New Google Contacts | C2C Community

New Google Contacts

  • 25 June 2021
  • 7 replies
  • 98 views

Userlevel 6
Badge +17

Google Contacts is often over looked, but this latest update brings contact into Google Workspace allowing you to see the organisational information such as managers and direct reports from the Google Directory.

 

I think this is a brilliant update and helps bring a wealth of contact information to users.

Do you already use Google contacts to find people within your organisation, and what’s your thoughts on this latest update?


7 replies

Userlevel 7
Badge +65

WOW

Didn’t know that. @PaulRLees is it available to everyone?

Userlevel 5
Badge +6

Conceptually, I really like the idea of a more robust directory profile. In practice, I think many of us suffer from data issues that would make our own screenshots a lot less ‘clean’ than the examples! 

I think it could be very helpful to see more changes along the lines of the ‘merge and fix’ feature:

  • Identify and suggest removal of ‘contacts’ data where the ‘directory’ shows invalid email addresses
  • (or, better) remove duplicate ‘contacts’ and ‘directory’ entries - keeping *just* the additional content a person may have added
  • Similarly, remove ‘other contacts’ that are in the directory, and group / highlight / separate those with a domain address that aren’t in the directory

We also struggle a bit with the idea of ‘org chart’ - I think it’s increasingly common to have multiple overlapping structures. The person leading my project team, is different to my career development coach, is different to the person is different to the person that manages my function. Depending on who is looking up my contact information, and why, it could be any one of these folks they’d expect to see, or need to contact in my absence. For some folks, they could also be part of multiple teams.

Finally, one of the big additions I’d like to see in Contacts is a better cross-over with Groups. In the same way as I can see recent interactions here, I’d like to know what interactions I’ve had recently with a Group, as well as be able to check membership, etc. Ideally, I could also do a simple reverse lookup - by viewing a Contact, I should be able to see which Groups we are both in, which other Groups they are a member of, and to be able to use that to figure out how to reach not just the person, but the appropriate team.

 

cheers!

 

-- Andy

 

 

 

 

 

Userlevel 6
Badge +17

It seems to be rolling out, I’ve seen it on 2 of my domains already. 

 

Userlevel 7
Badge +65

Thanks @PaulRLees 

@andy.yates I will agree with you about the duplicates. I'm having trouble with that. Also, I’m curious to see what will happen with the overlapping.

Userlevel 6
Badge +17

@andy.yates how would you see an org chart working within your environment?

 

Maybe if you have “Projects” listed as an attribute within your Google Profile, but it’s difficult to see how you could also include some form of role within a specific project.

Userlevel 5
Badge +6

@PaulRLees It’s a good question! I think perhaps I’d need to investigate a little more, as looking at: https://developers.google.com/admin-sdk/directory/v1/guides/manage-users?hl=en I suspect some of it may already be possible. I think having customisation around relationships might work - but the tricky part is when the graph isn’t built of the same type of relationships, that is:

a =manages=> b =manages=> c =manages=> d

is different to:

a <=portfolio-lead= b <=client-lead= c <=project-lead= d

and whilst you could fake it out by choosing a neutral term, it sends quite a different message relative to how we think about leadership in the organisation

 

 

Userlevel 2

Remarkable upgrade of Google Contacts. The org chart is really a necessity for most of the companies.

Now Google Contacts would become more accessible and usable than before.

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