Some of you may be familiar with Google Chat bots, some of you may not, so in that spirit I’ve gone into a little detail about two built-in Google Chat bots that you can embrace to be able to communicate efficiently in the app. As well as this, I’ll shine a light on some really useful third party bots too!
By the way - we have released our own Google Chat bot - Updateli! It notifies you about all the new Workspace Updates straight into Google Chat. Check it out!
Why would I use Google Chat bots?
You’re in a conversation with your team and time is of the essence. You’ve realised that the end of the day is drawing ever closer and you’re going to need to follow up this meeting whilst the chat is still fresh. So you ask everyone in the chat when they can meet, someone suggests Tuesday morning, you can’t do Tuesday. Wednesday afternoon? Not everyone can do that either.
It goes on and on and eventually after wasting fifteen minutes or so of valuable time, you’ve got a follow up meeting arranged. Surely there’s an easier way.
@Meet
With the scenario I’ve just proposed, let’s introduce @Meet. This bot integrates Chat with Calendar using natural language processing and machine learning to automatically schedule and manage meetings. So you needn’t worry about wasting time trying to secure a time for a follow up meeting that suits all of your team. Simply add @Meet and give it a command using natural language.
“@Meet find us a time to meet next week”
Then, without any work from yourself, @Meet will go through the calendars of all the people included in the room and find the most appropriate times to meet and respond with those options for you to quickly choose.
@Drive
@Drive is a great example of using a bot to deliver information and notifications based on events or activities that don’t actually rely on direct user interaction. As you’re now aware, @Meet relies upon the user interacting directly with the bot via conversation, @Drive enables you to “subscribe” to be notified of changes that happen to any of your content stored in Google Drive. This means that you’re able to stay on top of changes whilst in Chat, without needing to “watch” Drive for updates or have your inbox cluttered with individual notifications (remember you will still have to disable email notifications from within Drive!).
It’s ‘hypothetical workplace example’ time again!
You’re waiting for your boss to approve a blog post you’ve created about Google Chat bots and add some comments/feedback on the document. @Drive notifies you instantly as soon as your boss puts new comments on your document - this time about how limited your ability is to create hypothetical scenarios. This negates the need for you to constantly check your Drive, awaiting edits on the blog post, or relentlessly messaging your boss asking if they’ve reviewed your document yet - as demonstrated below.
This bot can be enabled by adding it to Chat. It starts to ‘listen’ immediately for any updates to your content or for new items shared with you. You can also easily limit an abundance of notifications by toggling if it gets too chatty. If you’re using Chat frequently then it would be worthwhile to keep all notifications on, so you can quickly grant permissions and respond to comments without having to invoke Drive or worry about activities getting overlooked in your Gmail inbox.
@Drive will provide notifications for:
- New files of folders shared with you
- Comment or action assigned to you
- Access requests for files you own
- When you’re close to running out of storage.
Getting the best of Google Chat bots.
The best way to understand the value of @Meet and @Drive is to try them for yourself and become familiar with their benefits.
It doesn’t just stop with @Meet and @Drive, third-party bots are also available for Chat and they can really help you, not only with your productivity, but with your wellbeing.
Third Party Bots in Google Chat
I’m going to shine a light on some beneficial 3rd-party Google Chat bots, so you can work even more efficiently, without losing focus on important elements of your life.
Asana
Asana is a cloud-based task management tool which helps organise a workflow for yourself and members of your team, keeping you up to date with deadlines and progression of tasks. Specifically in Chat, the bot is very helpful. It will notify you of updates to the status of tasks, as well as allowing you to view tasks, and who they’ve been assigned to. All-in-all making it far easier to keep on top of your workflow.
Polly
Polly is a useful tool which allows users to create polls in Chat and send them instantly to the intended recipients. This makes gathering opinions on decisions that little bit easier, and far quicker.
GIPHY
They say that a picture is worth a thousand words, and if so, what about a GIF then? Sometimes you can’t quite articulate the correct response in Chat, someone’s blown your mind or maybe you’ve got something to celebrate. Simply message in Chat ‘@GIPHY’ followed by the type of sentiment you’d like portrayed in the GIF. This is really easy, and just helps make Chat the engaging conversation tool that it is.
Disco
If someone in your team’s just done something amazing and you want to recognise them for their efforts, Disco could be the answer. Simply message ‘@Disco kudos (team members name) for (task they completed)’ and Disco will do the rest for you, giving the recipient of the praise a star.
Overall, using Chat’s built-in-bots as well as third-party ones is really beneficial for getting the best out of the app.
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Custom Chat Bots
If you require another chat functionality that is specific to your organisation (such as asking a Google Chat bot whether it could send an invoice to one of your clients), or if you would like a chat about the different bots out there, we would love for you to get in touch with our team of experts. Drop your email and a message below and we'll get back to you - alternatively, you can book a discovery call.
Google Chat User Guide
If your organisation is moving to Google Workspace (formerly G Suite) or is already using it, and would like some help and guidance around implementing Google Chat effectively, you can complete our short form and download our FREE Google Chat User Guide via the button below!
