Google Tasks in Chat rooms get a ‘view in chat’ button to help give context about their creation

Tasks created in Google Chat Rooms will soon be gaining the ability to view the context surrounding their creation using a “View in Chat” button that will appear to the right of them. When clicked, you’ll be navigated back to the Chat message where the task was created or the task creation was indicated.

As you’ve probably already seen, creating a task in a Chat Room adds an anchor point in the chat section for it. Clicking on it jumps you over to that specific task in the tasks tab. This “View in Chat” button that will be appearing on the tasks will do exactly the reverse of that. Google wants this to make it easier for you to surface context for the task(s) and re-engage with Room participants with updates, questions, and further collaboration.

Unfortunately, the images that the company provided on their Google Workspace Updates blog for this update are blurry as all get out, so you can click through the gallery below to see the button in action, but it’s not very clear. The first image is of Chat on desktop, and the second is of the app on mobile. You’ll notice that the same chat bubble icon appears on both, just in different locations.

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I personally really like the idea of adding an anchor to the moment the task was created since I often discuss details about the task in preparation for creating it or as a follow-up to doing so right in the chat with my family. I’ve already discussed how I use Chat Rooms to do life with those closest to me, and if you haven’t set it up yet, I’d recommend you take a look!

Another unfortunate thing is that the rollout for this update is potentially more than two weeks away (but it could be sooner!), which is uncommon, but once it does appear for you and your users, it will be toggled on by default. There’s also no admin control for the “View in Chat” feature, so it’s just something that will exist right there in the app and on the web – no questions asked. Just as with other recent Chat updates, this will be available to all Workspace customers, and G Suite Basic and Business users as well.