Currents

All G Suite users have access to Currents, if permitted by their G Suite administrator. Users can interact with people outside of their organisation through private communities that are external to the company domain.

G Suite administrators have the ability to manage settings for their domain in the admin console. Additionally, content managers can manage and moderate content and feature settings within Currents

Streams allow you to scan, explore, and engage with relevant company or department-wide news. The number of unread posts since the last time you visited the stream will appear next to the stream’s title.

For example, if your company has a Spotlight stream, it may include highlighted content from leaders and influencers in your organization. Posts with a Spotlight may be ranked higher than other posts in your Currents home page. Spotlight posts are a kind of domain-wide posts that a designated leader can make.

Note: On mobile devices, “Spotlight” posts have a Spotlight icon.

Your posts may also appear in custom streams. For example, if your G Suite administrator creates a stream for all posts with “#design,” any posts you create that include “#design” will appear in that stream.

To view a stream’s content, in the Currents Main menu, scroll to the “Streams” section and click the stream.

Currents includes tools to help you create different types of posts. You can do the following in the compose window:

• Post titles

• Use text formatting options

• Add links to text

• Add Google Drive files such as documents, presentations, and spreadsheets

• Insert topical tags

Note: In Currents, the +1 button has been replaced with an equivalent like action, shown as a thumbs up icon

Tags are a quick way to explore, follow, and categorize content for topics you’re interested in. This is a feature that can be enabled or disabled by your administrator.

Add tags to posts

Adding tags to your post can help other people find your content, such as in Currents search or streams. Two to four tags are usually recommended for a post.

To add tags when you compose a post, anywhere in the post, type the “#” sign followed by the tag name (such as “#design” or “#CompanyNews”). The tag name must start with a letter and can only include letters, numbers, -, and _. The maximum length of a hashtag is 128 characters.

You can create your own tags, choose from existing tags in the autocomplete, or select a suggested tag.

Follow and manage tags

Following tags helps you find and keep track of content you’re interested in. For example, if you follow “#design,” you’ll see posts with that tag in your feed. Currents may also suggest tags for you to follow.

To follow a tag, click the tag and click Follow.

To manage tags you follow or see suggested tags, in the Currents Main menu, click Tags.

Note: You can track how many times a tag is used in the Tags menu. Tag counts are approximate however, so if a tag is used in 1-4 posts, it will be reported as "a few posts". ​

Post analytics are available for public posts restricted to your company and posts made in public communities restricted to your company. These analytics can help you understand your content’s reach and engagement, such as:

• Views*, comments, likes, and reshares for your post

• Breakdown by organisational distribution of views*, comments, reshares, or likes for your post.

To see post analytics on a post you created, in the post’s menu, click View post analytics.

* View analytics are only available if a certain number of people in your company (for total views) or your organization (for organisational distribution of views) have viewed your post.

Currents will simplifying the notifications that you get. When Currents launches you will no longer receive the following notifications,

• Circles and collections

• Likes

• Reshares

• Poll voting

Highlights will also be removed at a later date. Community, stream, and comment notifications remain the same.

Note: Removed notifications you’ve received will still show up in search. For example, you can still find highlight notifications from highlights you received before the update.

Changes will becoming to public communities ahead of the launch of Currents.

All public communities that aren't a part of a domain have been deleted, and they can no longer be created. Public communities that are a part of a domain are now treated as private communities. The only way a user can be invited to one of these newly created private communities is through an invite from a member.

Collections will be removed from Currents within the next few months. Once collections are removed, all posts within a collection will be grouped with a system generated tag. The tag will be a globally unique tag with the name of the collection, and will be inserted into the start of collection posts. Any follower of a collection will automatically follow the generated tag. Once this process has completed, owners of posts in a collection will be able to edit their posts and the post's tags normally.

Note:Your organisation's admin has certain moderation privileges. Even if you block a G Suite admin or Currents Content Administrator, they may still be able to view and moderate your content. If you have questions about using Currents, contact your G Suite administrator.

If you see an updated interface but cannot use the new features, force-close and re-open Currents on your mobile device.