Showing posts with label Google Apps. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Google Apps. Show all posts
Thursday, June 2, 2011
Share your Google Docs product ideas with our team
(Cross-posted from the Google Docs Blog.)
You make Google products what they are -- and the feedback you share with us every day helps shape the future of our products. We’re always listening to your requests via blogs, Twitter, our forum, and other channels, and for the next two weeks, we’re bringing back a more structured way to get your input on Google Docs by opening up our Product Ideas page.
On this page, you can submit your ideas, read other users’ suggestions, and vote up your favorites. We’ll use the top ideas to help us prioritize our development in the coming months. After the two-week period, we'll follow up with a blog post summarizing the results. While we may not work on all of the top ideas immediately, we’ll let you know which of the ideas we’re working on.
We hope you’ll use this as an opportunity to help us prioritize the Google Docs features which are important to you -- for your business, in the classroom, or at home. Start submitting your ideas, big or small -- we look forward to hearing what you have to say!
Editors note: We’re specifically looking to hear your Google Docs product ideas and suggestions. If you’re seeking help, please post your support questions to the Help Forum. Off topic submissions may be removed.
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
Our plans to support modern browsers across Google Apps
(Cross-posted on the Gmail Blog and Google Docs Blog.)
For web applications to spring even farther ahead of traditional software, our teams need to make use of new capabilities available in modern browsers. For example, desktop notifications for Gmail and drag-and-drop file upload in Google Docs require advanced browsers that support HTML5. Older browsers just don’t have the chops to provide you with the same high-quality experience.
For this reason, soon Google Apps will only support modern browsers. Beginning August 1st, we’ll support the current and prior major release of Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer and Safari on a rolling basis. Each time a new version is released, we’ll begin supporting the update and stop supporting the third-oldest version.
As of August 1st, we will discontinue support for the following browsers and their predecessors: Firefox 3.5, Internet Explorer 7, and Safari 3. In these older browsers you may have trouble using certain features in Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Talk, Google Docs and Google Sites, and eventually these apps may stop working entirely.
So if it’s been a a while since your last update, we encourage you to get the latest version of your favorite browser. There are many to choose from:
As the world moves more to the web, these new browsers are more than just a modern convenience, they are a necessity for what the future holds.
Change Google Calendar’s default meeting length and more print options
(Cross-posted from the Gmail Blog.)
Today we’re adding two features that make it easier to customize Google Calendar. First, you can now change your default event length from the standard 30 minute slot. If you frequently create 15 minute meetings, for example, you can now make 15 minutes the default length for all your events. This way, you don’t need to click into the event page to change the duration every time.
You can change the default length of your events from the Calendar settings page. Next to the “Default meeting length” option, choose the length you’d like from the drop-down menu on the right. From there, you can also enable “Speedy meetings,” which automatically shortens events that are 30 minutes or longer to allow you to prep for your next meeting or get to your next appointment if you have a packed schedule.
Second, for those of you who still prefer paper and print your calendar, you can now select a specific date range in the print dialog box. Google Calendar will automatically format your printout for the date range you choose.
We hope you find these new customization options useful. Let us know what you think in the Google Calendar Help Forum.
Editors note: These features are currently launching to all Rapid Release Google Apps accounts.
Monday, May 23, 2011
Directski.com goes Google
Posted by Ronan Hughes, CTO at Directski.com
Editor's Note: Next up, we’d like to welcome Ronan Hughes, Chief Technical Officer at Directski.com, a web based travel company based in Dublin. Directski.com migrated to Google Apps six months ago with the help of Google Apps Authorized Reseller, Baker Security & Networks. Learn more about other organizations that have gone Google on our community map or test drive life in the cloud with the Go Google Cloud Calculator.
Directski.com have been in business for over ten years, with a mission to make ski holidays more affordable for all. As a 100% web based company, Directski.com doesn’t have glossy brochures, expensive middlemen, high street shops or call centers. We’ve developed a market leading website that has been designed specifically for the sale of ski holidays. We have 30 full time employees and large numbers of seasonal staff that provide ski packages to over 200 European ski destinations.
Effective use of technology has been a key driver and cornerstone of our success. For example, we have used open source products to provide us with scalable, flexible and secure IT systems that have allowed us to grow rapidly but in a cost effective and pragmatic manner. We are always thinking about how technology can simplify and enhance our business processes so that we continually live up to our mission of helping our customers to “ski for less.”
Recently we examined how cloud computing could help us keep this advantage over our competitors. One product that quickly caught our attention was Google Apps and we implemented it across our organisation. The migration to Google Apps was seamless and our employees love it. It’s a huge improvement on our old system and it simply takes care of itself. Our employees find it very intuitive and the combination of Gmail, video sharing, chat and Google Docs allows for great team collaboration across our 5 offices.
Google Apps has numerous advantages for us; it has helped us control our costs, allowing us to focus on the core IT projects that will will add value for our customers, and, in turn, for our business. It is easy to use and offers cutting-edge functionality. Required training is minimal which is very important to us given the large number of seasonal staff we employ. Being a fast-paced, nimble travel company, accessibility is of paramount importance to our team and Google Apps provides this for us.
We’re so impressed with our migration to Google Apps that we’ve put together a quick video to tell you more! We would recommend Google Apps to any faced paced, innovative company.
Effective use of technology has been a key driver and cornerstone of our success. For example, we have used open source products to provide us with scalable, flexible and secure IT systems that have allowed us to grow rapidly but in a cost effective and pragmatic manner. We are always thinking about how technology can simplify and enhance our business processes so that we continually live up to our mission of helping our customers to “ski for less.”
Recently we examined how cloud computing could help us keep this advantage over our competitors. One product that quickly caught our attention was Google Apps and we implemented it across our organisation. The migration to Google Apps was seamless and our employees love it. It’s a huge improvement on our old system and it simply takes care of itself. Our employees find it very intuitive and the combination of Gmail, video sharing, chat and Google Docs allows for great team collaboration across our 5 offices.
Google Apps has numerous advantages for us; it has helped us control our costs, allowing us to focus on the core IT projects that will will add value for our customers, and, in turn, for our business. It is easy to use and offers cutting-edge functionality. Required training is minimal which is very important to us given the large number of seasonal staff we employ. Being a fast-paced, nimble travel company, accessibility is of paramount importance to our team and Google Apps provides this for us.
We’re so impressed with our migration to Google Apps that we’ve put together a quick video to tell you more! We would recommend Google Apps to any faced paced, innovative company.
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Live webcast: Virginia legislative agencies discuss benefits of Google Apps
The IT staffs of the Senate of Virginia and Division of Legislative Automated Systems (DLAS) were taxed with the responsibility of maintaining and upgrading servers and desktop clients for a legacy email system, as well as purchasing server and client licenses. As users’ mail databases grew larger, so did the storage space and the amount of data to backup daily. In addition, plans were being established for continuity of operations, which their current email system environment could not easily offer. All these factors led to their migration to Google Apps.
After conducting initial pilot projects using Google Apps, DLAS and the Senate officially migrated to Google Apps in 2009 and 2010, respectively. Last summer, convinced by compelling cost savings and reduced IT administrative work, 11 legislative agencies supported by DLAS made the switch, including the Division of Capitol Police, State Crime Commission, and Joint Commission on Health Care.
The switch to Google Apps has enabled DLAS and the Senate to reduce IT maintenance time and dramatically increase document and email storage space -- all while saving significantly on licensing costs. Best of all, employees are more productive with Google Apps. They enjoy larger email quotas, easier access to their email on the go, and the ability to collaborate on documents in real time via Google Docs.
Join us on Thursday 5/19 at 11:00am PT / 2:00pm ET for a live webcast. Presenters from DLAS and the Senate and Google partners DLT Solutions and MiCore Solutions will discuss the business drivers behind their decision to go Google and how they approached the implementation. You’ll also learn how the various legislative agencies are leveraging and integrating Google Apps into existing business processes.
Click here to register. We hope to see you there!
Connecting educators through Google Apps Regional K-12 User Groups
One of the best parts of working on the Google Apps for Education team is talking with teachers and hearing the incredible ways they are using Google Apps to enhance classroom learning. Kern Kelley and Rob Dominick, teachers based in Newport, Maine, use laptop cameras and Google forms to grade math quizzes. Aida Awad, a science teacher in Park Ridge, Illinois, instructs students to use a motion chart to plot and contrast plant growth in different environments. In the UK, Ian Addison's elementary school students create impressive websites about their hometown.
With millions of students and teachers moving to Google Apps, we want to make it easier for teachers around the world to connect and share these kinds of examples with each other.
Today we're excited to announce eight Google Apps Regional K-12 User Groups across the United States and Canada. These groups are designed for educators to learn and collaborate through community discussion forums, shared resources, events and webinars. In addition to showcasing creative instructional uses for Google Apps, we hope these groups will help teachers and administrators to identify other schools in their region that have "gone Google."
If you live in the United States or Canada, check out the list below to find and join your Google Apps Regional K-12 User Group (International user groups are coming soon, stay tuned...)
States:
- California: k12california.appsusersgroup.com
- Texas: k12texas.appsusersgroup.com
- Illinois: k12illinois.appsusersgroup.com
- East (US and Canada): k12east.appsusersgroup.com
Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, West Virginia, Quebec, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island - Great Lakes (US and Canada): k12greatlakes.appsusersgroup.com
Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Ontario - South (US): k12south.appsusersgroup.com
Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia - Central (US and Canada): k12central.appsusersgroup.com
Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Wisconsin, Manitoba, Nunavet, and Saskatchewan - West (US and Canada): k12west.appsusersgroup.com
Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, Wyoming, British Columbia, Alberta, Yukon, and the Northwest Territories
Hundreds of ways to work smarter with Google Apps
Posted by Michelle Lisowski, Google Apps Team
Talking to our small businesses customers, we see they have a passion for what they do and a drive to succeed. On the Google Apps team, we have a passion for helping small businesses succeed by providing them with access to the same technology that large enterprises often have at their disposal. Google Apps offers small businesses hundreds of ways to leverage the power of the web to work more efficiently and focus scarce time and resources on getting ahead of the competition.
To celebrate National Small Business Week, we’d like to share a few of the ways that Google Apps is being used every day (we’ll spare you the time of wading through hundreds). And to make it even easier to get started on tasks such as invoicing and project planning, all examples provided are based on templates from the Google Docs and Google Sites template galleries.
Google Docs template gallery:
#1: Letterhead - Create a professional looking template for your outgoing letters and share it with others in the company. Print letters directly from your browser with Chrome.
#2: Budget planner - Easily build a 12-month budget spreadsheet that you can edit from anywhere throughout the year – no matter where your spending takes you.
#3: Invoice - Save time by creating invoices in a spreadsheet – totals are automatically calculated, and you can share them with co-workers to ensure accuracy and speedy payments.
#4: Customer satisfaction survey - Get feedback from customers and visitors about your product or service with a form. Easily analyze and graph the data.
#5: Business plan - Put your vision down in a doc. Share it with family, investors, banks, and others to get input and spread your ideas.
#6: Project timeline - Give others in your company insight into key milestones, completion dates, and other project details.
Google Sites template gallery:
#7: Intranet - Build an internal website where employees can access company news, employee training information, company policies, holiday schedules, and more.
#8: Project site - Centralize project information in one place. Display a team profile and key dates, and embed project docs and spreadsheets directly in the site.
#9: Team site - Create team rosters, schedule team meetings, and track progress of action items all in one place.
#10: Employee profiles - Build a community by creating profile pages where your employees can post their goals, internal resume, and internal blog.
The list continues but we hope this gives some idea of the range of use cases where Google Apps can help improve productivity for any small business. To learn more, check out some of our new resources including product videos and additional templates at www.google.com/apps/smb.
Talking to our small businesses customers, we see they have a passion for what they do and a drive to succeed. On the Google Apps team, we have a passion for helping small businesses succeed by providing them with access to the same technology that large enterprises often have at their disposal. Google Apps offers small businesses hundreds of ways to leverage the power of the web to work more efficiently and focus scarce time and resources on getting ahead of the competition.
To celebrate National Small Business Week, we’d like to share a few of the ways that Google Apps is being used every day (we’ll spare you the time of wading through hundreds). And to make it even easier to get started on tasks such as invoicing and project planning, all examples provided are based on templates from the Google Docs and Google Sites template galleries.
Google Docs template gallery:
#1: Letterhead - Create a professional looking template for your outgoing letters and share it with others in the company. Print letters directly from your browser with Chrome.
#2: Budget planner - Easily build a 12-month budget spreadsheet that you can edit from anywhere throughout the year – no matter where your spending takes you.
#3: Invoice - Save time by creating invoices in a spreadsheet – totals are automatically calculated, and you can share them with co-workers to ensure accuracy and speedy payments.
#4: Customer satisfaction survey - Get feedback from customers and visitors about your product or service with a form. Easily analyze and graph the data.
#5: Business plan - Put your vision down in a doc. Share it with family, investors, banks, and others to get input and spread your ideas.
#6: Project timeline - Give others in your company insight into key milestones, completion dates, and other project details.
Google Sites template gallery:
#7: Intranet - Build an internal website where employees can access company news, employee training information, company policies, holiday schedules, and more.
#8: Project site - Centralize project information in one place. Display a team profile and key dates, and embed project docs and spreadsheets directly in the site.
#9: Team site - Create team rosters, schedule team meetings, and track progress of action items all in one place.
#10: Employee profiles - Build a community by creating profile pages where your employees can post their goals, internal resume, and internal blog.
The list continues but we hope this gives some idea of the range of use cases where Google Apps can help improve productivity for any small business. To learn more, check out some of our new resources including product videos and additional templates at www.google.com/apps/smb.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Pivot Tables now in Google spreadsheets
Over the past few months, we’ve released a string of new features in Google Docs to give your business more tools for collaborative document editing and data analysis. From simpler file uploads to discussions and mobile editing in documents, we’re making it easier for you and your colleagues to work together on the web. Continuing with this effort, we’re launching pivot tables in Google spreadsheets, which will be rolled out to all Rapid Release users over the next 24 hours.
With pivot tables, you can quickly narrow down large data sets to get high level insights. Say you run a retail chain and you have thousands of rows of sales data broken down by purchase. It could be helpful for you and your sales manager to view the total annual revenue for each region without having to enter multiple formulas. In a matter of seconds, you can create a pivot table and summarize all of your data according to the factors you specify, all while collaborating with your sales manager on the spreadsheet.
To see how pivot tables work in Google spreadsheets, check out this video:
We hope pivot tables in Google spreadsheets will help you save time analyzing your data. For more details on using pivot tables, take a look at our post on the Google Docs Blog.
Google Joins Cloud2 Commission Examining Cloud Computing
At Google, we believe the Internet is a rich platform for innovation and that when organizations fully adopt online services (what we call "100% web") they dramatically improve productivity and reduce their costs. In order to advance these interests, we work closely with similarly minded groups to advance this common goal and to enable innovation.
To that end, we are excited to participate in the TechAmerica Foundation’s recently formed Commission on the Leadership Opportunity in U.S. Deployment of the Cloud (CLOUD2). The Commission’s three-month mandate is to provide the Obama Administration with recommendations for how the U.S. Government could help drive American innovation in the cloud. This comes on the heels of the Administration's "Cloud First" policy, an important first step in helping the federal government take advantage of the benefits cloud computing has to offer. The Commission will make recommendations to the U.S. Government on ways to spur the adoption of cloud computing and to address policies that hinder U.S. leadership in the commercial space. We’re supporting the efforts of two CLOUD2 working groups: the first works on facilitating the flow of information between countries, and the second deals with security in the cloud.
With Google Apps, we are investing in technologies that help businesses, educational institutions and governments be productive with a 100% web approach. We’re committed to minimizing barriers to adoption of the cloud by the public sector. Additionally, we hope to promote the development of technology-neutral, non-proprietary and interoperable standards to ensure that the benefits offered by cloud computing are fully realized.
For these reasons, we’re excited to support TechAmerica’s efforts in this important area and look forward to working with other industry players to further the adoption of cloud computing.
Monday, May 16, 2011
Celebrating small businesses and integrated, easy-to-use web tools
In honor of National Small Business Week, we’d like to take time this week to share ways that Google Apps and the Google Apps Marketplace can help small businesses work more productively and efficiently.
Today, we’re highlighting a few of the Small Business Web apps in the Google Apps Marketplace, and how our customers run their businesses on them every day. Google shares the Small Business Web’s dedication to providing tools that have enterprise-grade functionality, as well as align with small businesses’ priorities.
Apps that work together
Particularly for companies without a dedicated IT team or person, the list of necessary business tools can quickly become unmanageable. Web apps that provide deep integrations with Google Apps and with each other are especially useful for growing businesses that don’t have time to manage multiple, distinct applications.
Particularly for companies without a dedicated IT team or person, the list of necessary business tools can quickly become unmanageable. Web apps that provide deep integrations with Google Apps and with each other are especially useful for growing businesses that don’t have time to manage multiple, distinct applications.
Olark lets customers live chat with website visitors directly from the Gmail interface through Google Talk, and provides easy access to chat transcripts. Peter Macaulay of KitchenwareDirect.com.au says, “The ability to live chat with customers without leaving the Google Apps interface is a huge productivity advantage. The simple and elegant implementation meant we were up and running in a matter of minutes. Staff members are easily able to set their availability for chat, enabling them to easily multi-task.”
WORKetc is another app that makes Gmail into the front end workspace, but for CRM, project management, and customer support. It let’s you easily share emails related to particular projects with relevant team members without forwarding or copying other email addresses. D. Hogan of Varis Energy says, “Any emails that need to be shared with my team get tagged in the WORKetc gadget that is built right into Gmail. This immediately lets everyone else who is assigned to a project or lead have access to the new information from the received email.”
Access all the time
As compared to larger businesses, small businesses are even less suited to managing servers, and tend to have many employees on the road or in non-office locations. Accessing their data and documents from anywhere, on any Internet-connected device is a core benefit of using web-based tools like Google Docs. OfficeDrop digitizes paper documents to make them text-searchable in Google Docs. Greg Skidmore of Belpointe Asset Management says, “Each month we send a box of paper files to OfficeDrop and have them scanned directly into Google Docs. If I have a document that I need scanned right away, I use OfficeDrop’s scanning software, ScanDrop, and upload it immediately.”
As compared to larger businesses, small businesses are even less suited to managing servers, and tend to have many employees on the road or in non-office locations. Accessing their data and documents from anywhere, on any Internet-connected device is a core benefit of using web-based tools like Google Docs. OfficeDrop digitizes paper documents to make them text-searchable in Google Docs. Greg Skidmore of Belpointe Asset Management says, “Each month we send a box of paper files to OfficeDrop and have them scanned directly into Google Docs. If I have a document that I need scanned right away, I use OfficeDrop’s scanning software, ScanDrop, and upload it immediately.”
Easy to Use
Small business owners and employees often wear a lot of hats and they’ve asked for solutions that are easy to learn and use. Michael Bower of Michael Bower Digital says, “I always need to know where my money is, without wasting time organizing my paperwork. As my business grew, I was losing control of my cashflow. Both Google Apps and FreshBooks have just enough features to keep my workflow and invoicing organized, allowing me to focus on my work.”
Small business owners and employees often wear a lot of hats and they’ve asked for solutions that are easy to learn and use. Michael Bower of Michael Bower Digital says, “I always need to know where my money is, without wasting time organizing my paperwork. As my business grew, I was losing control of my cashflow. Both Google Apps and FreshBooks have just enough features to keep my workflow and invoicing organized, allowing me to focus on my work.”
These are just a few examples of the many Small Business Web app vendors in the Google Apps Marketplace who provide the functionality and integrations a small business needs. Over 30 Google Apps Marketplace apps have already joined the Small Business Web and declared their commitment to helping small businesses focus on what they do best. They include:
We celebrate National Small Business Week to recognize the importance of small businesses for promoting a healthy economy, and we’re excited to help them continue to grow and succeed through the smart use of technology.
A customizable approach to administrative privileges
Managing Google Apps for an entire organization is not always a one-size-fits-all job. Google Apps Administrators often need to securely share management responsibilities with others. These users may need to have access to certain administrative privileges like user creation, password resets or managing groups, but not to all of them. To address these needs, we’re launching Delegated Admin to our Business and Edu customers. With this new feature, your primary administrators or “Super Admins” can now offer other users specific administration controls.
Lukas Karlsson of the the Broad Institute summed it up, “I like the fact that I can create additional administrator accounts and grant them access to certain administrative functions without having to make them full-fledged administrators. Our organization is growing quite large and, as that happens, we want to grant more folks access to specific tabs in the control panel, so this is very useful.”
Joseph Dellano of Tempus Nova, Inc. believes, “this will be well-used by enterprises that have specific people in charge of of responsibilities like mailing list administration.” Specifically, a Super Admin can create a help desk for your organization by granting other administrators the minimal access necessary to do their jobs. Consider an example:
Collin is an IT Associate at your company who is responsible for helping employees who have lost their password or username. You can now give Collin the ability to access the “Organization & Users” tab in the Control Panel, so that he can manage user access to Google Apps. You can also further control which actions he has the right to perform. For example, you may give Collin the right to reset passwords, but not to create new user accounts.
With these customizable privileges, Delegated Administration is another way you can tailor Google Apps to your business needs. To get started today:
- Log in to the Google Apps administrator control panel
- Under “Organization and Users,” find and click on the user account to which you wish to grant privileges
- Click the “Privileges” tab
- To make the user a Super Admin select the check box labeled “This user has full administrative rights within this Control Panel.” To restrict the user's access to selected functions the Control Panel, select the check boxes next to the tabs you want the user to access
- Select the specific actions the user is allowed to perform under each tab
- Click “Save changes” to confirm that you want to grant administrator access to the user
We look forward to continuing to make it easier to help Google Apps administrators share tasks across teams and Help Desks.
Thursday, May 12, 2011
Security First: Google at the Cyber Security Strategies Summit
This week the Google Enterprise team is excited to be participating in the Cyber Security Strategies Summit (CSSS) in Washington DC on May 10th-12th. At the summit later today, I’ll be presenting a session on cloud security at scale and the data protections that are in place for our Google Apps customers.
If you’re not able to attend the conference, you can visit our Google Apps Trust site and find more information on the security and data protection measures in Google Apps. Many of them are highlighted in our security white paper and data center video tour. We take extreme measures protect our users data and we are constantly innovating to develop new features and capabilities in these areas.
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Live Webinar: Effective global teams with WWF & Google Apps
WWF is a charity foundation that works with a number of partners to drive conservation and sustainability projects around the world. At any one time, WWF has over 1,300 projects underway in more than 100 countries.
With projects spanning the globe, there had been a long standing need to provide a more interactive and collaborative environment to support these dispersed project teams.
WWF began rolling out Google Docs, Google Sites and Google Calendar in May 2009, aiming to deliver an efficient platform for creating project workspaces and file repositories, as well as provide a new framework for their intranet.
For this live webinar we are excited to be joined by Neil Morgan, Global Intranet Manager at WWF, who will provide insight into how WWF is using Google Apps to collaborate more effectively across global teams.
Neil comments, “18 months on, we have achieved significant adoption of the new collaborative platform, resulting in improved content management processes, greater efficiencies, and less reliance on email for collaboration purposes.”
This live webinar will be hosted by Angela Ashenden, who is a Principal Analyst at MWD Advisors and leads the Collaboration practice.
When: Wednesday, May 18, 2011 at 14:00 BST (GMT+1)
Who: Angela Ashenden, Principal Analyst, MWD Advisors; Neil Morgan, Global Intranet Manager, WWF International; Kaisa Qvist, Product Specialist, Google Enterprise.
Register now
Monday, May 9, 2011
Introducing Staff Picks on the Google Apps Marketplace
Posted by Steve Bazyl, Google Apps Marketplace team
As the Google Apps Marketplace continues to grow, finding the right apps to run your business among the hundreds available becomes more challenging. Today we’re kicking off a new effort to help make that process a little easier, and offering some of our own personal picks of apps we think are worth checking out. A few times each month via Twitter, we’ll highlight an app that offers a combination of great functionality, ease of use, and deep integrations with Google Apps that can save valuable time. We’ll use the Twitter hashtag #mpstaffpick to make these easy to find.
Our first staff pick is Mavenlink, a custom-branded project management solution that allows teams to collaborate online, share files, track time, invoice, and make or receive payments, all inside one end-to-end app. Google Apps users can also easily share documents, access contacts, and track projects on their calendars.
If you’re in need of a great project management app, give Mavenlink a try. And if you happen to be at Google I/O next week, you can meet the Mavenlink team in our Developer Sandbox.
To stay up to date and hear about our next pick, follow us on twitter at GoogleAtWork.
As the Google Apps Marketplace continues to grow, finding the right apps to run your business among the hundreds available becomes more challenging. Today we’re kicking off a new effort to help make that process a little easier, and offering some of our own personal picks of apps we think are worth checking out. A few times each month via Twitter, we’ll highlight an app that offers a combination of great functionality, ease of use, and deep integrations with Google Apps that can save valuable time. We’ll use the Twitter hashtag #mpstaffpick to make these easy to find.
Our first staff pick is Mavenlink, a custom-branded project management solution that allows teams to collaborate online, share files, track time, invoice, and make or receive payments, all inside one end-to-end app. Google Apps users can also easily share documents, access contacts, and track projects on their calendars.
If you’re in need of a great project management app, give Mavenlink a try. And if you happen to be at Google I/O next week, you can meet the Mavenlink team in our Developer Sandbox.
To stay up to date and hear about our next pick, follow us on twitter at GoogleAtWork.
Friday, May 6, 2011
Going Google in Canada: This story almost began with a server.
Editor's note: Over 3 million businesses have adopted Google Apps. Today we’ll hear from Marawan El-Asfahani, Managing Principal of Oxygen, a creative design agency based in Toronto, Canada. To learn more about organizations that have gone Google, or to share your own story, visit our community map or test-drive life in the cloud with the Go Google cloud calculator.
At Oxygen Design Agency, we offer branding services, develop retail campaigns, build corporate communication and more, helping companies market effectively, discover their voices and reach their audiences quickly. Four years ago, we were using the Apple® product for email, and it was constantly crashing on us. I figured the solution was clear: a server and Microsoft® Office. But then this tech buddy of mine made a suggestion. He said we could either go with a pricey server and software suite, or we could give Google Apps for Business a try at $50/user/year. “Hmm...”, I thought. That’s when we crossed over.
It was so easy to set up Google Apps, and with it, our downtime worries went away. As a business owner with 16 people on staff, I always want to make sure my teams are set to go in their jobs. When a new employee used to walk into the studio, it would take a lot of time to set them up with email and other software. Now it takes five minutes.
Google Apps also helps us stay connected. Our designers work very closely with our clients and suppliers, which requires them to constantly be on the move. Now, whether we’re at client sites or photo shoots, Google Apps keeps us in touch; we can chat right from our email and access important work files from any web-enabled device.
When we first adopted Google Apps, we did see some push-back from a few employees. There were certain features these employees didn’t see, and this made them skeptical. But then Google consistently released new features that made the products better and met those needs, and now those people are the ones who are most enthusiastic about our company’s use of Google Apps.
At Oxygen, we’re now heavy users of Google Apps -- especially Sites, which we’ve found to be an intuitive system to work from. We’ve used it to build a company intranet where we store employee manuals, health insurance policies, stock photo sources, and even a restaurant corner to showcase some of the really cool boutique restaurants we have in our city. Our designers can write reviews on local places for everyone to see -- from their desk or even from their mobile devices.
With Google Apps, we’re a much more powerful company. I’m proud to say we’ve gone Google.
Posted by Marawan El-Asfahani, Managing Principal, Oxygen Design Agency
At Oxygen Design Agency, we offer branding services, develop retail campaigns, build corporate communication and more, helping companies market effectively, discover their voices and reach their audiences quickly. Four years ago, we were using the Apple® product for email, and it was constantly crashing on us. I figured the solution was clear: a server and Microsoft® Office. But then this tech buddy of mine made a suggestion. He said we could either go with a pricey server and software suite, or we could give Google Apps for Business a try at $50/user/year. “Hmm...”, I thought. That’s when we crossed over.
It was so easy to set up Google Apps, and with it, our downtime worries went away. As a business owner with 16 people on staff, I always want to make sure my teams are set to go in their jobs. When a new employee used to walk into the studio, it would take a lot of time to set them up with email and other software. Now it takes five minutes.
Google Apps also helps us stay connected. Our designers work very closely with our clients and suppliers, which requires them to constantly be on the move. Now, whether we’re at client sites or photo shoots, Google Apps keeps us in touch; we can chat right from our email and access important work files from any web-enabled device.
When we first adopted Google Apps, we did see some push-back from a few employees. There were certain features these employees didn’t see, and this made them skeptical. But then Google consistently released new features that made the products better and met those needs, and now those people are the ones who are most enthusiastic about our company’s use of Google Apps.
At Oxygen, we’re now heavy users of Google Apps -- especially Sites, which we’ve found to be an intuitive system to work from. We’ve used it to build a company intranet where we store employee manuals, health insurance policies, stock photo sources, and even a restaurant corner to showcase some of the really cool boutique restaurants we have in our city. Our designers can write reviews on local places for everyone to see -- from their desk or even from their mobile devices.
With Google Apps, we’re a much more powerful company. I’m proud to say we’ve gone Google.
Posted by Marawan El-Asfahani, Managing Principal, Oxygen Design Agency
Google Apps is a recipe for success at EAT.
Editor’s note: Today’s guest blogger is Cesar Ramanauskas, Systems Engineer at EAT., a restaurant chain in the U.K. Learn more about other organizations that have gone Google on our community map or test drive life in the cloud with the Go Google cloud calculator.
EAT. is a fast growing and dynamic restaurant chain with more than 1,700 employees and over 100 stores throughout the U.K. We pride ourselves on serving “good, fresh, uncomplicated food” in our stores every day. It is our job in the IT Team to adapt that philosophy and provide simple, fast and uncomplicated systems to our customers and employees. In addition to free customer Wi-Fi, Twitter feed (@eat_news) and iPhone app, we have pioneered technologies such as an integrated Chip & PIN contactless payment solution in the U.K.
In preparation for our goal of doubling in size, EAT. migrated to Google Apps for Business, after more than a decade of using Novell GroupWise®. We found the GroupWise upgrade process very costly and time-consuming, and because of long release intervals between versions our users had to wait years to access new features. We needed something better.
Our research for an alternative led us to Google Apps for Business. Its innovative approach to communication and collaboration, tied to its highly scalable and secure environment, was second to none. All the steps in this transition, from seamless deployment and migration to user training, were performed by the small in-house team of experts.
I, for one, believe that the cloud is not just another buzzword, but is definitely where the future of productivity lives. Outfitting our users with software that works in a web browser means there is less need to install and update local applications. Plus, it gives them extra flexibility to take their work away from their desks onto mobile phones, tablets and other gadgets.
Furthermore, with Google Apps’ on-demand capacity, we avoided the ever growing capital and time expense of owning, running and protecting the servers ourselves. We also steered well clear of the upfront cost of building the infrastructure required to accommodate our aggressive expansion plans, without either wasting or having insufficient resources.
Time and cost savings didn’t stop there. Although BlackBerry® devices are fully supported by Google Apps, we appreciated the flexibility of Android devices with native Gmail, calendar, and the latest corporate and management apps, such as Google Apps Device Policy and Authenticator for 2-Step verification. We kept the momentum and in just one day all users were migrated to new the HTC Desire Z™. Retiring BlackBerry Enterprise Servers in the process was a welcome saving on our infrastructure!
Ultimately, it all adds up. With Google Apps for Business, our costs, risks, and storage usage shrank considerably while our user satisfaction, productivity and revenue opportunities multiplied. We are now able to allocate more time and resources to activities that really matter - good service and quality food.
Posted by Cesar Ramanauskas, Systems Engineer, EAT.
EAT. is a fast growing and dynamic restaurant chain with more than 1,700 employees and over 100 stores throughout the U.K. We pride ourselves on serving “good, fresh, uncomplicated food” in our stores every day. It is our job in the IT Team to adapt that philosophy and provide simple, fast and uncomplicated systems to our customers and employees. In addition to free customer Wi-Fi, Twitter feed (@eat_news) and iPhone app, we have pioneered technologies such as an integrated Chip & PIN contactless payment solution in the U.K.
In preparation for our goal of doubling in size, EAT. migrated to Google Apps for Business, after more than a decade of using Novell GroupWise®. We found the GroupWise upgrade process very costly and time-consuming, and because of long release intervals between versions our users had to wait years to access new features. We needed something better.
Our research for an alternative led us to Google Apps for Business. Its innovative approach to communication and collaboration, tied to its highly scalable and secure environment, was second to none. All the steps in this transition, from seamless deployment and migration to user training, were performed by the small in-house team of experts.
I, for one, believe that the cloud is not just another buzzword, but is definitely where the future of productivity lives. Outfitting our users with software that works in a web browser means there is less need to install and update local applications. Plus, it gives them extra flexibility to take their work away from their desks onto mobile phones, tablets and other gadgets.
Furthermore, with Google Apps’ on-demand capacity, we avoided the ever growing capital and time expense of owning, running and protecting the servers ourselves. We also steered well clear of the upfront cost of building the infrastructure required to accommodate our aggressive expansion plans, without either wasting or having insufficient resources.
Time and cost savings didn’t stop there. Although BlackBerry® devices are fully supported by Google Apps, we appreciated the flexibility of Android devices with native Gmail, calendar, and the latest corporate and management apps, such as Google Apps Device Policy and Authenticator for 2-Step verification. We kept the momentum and in just one day all users were migrated to new the HTC Desire Z™. Retiring BlackBerry Enterprise Servers in the process was a welcome saving on our infrastructure!
Ultimately, it all adds up. With Google Apps for Business, our costs, risks, and storage usage shrank considerably while our user satisfaction, productivity and revenue opportunities multiplied. We are now able to allocate more time and resources to activities that really matter - good service and quality food.
Posted by Cesar Ramanauskas, Systems Engineer, EAT.
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Security first: How Google Apps security helped our customers go Google
At Google, two things that are important to us are hearing directly from customers and designing and building applications with data protection features in mind.
Today, we get the pleasure of combining the two as we host a Google Apps Customer Advisory Forum focused on security and compliance. These forums are one of the many ways that we interact with customers, share our plans, discuss their priorities and together help shape the future of Google Apps. Customers will share why the security and compliance features of Google Apps led them to Go Google, and how we can further enhance our products in these areas.
Many of the security and data protection measures in Google Apps are outlined in our security white paper. We’re the first major cloud provider to offer 2-step verification, default https encryption, attachment viewing and mobile device management in the browser, and many other security and administrative capabilities.
For additional information about the security and privacy of Google Apps, please visit our Google Apps Trust site where you can see a video that highlights the data protections that are in place in our data centers.
Posted by Adam Swidler, Sr. Manager, Google Enterprise
Today, we get the pleasure of combining the two as we host a Google Apps Customer Advisory Forum focused on security and compliance. These forums are one of the many ways that we interact with customers, share our plans, discuss their priorities and together help shape the future of Google Apps. Customers will share why the security and compliance features of Google Apps led them to Go Google, and how we can further enhance our products in these areas.
Many of the security and data protection measures in Google Apps are outlined in our security white paper. We’re the first major cloud provider to offer 2-step verification, default https encryption, attachment viewing and mobile device management in the browser, and many other security and administrative capabilities.
For additional information about the security and privacy of Google Apps, please visit our Google Apps Trust site where you can see a video that highlights the data protections that are in place in our data centers.
Posted by Adam Swidler, Sr. Manager, Google Enterprise
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Now available with Google Apps: Google Groups
Editor’s note: Last year we launched an improvement that makes over 60 additional Google services available to Google Apps users. This series showcases what’s new and how your organization can benefit.
Welcome to Google Groups
Google Apps for Business and Education customers have traditionally had access to Google Groups for Business, which has allowed the creation of groups and mailing lists within the organization. Today we’re expanding the discussion by making the general Google Groups service, which allows users to participate in public discussions with others outside the organization, available with Google Apps.
Google Groups allows the creation of groups and mailing lists with any group of people from all across the web and includes Usenet archives and archives of public groups. For example, if you’re writing a new mobile app and want to follow the Android Developers forum or are interested in the latest news about Chrome OS in the Chrome notebook pilot forum you can use Google Groups to get involved in the discussion. There are millions of public groups available, so no matter your field or focus, you’re likely to find relevant discussions that you can follow and join using Google Groups. You can also set up your own public discussion community using Google Groups
Google Apps for Business and Education customers will continue to have access to Google Groups for Business, which is part of the core Google Apps suite. Google Groups is a separate service, and will be available to users of the free version of Google Apps as well as Google Apps for Business and Education. Administrators can turn on both services, or only the one that makes most sense for their use case, giving more control over how users participate in groups inside and outside of the organization.
Learn more and get started
Google Groups can be enabled by your domain administrator from the Google Apps Control Panel at https://www.google.com/a/[your_domain.com] (replace [your_domain.com] with your actual domain name). If your organization isn’t using Google Apps yet, you can learn more and sign up today at http://www.google.com/apps/more.
For more information please take a look at our Help Center.
Note: Google Groups may not be available in all areas.
I’m lost without you: Google celebrates Admin Professionals’ Week
Lost. Late. Out-of-luck. That’s where we’d be without our administrative assistants at Google. Using Google Apps and the flexibility of our 100% web tools, these gurus coordinate schedules, manage inboxes, and keep our organization humming.
In light of Administrative Professionals’ Week, we’re celebrating with some of our Google Apps customers and their dedicated executive assistants and administrative teams. At Google, we are fond of saying that we “eat our own dogfood,” so when a group of Google admins came forward to offer assistance to our customers’ admin teams to help them learn the ins and outs of Google Apps, the “Admin Assistant Guru” program was born.
The Admin Assistant Guru program officially launched earlier this year and includes a network of 70 volunteer admin assistants from Google who meet with and coach their peers in our customer organizations. The goals of the program are to help our customers’ admin teams increase productivity and foster collaboration in the admin community by sharing best practices.
Since launching the Admin Assistant Gurus program, we have seen great joint-success with more than 20 customers. For example:
SNL Financial, a large global company with more than 1,500 employees, spent time with our Google Admin Assistant Gurus team on their Google Apps go live day in April. Galen Warren, CTO at SNL Financial said, “Our executive assistants were very pleased with how much attention they got from Google and how much time and effort was put into ensuring that they were happy, and that all of their questions were answered. The Admin Assistant Gurus program made a big difference to the success of our launch of Google Apps across SNL Financial.”
Brady Corporation, an international manufacturer with more than 7,000 employees, understands that successful collaboration starts with their exec admin team. Prior to and during their Google Apps deployment, Brady employees and the Google Gurus gave personal attention to the admin team, who “loved having 'Googlers' help them work through issues quickly" said Matt Vandenbush, IT Director of Strategy and Architecture at Brady Corporation. After a year using Google Apps, Lynda Carpenter, Executive Assistant says, "e-mail and calendar are critical to doing my job well. Thanks to the resources Google provides, I know how to get the right answers to my management team quickly."
Making Google Apps easier to adopt and manage continues to be a priority for our team, and we look forward to supporting our customers through innovative support programs such as the Admin Assistant Gurus.
Happy Admin Week!
In light of Administrative Professionals’ Week, we’re celebrating with some of our Google Apps customers and their dedicated executive assistants and administrative teams. At Google, we are fond of saying that we “eat our own dogfood,” so when a group of Google admins came forward to offer assistance to our customers’ admin teams to help them learn the ins and outs of Google Apps, the “Admin Assistant Guru” program was born.
The Admin Assistant Guru program officially launched earlier this year and includes a network of 70 volunteer admin assistants from Google who meet with and coach their peers in our customer organizations. The goals of the program are to help our customers’ admin teams increase productivity and foster collaboration in the admin community by sharing best practices.
Since launching the Admin Assistant Gurus program, we have seen great joint-success with more than 20 customers. For example:
SNL Financial, a large global company with more than 1,500 employees, spent time with our Google Admin Assistant Gurus team on their Google Apps go live day in April. Galen Warren, CTO at SNL Financial said, “Our executive assistants were very pleased with how much attention they got from Google and how much time and effort was put into ensuring that they were happy, and that all of their questions were answered. The Admin Assistant Gurus program made a big difference to the success of our launch of Google Apps across SNL Financial.”
Brady Corporation, an international manufacturer with more than 7,000 employees, understands that successful collaboration starts with their exec admin team. Prior to and during their Google Apps deployment, Brady employees and the Google Gurus gave personal attention to the admin team, who “loved having 'Googlers' help them work through issues quickly" said Matt Vandenbush, IT Director of Strategy and Architecture at Brady Corporation. After a year using Google Apps, Lynda Carpenter, Executive Assistant says, "e-mail and calendar are critical to doing my job well. Thanks to the resources Google provides, I know how to get the right answers to my management team quickly."
Making Google Apps easier to adopt and manage continues to be a priority for our team, and we look forward to supporting our customers through innovative support programs such as the Admin Assistant Gurus.
Happy Admin Week!
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Helping small businesses start and manage Google Apps for Business
Google Apps launched five years ago. Since then, we’ve spoken with many of our more than three million customers about how we can better serve them. Small businesses in particular often ask us to make Apps easier to adopt and manage. Today we’re announcing several upcoming changes designed to address those requests.
We hope these improvements will encourage more businesses to adopt Google Apps for Business. And there’s a lot more to come: we’ve already launched 57 feature improvements this year – including Google Cloud Connect for Microsoft Office, discussions in Google Docs, and an improved control panel for business users – and we’ll continue to provide the innovation our customers expect. We look forward to helping more businesses flourish in the months and years to come.
Posted by: Hunter Middleton, Google Apps Product Team
New flexible billing options
Small businesses operate in dynamic environments – everything from workforce size to cash flow can change overnight – and we want our billing options to better support this reality. So we’re making two improvements to our billing programs in the next few weeks to ensure that Google Apps works across businesses.
First, for customers who sign up online we’re adding the Flexible Plan, a new $5 per user per month pricing option which requires no contractual commitment – one of the most flexible plans in the industry today. With this plan, businesses can add or remove users as necessary and will automatically be billed for the proper amount. We’ll continue to offer the current pricing option – $50 per user per year with a one-year commitment – as the Annual Plan.
Second, we’re eliminating upfront payments for new customers to make it easier for them to manage their cash flow. Whether they choose the Flexible or Annual Plan, customers will pay at the end of each month. We’ll also begin to offer direct debit in the US, UK, Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, and Spain to make payment even easier.
Over the course of the next few months, we’ll also make these billing options available to our many reseller partners.
Change to Google Apps user limit
Starting on May 10, new organizations (excluding schools and non-profits) with more than 10 users will need to sign up for our paid service, Google Apps for Business, which offers valuable features designed for businesses – customer support, more generous storage limits, a 99.9% SLA, and more. This change will allow us to deliver on the expectations of our small business customers and invest in new features that will help them succeed.
Only new customers will be impacted; existing Google Apps customers can expand beyond 10 users (up to a maximum of 50) at no additional charge, and we’ll continue to offer Google Apps for free to groups with 10 users or fewer. Schools and non-profits that qualify for Google Apps for Education will not be affected.
Fewer steps to get started
Two businesses sign up for Google Apps every minute, and we want to get them up and running as quickly as possible. Using our new “setup wizard,” most customers are now able to complete setup in under one hour – less than the average time people spend commuting to and from work each day. And in a few weeks we will streamline this process even further, by launching a single sign-up page that lets businesses create an account in minutes without even pulling out a credit card.
We hope these improvements will encourage more businesses to adopt Google Apps for Business. And there’s a lot more to come: we’ve already launched 57 feature improvements this year – including Google Cloud Connect for Microsoft Office, discussions in Google Docs, and an improved control panel for business users – and we’ll continue to provide the innovation our customers expect. We look forward to helping more businesses flourish in the months and years to come.
Posted by: Hunter Middleton, Google Apps Product Team
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