Suzanne Humphries
Have you ever tried to remotely collaborate on drafting a lengthy email? It ain’t easy, but thanks to a new update for Google Workspace, it doesn’t have to suck anymore. Now you (and your friends or coworkers) can collaborate directly from Google Docs, easy peasy.
With a new email draft template, you can write out and prepare your email without being in Gmail. You can at-mention people in the recipient fields to automatically fill in their email addresses, then type out the subject and message body below. Google also makes it easy for multiple people to collaborate thanks to the comments feature and text suggestions.
Once you’re ready to actually send the email, all you’ll need to do with the template is click the Gmail logo to the left and a Gmail compose window will pop up. You’ll see that all of your text—as well as the email addresses you’re using across To, Cc, and Bcc fields—are properly ported and ready to go.
To select the template in Docs, click on “Insert” from the toolbar menu, then “Building Blocks,” and finally, “Email draft.” This simple, but super convenient, the template is the latest effort from Google to expand its smart canvas project. Google’s end goal with smart canvas is to create a workspace that’s seamlessly interwoven, thus making it easier to use the productivity suite and connect with other users.
The feature will be available for all Google Workspace users, including legacy G Suite Basic and Business customers. It started rolling out on March 15 for rapid release domains and should be fully available to everyone (including scheduled release domains) by mid-April.
