Wednesday, August 26, 2015

Google Apps Update - Gmail and Calendar



Posted: 25 Aug 2015 12:37 PM PDT
The Internet has made business travel―booking flights and hotels, reserving restaurant tables, buying event tickets, and more―infinitely easier. Adding that information to a calendar, on the other hand, has remained time-consuming and tedious, typically requiring people to copy and paste information from various confirmation emails. In the coming week, Gmail and Google Calendar will start working together to lighten that load for Google Apps customers, and make business travel planning even more seamless.

When an individual receives an email in Gmail with flight, hotel, restaurant, or ticketed event information, that event will be automatically added to their Google Calendar, complete with things like flight numbers and check-in times. Calendar will even update those events if plans change and a new email is received (for instance, when a flight is delayed or a reservation pushed back).

This feature will be enabled by default on desktop and mobile (both iOS and Android) for all Google Apps customers―with the exception of Google Apps for Government domains, for whom the feature is not available. Events from Gmail added to Calendar will be visible only to calendar owners by default (those with delegated access will not see these events). Calendar owners will be able to delete any individual unwanted events as well as adjust visibility settings, or disable the feature altogether, in their Calendar settings if so desired.
At launch, people using Calendar will see an in-product screen, either on mobile or web (whichever is accessed first), explaining that events from Gmail will be automatically added for their account, and indicating that the feature can be disabled in settings.
events-gmail-notice.pnggmail-events-in-calendarweb.png
Once the first event from Gmail is added, a one-time email notification will also be sent to the user from Google Calendar, explaining the settings and sharing details for events from Gmail.

Check out the Help Center for more information.

Note: this feature is not available for Google Apps for Government customers

Launch Details
Release track:  
Launch to Rapid release planned for next week, with Scheduled release following two weeks later (monitor the launch calendar for specific dates)

Rollout pace: 
Gradual rollout (potentially longer than 3 days for feature visibility)

Impact: 
All end users

Action:
Change management suggested/FYI

More Information
Help Center