App Tuesday: Celebrate Google Apps Marketplace’s half birthday with 12 new apps

Six months ago, the Google Apps Marketplace was born, and we’re excited to celebrate its growth in this short time. Today, more than 4 million Google Apps users have Marketplace apps installed on their domain. In addition, there are now more than 200 integrated apps available to Google Apps users, covering customer relationship management, accounting, finance, project management, and more. Almost every week, third-party applications are joining the Apps Marketplace to address an expanding range of business needs.

This App Tuesday, we’re celebrating our half birthday by launching 12 new apps to the Marketplace. If you are an Apps domain admin, you can extend your Google Apps functionality with just a few easy clicks. All of these installable apps offer single sign-on, so your users can start using them conveniently right from the universal navigation bar in Google Apps. In addition, many applications have implemented deeper integrations with Google Apps, such as Calendar sync or Gmail contextual gadgets, which present relevant information from third-party apps in-line within a Gmail message. Try out these apps and join the other 4 million Apps Marketplace users:

• Grockit - Social Learning Platform for Students
  A social platform for learning that provides students with collaborative, real-time study rooms and relevant coursework to achieve various educational goals.
  Integrations: Single sign-on, Google Calendar sync, Google Docs
• Elance - Talent Acquisition and Management
  An employment platform that offers talent-hungry companies instant access to qualified online workers and the tools to hire, evaluate, and compensate them.
  Integrations: Single sign-on
• ERPLY - Enterprise Resource Planning
  An ERP software that helps you easily manage your points of sale (POS), inventory, relationships and billing by providing real time information.
  Integrations: Single sign-on, Google Calendar
• Insync - Document Management
  A dropbox for Google Apps that bi-directionally syncs Google Docs to Finder and Explorer, allowing a user to work seamlessly across a desktop and browser.
  Intergrations: Single sign-on, Google Docs sync, Google Contacts
• Rainmaker - Social CRM
  A tool to supercharge your contacts by searching a user’s social networks to auto-populate critical information and merging it right into Google Contacts.
  Integrations: Single sign-on, Google Contact Sync
• Pipeline Deals - Customer Management
  A CRM tool to help manage your sales pipeline by overseeing deal flow, tracking leads, and running reports. Current PipelineDeals users manage a combined sales pipeline of $60 billion.
  Integrations: Single sign-on, Google Calendar Sync, Google Contacts Sync
• Idea2 - Customer Management
  A CRM tool that organizes data according to employees’ usage patterns and makes critical data available to them in the most relevant locations.
  Integrations: Single sign-on, Gmail, Google Calendar
• Kashoo - Accounting and Finance
  Accounting software that creates and sends invoices, manages expenses, reconciles bank statements, tracks cash flow, and generates financial reports.
  Integrations: Single sign-on, Google Docs, Google Calendar, Gmail
• SimplifyThis - Productivity
  A tool to help employees book appointments, manage billing, and track clients through a fluid interface with Google Apps.
  Integrations: Single sign-on, Google Calendar
• OffiServ - Productivity
  An application that supports administrative processes by automating various functions, such as purchase order approval, vacation management, and resource distribution.
  Integrations: Single sign-on
• Mindquilt - Productivity
  An internal question and answer platform for companies to help streamline the process of employee inquiries and knowledge distribution.
  Integrations: Single sign-on, Gmail, Google Talk
• RecMan - Security and Compliance
  A tool that provides transparent records management and compliance features, centralized document access control, and retention, legal holds and disposition policy management.
  Integrations: Single sign-on, Google Docs, Gmail

Check out our Apps Marketplace to explore one of these new apps or the other over 200 existing apps. If you've #gonegoogle and tried the #appsmarketplace, let other users know what you recommend via Twitter or submit your suggestions for additional apps.

Posted by Harrison Shih, Google Apps Marketplace Team

Holiday themes and templates in Google Docs

The Google Docs team is celebrating the holiday season with holiday themes in Google forms and holiday templates in the Google Docs template gallery.

Whether you are planning a recipe swap, family potluck, ski trip, a charity trip or need a party RSVP form, the new holiday themes in forms can make this season a little brighter. To try out the holiday themes, create a form and the click "Theme: theme name" to see all the themes that are available.


There are also a lot of great holiday templates available in the Google Docs template gallery. Templates include holiday shopping lists, holiday newsletters, party invitations, RSVP forms and much more.

Not sure where to start? We'll be highlighting some of our favorite holiday templates over the next week, so stay tuned.

Posted by: Eric Bogs and Bob Rose, Software Engineers, Google Docs

Communication and collaboration just got easier with Google Groups

Picture this: you're working on a new project with your team. You ask your IT admin to create a new group that includes all of your team members, keeping in mind that you must ask them to update the group every time people join or leave the group. Maybe you're even wishing that (a) you had a secure, central place to manage this group and communicate with it, and (b) you could easily search group archives for information somewhere other than your inbox.

That's when your admin gives you the good news: creating, managing and sharing with groups just got a whole lot easier. Today, Google Apps is giving business and school IT administrators the ability to let users create, manage and collaborate in groups without needing IT help. This launch is a major expansion to the mailing list functionality and content sharing we released earlier this year.

The following Google Groups features are now included in Google Apps Premier and Education Editions:

• Fast set-up. Employees and students can now create collaborative groups instantly without burdening IT, and manage the group settings to fit their needs.
• Searchable archives. Group discussions are archived by default, allowing users to easily search and view past and present discussions via the web.
• Sharing with a group. Once a group is set up, employees and students can easily share a document, spreadsheet, presentation, shared folder, site, calendar, or video with that group. No need to type in individual email address manually, or remember who joined or left the group. Plus, the shared items will only be accessible by the appropriate people, even as people join and leave the group.
• Reply on behalf of a group. In addition to communicating via email or the web interface, the new functionality lets group managers send a message on behalf of a group.
• IT capabilities. IT administrators still manage if and how users can create groups from the administrative control panel.

Google Apps Premier and Education Edition administrators can now enable the new groups functionality from the control panel by enabling the "user-managed groups" service. You can read more about this announcement on the Official Google Blog. Google Groups will be rolling out to Google Apps Premier and Education Edition domains over the next day, so if you don't notice these features right now, you should see them soon.

We're always developing new features to help you get your job done faster and more efficiently with Google Apps. Stay tuned to this blog for the latest updates as new features continue to come your way, or subscribe to our Google Apps update feed and get the news as it happens.

Posted by Shimrit Ben-Yair, Product Manager

​Google Apps Premier Edition Innovation – Year in Review

Google Apps is helping millions of companies save money, but more importantly, Google Apps helps businesses move beyond the slow, multi-year innovation cycle typical of legacy technologies. We’ve released over 100 significant improvements and updates over the last year, and businesses automatically have access to these updates without having to manage complex and costly upgrades.

Last week I hosted a webcast titled Google Apps Premier Edition Innovation – Year in Review to spotlight the most important improvements we’ve made recently. You can watch the replay below or see it on YouTube.



Innovation happening across the web is rapidly translating into better business email tools, more efficient collaboration choices for coworkers, and more secure, higher reliability technology for companies. We’re excited about what’s in store for Google Apps, and to keep up with future developments, you can subscribe to the Google Apps Updates RSS feed, or sign up for email alerts.

Posted by Jeremy Milo, Google Apps Marketing Manager

Get your money's worth with cloud-based messaging

Do you know how much your email system is costing you? More than just the necessary hardware and software systems, email also requires substantial time and money for maintenance and upkeep. In-house email calls for patches, precautions to maintain high availability and disaster recovery, and the never-ending work it takes to secure and protect email from spam, phishing, and malware.

In a September 2009 study, Osterman Research found that decision makers typically underestimate the cost of providing messaging services. According to Osterman, one-quarter of decision makers believe that their organizations spend less than $10 per seat per month to provide messaging services, while another one-third believe they spend anywhere from $10 to $15 per seat per month – but this cost estimate leaves out several important factors, particularly maintenance.

The research firm also found that the use of cloud-based email can allow organizations to focus more on their core business rather than devote resources to managing the messaging infrastructure.

Another analyst firm, Forrester Research, found that for a 15,000-person firm requiring archiving, the fully loaded cost of on-premise email was $25.18 per user per month compared to a cost of $8.47 for Google Apps.

But it's not all about cost savings – you need more than just a cheaper messaging solution. You also want one that can help your workforce achieve more. Moving to the cloud and Google Apps can help you streamline your IT infrastructure and provide a platform for innovation and increased employee satisfaction.

On October 8, join us for a live webcast as Google Apps expert, Rhonda Stites, walks through a simple financial model that evaluates the savings in adopting Google Apps. You will hear about real customer experiences, get your questions answered and have the tools you need to bring substantial value to your organization.

Register now to learn more about the potential cost savings for your organization.

Save Money with Cloud Computing and Google Apps
Thursday, October 8, 2009
11:00 a.m. PDT / 2:00 p.m. EDT / 6:00 p.m. GMT

We hope to see you there!

Posted by Serena Satyasai, Google Apps team

*Note: The pricing and features available in each architecture vary by provider. Download the full independent research report, “Should Your Email Live In The Cloud? A Comparative Cost Analysis,” Forrester Research, Inc., January 2009.

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Import, export, and more with the new Google Sites API

One of the benefits of Google Apps is the extensibility and openness of the platform. Today we're pleased to advance that story by introducing a new API for Google Sites in Labs.

The use cases are plentiful for businesses:

• Update Google Sites from 3rd party applications – e.g. your sales team's Google Sites pages can update automatically when new leads are added to your CRM system.
• Migrate files and content from workspace applications like Microsoft SharePoint and Lotus Notes to Google Sites.
• Export Google Sites pages, edit them offline, and re-import the updated content.
• Export your sites, including every page revision, for backup.
• Easily monitor changes across your important internal and public sites, all from a single gadget.
• Push new content like changes to employee policies or a new corporate logo to any site on your domain, even sites created by individual employees.
• Best of all, while this API is brand new, application developers will find it rather familiar – it is, after all, a Google Data API. And like our 16 other Google Data APIs, this one comes with all the standard protocol support around authentication and querying that you'd expect. You'll find everything you need to get started on the Google Code pages, including links to documentation and sample applications.

For those of you interested in applications already built on top of this API, be sure to look at:

• The open source import/export project on Google Code that lets you export entire sites as static HTML, maintaining the structure and page hierarchy.
• SharePoint Move for Google Apps, a product developed by LTech for migrating data and content from Microsoft SharePoint to Google Sites.

We're looking forward to your feedback! Watch this space for updates to the API in the coming months.

Anil Sabharwal, Google Enterprise team

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Columbus State University goes mobile with Google Apps

Editor's Note: We're pleased to welcome Robert Diveley, Executive Director of Operations at Columbus State University's Office of Information and Technology Services, as our guest blogger today. Robert's post describes how his school has provided real-time access to student information using Google Mobile Apps.

Columbus State University, located in Columbus, Georgia, started using Google Apps Education Edition in early 2009 and has since successfully implemented Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Sites and Google Video on campus. One challenge for our university, as with many others in today’s economy, is that student enrollment continues to rise while budgets remain flat. Accordingly, it's been pretty tough for us to keep pace with the IT demand.

We recently surveyed our students and learned that, no surprisingly, they strongly preferred to communicate with our school via cell phone andPDA . So we thought that we could get ahead of the curve by offering information live on these devices, allowing our students access to the latest information available and being able to avoid lines and other communications slow-downs, especially at the beginning of new terms.

To solve our problem we looked to Google for guidance on how to interface Google Mobile Apps with our Student Information System. We began our development process using the tools provided through Google’s online developer kit and even enlisted some Columbus State University students to take part in the project by taking advantage of the Android for Beginners group.

Thanks to this integration, the information we are now able to provide in real-time from our Student Information System onto cell phones and PDAs includes:

• Student Account Information – amount owed, refund available, holds on account
• Student Scholastic Information – GPA, adviser contact and grades
• Student’s Individual Schedule of Classes
• Required Documents – Financial Aid, Immunization
• University Activity Schedule
• University Sports Schedule
• Shuttle Bus Schedule
• Campus Map
  
  
  

We've included two screen shots displaying what students can see on their mobile devices below:

We foresee that the use of Mobile Apps will add to our customer service capabilities and allow students to more easily find information that might otherwise require phone calls or lines. Our ultimate goal is to duplicate all of the services that we now provide to students through our university portal. By doing so students will literally have all of our services on hand at all times.

As you can see, delivering this information on a mobile device makes everything easier for our students and proactively addresses frequently asked questions, helping students successfully take charge ofthier own issues and needs.

Robert Diveley, Executive Director of Operations
Office of Information & Technology Services, Columbus State University

Posted by Miriam Schneider, Google Apps Education team

Data portability and Google Apps

Earlier this morning, you may have seen Google's Data Liberation announcement, which stemmed from our core belief that it ought to be easy for users to move their data into or away from Google's cloud.

This principle not only applies to individual users, but also to businesses, schools and other organizations that choose Google Apps to provide better tools at a fraction of the cost of traditional solutions. It should be easy to bring legacy data into the cloud, share data between Google Apps and other IT infrastructure, and get data out of the cloud if it ever makes sense to stop using our service. I invite you to read more about Google Apps data portability on the Data Liberation site.

And while we're on the topic of data portability, stay tuned here for information about moving content to and from Google Sites. We're looking forward to sharing more about this with you soon.

Posted by Brian "Fitz" Fitzpatrick, Engineering Manager

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Launched: Email retention policies and email delegation

A few weeks back, we let you know that Google Apps Premier Edition would soon support two new business-focused features: email retention policies and email delegation. Today we're happy to share the news that both features have been rolled out to Google Apps Premier Edition customers.

Email retention policies help companies comply with industry and government regulations by allowing their admins to determine how long an email should remain in the system before being automatically deleted. Email delegation allows employees to specify other users allowed to manage email for them – especially useful to executives and administrative assistants.

Premier Edition administrators can enable these features from the administrative control panel under the 'Email Settings' tab.

Posted by Rajen Sheth, Google Apps Product Manager

Find customer stories and research product information on our resource sites for current users of Microsoft Exchange and Lotus Notes/Domino.

Launched: Email retention policies and email delegation

A few weeks back, we let you know that Google Apps Premier Edition would soon support two new business-focused features: email retention policies and email delegation. Today we're happy to share the news that both features have been rolled out to Google Apps Premier Edition customers.

Email retention policies help companies comply with industry and government regulations by allowing their admins to determine how long an email should remain in the system before being automatically deleted. Email delegation allows employees to specify other users allowed to manage email for them – especially useful to executives and administrative assistants.

Premier Edition administrators can enable these features from the administrative control panel under the 'Email Settings' tab.

Posted by Rajen Sheth, Google Apps Product Manager

Find customer stories and research product information on our resource sites for current users of Microsoft Exchange and Lotus Notes/Domino.