Google Apps highlights – 4/29/2011

This is part of a regular series of Google Apps updates that we post every couple of weeks. Look for the label “Google Apps highlights" and subscribe to the series. - Ed.

In the last couple of weeks, we’ve helped you personalize Gmail in new ways, made our applications speedier to use, brought text recognition and editing powers to Android phones, and given you a glimpse into the inner workings of a Google data center.

Customize Gmail with a favorite photo
For a long while, Gmail has had themes so your inbox can reflect a bit of your personality. Now, you can set Gmail’s background to a photo from your computer or Picasa Web Albums. So if Gmail’s standard theme choices don’t quite float your boat, now we’re sure you can create a theme you’ll love.

Faster multitasking in Gmail with the Background Send Lab
Features like nearly-instant search and integrated instant messaging help you save time in your inbox, but we’re always looking for new ways to speed up your experience in Gmail. On Monday we released a new feature in Labs called Background Send that can shave off a few seconds each time you hit “Send.” With this feature enabled, you can start working with other messages while your outgoing message is processed in the background without slowing you down. Give it a try from the Labs tab of Gmail Settings.

Streamlined file uploads in Google Docs
On Monday, we sped up the Google Docs experience with improvements to file uploads. Now you can upload a whole folder at once, and if you use Chrome, Safari or Firefox, you can even drag and drop files from your desktop into the documents list or specific collections. You'll also see an upload progress window right in the documents list.

New Google Docs app for Android
Thanks to a brand new Google Docs app for Android, it’s easier to browse, search, edit and share your documents right from your mobile phone. You can even create new documents by snapping a picture of text with your phone’s camera, and thanks to Google Docs’ optical character recognition (OCR) capabilities, words in the image are converted to text that you can continue editing from your phone or computer.

100 new fonts in Google Sites

With more design choices in Google Sites, you can create better looking sites that match the look and feel you want to achieve. This Wednesday, we added 100 new fonts to the text formatting options in Google Sites, so it’s easier to make more personalized pages for your organization, project, classroom or business.

Get a sneak peek into a Google data center
Businesses, schools and individuals considering Google Apps often want to learn more about the technology and procedures in our data centers designed to help keep your data safe, secure and available whenever you want it. Since we can’t invite everyone to tour one of our data centers, we thought we’d pull the curtain back with an in-depth video:



Who’s gone Google?
A hearty welcome goes out to over 50,000 businesses, schools and organizations that have switched to Google Apps in the last two weeks. Several have shared their stories on the Google Enterprise Blog, so you can learn about how Cinram has improved communication and collaboration across 20 manufacturing facilities in North America and Europe, how Gibson Sotheby's International Realty is empowering hundreds of mobile workers like never before, and how the states of Rhode Island and Missouri are making Google Apps available to more than a million students and 100,000 staff members.

I hope these product updates and customer stories help you and your organization get even more from Google Apps. For more details and the latest news, check out the Google Apps Blog.

Posted by Jeremy Milo, Google Apps Marketing Manager

Google Apps highlights – 4/15/2011

This is part of a regular series of Google Apps updates that we post every couple of weeks. Look for the label “Google Apps highlights" and subscribe to the series. - Ed.

In the last few weeks we’ve improved Google Apps with easier email snafu avoidance, better document and spreadsheet printing, stronger business security features for Android and more. The pace of entire organizations switching to Google Apps also continued to build, and many have shared their stories about moving to the cloud.

Recipient suggestion features graduate from Gmail Labs
We’ve all made the embarrassing mistake of forgetting to add an important email recipient, or even worse, sending an email to the wrong person with a similar name as someone else. To help you avoid such a digital faux pas, we experimented with Gmail Labs features that could notify you while drafting a message if it appeared you had addressed your message incorrectly. We heard lots of positive feedback about these Labs, so on Wednesday we rolled out recipient suggestion features for all Gmail users. Keep an eye out for the tips that show up beneath the address box!

Pagination and better printing for documents
Google Docs speeds up collaboration right in the browser between classmates and colleagues, but people often want to see how documents will look on paper before actually printing. On Tuesday we advanced Google Docs another notch by adding pagination—the ability to see where page breaks fall. We also made document printing a whole lot better on Chrome. Printing is now a simpler operation right from the browser’s “File” menu, and what you see in your browser is exactly what you’ll get on paper.

Improvements to spreadsheet printing, too
As of Monday, you can now print spreadsheets from your mobile phone with Cloud Print, building on the mobile document and email printing capabilities we announced earlier this year. You can print from most mobile browsers that support HTML5 to any cloud-connected printer. We also made improvements to spreadsheet printing from desktop browsers, with new options for printing spreadsheet titles, sheet names and page numbers.

Google Cloud Connect for Microsoft Office interface improvements
If your school or business wants some of Google Docs’ collaboration magic in familiar Microsoft Office software without upgrading Office or deploying SharePoint®, then we think you’ll like Google Cloud Connect. People can work together on the same files at the same time in Word, PowerPoint® and Excel® without the agony of attachments. We recently added 38 new language interfaces and a top feature request: the ability to minimize the Google Cloud Connect toolbar.

Better Android security and productivity for businesses
Last week we treated our business and education customers to three new Android features: storage encryption for Android 3.0+ devices, a streamlined contacts experience that makes it faster to find and connect with people in your organization and the ability for users to locate and secure lost or stolen Android 2.2+ devices without burdening IT administrators.

Who's gone Google?
Since our last update here, over 60,000 businesses have moved to Google Apps. We’ve profiled quite a few on the Google Enterprise Blog recently, including Boxx Group, South Carolina REALTORS, Just Salad, 3Tailer, and our favorite switch story of all, Contoso.

Thousands of schools, nonprofits and other organizations made the move as well. Welcome to Boise State University, Edina Public Schools, ESSEC Business School, Monash University, Oakwood Junior School, the Georgia Department of Corrections and The Phoenix of New Orleans.

I hope these product updates and customer stories help you and your organization get even more from Google Apps. For more details and the latest news, check out the Google Apps Blog.

Posted by Jeremy Milo, Google Apps Marketing Manager

Google Apps highlights – 3/25/2011

This is part of a regular series of Google Apps updates that we post every couple of weeks. Look for the label “Google Apps highlights" and subscribe to the series. - Ed.

We’ve been busy over the last few weeks adding better discussion tools to Google Docs, improving collaboration within traditional productivity software and making it faster and easier to work with information in your email inbox. Google Apps administrators can also now view detailed information about how their users are being more productive with our collaboration tools, and control how quickly new features are released to their organizations.

Better discussions in Google documents
Productive discussions can help teams write better documents, and last Wednesday we introduced improvements to how you can converse about documents within Google Docs. Profile pictures and timestamps make it easy to see who made a comment and when, and you can direct a comment to someone using an @mention. You can follow discussions with notifications right in your inbox—and even continue a discussion from your inbox by replying to the notification email. Instead of deleting a discussion when it’s wrapped up to remove clutter, you can now mark discussions as resolved so you can go back later and see how the discussion played out.



Data filtering, new chart options and more in Google spreadsheets
We’ve added a heap of frequently requested features to Google spreadsheets over the last few weeks. First, you can now filter spreadsheet data to hone in on rows that match criteria you set as filter options. For example, a sales manager could choose to view transactions processed by Peter and Phil, but not those managed by Andrew, Cindy and the rest of the sales team.

   

We’ve also improved charting in spreadsheets by making it possible to plot non-contiguous data. Multiple chart ranges help you create great charts without rearranging your data.

In addition, you can now hide cell gridlines or entire sheets in Google spreadsheets—giving your spreadsheets a cleaner look by removing extraneous formatting and data from view until you need it at a later time.

  

Google Cloud Connect for Microsoft Office
As we continue to add functionality to Google Docs, many people are finding that that they no longer need software-based word processing, spreadsheet and presentation software. And now we also have an alternative for people who want streamlined collaboration but aren’t quite ready for 100% web productivity tools. Google Cloud Connect for Microsoft Office brings multi-person editing, automatic backup and complete revision history to Microsoft Word®, Excel® and PowerPoint® in Microsoft Office® 2003, 2007 and 2010. By bringing this functionality to existing versions of Microsoft Office, organizations can work more efficiently with the software that they’ve already paid for and implemented.



Smart Labels in Gmail Labs
Chances are, you get lots of email from newsletters, group mailing lists, account alerts and other automated systems. These messages aren’t spam, but they’re probably not your most important emails either. To help you separate and organize these kinds of messages, we introduced the Smart Labels feature in Gmail Labs. Once you turn on this feature from the Labs tab in Gmail settings, Gmail will automatically categorize incoming Bulk, Forum and Notification messages and label them appropriately, removing clutter in your inbox to help your most important messages stand out.

Improved attachment viewing in Gmail
We’ve also made viewing attachments in Gmail faster, easier, more affordable and more secure by adding browser-based attachment viewing for 12 more file types: .XLS, .XLSX, .PPTX, .PAGES, .AI, .PSD, .DXF, .SVG, .EPS, .PS, .TTF and .XPS. So instead of downloading attachments and then opening files with software you may or may not have for each format, you can just click the “View” link next to the attachment in Gmail. This will instantly display the attachment in your browser—no software required.

Collaboration dashboard for Google Apps customers
To help customers see the productivity benefits of Google Apps at a glance, we recently introduced a new collaboration dashboard. From the Google Apps administrative control panel, IT managers can view insights about how their users are working together with Google Docs. This dashboard offers a new level of transparency that traditional software can’t offer, and we think this kind of information will help businesses invest in technologies that actually get put to use, not software that—according to customers—sometimes sits idle after being installed.

New Google Apps release process
Our customers love Google Apps for lots of reasons, but the ability to rapidly get new features—like the ones described in this post—without having to install complex patches or upgrades rises to the top. Instead of large, disruptive batches of new features that only come every few years, people see a continuous stream of better functionality week after week. Still, some customers with more complex IT environments have asked for a bit more advanced notice so they can prepare for what’s coming. For these organizations, we’ve introduced a new release process for Google Apps features. Customers can choose to get new features immediately when they’re available, or have at least a week to prepare for new features after they’re initially introduced. Along with this new choice, we’ve launched whatsnew.googleapps.com, where customers can learn more about new features in the process of being released.



Who’s gone Google?
The pace of new customers coming onto Google Apps continues to accelerate among schools, businesses and other organizations. In the world of education, we’re happy to welcome the University of Alberta, Anhanguera Educational and thousands of other schools to Google Apps. In fact, over 50 percent of the NCAA® Championship bracket has gone Google!

We also invite you to read how businesses and government agencies including Dominion Enterprises, Macomb County Circuit Court and Clerk, Revevol, Mad Genius, Cadillac Fairview, Sun Windows, Hammock and The Standard Agency are saving money and helping workers be more productive with Google Apps, joining more than 3 million other businesses that have gone Google.

I hope these product updates and customer stories help you and your organization get even more from Google Apps. For more details and the latest news, check out the Google Apps Blog.

Posted by Jeremy Milo, Google Apps Marketing Manager

Google Apps highlights – 2/18/11

This is part of a regular series of Google Apps updates that we post every couple of weeks. Look for the label “Google Apps highlights" and subscribe to the series. - Ed.

This Friday update includes improvements to the Gmail mobile web app and Google Docs interfaces, a feature long-sought-after by many Google Voice fans, a powerful account security improvement and stories from several of the companies and government agencies that have recently moved to Google Apps.

Priority Inbox for Gmail mobile web app
Keeping what’s most important front and center is especially helpful on the smaller screen of your mobile device, so we were happy to release Priority Inbox in the Gmail mobile web app. If your phone’s browser supports HTML5, you’ll see the familiar Priority Inbox sections and message importance markers when you visit gmail.com.

Doc list refresh
The documents list in Google Docs got a visual makeover and tune-up on Monday. We added a helpful set of filters to quickly narrow down search results, a right-side preview panel to show details about a selected file and the ability to view uploaded media like photos and videos. What we previously called “Folders” are now called “Collections,” and we’re making the whole interface snappier to save you time.


Port numbers to Google Voice
Last month, we updated Google Voice in response to one of our top user requests: the ability to port existing phone numbers to Google Voice. If you have a beloved phone number that you want to keep as your primary digits, but want Google Voice to ring multiple phones when someone calls, Number Porting might be for you. There’s a $20 charge for Number Porting, and your wireless carrier may charge an early termination fee, so we recommend that you check with your carrier before porting. For more details, check the Google Voice Help Center.



2-Step Verification available to all
Now everyone can help keep their account safer with 2-Step Verification, which we released to Google Apps business customers last year. This advanced security feature works by requiring you to sign in with something you know (your password) plus something you have (a code from your mobile phone). 2-Step Verification helps ensure that the person trying to access your account is the real you.


New setup wizard for Google Apps administrators
Organizations using Google Apps often get up and running in under an hour, but we wanted the setup experience to be even faster and easier. Last week we added a new Google Apps setup wizard to the administrative control panel, which gives guided help for creating user accounts, migrating existing mail to Gmail, routing user email to Gmail and more.


Who’s gone Google?
Recently we’ve seen a surge in new public sector customers—including the Administrative Conference of the United States, the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks and the City of Rochester Hills. These organizations are not only saving taxpayer dollars with Google Apps, but also boosting the productivity of their ranks.

More than 50,000 businesses have also started using Google Apps in the last three weeks. Pithy Little Wine Co., DeyFischer Consulting, Manna on Main Street and Hunter Douglas are just a few of the businesses we’ve profiled recently who are are going 100% web.

I hope these product updates and customer stories help you and your organization get even more from Google Apps. For more details and the latest news, check out the Google Apps Blog.

Posted by Jeremy Milo, Google Apps Marketing Manager

Google Apps highlights – 1/28/2011

This is part of a regular series of Google Apps updates that we post every couple of weeks. Look for the label “Google Apps highlights" and subscribe to the series. - Ed.

Over the last couple of weeks, we added ways to keep up with new messages in Gmail and printing capabilities from Gmail mobile and mobile documents, and announced a partnership with Verizon to make it easier for millions more businesses to start using Google Apps.

Desktop notifications for Gmail
When people switch to web-based email, sometimes they miss seeing desktop alerts when new mail is waiting to be read. In the past, Gmail required a helper application to show alerts, but on Wednesday we made it so Gmail can display desktop notifications for new email and chat messages with nothing more than a browser. If you use Google Chrome, you can enable desktop notifications in the Gmail settings panel.

Search-as-you-type for Gmail Labs
Gmail Labs is a testing ground where you can try out new features and provide feedback on your experiences. As the list of Labs has grown to more than 50 options, we wanted to make it easier to find features you’re interested in, so we introduced search-as-you-type on the Labs page. With just a few keystrokes, you can pinpoint just what you’re looking for—no more scrolling down a long list of options to find what you want.


Unread message icon in Gmail Labs
The Gmail tab in your browser displays how many unread messages you have, but if you have lots of tabs open or use pinned tabs in Google Chrome, the Gmail browser tab is too small for you to see the count of unread messages. On Tuesday we added a new Lab that shows your unread message count in the browser tab icon, so you can always see at a glance how many new messages you have. Visit the Gmail Labs settings page and type “unread” in the new search box to find and try this feature.


Cloud Print for Gmail and Docs
Printing is sometimes tricky even when you’re in the same room as your printer, not to mention when you want to print on a remote printer or from a mobile device. Last year we introduced Cloud Print to make printing easier from any device to any Cloud Print-enabled printer, without the need for any special software. On Monday we added support for Cloud Print to Gmail mobile and mobile documents, so now you can print messages and documents directly from your phone or tablet to your Cloud Print-enabled printer.

Education category in the Google Apps Marketplace
Businesses, schools and organizations can shop for third-party applications, features and services that complement Google Apps in the Marketplace, and over the last few months we’ve seen a surge in listings geared for schools and universities. To make it easier for schools to link up with great partners in their field, we added a dedicated category for educational listings. There you’ll find powerful add-ins from LearnBoost, Grockit, Aviary and many other education software providers.


Who’s gone Google?
More than 3 million businesses, plus many more schools, non-profits and government agencies have switched to Google Apps over the last few years, and we’re looking forward to helping the next wave of customers get started. To that end, we’re thrilled to have Verizon as our newest partner. Verizon will provide Google Apps to many of their small business broadband customers, making it possible for businesses to obtain a more complete set of small business IT services from a single provider. Welcome to Google Apps!

I hope these product updates and customer stories help you and your organization get even more from Google Apps. For more details and the latest news, check out the Google Apps Blog.

Posted by Jeremy Milo, Google Apps Marketing Manager

Google Apps highlights – 1/7/2011

This is part of a regular series of Google Apps updates that we post every couple of weeks. Look for the label “Google Apps highlights" and subscribe to the series. - Ed.

It’s a new year, and we have new reasons to celebrate what’s possible with Google Apps. Since our last update, we’ve made it easier to track spreadsheet revisions and work with videos in Google Docs, added two new security features for organizations using Gmail and introduced new capabilities to make migrating to Google Apps even easier.

Revision history for spreadsheets
A few months ago we added better revision history tools for documents in Google Docs, and we just added a similar revision history tool for spreadsheets. Spreadsheet changes made by each co-author are marked by a different color, and you can easily see all of the changes made to your spreadsheet cell-by-cell.


Video player in the document list
Google Docs lets groups collaborate simultaneously on documents, spreadsheets, presentations and drawings, but you can also use it to upload and share a wide range of file types. Previously, if you uploaded and shared a video file, people you shared with could only download the file. Yesterday we released an update which lets you play many videos right from Google Docs, no file download required.


A safer email environment for customers
Organizations using Google Apps usually provide unrestricted email access to their users, but some organizations—like K-12 schools—want to prevent outsiders from interacting with a subset of their users over email. On Tuesday, we released a feature enabling an email “walled garden,” so organizations can meet this requirement. K-12 schools can help protect youngsters, and other types of organizations can provide limited email accounts to select employees, like contractors.

DKIM email authentication for improved email delivery
Yesterday we made it possible for customers to easily validate their outgoing email with DKIM digital signatures. DKIM allows many receiving email systems to verify whether an incoming message truly originates from the domain in the message’s “sent from” field. Spam filters can then use the reputation of the sender’s domain to help separate good mail from spam. For customers, using DKIM authentication means their outgoing mail is less likely to get caught up in their recipients’ spam filters.


Chrome browser for organizations
Google Chrome is built for speed, security and the ability to run the most sophisticated web-based applications. Until recently, it was tough for businesses to deploy Chrome as a successor or alternative to traditional browsers, but last month we added capabilities to Chrome so IT administrators can efficiently deploy and manage Chrome across their organizations. We’ve also made it possible for businesses to centrally deploy Chrome Frame to improve the performance of Internet Explorer®.

Improved tools for moving existing data to Google Apps
Customers are already moving data from legacy systems to Google Apps at an astounding rate, and we’ve just made improvements to our data migration tools. Whether you’re moving from Microsoft® Exchange, Lotus Notes® or other IMAP-based email systems, it’s now even easier to move email, calendar and contacts data into Google’s cloud.

Who’s gone Google?
Tens of thousands of businesses, schools and other organizations took advantage of the holiday break to move over to Google Apps. Some of the noteworthy additions include Compositites One, Broadway Maylan and BI-LO. We also heard some great stories from Traffic Konzept + Film GmbH a team of explorers and filmmakers on a first-ever expedition to sail both North Pole passages in a single season. You can learn more about their adventure and how they use Google Apps here:



I hope these product updates and customer stories help you and your organization get even more from Google Apps. For details and the latest news in this area, check out the Google Apps Blog.

Posted by Jeremy Milo, Google Apps Marketing Manager

Google Apps highlights – 12/3/2010

This is part of a regular series of Google Apps updates that we post every couple of weeks. Look for the label “Google Apps highlights" and subscribe to the series. - Ed.

The Google Apps team had a nice Thanksgiving break, but that didn’t slow things down one bit. Over the last few weeks we’ve introduced mobile editing in Google Docs, automatic typo correction, improvements to meeting scheduling and the ability for businesses, schools and organizations using Google Apps to access more than 60 additional applications from Google.

Document editing in your mobile browser
Google Docs has always offered a central place where you can find and edit documents in your computer’s browser, and now English-language users can edit documents on the go from many Android and iOS devices including the iPhone and the iPad. Your mobile edits show up in near real-time for co-authors, and you can see their edits as they happen on your mobile device. As before, you can also edit spreadsheets from your mobile browser.



Faster, more accurate typing in documents
If you’ve never memorized all those pesky exceptions to the “I before E” spelling rule, you’ll like the new AutoCorrect feature for documents, which can fix typos and format symbols like ¼ and © on the fly as you type. You can edit the text replacement list for your own habitual typos in the Tools > Preferences menu of Google documents.


Optional attendees in Google Calendar events
On Monday we released a highly requested feature in Google Calender: the ability to invite optional attendees to appointments and meetings. Allowing non-critical attendees to be optional makes it easier to find convenient meeting times for key attendees, and helps everyone understand which meetings they really need to attend. Just click “Make some attendees optional” when creating an event to get started.


10 times more applications for Google Apps customers
Until now, businesses, schools and organizations have only had access to a limited set of applications with their Google Apps accounts, including Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs and a few others. But customers gave us overwhelming feedback that they wanted to manage multiple phone numbers with Google Voice, publish their organization’s blog with Blogger, find customers with AdWords, track industry news with Google Reader and much more. After extensive testing with pilot users, we’ve now made it possible for Apps customers to use more than 60 additional Google applications with their Google Apps accounts. This gives customers access to a tremendous amount of innovation that a typical office suite could never offer.



Who’s gone Google?
Organizations all around the world are switching to Google Apps in droves. We’re especially pleased that the U.S. General Services Administration has selected Google Apps for Government through a competitive request for proposal (RFP) process. This federal agency will be moving all 17,000 employees and contractors from its previous on-premises solution to Google Apps for modern, cloud-based email and collaboration tools.

State and local governments are getting onboard with Google Apps, too. A warm welcome goes out to Panama City, Fla. and Larimer County, Colo.!

This week we’re also welcoming a flock of businesses that have recently “gone Google.” Z Gallerie, Spyder, PlayPlanit.com, Medialocate, Flight Centre and Ray White have all moved to the cloud to help their employees become more productive with tools that save people time and hassles.

I hope these updates help you and your organization get even more from Google Apps. For details and the latest news in this area, check out the Google Apps Blog.

Posted by Jeremy Milo, Google Apps Marketing Manager

Google Apps highlights – 11/12/2010

This is part of a regular series of Google Apps updates that we post every couple of weeks. Look for the label “Google Apps highlights" and subscribe to the series. - Ed.

In this installment, we’re bringing you a little more flair for your Gmail inbox and a video introduction to real-time co-editing in Google Docs. We also have some nice improvements for organizations using Google Apps to save money and achieve even bigger productivity gains by collaborating in Google’s cloud.

Five new themes available in Gmail
Some people are happy with the classic white and blue color scheme in Gmail, others like to spice things up and make their inbox feel a little more personal. Last week we added five more themes to choose from in Gmail, bringing the total to over 35 designs. Take a look, maybe you’re in the mood for a floral backdrop or something more playful like this new Marker theme.


Visualizing character-by-character document co-editing
From day one, Google Docs allowed multiple people to work on the same document together at the same time from different computers. But until you experience this for yourself, it’s hard to understand how much time this can save. Imagine being able to work together without the hassles of shuttling attachments back and forth, and reconciling people’s edits each time. If you’re a Google Docs newbie, we think this video we created last week helps bring the possibilities to life.



The business value of faster collaboration
We recently commissioned the help of Forrester Consulting to measure the “Total Economic Impact” of Google Apps that customers can expect over three years by moving from traditional technologies to the cloud. While we encourage you to assess the potential impact for yourself, Forrester’s analysis (PDF) found that with Google Apps, a typical large business of 18,000 employees experiences:

• Productivity gains even larger than cost savings
• Ove 300% return on investment
• Break-even under seven months
• Total economic impact over $10,000,000 (NPV)

Service activity graphs for administrators
To give administrators a window into how users in their organizations are collaborating in new ways, last Tuesday we added service activity graphs to the Google Apps control panel. These charts make it easy for organizations to quickly spot usage trends that they might not have anticipated and make adjustments accordingly, like scaling back technical support for legacy technologies.


App Tuesday: eight new applications to choose from in the Apps Marketplace
The Google Apps Marketplace is where third-party software developers list their applications that integrate seamlessly with Google Apps—and the number of offerings in the Marketplace continues to grow. On Tuesday, we added eight new applications ranging from personal relationship management and administrative tools to idea management and Google Site management solutions.



Who’s gone Google?
It’s been two weeks since the last update here, which means tens of thousands of businesses, schools and organizations have moved to the cloud with Google Apps. Small businesses around the world like Belle and Rollo and YETI Coolers turn to Google Apps, so they can focus on business instead of managing complex technology. Companies like National Geographic save money in a tough economy with Google Apps, while giving their most demanding mobile workers better tools to work efficiently. And universities like NYU are joining the Google Apps family to give students the modern, web-based tools that allow people to work together in more collaborative ways. To all, a warm welcome!

I hope these updates help you and your organization get even more from Google Apps. For details and the latest news in this area, check out the Google Apps Blog.

Posted by Jeremy Milo, Google Apps Marketing Manager

Google Apps highlights – 10/29/2010

This is part of a regular series of Google Apps updates that we post every couple of weeks. Look for the label “Google Apps highlights" and subscribe to the series. - Ed.

In the last few weeks, we made Gmail better for iPhone and iPad users and improved Google Docs with easier image uploads to documents and enhanced charts in spreadsheets. The business and education crowd will enjoy the addition of automated workflow capabilities in Google Sites, the ability to remotely manage security on Android devices and a new batch of third-party applications that integrate with Google Apps.

Improvements to Gmail in mobile Safari
If you’re reading this post on an iPhone or an iPad, head over to gmail.com to see how we made the Gmail experience in mobile Safari work more like a native application. First, scrolling is a whole lot more responsive to your touch gestures. A quick flick will scroll the page much faster than before. We’ve also improved the toolbar so it stays put at the top of the screen, even when you scroll down a long page. This keeps the most common actions in Gmail right at your fingertips—literally.


Chart improvements and drag-and-drop images in Google Docs
Last Tuesday we added the ability to drag and drop images to Google documents from your desktop or from folders on your computer. You can still add images through the image upload wizard, but this new method can save time, especially when you have several images to add. This week we also rolled out improvements to charts and visualizations in Google spreadsheets. You can now add annotated timelines, organizational charts, gauges, motion charts that visualize data changing over time, and other chart types more easily. The new chart editor helps you customize the design of your charts, and now you can publish dynamic charts on other web pages that automatically update when data in the source spreadsheet changes.



Automated workflow in Google Sites with Google Apps Script
Last week we introduced the ability for you to add automated workflow to Google Sites, powered by Google Apps Script. Scripts automate tasks such as sending emails, scheduling calendar events, creating and updating site pages using data from other systems, and more. For example, you can put a button on a course registration page that adds the course to the user’s calendar, sends them a confirmation email and includes their name in the course roster within the site.


Android device management
Just yesterday, we added the ability for businesses and schools using Google Apps to remotely manage security on users’ Android devices (Android 2.2 and beyond), whether those devices are user-owned or provided by the organization. This update rounds out our device management capabilities; now administrators can perform functions like remotely wiping Android, iPhone, Windows Mobile and many Nokia phones from the Google Apps control panel without needing any special hardware or software. Administrators running BlackBerry® Enterprise Server can manage their users’ BlackBerry® devices from the control panel as well.


App Tuesday: seven new additions to the Apps Marketplace
The number of third-party software applications available in the Google Apps Marketplace that seamlessly integrate with Google Apps continues on its rapid growth trajectory. This month, we added seven new applications that complement the growing set of applications offered directly by Google. We were especially pleased to see strong international representation among this new crop.

Who’s gone Google?
Google Apps is really taking off, and we’re excited to team up in the cloud with Virgin America. But they’re not the only large organization to “go Google” recently. Multnomah County in Oregon is moving 4,500 county employees to Google Apps, and the state of Wyoming is doing an even larger deployment with 10,000 state employees. Across the board, these organizations chose to switch because of substantial cost savings and tremendous productivity improvements made possible with Google Apps.

In the last few weeks alone, tens of thousands of small and mid-size businesses have switched to Google Apps, too. Several of these new customers have shared their stories with us, and we invite you to read more here: Jason’s Deli, MainStreet Advisors, Melrose Resources, American Support and Premier Guitar.

We also reached a big milestone in the education world recently: more than 10 million students, faculty and staff are actively using Google Apps at schools and universities worldwide. While we’re focused on bringing the next 10 million education users onto Google Apps, we still took some time to celebrate how far we’ve already come—with the help of the USC marching band!



I hope these updates help you and your organization get even more from Google Apps. For details and the latest news in this area, check out the Google Apps Blog.

Posted by Jeremy Milo, Google Apps Marketing Manager

Google Apps highlights – 10/8/2010

This is part of a regular series of Google Apps updates that we post every couple of weeks. Look for the label "Google Apps highlights" and subscribe to the series. - Ed.

Over the last couple weeks, we rolled out new settings in Gmail for email traditionalists, and some features in Google Docs to make it easier to work with document revisions and imported spreadsheet data. We also had big news to share about bringing Google Apps to all K-12 students in New York state.

Try Gmail without conversation view
We think conversation view in Gmail is a big time saver, because it automatically groups related messages into neatly organized discussions. But over the years we’ve heard from many people accustomed to a traditional inbox that conversation view drives them nuts. Last Wednesday we introduced the option for people to turn conversation view off or on in Gmail Settings if they’d like. With this option, messages are delivered to the inbox individually, like you see in most email applications. Threaded or unthreaded—now it’s your choice.


Better revision history in Google documents
One of the ways Google Docs is different from other office software is its ability to automatically save and display every revision ever made, even if multiple people have edited a file together. Last week we made revision history in Google documents even better, by simplifying how revision time stamps are displayed, speeding up how fast you can flip through sequential revisions, and highlighting changes made by different editors with different colors, so you can quickly scan for who changed what. Go to “File” > “See revision history” to try it out.

Better data import in Google spreadsheets
We also improved Google spreadsheets recently with better data import options. For example, if you’re importing information from a .csv file, you can create a whole new spreadsheet, append to the current sheet, add a new sheet to your existing spreadsheet or even replace your entire spreadsheet with the new version. We also upgraded the import preview pane to show a snapshot of how your spreadsheet will look after import, so you can verify that things are set the way you want.


Who’s gone Google?
Tens of thousands of businesses, schools and organizations have made the switch to Gmail and Google Apps since our last update. And on Tuesday, we announced a new agreement with the state of New York to bring Google Apps, including training and support to 697 public school districts, as well as all non-public and charter schools across the state. New York is the fifth and largest state to “go Google” throughout their K-12 system, joining Oregon, Iowa, Colorado and Maryland. We’re unbelievably excited about the opportunity to enrich the classroom for more than 3.1 million students and hundreds of thousands of teachers in New York.



We hope these updates help you and your organization get even more from Google Apps. For details and the latest news in this area, check out the Google Apps Blog.

Posted by Jeremy Milo, Google Apps Marketing Manager