts. 

Rollout pace 
Availability 
  • Available to all G Suite customers and users with personal accounts. 
Resources 
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Contacts hovercards provide lots of useful information about the people within your organization. We’ve heard from you that you’d like better visibility into Google Groups across G Suite, so we’re adding more information to these hovercards when the contact itself is a group.




When you mouse over the name of a group in Gmail, you’ll now be able to see essential information, like group members, as well as take some actions, such as:

  • Schedule an event with the group
  • Email the group
  • See more members
You can also select “More info,” which will take you to the Groups membership details page on groups.google.com. The group members will only appear on the hovercard if the user has permission to view them. This functionality will be added to other G Suite apps in the future.

Launch Details
Release track:
Launching to both Rapid Release and Scheduled Release

Editions:
Available to all G Suite editions

Rollout pace:
Full rollout (1–3 days for feature visibility)

Impact:
All end users

Action:
Change management suggested/FYI

Launch release calendar
Launch detail categories
Get these product update alerts by email
Subscribe to the RSS feed of these updates
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Over the next few months, we’ll completely replace old Google Contacts with new Google Contacts (also known as Contacts preview).

We launched new Contacts in 2015 to provide a modern, smart, and quick contact management experience. We’ve added many features since then and, with the recent launch of contacts delegation, new Contacts now has many comparable features from old Contacts, and more.

As a result, new Contacts will replace the older version, and it will be the only Google Contacts version after February 12, 2019. The replacement process will take place in three stages:

Stage 1: New admin-controlled defaults and user options

On November 28, 2018, we’ll change the Admin console setting that controls new Contacts. Currently, there’s a checkbox to enable new Contacts for your users. If you enable it, your users are moved to new Contacts but can opt out. On November 28, this setting will change to formally define a default version of Contacts for your organization. Your current setting will determine the impact of this change:

  • If you currently have new Contacts preview enabled, new Contacts will be the default and there will be no change for your users. Your users will stay using new Contacts with the option to revert back to old Contacts. If they previously opted out of new Contacts preview, they’ll remain opted out until stage 2 (see below).
  • If you don’t currently have new Contacts preview enabled, old Contacts will be the default but users will get a new option to try new Contacts. None of your users will be automatically upgraded to new Contacts, but all users will be able to opt in to new Contacts individually if they choose.
You can find and change the setting in the Admin console at Apps > G Suite > Directory > Sharing settings > Contacts Preview.

The setting to control new Contacts preview in the Admin console

Stage 2: All users upgraded to new Contacts, with the option to opt out

On January 15, 2019, new Contacts will automatically become the default version in your domain and we will remove the Admin console setting. When this happens, all users still using old Contacts will be moved to new Contacts. You won’t be able to change this for your organization, but individual users will still be able to revert back to old Contacts if they want until stage 3 (see below).

Stage 3: All users upgraded to new Contacts, old Contacts turned off

On February 12, 2019, old Contacts will be turned off completely, and any remaining users will be moved to new Contacts. There will be no option to use the old version.

Launch Details
Release track:
All stages launching to both Rapid Release and Scheduled Release

Editions:
Available to all G Suite editions

Rollout pace:
Full rollout (1–3 days for feature visibility) for all stages

Impact:
Admins and end users

Action:
Admin action suggested/FYI


Launch release calendar
Launch detail categories
Get these product update alerts by email
Subscribe to the RSS feed of these updates
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We’re adding the ability to delegate contact management to someone else in new Google Contacts (aka Contacts preview). When you delegate contact management, you give someone else the ability to edit or delete information in your personal contacts folder on your behalf. Any changes they make to those contacts will update in your Contacts. Customers will often use delegated contacts so administrative assistants can manage contacts for executives.

This feature was previously available in old Contacts, but not in new Contacts (see below for more). If you use delegation in old Contacts, the delegation will still be active if you move to new Contacts. Contacts and contact delegation are no longer available through Gmail.

Delegate access to your contacts 

You can invite someone else within your organization to manage your contacts through the new Contacts website at contacts.google.com. Once you’ve delegated access, the person you delegated to will be notified by email and will be able to add, edit, and delete contacts on your behalf.

To see and change delegate access to your contacts, click on the Delegate access button in the product’s main navigation menu. See our Help Center to learn more about how to delegate your contacts.



Accept delegation invitation and manage someone else’s contacts

When someone delegates their contacts to you, you’ll get an email asking if you want to accept the request. If you accept, the contacts will appear in a new “Delegated contacts” section of the Contacts menu. You can add, edit, and delete someone else’s contacts the same way you can with your other contacts. If you want to stop managing these contacts, click Remove delegated contacts at the top of the page.

See our Help Center to learn more about managing delegated contacts.

Delegated contacts appear in a separate section of Contacts 


Use the new Google Contacts 

If you haven’t already, you can launch new Contacts for your users. New Contacts (aka Contacts preview) was launched in 2015 and has many comparable features from old Contacts, with an updated interface and additional features that increase efficiency. If you’ve previously enabled new Contacts and a user has opted out, they can opt back in by looking for the link to “Try Contacts preview” in the left hand menu at contacts.google.com.

A comparison of the old and new Google Contacts interface


Launch Details 
Release track:
Launching to both Rapid Release and Scheduled Release 

Editions: 
Available to all G Suite editions

Rollout pace: 
Full rollout (1–3 days for feature visibility)

Impact: 
All end users

Action: 
Change management suggested/FYI

More Information 
Help Center: Delegate contacts to an assistant 


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