AppsScriptPulse

Google Workspace Developer News: Google Meet API and Google Workspace Events API both generally available, and more news

Episode 4: Welcome to the fourth edition of the Google Workspace Developer News! Find out what’s new on the Google Workspace Platform.

 

Another great summary of Google Workspace Developer News put together by Chanel Greco from the Google Workspace DevRel team. The update includes information on:

  • Google Meet API and Google Workspace Events API now generally available: These APIs enable developers to programmatically create and manage meetings, and subscribe to meeting events.
  • Google Chat apps now support Google Apps Script’s Card Service: Developers can now use Card Service to build user interfaces for Chat apps.
  • Subscribe to Google Calendar changes: you can now get push notifications for a specific calendar events, such as working location, focus time, or out-of-office events

Source: Google Meet API and Google Workspace Events API both generally available, and more news

Google Apps Script is down including Google Workspace Editor Add-ons!!! Updated 2024-02-26 17:28GMT

Script editor error message

Update 2024-02-26 17:28GMT – Latest update from Google “We believe the issue is mostly resolved for impacted services and our engineers are continuing to work on preventing similar issues in the future.”

Update 2024-02-26 15:00GMT – Still reports of issues for some users – “Our engineering team continues to investigate the issue. We will provide an update by Monday, 2024-02-26 08:00 US/Pacific with current details.” Updates are being posted to Google Cloud Support Portal

Update 2024-02-26 13:00GMT – Service being restored – many users are reporting all Apps Script services as being restored.

I’m sure the majority of Google Apps Script developers don’t need me to tell them that Google Apps Script is currently down. The outage is impacting multiple areas including the availability of the Script Editor, script executions and Google Workspace Editor Add-ons.

Issues were first reported in the public issue tracker at Feb 26, 2024 08:27AM – the ticket has been marked as P0. Please use the star/’Me too!’ button on the ticket to subscribe to updates (please avoid commenting on the ticket to make it easier for us all to track updates from Google).

Google Workspace Developer News: Import data into Google Chat, more events supported for Events API, and more

Welcome to the third edition of the Google Workspace Developer News! Find out what’s new on the Google Workspace Platform.

Another great summary of Google Workspace Developer News put together by Chanel Greco from the Google Workspace DevRel team. The update includes information on:

Google Chat Enhancements

  • Import data from other messaging platforms, including historical memberships.
  • Send private messages in spaces with multiple people.
  • Add interactive buttons to messages.

Google Workspace Events API Updates

  • Subscriptions to Google Chat users now supported.
  • Lifecycle events sent when subscriptions expire.
  • Get() method added to Operations resource.

Google Workspace Add-ons

  • Link previews now supported in Google Sheets and Slides.
  • Third-party resource creation from the @ menu in Google Docs.

Other Updates

  • Drive file and folder storage limits increased to 500 million items per user.
  • Google Drive API v3 now provides information on installed apps.
  • Reports API event payload filtered to specified event name.
  • Chrome phasing out third-party cookies for enhanced privacy.

For a longer discussion and demos for link previews and third-party resources check out Totally Unscripted 5.3: Google Workspace Development: Now with a Side of Smart Chips!

Source: Import data into Google Chat, more events supported for Events API, and more

 

Changes to drive.google.com/uc URLs which break embedding images/files from Google Drive in your websites and AppSheet apps

Google Drive broke the ability to embed images with the /uc path. Here’s how to embed images from Google Drive in your website.

Previously Google Workspace developers could use a /uc path for embedding images and other files hosted in Google Drive. For example, images could be embedded in websites and emails using markup like:

<img src="https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1234567890abcdef" />

To my knowledge this was never an officially documented endpoint, but widely known about and shared within the community. Back in October 2023 Google announced Upcoming changes to third-party cookie requirements in Google Drive, which has started rolling out from the beginning of 2024.

The impact of this change is it breaks /uc embeds and these have started returning 403 errors. There is no reference to the /uc endpoint in the original announcement, which is why I think many people are only just finding out about the impact now. Google’s official guidance is to move to <iframe> with Google Drive publish and preview links. This post from Justin Poehnelt discusses the options and limitations for images.

There has also just been another announcement in the AppSheet community that Drive download URLs for embeddable content to be updated by May 1st, 2024. This is an extended window for AppSheet users and where possible Google will be emailing affected app owners where /uc urls have been detected. This announcement includes a link to a help page with tips for finding /uc occurrences in your AppSheet apps.

Source: Embed images from Google Drive in your website | Justin Poehnelt

Google Workspace Developer News: Google Meet Web Add-ons SDK, tutorial for genAI Chat app, and more

Welcome to the second edition of the Google Workspace Developer News! Find out what’s new on the Google Workspace Platform.

I like to think I keep a close eye on Google Workspace development, but with so much happening it’s easy to miss what’s new. Here’s a really comprehensive recap put together by Chanel Greco from the Google Workspace DevRel team. As well as covering the recent release notes Chanel spotlights some additional new resources and changes worth finding out about. The episode covers:

  • 0:12 Delete versions in your Apps Script project
  • 0:35 Update to Google Chat API: User’s read state in spaces and threads
  • 1:06 Google Meet Web Add-ons SDK
  • 1:41 Directory API update (changes to ChromeOS management)
  • 2:06 Apps Script + Calendar API solution update
  • 2:20 Google Chat API update
  • 2:45 Extend the Google Workspace UI – overview page
  • 2:59 Google Drive API v3 available for Apps Script
  • 3:23 Update to the Card service
  • 4:11 Tutorial and code sample for building a genAI Chat app

Source: Google Meet Web Add-ons SDK, tutorial for genAI Chat app, and more

New developer documentation helps discover options to extend the Google Workspace UI

Hopefully you are already subscribed to the official Google Workspace Developer Newsletter. If not, or in case you missed the last edition the headline story highlights some new documentation to help developers understand and compare different options for extending the Google Workspace UI:

A major challenge for developers is understanding their options for extending the UI of Google Workspace: Google Workspace Add-ons, Editor Add-ons, Chat apps, Drive apps, and more! Each option has unique strengths, challenges, and limitations. Until now, there hasn’t been a central place for developers to learn what’s possible for extending the Google Workspace UI and to compare the limitations that exist in terms of coding options, UI frameworks, and which options can be published to the Google Workspace Marketplace.

The page includes a nice table included in this post as the feature image.

Source: Extend the Google Workspace UI  |  Google for Developers

New Smart Chips (including AppSheet apps) plus third-party @menu resources in the Google Workspace Editors 

There have been a number of recent updates and announcements around Smart Chips and other integrations to Google Docs, as well as Sheets and Slides. Some have just gone into the Google Workspace Developer Preview Program (DPP), whilst in the case of AppSheet smart chips for Google Docs they are generally available!

AppSheet smart chips for Google Docs

Starting with AppSheet smart chips for Google Docs if you already had the AppSheet Google Docs add-on installed you already have AppSheet smart chips enabled. More details including a link to the Workspace Marketplace Add-on are included in the related Workspace Updates post. The AppSheet smart chips are great way to integrate some of your app functionality in your Google Docs.

Preview links with smart chips in Sheets and Slides

We’ve had custom smart chip link previews for Google Docs for some time, but Google have recently added the same functionality to Sheets and Slides. If you have already developed link previews for Google Docs the good news is there isn’t much more you need to do to enable these for Sheets and Slides (mostly updating your manifest). More details are included on the updated Preview links with smart chips documentation page.

Create third-party resources from the @ menu

Finally, also gone into preview is third-party resource integration which you can use to “let users quickly create resources, such as tasks, support cases, or issues, in your service right from Google Docs. The new resource is then inserted into Google Docs as a smart chip.”. You can read more in the create third-party resources from the @ menu documentation page.

In the case of the preview features a reminder that this is your opportunity to test and give feedback to Google. Links to join and provide feedback are included in the Google Workspace Developer Preview page. Enjoy!

Generally available: You can now call the Chat API from Apps Script with the Advanced Chat Service

The Advanced Chat service lets you use the Google Chat API in Apps Script. This API allows scripts to find, create, and modify Chat spaces, add or remove members to spaces, and read or post messages with text, cards, attachments, and reactions.

There have been a number of updates to the Google Chat API summarised in the linked release notes page. A recent announcement which might interest Google Apps Script developers is the generally available of a new  Advanced Chat Service. As noted in the official documentation:

The Advanced Chat service lets you use the Google Chat API in Apps Script. This API allows scripts to find, create, and modify Chat spaces, add or remove members to spaces, and read or post messages with text, cards, attachments, and reactions.

There are some perquisites to use the Advanced Chat service besides the usual turning it on before use, the main one being the requirement to use a standard Google Cloud console project rather than the default project created automatically.

Source: Google Chat developer platform release notes  |  Google for Developers

Google Meet API is available in Developer Preview

 

Image credit: Google

We’re happy to announce that the Google Meet API is now available for the members of the Developer Preview Program.

Google recently announced new Google Meet API capabilities are now available via the Google Workspace Developer Preview Program:

Launching through our Google Workspace Developer Preview Program, you can now use the Google Meet API. Specifically, among other things, you’ll be able to:

  • Programmatically create and configure Meet calls.
  • Retrieve meeting metadata, such as the meeting times and attendees.
  • Access meeting artifacts, such as transcripts and video recordings.
  • Subscribe to real time updates on meetings, such as when a participant joins or leaves.

The new API open the potential to both customise and get records from Google Meets. The source link provides an overview of the API and methods.

Source: Google Meet API overview  |  Google for Developers

Become a recognized AppSheet Google Developer Expert (GDE)!

Image credit: Google

If you have strong AppSheet technical skills along with solid Google Workspace skills and would like to share your expertise globally as a recognized “Google Developer Expert” (GDE), we would like to invite you to apply to become an official GDE member specializing in AppSheet and Workspace!

The Google Developer Experts program is a great way to get recognised for your abilities, but more importantly an opportunity to get close to the Google product teams to learn and share your day-to-day experiences. Whilst AppSheet is positioned as a no/low code solution it doesn’t mean there aren’t individuals out their developing sophisticated apps and supporting the community along the way.

If this sounds like you the AppSheet team are looking for community experts to become the next AppSheet GDEs. This source post includes some more information as well as a form where you can note your interested. As a GDE of 9+ years I’m also happy to share my experience of the program and what I think it takes to stand out from the crowd.

Source: Become a recognized AppSheet Google Developer Expert (GDE)!