Workspace Feature Ideas FAQ

Google Workspace Corporate, Enterprise, EDU customers, or customers under NDA can post a Feature Idea in the Community and can vote the ideas of other customers with access to the private area up or down (or flag it for deletion, if the idea is a duplicate).

 

What are Google Workspace Feature Ideas?

Google's Cloud Connect Community (GCC) is the place to share your ideas on how to make Google Workspace a better product.

Each idea can be voted on by Liking it.
Ideas can have any one of the following statuses:

  •      Open: This idea is open for voting.
  •      In Consideration: The idea is being investigated by staff for feasibility. Its status will be changed to Delivered, once it has been implemented or to Declined, if it won’t be implemented.
  •      Planned: The idea has been reviewed and has been decided to move forward.
  •      Not Planned: This idea was declined and won’t be implemented.
  •      Delivered: This idea has been implemented.

Because resources are finite, all ideas cannot be taken into consideration. The collective expertise of Google Workspace Customers is critical to help identify the most important and useful ideas.

How do I access the Customers-only Google Workspace Feature Ideas area of GCC?

Access to the Google Workspace Feature Ideas area of GCC is restricted to Corporate, Enterprise, EDU customers, or customers under NDA. Follow the instructions below to send an access request.

  1. Navigate to Google Workspace > Feature Ideas.
  2. Click the ‘SEND REQUEST TO JOIN’ button on the Group Hub Page.

     

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  3. As the text above the button informs you, allow up to 1 - 2 business days for review. You will receive a private message upon approval or denial of your access request.

Please do NOT post a Feature Idea outside of the dedicated Google Workspace Feature Ideas area of GCC, as incorrectly posted ideas may be removed.

 

What Feature Ideas are not

  •      They are not a place to post bugs. Please don’t post bug reports in the Feature Ideas Group Hub. For bug reports, please use the respective Community boards to find a solution.
  •      They are not a firm commitment: not all top voted Feature Ideas get developed, unfortunately.

 

How do I create a Feature Idea?

  1. Make sure that you have access to the Feature Ideas area on GCC, after following the steps outlined above. If you have access, you will be able to view this board. If you do not have access, you will receive an Access Denied message.
  2. Once you are on the Feature Ideas board, you can create a new idea by using the ‘SUBMIT A FEATURE’ button at the top right.
  3. A page that allows you to enter your idea title will open.
  4. Click on ‘CHECK TITLE’ to proceed and check whether any other ideas with the same title already exist.
  5. A list of similar existing ideas will load, if any exist.
  6. Make sure that none of the already posted ideas are too similar to yours.
    •       - Supporting an existing idea instead of creating a similar new one will limit duplicates.
    •       - Duplicates dilute votes, create clutter, and may be deleted by the moderators.
    •       - Therefore, if the search shows you a Feature Idea that resembles yours, please vote it up and comment on it. You can do so by clicking on the idea title.
  7. If you are unable to find a similar existing idea, click ‘My topic hasn’t been posted before’, then click ‘CONTINUE AND POST’.
  8. Fill out all required fields by entering a descriptive Idea Subject, choose an idea label from the list, describe your idea, and then post it by clicking ‘POST’ at the bottom right.

 

How do I keep track of the Community’s Feature Ideas?

Make sure you Subscribe to the Feature Ideas Group Hub and to subscribe to any labels that interest you. This will ensure that you receive a notification when a new idea has been posted. If you want to also receive these alerts via email, make sure that the respective option is turned on in your account settings. You can manage the communities you follow and your email notifications in ‘My settings’ under ‘Subscriptions & Notifications’ and ‘Notification Settings’, after clicking on your avatar in the top right corner. You can learn more about Subscriptions and Notifications in our support article here.

Tip: It is highly recommended that you enable email notifications so that you don’t miss out on important updates from Google and other important Community activity.

 

Will Product teams ever review our ideas? How will this work?

Product teams will review your top ideas, this is why voting is so critical. Feature Ideas is designed to be just one of the many signals which are considered in the feature prioritization process. It’s also a peer-to-peer platform that gives you a forum to express your ideas while collaborating with other customers and crafting neat workarounds. However, we cannot guarantee that we will act on any idea submissions.

 

Will it help if our customers and/or colleagues ‘like’ our ideas?

Having your ideas ‘liked’ by customers or colleagues is  important. Please make sure that your own colleagues (even your CTO and CEO) are aware of the Feature Ideas that you ‘liked’ or created so that, when they meet Googlers, they can then advocate for the same suggestions that have been made by you.

 

Why does Google mark an idea as Delivered when they didn't execute our suggestion?

While we appreciate the effort that customers take in suggesting a specific solution, that's not the core intention of Feature Ideas. Feature Ideas is best used for spotlighting customer problems with associated specific use cases. They are more about the why and less about the how. This opens up a lot more possibilities for both the product team and the community to come up with innovative solutions or workarounds, often ones that you maybe haven't considered! When the core problem or use case is addressed, then Google will mark an idea as Delivered. This means that the requested idea is already available in the product. In this case, documentation should be provided on how to implement it. 

 

If there is an unrelated issue that should be addressed, please consider creating a new feature idea for the team to track or using the ‘like’ functionality on a similar idea (and post a link, so everyone following can comment or ‘like’ the idea).