Working remotely has been a huge adjustment for many of us, and that can be exacerbated when your team is spread out around the globe. Communication is key to any team's success, but when you've got people working different schedules, to say nothing of being in different time zones, keeping track of who's available when can be a nightmare. That's why we're happy to see some of the latest tools Google is bringing to Contacts.

Earlier this month, Google announced that it would be bringing the Contacts shortcut to the right sidebar of many of its Workspace services. The feature had long been in Gmail, but it was missing from Workspace-adjacent products like Drive and Calendar. Now our latest update shows you a detailed view of your contacts’ information.

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For starters, you can see someone's current time zone, and a crescent moon indicator and purple banner will let you know when it’s outside someone's defined working hours. There’s also a non-manager option that tells you who's who and what roles they occupy in your organization. Last but not least is shared files, which is basically a list of all Drive resources a user has shared with you. Google has been integrating its apps and services for the past few years to improve the user experience, and this Workspace update should help make communication easier and reduce your chances of accidentally pinging a colleague during their off-hours.

This update started making its way to users on Monday. However, you might have to wait a little while before you can try it out, as Google says it may take more than 15 days for the feature to arrive for everyone. The company also says that the new features will roll out separately, but when they do, they’ll be coming to all Google Workspace, G Suite Basic, and G Suite Business customers.