As an administrator, you can give people in your organization the new integrated Gmail experience. Access all your communication streams—email messages, chat, and video meetings—in one familiar place: Gmail.
Introducing a better home for work in Google Workspace
Integrated Gmail quick start for administrators
To view available captions or change the caption language, click Subtitles at the bottom of the video window, then select a language.
With integrated Gmail, you can:
- Collaborate on documents in the context of chat streams—Access docs from the Files tab in your chat for quick retrieval.
- Prioritize and stay on task—Control notifications, so you’re only interrupted by the most important people and messages.
- Create a shared task list—Work together in rooms.
- Multitask—Reference a Gmail message on the same screen while chatting with a colleague, or take notes and assign action items during a video meeting.
Security and data retention considerations
Before you roll out the new Gmail experience to your users, review these security and data retention considerations.
- Chat with external people—You can control how your users chat with people outside your organization. For details, go to Turn on external chat options.
- Create and join rooms that include external people—To let your users create and join rooms that include people outside your organization, follow the steps in External rooms.
- Data retention—If your organization has data storage requirements, keep chat history on for everyone in your organization. By default, chat history is on for threaded rooms, one-on-one chats, and group conversations outside rooms. For details, visit Set chat history options for your organization.
- Vault—If your organization uses Google Vault, check with your legal team to understand your organization's data governance policies. When chat history is off, chat messages aren't sent to Vault for you to keep, search, or export.
Set up integrated Gmail
To give people in your organization the complete integrated Gmail experience, turn on these services in your Google Admin console.
Chat settings
-
Turn on Chat and opt into Chat preferred.
With Chat, your organization can communicate in groups or one-on-one, and in rooms with multiple conversations at the same time. -
Have your users turn on Chat in Gmail.
To use Chat in Gmail, users must turn on Chat in Gmail in their Gmail settings. Learn more about Chat in Gmail settings. -
(Optional) Set policies for apps.
Your users can use apps in Chat to handle common actions such as managing tasks, getting status reports, or changing to-do item owners. Learn more about policies for Chat apps.
Meet settings
-
Turn on Google Meet.
When Meet is on, users in your organization can create and join video meetings. Learn more about Meet settings. -
Set up Meet for distance learning.
Do this step only if you use Google Workspace for Education. Learn more about setting up Meet for distance learning. -
Have your users show Meet in Gmail.
In their Gmail settings, users must choose to show Meet in the Gmail sidebar. Learn how to show Meet in Gmail.
Calendar settings
To show upcoming meetings in My Meetings, turn on Calendar. If Calendar is off, upcoming meetings won't show in the Meet tab but users can still create and join meetings. Learn more about Calendar settings.
Drive and Docs settings
To let your users store and share files from their account, and upload files to chat rooms in Gmail, turn on Drive and Docs. Users who have Drive and Docs turned off can't view or edit files shared in chat rooms. Learn more about Drive and Docs settings.
Tasks settings
To show the Tasks tab in rooms and to use room tasks, turn on Tasks. To use Tasks, you must turn it on for your entire organization, not just for a set of users. Learn more about Tasks settings.
Train your users
To help people use integrated Gmail, share these training resources:
