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MATT IZATT: Hi, everyone.
Thanks for joining me at Google Cloud Next.
I'm Matthew Izatt, Product Lead for the Workspace platform.
And I'm excited to be talking to you about creating modern end
user applications in and for Google Workspace.
There's a lot to share about the platform.
And today, I'll split that discussion to four topics.
First, I'll share with you the overall vision and approach
we are taking to build in Google Workspace as a platform.
Next, we'll walk through the latest platform updates.
Then, I'll chat with Strand Sylvester, a product manager
from Asana, who will share how Asana is
building on Google Workspace.
Finally, I'll let you know how you
can get started using the Google Workspace platform.
So let's jump right into our first topic.
We are focused on addressing the challenges faced by millions
of paying customers, businesses, and organizations
around the world and billions of consumer users.
We know that shifts to hybrid work
have disrupted how work gets done for everyone
and that digital transformation is
key to adjusting to these disruptions.
Collaboration patterns and business processes
have moved to the Cloud and organizational workflows
have permanently shifted.
We believe that workflows will transcend products.
One simple workflow to complete a task or process
could span across multiple Workspace apps, tools
from other vendors, as well as internal tools.
We see Workspace as one of the primary layers of interactivity
with end users for these workflows.
Workspace is where end users spend most of their days
communicating and collaborating with their colleagues.
So it makes sense to bring more process
and apps into that hub work.
This connectivity layer allows developers and IT professionals
to bring the best of their Cloud Services,
their decision-making data, and partner applications
all together right where users need them
in order to get the most value from these tools.
There are three aspects to how we
look at integrations and the extensibility of Google
Workspace.
First, get more out of your existing apps
and data with Google Workspace integrations.
We have thousands of apps and add-ons available for Workspace
in the marketplace today, including Vox, Jira, PagerDuty,
and more.
So have a look and get more out of the apps
you're already using.
Next, you can modernize how your organization communicates
and collaborates by extending and customizing
Google Workspace.
As I mentioned earlier, work patterns
and the demands of the workforce have
changed, which means organizations
need to rethink processes and how work gets done.
Workspace provides the tools to allow organizations
to adapt to this change.
And one way is through a robust collection of APIs,
allowing organizations to connect critical data,
from documents to messages, to the apps that
are central to how our organization operates.
This allows our customers to turn Google Workspace
into a hub for business purposes, servicing
relevant information when and where it
is most beneficial for users.
Finally, we see this as a virtuous cycle.
When users and developers see how
they're able to benefit from new workflows tied to communication
and collaboration, they will discover even more ways
to improve their work.
Google Workspace's Cloud native origins has another advantage.
A developer can build something once,
have it work across desktop and mobile, Gmail and Chat
and Docs.
Admins can control the deployment apps,
and users can find the apps they need right
within Google Workspace.
We've been building our platform with a focus
on security and control.
We believe organizations have the controls
to decide which apps should have access to what data.
And when it comes to building integrations,
we are designing for developers big and small
and those who don't know how to code at all.
This ranges from professional developers in ISV,
or consultants with deep coding experience, all the way down
to a person working within a line of business who
wants to automate a process but has never
written a line of code.
Whatever kind of creator you are,
Google Workspace provides the APIs, features, and tools
that developers need to get their apps working quickly.
As I mentioned earlier, we have thousands of partner apps
available in the Workspace marketplace.
We partner with leading SaaS companies
such as PagerDuty, Adobe, Atlassian
to integrate the tools you already use into Workspace.
Now that we've covered the background,
let's jump in to what's new.
And let's start with the latest updates
to Chat Apps for Google Workspace.
We are adding functionality to Chat Apps
so developers can soon add widgets, like a date time
picker, or design their layout with multiple columns
to make better use of space.
We believe these new layered options
will open more ways for developers
to build engaging apps for users.
A partner that's taking advantage of this is AODocs.
They made a chat integration that
helps you quickly find and share documents
stored on their platform.
We've also added About Pages for Apps,
allowing app builders to inform users of the great features
and functionality of their apps, ensuring users get the most
value from these apps.
Next, we're making the Compose Bar in Chat another place
for app discovery.
By clicking on the Assistant button next to the Compose bar,
users can now quickly and easily find apps or chat
without missing a beat.
We're also investing in expanding the capabilities
of our Chat API.
Developers can already create spaces and add people to spaces
programmatically.
As an example, PagerDuty is leveraging this functionality
today to automatically add people to Spaces
for incident response.
Coming very soon, developers will
be able to build apps that can programmatically
create one-to-one direct messages for group chats,
making your app more interactive and relevant to users.
These new APIs will also allow apps to read and write messages
programmatically, including message content, attachments,
and reactions.
Our partner [? Loom ?] [? Apps ?] is taking advantage
of this.
With these new chat APIs, employees will be able
to launch a private Google Chat with another employee directly
from [? Loom ?] [? Apps ?] user directory.
We know these upcoming APIs will allow
you to unlock more power from real time enterprise messaging,
and we are excited to see what use cases and integrations you
can come up with.
Now, let's explore some of the newest capabilities
on the way for Google Meet.
Meet is critical with organizations and people
connecting in the hybrid workplace.
Many of you have been asking us for a way you
can bring your apps into it, and we're
delighted to tell you that that time is near.
You can soon leverage our new Meet add-on SDK
to bring the power and functionality of your apps
into Meet, enhancing the meeting experience of our joint users.
Bring your apps into Meet opens up limitless possibilities
for effective, productive, and delightful meetings as users
collaborate in your application while never leaving the meeting
space.
Everyone will be confident that all participants
are on the same page.
The new Meet add-on SDK will be available for early access
in the coming months.
It will make it easy for you to unlock
co-interactivity features that make Meet more engaging,
collaborative, and effective.
Plus, users will be able to discover and install apps
right from the Meet UI.
Our partner Figma is already planning
to take advantage of this new Meet integration.
The integration will bring Figma and FigJam files
right into meet so teams can brainstorm and build designs
together right in the flow of a meeting.
All participants can contribute and engage through Meet
so more voices are heard and projects move forward faster.
Second, we want developers to be able to bring Meet connectivity
to their apps.
With our new media APIs, you can programmatically
schedule and launch meetings directly from your app.
And you'll also want to let the folks know
when the meeting has started or if it's currently live.
So we're providing an event-driven API, including
callbacks, indicating that meeting has started or ended,
along with metadata, such as participant lists.
Whether your app is coming into Meet or the power of Meet
is coming into your app, we want to ensure
users can collaborate and connect seamlessly
all through the power of Google Meet.
Moving on, we know that Google Docs
is critical to daily work for the millions of businesses
that rely on Workspace.
We want to ensure we are making documents interactive,
engaging, and even more insightful.
To do this, we are opening up Smart Chips functionality
to our partners.
Smart chips allow you to tag and see critical information
to link resources such as projects,
customer records, and more.
This preview information provides users
with more context and critical information right
in the flow of their work.
Some of our partners are already working
to take advantage of this feature.
For example, AODocs is leveraging
this to help users see relevant information about the docs that
were shared from the service.
We have some other examples.
Atlassian is creating Smart Chips
for both our Jira and Confluence apps.
The Jira Smart Chip will share information
about tickets that are useful for IT users and developers
that use Docs as a collaboration tool in concert
with Jira for DevOps.
Confluence is great for knowledge management,
and the Smart Chips service key information
write in Docs with quick action buttons
available to manipulate data and complements
without leaving the document.
Figma is using Smart Chips to embed critical information
about design projects and collaborative brainstorming
sessions.
The Chips provide a visual thumbnail the project so
you can easily tell what you're clicking into.
Tableau and Zendesk are two more partners in Smart Chips,
and we expect many more to follow.
To help you create apps for an integrations with Workspace,
we have a range of tools that allows anyone
to build useful solutions.
AppSheet, our no code app and workflow builder,
helps folks without coding experience
build useful solutions using a simple graphical user
interface, thus empowering citizen developers.
We're working to add the ability to create
chat apps using our App Sheets.
Next, those with a bit more coding experience
can use App Script, our low-code offering.
Similar to JavaScript, makers can build quickly and easily
without needing their own Cloud environments
or having to configure access to Workspace, which
accelerates the development.
We've made further enhancements to App Script
to make development easier.
For fusion developments, or the collaboration
of citizen developers and professional developers,
you can use the new App Script Connector
for AppSheet, which lets citizen developers build an AppSheet
app that leverages pre-created scripts built in App Script.
Finally, for our professional developers,
we will be releasing a new API Explorer for Workspace APIs.
This will help you find the right APIs
and quickly try out different calls
to more quickly find the methods you need for your Workspace
integrations.
We also continue investing in our Workspace marketplace,
making it easier for you to discover, distribute,
and manage both third-party apps and custom,
internally-built apps.
With over 5,200 apps available, the marketplace
makes it easy for developers to distribute their workplace
integrations and for our customers
to enhance their workflows with secure, market-tested apps.
It's been a whirlwind trip across all the new features
in the Workspace platform.
To dive a bit deeper into the experience of developing
for Google Workspace, I'd like to invite a partner
to join us to share their experience.
I'd like to introduce Strand Sylvester, a product
manager at Asana, to join us and share some of his experiences
integrating Asana with Workspace.
Welcome, Strand.
Tell us a little bit about yourself and Asana.
STRAND SYLVESTER: Thanks for having me.
Asana is a leading work management platform
that helps individuals, teams, and organizations of all sizes
orchestrate their work.
My role with Asana is focused on workflow integrations
that connect to customer tools.
I've led the development of several Google Workspace
solutions, including integrations with Gmail,
Google Drive, Chat, and others.
MATT IZATT: That's quite a few.
Can you tell us a little more about some of the integrations
you just mentioned?
What's the power you see in bringing Workspace and Asana
together to help the end user?
STRAND SYLVESTER: Yeah, absolutely.
At Asana, we firmly believe that while teams are structured
functionally, work in an organization
happens cross-functionally.
We know Google Workspace is deeply
embedded in day-to-day communications
and in collaboration that teams rely on.
And Asana is where teams coordinate
that work in one central place.
Our most recent update to our Gmail and Google Drive
integrations are powered by Asana app components, which
helps build more focus and flow into a customer's workflow
by building--
sorry, by bringing core elements of partner apps into Asana.
Let's take Gmail as an example.
We help customers track to-dos and next steps via Asana tasks
directly from their Gmail inbox so they never miss an update.
We also built a new rule action to help automate work
across tools.
For example, if you want to know when key changes are made
to a project in Asana, I can automatically
trigger a custom action where I get notified in Gmail so I
can always stay up to date.
Or if we look at the Google Drive integration,
it's all about helping customers easily attach Google Drive
files to tasks in Asana and receive comment notifications
to keep teams and work connected.
We actually recently built a widget with the ability
to easily search and link Google Drive files
to tasks in Asana and preview file details
to see the owner, open comments, and other recent activity
without needing to switch tools.
So with the Asana platform, you can
see how we're able to power rich experiences that
help our customers enhance the way they work together,
which is taken even further in our partnership
with Google Workspace.
MATT IZATT: That's great.
Looking ahead, what's next for Asana and Workspace?
How does your team envision building
upon a lot of this early success?
STRAND SYLVESTER: As Google continues
to build out features and functionality,
our customers and community have shown a huge interest
in future integration work, which is something
we'll continue to prioritize.
In fact, we're excited to already
be exploring integrations with some of the features
you announced today.
With Asana's app components and Google Workspace's latest Meet
and Drive APIs, we're exploring how
we can make meetings more actionable
by helping users prepare purposeful meetings.
Some features we're considering include allowing users
to create or link an existing Google Meet meeting directly
from a task in Asana using the new Meet APIs.
Additionally, we'd like to allow users to add task
to the meeting to create a clear agenda
and also allow them to assign up pre-work
so teams arrive prepared for a purposeful meeting.
We also see Smart Chips as a way to really expand
upon our existing functionality within Google Drive.
We want to help users surface key information from Asana
tasks or projects directly in Docs, Sheets, and Slides.
Some thoughts on what this mean might
include working to execute a project
and needing to pull up a specific Asana task for details
or collaborating on strategic planning
where leadership needs to easily pull in Asana projects.
So as you can tell, we're pretty excited about continuing
to partner with Google.
While none of these new features are set in stone,
we're going to continue to work with these newly
announced Workspace features to see
what works best for our users.
Also, I think we're really excited to see
what our mutual developer community builds
using App Components to keep tools
and workflows between the Google and Asana platform connected.
MATT IZATT: Now, I heard you mention developers.
I'm really interested in your thoughts
about how we can help bring our platforms together
to help developers.
What can they look forward to next?
STRAND SYLVESTER: So we've seen the value of Google Workspace
as a platform for powering many of our core horizontal
integrations.
Not only have our customers benefited from these solutions,
but the partnership has as well.
Google providing more ways to build
really valuable meaningful integrations
is a developer's dream.
In that vein, we're also deepening our own platform
environment with App Components to help developers build
highly customizable end product experiences
for their apps within Asana, just like we've
done for Google Drive, Gmail, and a future state look
at Google Meet.
This shared vision on platform integrations and extensibility
for both of our products will continue
to drive better user experiences and customer outcomes.
Together, our tools help developers
address these really complex workflows across our apps,
which improves user experiences.
For any developers out there interested
in building with App Components, I'd
recommend checking out Asana's developer platform.
Bringing Google and Asana platforms together
is a natural fit, and we're really
excited to continue building best-in-class apps to serve
that coordination layer for Google Workspace customers
for years to come.
MATT IZATT: Strand, thank you so much for joining us
today and sharing your insights about Asana and Workspace
and your overall thoughts on the Google Workspace platform.
With that, we need to wrap up today's session.
But I want to leave you with some information on how
to get started with the Workspace platform.
Workspace provides the connectivity layer
for businesses and users around the world
to connect with data, processes, and people.
It unlocks opportunities to find and adapt new workflows
and helps get information right to the user's fingertips.
In sum, Workspace can be the surface
to help deliver digital transformation.
I know we covered a lot today, but we really just touched
the surface of what you can do with integrations
and the extensibility capabilities of Workspace.
On screen, you can see we have a number of great resources
to get started, whether developing for Workspace today
or getting started with one of our existing partner
integrations.
You can also stay up to date on our latest news
or join our community to enrich your journey.
There are also a number of other sessions
where you can learn more about the latest news for Workspace
at Google Cloud Next 2022.
Thank you again for attending today's session,
and I hope you enjoy the rest of the programming at Next.
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