Get in touch faster with new Gmail Contacts for Google Apps

In our ever-connected world, working revolves around collaborating. It’s important to be able to quickly reach people in your network, speeding up the tasks you perform daily, like making a phone call or sending an email – whether you’re at your desk or on the go. To help with this, we’re rolling out an updated version of Contacts that makes it easier to use, organize and edit your work contacts in Gmail.

In addition to all of the improvements we made to Contacts for individual users, we’ve been hard at work on bringing additional, business-specific features to help you and your colleagues get in touch with contacts more easily. Now, you can:

• Add new contact information that will default to “Work” instead of “Home” field types
• View contact details from the domain directory together with the contact details that you’ve added yourself
• Add contacts from the domain directory to your “My Contacts” list in a single click
• Manage groups more easily by quickly adding email addresses to groups, and picking from a contact’s multiple email addresses to use on a group-by-group basis
• Revert changes to your Contacts for up to 30 days in case you need to restore deleted or merged contacts, or undo an import

If you’re the Google Apps administrator for your organization, you can enable the new Contacts interface in Gmail for your users from the Service Settings > Contacts area of the next generation administrative control panel. It may take up to an hour for users to see the difference once you make the change.

Make collaboration easier today by switching to the new Gmail Contacts (and once you do, be sure to contact us with your feedback).

Posted by Sean Purcell, Product Manager, Google Contacts

Teach your old docs new tricks with Google Cloud Connect for Microsoft Office

Millions of businesses are experiencing radical productivity gains with web-powered tools, and today Google Apps collaboration is ready for every employee. We’re bringing multi-person, simultaneous editing to the Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint applications that coworkers may still need from time to time. More people will be able to achieve a 100% web future entirely in Google Docs after learning the benefits of web-powered collaboration within traditional software.

Google Cloud Connect for Microsoft Office is now available to all users worldwide, letting two or more people work together on the same file at the same time in Microsoft Office 2003, 2007 or 2010 on Windows PCs. For example, you can edit a Word document’s table of contents from Dublin while coworkers adjust formatting and make revisions from Denver. Instead of bombarding each other with attachments and hassling to reconcile people’s edits, your whole team can focus on productive work together.



Google Cloud Connect vastly improves Microsoft Office 2003, 2007 and 2010, so companies can start using web-enabled teamwork tools without upgrading Microsoft Office or implementing SharePoint 2010.


Comparison of collaboration alternatives

Today we’re also introducing the 90-Day Appsperience program globally so businesses encumbered with 1990s technology can experience modern collaboration and the burst of productivity that’s possible now. Whether you manage IT for your whole business, lead a department, or manage a complex project like an industry event, a nominal fee covers 90-day unlimited use of Google Apps collaboration plus hands-on support from Google experts. To help companies measure the productivity impact of better teamwork -- and ultimately pay for what they really need instead of desktop software that could sit on the shelf -- the new collaboration dashboard in the Google Apps for Business and Education control panel provides aggregated activity metrics to administrators. Both Google Cloud Connect and this collaboration dashboard are available in English, with many more supported languages to follow soon.


This year we look forward to bringing you countless stories on the Google Enterprise Blog from schools, businesses and other organizations that are becoming much more productive with Google Apps. To get the wheels turning, check out the transformation that’s speeding ahead at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca.

Join me for a live webinar on March 3rd, 2011 at 10am PST / 1pm EST / 6pm GMT to learn more about Google Cloud Connect and the 90-Day Appsperience program. Register to attend the live event.

Posted by Shan Sinha, Google Apps Product Manager

Update: Many of you have also asked about availability for Macs. Unfortunately due to the lack of support for open APIs on Microsoft Office for Mac, we are unable to make Google Cloud Connect available on Macs at this time. We look forward to when that time comes so we can provide this feature to our Mac customers as well.

App Tuesday brings new integrated web apps for your domain

We’re back with App Tuesday, and a lot has happened since our last post. Over the past couple months, we’ve been busy growing the Google Apps Marketplace to include new apps like SAP’s StreamWork and 20+ new education-focused apps in the new education category.

This App Tuesday, we welcome a number of new apps that were added to the Marketplace in the past month, including apps for financial tracking, employee recruiting and mentoring, and productivity. As always, all installable Marketplace apps are integrated with Google Apps and offer single sign-on convenience, giving users hassle-free access through the Google Apps universal navigation bar (see image below).

We wanted to highlight a few apps in the last month that integrate with users’ Gmail inbox and synchronize with Google Contacts:

• Celigo Gmail Sync for NetSuite provides a seamless integration between Gmail and NetSuite, allowing Gmail users to locate, add and edit NetSuite records and quickly attach messages to those records directly from within Gmail.
• Zoho Books gives businesses the ability to manage their accounting online with complete visibility of their financial positions and the inflow and outflow of money.
• Chronus Mentor enables organizations to run hi-impact mentoring programs in a forward-thinking and cost-effective manner.

Other notable new apps are Zoho Recruit, an easy to use applicant tracking system (ATS), Bookeo, an online meeting scheduler, and Travel Expenses Instant App, an expense reporting app.

Check out the Google Apps Marketplace to explore and install these new apps, or one of the more than 250 additional apps. If you've #gonegoogle and tried the #appsmarketplace, let other users know which apps you recommend via Twitter, or submit your suggestions for additional apps.

Posted by Harrison Shih, Google Apps Marketplace Team

Google Apps just got smarter: introducing the Apps Marketplace’s new EDU category

The education technology space has seen an explosion of new offerings in the past few years. What has been missing is a centralized platform for schools and universities to easily evaluate and utilize web apps. Today we are excited to launch an education category in the Google Apps Marketplace designed specifically to help schools and universities easily discover and deploy new web applications that integrate with their existing Google Apps accounts.

The new education category includes over 20 applications from 19 vendors ranging from learning management systems (LMS) to student tools and teaching aids – all of which integrate with Google Apps for Education. Each app can be accessed through single sign-on and the Google universal navigation bar and many offer deeper integrations that synchronize with Google Calendar and Documents.

This new education category will make it easier for schools to have more web apps at their fingertips, including popular existing apps such as Aviary, Grockit, and LearnBoost as well as the new apps launching today.



Learning Management
Now faculty can bring their classroom management to the cloud with apps such as:

• Haiku: an LMS that allows teachers to create media-rich class websites, give and auto-grade assessments, annotate assignments and interact online with students.
• LearnBoost: an all-in-one gradebook and lesson plan software for teachers that includes tools to visualize data and student performance.
• And other classroom management tools such as eduARC, Class.io, PlanbookEdu, ThinkWave SIS and Applane SIS, gradebooks such as Engrade and ThinkWave Gradebook, and assessment tools such as EduBrite and RCampus iRubric.

Learning Aids
Teachers can help student learn more effectively with web-based learning aids like:

• BrainPOP: an app that offers animated, curriculum-based content that enhances student learning in numerous ways, from illustrating complex concepts to reviewing before a test.
• DreamBox: a tool that helps students learn math through interactive lessons and gives teachers reporting dashboards to monitor individual student progress.
• And other teaching aids like Grockit, BuzzMath and LearnThatWord.

Student and Admin Tools
Administrators and students can tackle other education needs with even more tools:

• EasyBib: an automatic bibliography composer that helps students format sources quickly and accurately to cite in papers.
• Digication: an online e-Portfolio creation tool that helps students share and showcase their work and achievements online.
• And other student and admin tools like Aviary, Edutone Sakai Connector, Edutone Moodle Connector, Leveled Library and Rcampus e-Portfolio.

Thousands of universities, colleges and K-12 schools around the world with over 10 million users already deploy Google Apps in their classrooms. The applications we're introducing today into the new Marketplace education category are just the beginning. We look forward to expanding and strengthening our offerings as we continue to add new education tools, including web applications by Blackboard, Knewton and the Khan Academy already on the way.

To learn more about the education category of the Apps Marketplace – and hear directly from the developers of these applications – register to attend live Google webinars and Q&A on Wednesday, February 2nd.

Manage your school in the cloud with the Google Apps Marketplace
Featuring classroom management tools Haiku and LearnBoost
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
10:00 a.m. PST / 1:00 p.m. EST
Register here

Help students learn more effectively with the Google Apps Marketplace
Featuring web-based learning tools Grockit, BrainPOP, and DreamBox
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
4:00 p.m. PST / 7:00 p.m. EST
Register here

Posted by Dennis Troper, Director of Product Management, Google Apps Marketplace

Destination: Dial Tone -- Getting Google Apps to 99.99%

People expect email to be as reliable as their phone's dial tone, and our goal is to deliver that kind of always-on availability with our applications. It's been a couple years since we blogged about the reliability of Gmail, so we thought we'd share some changes to our Google Apps service level agreement (SLA) and some new data.

Strengthening our SLA
We're pleased to make a couple changes that improve our SLA for our customers. Unlike most providers, we don't plan for our users to be down, even when we're upgrading our services or maintaining our systems. For that reason, we're removing the SLA clause that allows for scheduled downtime. Going forward, all downtime will be counted and applied towards the customer's SLA. We are the first major cloud provider to eliminate maintenance windows from their service level agreement.

We're also amending our SLA so that any intermittent downtime is counted. Previously, a period of less than ten minutes was not included. We believe any instance that causes our users to experience downtime should be avoided -- period.

Gmail: 99.984%
In 2010, Gmail was available 99.984 percent of the time, for both business and consumer users. 99.984 percent translates to seven minutes of downtime per month over the last year. That seven-minute average represents the accumulation of small delays of a few seconds, and most people experienced no issues at all. For those few who were disrupted for a longer period of time, we're very sorry, and Google Apps for Business customers received compensation where appropriate. We're particularly pleased with this level of reliability since it was accomplished without any planned downtime while launching 30 new features and adding tens of millions of active users.

Seven minutes of downtime compares very favorably with on-premises email, which is subject to much higher rates of interruption that hurt employee productivity. The latest research from the Radicati Group found that on-premises email averaged 3.8 hours of downtime per month. In comparison to Radicati's metrics for on-premises email, our calculations suggest that Gmail is 32 times more reliable than the average email system, and 46 times more available than Microsoft Exchange®.¹

Fortunately Microsoft Exchange® customers can still benefit from the reliability of Gmail with Google Message Continuity. Comparable data for Microsoft BPOS® is unavailable, though their service notifications show 113 incidents in 2010: 74 unplanned outages, and 33 days with planned downtime.

Email is much more complex than your home phone, so making it as reliable as the dial tone is no mean feat. Despite our best efforts, we will have outages in the future. But we're proud of our track record so far and we're working hard to make it even better. Every time you reach for your phone you expect it to work. And we believe that is a worthwhile benchmark.

1. The Radicati Group, 2010. "Corporate IT Survey – Messaging & Collaboration, 2010-2011"

Posted by Matthew Glotzbach, Google Enterprise Product Management Director

Update: clarification added to fifth paragraph.

Conquer tax season with integrated finance apps from the Google Apps Marketplace

Editor's note: This is the latest in a series of posts on apps or topics in the Google Apps Marketplace that have caught our eye here at Google. We’ll do this every so often as we see things we'd like to share. Look for the label "marketplace highlights" and subscribe to the series if you'd like to stay tuned.

As we work our way into the new year, we recognize that tax season can be very difficult for businesses. Face this tax season with ease and confidence by attending a live webinar and Q&A on using integrated finance apps from the Google Apps Marketplace - featuring Shoeboxed, Harvest, and Outright.

   Using applications from the Google Apps Marketplace to conquer tax season
   Wednesday, January 26, 2011
   11:00 a.m. PST / 2:00 p.m. EST
   Register here

With dozens of Marketplace accounting and finance apps, you can customize solutions to your business’s specific needs. Each application integrates with Google Apps and provides single sign-on convenience and access through the Google universal navigation bar.

For example, here’s one way your business might cut down the work of tax season this year by using Marketplace apps to organize financial documents, streamline invoicing, and aggregate accounting information.

Digitize your important documents
If you’ve been putting off the tedious task of organizing your receipts, Shoeboxed can help. Send your receipts to them inside a provided postage-paid envelope and within a few days, Shoeboxed will transform your paper clutter into a secure, searchable, IRS-accepted online database. Shoeboxed also offers a variety of export options and integrates with various tax applications. By using Shoeboxed now, you can get your receipts in order before the April 15th tax deadline.

Simplify invoicing and billing to easily monitor cash flow
It’s also easy to seamlessly manage your accounts payables and receivables with the Apps Marketplace. For example, Harvest helps you create and track invoices and set up retainers for clients and projects. Other features such as multi-currency support, automated reminders and online payment help you get paid faster. Harvest also offers a contextual gadget in Gmail to streamline invoicing activities.

Prepare your finances for tax time
When it comes to aggregating your financials to prep for tax time, there are several options, including Outright. Outright automates the accounting process, provides key financial reports and tracks where your money is going by integrating with Google Apps, Shoeboxed, Harvest, your bank account and other sources. At tax time, Outright calculates any estimated taxes you owe and pre-populates your annual tax form, the IRS Schedule C. It also provides helpful alerts that integrate into your Google Calendar to keep you apprised of upcoming deadlines.

In addition to Shoeboxed, Harvest and Outright, the Apps Marketplace offers your business many other applications that can satisfy your accounting and finance needs.

Invoicing/Billing Freshbooks Zoho Invoice Invoicera Bill.com Invoic€xpress WorkingPoint Harvest

Accounting Yendo Accounts FreeAgent Rhino Accouting Kashoo.com Outright

ERP MyERP.com Brightpearl ERPLY

Expense Reporting Expensify Concur Breeze Yendo Expenses Shoeboxed

Try out these apps Google Apps Marketplace and make this tax season a breeze.

Posted by Harrison Shih, Product Marketing, Google Apps Marketplace

A look at the best of the Google Apps Marketplace in 2010

Closing out 2010, we are excited to offer over 250 installable applications in the Google Apps Marketplace that work seamlessly with Google Apps. The Apps Marketplace has grown rapidly, now with over 4 million users with at least one Marketplace app installed on their domains.

With Google Apps and the Apps Marketplace, you can finally go 100% web with your business, realizing greater functionality and flexibility at a lower cost. For example, you can manage your entire sales cycle anywhere you have access to a browser – send marketing and lead generation emails through MailChimp, manage and track responses with Zoho CRM and even close the sale with an e-signature from EchoSign.

Every month on App Tuesday, we aim to give you a break from patching your systems by introducing even more apps to help you move to the cloud. To wrap up the year, we wanted to give you a recap of what’s been big in the Marketplace, the top categories and apps of the year as well as a preview of 2011.

Top Installed Categories

1. Project Management - with over 30 project management apps, businesses can find applications that address key project needs including cross-functional collaboration, task list management, and time tracking.
   Top 3 installed: Manymoon, Mavenlink, RapidTASK
2. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) - the most popular searched for category in 2010, businesses can find all types of CRM apps, including those related to end-to-end sales cycles, social and project-based.
   Top 3 installed: Insightly, Zoho CRM, Applane
3. Accounting and Finance - bring simplicity to your accounting and finance needs with Marketplace apps that manage your cash flow, billing and invoicing, and expense tracking.
   Top 3 installed: Outright, myERP.com, Freshbooks

Top Recently Installed Apps of 2010

1. Manymoon
2. Insightly
3. Zoho CRM
4. Aviary Design Suite
5. Mavenlink
6. Outright
7. MailChimp
8. RapidTask
9. Insync
10. myERP.com

Honorable Mention - #11 for 2011

    11. Grockit, our first ever app focused on education

Best Integration
Gmail contextual gadgets - This integration, offered by many Marketplace apps, allows you to access your most relevant and important data streams right where you need it, inline with your emails. For example, many CRM apps provide gadgets that populate information about contacts in an email thread to add context to your communications.

Looking forward to 2011, we have a number of new ideas in the pipeline. We have plans to help improve your shopping experience, find the exact apps you need, and add additional integration capabilities to make users more efficient.

As you prepare for 2011, consider making a new year’s resolution to go 100% web to capture the benefits of reduced costs, greater scalability and flexibility. Whether it’s switching your messaging and collaboration tools to Google Apps or augmenting your sales and marketing efforts with web applications from the Apps Marketplace, resolve to make 2011 the year your business moves to the web and boosts productivity.

Posted by Harrison Shih, Product Marketing, Google Apps Marketplace

SAP joins the Google Apps Marketplace with SAP StreamWork

Editor’s Note: This is a guest blog post from David Meyer, senior vice president for On-Demand, Productivity and Sustainability Solutions at SAP, the leading business software vendor to more than 100,000 customers in over 120 countries.

What did I miss at the last meeting? Why do I have seven different copies of a spreadsheet named “Final Version”? Where should we host the next event? These are all questions and problems that can easily be resolved through a new way of working in the cloud available through the integration of Google Apps and SAP StreamWork, now available in the Google Apps Marketplace.

SAP StreamWork brings together people and information - from the web, your desktop, or business systems - and applies structure to discussions with business tools including pro/con tables, SWOT analyses, and polls to drive fast, meaningful results. Think about how easy it can be to allocate resources, prioritize sales leads, or define new marketing campaigns in a single, well-organized location. With Google Apps integration, the SAP StreamWork environment will be joined with the tools you are already familiar with in the cloud.

SAP StreamWork will work with OpenID so you can use your Google Apps login to access your SAP StreamWork account and navigate to it through the Google universal navigation bar. Additionally, Google Apps will also be accessible directly from SAP StreamWork, providing you with the ability to use Google’s calendaring, email and document creation and management tools as part of your problem-solving process in SAP StreamWork. Direct integration will be available for users in the first part of 2011.

In joining the Google Apps Marketplace, we see a great opportunity to reach over 3 million Google Apps businesses who have already embraced the cloud and we invite them to try out SAP StreamWork.

Join us for a live webinar and Q&A session with Google and SAP at 11am on December 14th demonstrating the SAP StreamWork integration with Google Apps and discussing best practices for making decisions faster with distributed teams.

Posted by Harrison Shih, Product Marketing, Google Apps Marketplace Team

Google Apps Marketplace - Project Management highlights, 11/30/10

Editor's note: This is the latest in a series of posts on apps in the Google Apps Marketplace that have caught our eye here at Google. We’ll do this every so often as we see things we'd like to share. Look for the label "marketplace highlights" and subscribe to the series if you'd like to stay tuned.

Today, more than 3 million businesses and thousands of universities not only have access to Google’s core suite of applications, they also get easy access to 200+ of the best apps on the web through the Google Apps Marketplace. These installable Marketplace apps are easy to try and buy, and offer single sign-on and hassle-free access from the Google universal navigation bar. Beyond the convenience of single sign-on, many apps integrate with users’ Gmail inbox, Google Docs, Google contacts, and Google calendar to improve productivity even further.

Across these businesses and schools, there’s one thing all users likely have in common: they have projects to complete. The good news is whether you have a product to build or market, a research study to publish, or an internal project to deliver, there's likely an app in the Marketplace to help you and your type of project succeed.

And since projects come in all shapes and sizes, we’ve categorized the apps in to 5 groups based on their focus, and then further ordered them by most installed first. This should help you better understand which of these 30 apps are right for your projects.

Project Management
Project management, with a focus on planning and tracking

Mavenlink - an end-to-end solution for professional services delivery
Gantter - powerful desktop scheduling right from your browser
Smartsheet - online project task sheets w/dependencies, Gantt charts & files
Zoho Project - beyond planning...get your projects done faster

Viewpath - manage project tasks and resources with drag/drop simplicity
Cohuman - task-centric communications to synchronize people & teams
Comindwork - fully customizable Gantt views, workflows and to-dos

Teamup - anytime, anywhere project tracking for businesses of all sizes
WorkforceTrack - online collaboration, reporting, time tracking and billing

Project Collaboration
Project management, with a focus on communication and sharing

Manymoon - social productivity, project management & task management
Teambox - project management software and social collaboration
Bright Green - intuitive project collaboration - Agile, Kanban and Waterfall
LumoFlow - project workspaces that motivate people to participate
Glasscubes - organize your day to day work - manage projects, info & people
Emforge - project platform with a wide set of tools for distributed teams
DeskAway - simple yet powerful web-based project collaboration tool

Task Management
Project management, with focus on task list sharing and collaboration

RapidTask - make project management as easy as email
Producteev - turn your emails into tasks
GQueues - share lists, assign tasks, get reminders, stay organized
Thymer - project management and task planning for people who hate it
ToBeeDo - simple online task management service with time tracking

Timesheets
Project management, with a focus on tracking and billing hours

gTrax - simple time tracking app to manage resources & project budgets
Harvest - simple time tracking and timesheets for teams and freelancers
Paymo - easy online project management, time tracking and billing app
BeeBole - a fast timesheet for teams - fully customizable.
TrackMyHours - a powerful time tracking & billing solution
Cube - start tracking time and expenses in less than 15 seconds

Product Development Projects
Project management, with a focus on software development

Acunote - enterprise online project management and Scrum software
Jira Studio - software dev tool suite with Subversion and agile management
Gravity - a simple but powerful tool to help you manage agile projects

If you’re looking to improve the way you manage and collaborate on projects, we encourage you to evaluate these apps. We’re adding new apps to the Marketplace all the time, so continue to check back for apps for all your organization’s needs.

Posted by Scott McMullan, Google Apps Partner Lead, Google Enterprise

Ten times more applications for Google Apps customers

Cross-posted on the Official Google Blog and the Google Small Business Blog

As customers begin to recognize large productivity gains with Gmail, Google Docs and the rest of Google Apps, they frequently ask when they’ll be able to use services like Google Voice, Reader, Blogger and AdWords with their Google Apps accounts. We’ve steadily added new functionality to Google Apps and recently added support for third-party apps, but we’re thrilled to swing the floodgates of new functionality wide open now. Starting today, customers worldwide can access a full spectrum of services from Google—including more than 60 productivity-boosting applications that extend far beyond any traditional software suite.

Coupled with the ability for administrators to provide different sets of applications to different groups of users, the possibilities for empowering workers in new ways are remarkable. For example, you could equip your marketing team with Picasa Web Albums so they can collect and share photos from customer appreciation events, and let that team publish your company’s blog with Blogger. Services like iGoogle and Alerts, on the other hand, may be broadly useful, and could be enabled for your whole organization.



Existing customers can transition at their own pace over the next couple months to the new infrastructure supporting these applications from the administrative control panel. New customers will automatically have the new infrastructure. The additional services are not covered by the Google Apps SLA or telephone support, but we’ll be watching for feedback how we can make these new applications even more useful.

In tandem with this big improvement, we’re also simplifying the names of the versions of Google Apps. Here’s how we now refer to our line-up:

• Google Apps is our free service geared towards families, entrepreneurs and other groups up to 50 users.
  
• Google Apps for Business offers 25GB of email storage per user, a 99.9% uptime guarantee, data migration capabilities, advanced management tools, telephone support, added security features and more, all for $50 per user per year.
  
• Google Apps for Government is FISMA certified and designed with local, state and federal agencies in mind.
  
• Google Apps for Education offers many benefits of Google Apps for Business, but at no cost to schools, universities and qualifying non-profits.

The team has worked hard to unlock all of this new functionality for our customers, and we think many of these new applications will become indispensable within your organization. To help get you started, each day the Google Enterprise Blog will profile how your organization could put a different application to use. The first post tomorrow will focus on Google Reader, so drop by again soon to follow the series. Posted by Derek Parham, Lead Software Engineer, Google Apps

Google Apps Marketplace helps students’ minds thrive in the cloud

We started the Google Apps Marketplace with the goal of helping businesses find even more value in the cloud. Universities and schools are also moving aggressively into cloud computing for both internal infrastructure applications and apps for students. We have seen excellent uptake by education edition users of a wide range of apps, including Aviary, Manymoon, SlideRocket, SurveyMonkey, TripIt, OffiSync, and Sherpatools, just to name a few.

In addition to the many apps that have been used to enhance learning experiences, we recently introduced the first education-focused app, Grockit, to the Marketplace. We are excited to see the demand for these types of apps grow and we hope to build on the momentum created by apps that have been helping schools move to the cloud. Here are just a few examples of how Marketplace apps are currently being used in the classroom:

SlideRocket - Platform for creating, managing, sharing and measuring presentations

“You can see the impact [of cloud-based learning] in a research project some students did with the Glacier National Park in Montana. Students started by gathering their data through “building tools” such as Google Docs. Then students used that cloud-based data to collaborate with peers inside of SlideRocket, building a coherent presentation from scattered sets of data. Finally, they used Google Earth to embed the SlideRocket presentation into a place marker within the park, giving everyone access to their work. With this advancement in edtech, students across the school can discover various geo-referenced SlideRocket presentations as they virtually fly around the globe, learning and providing feedback… teachers are constantly wow’ed by the new capabilities…”

- John Kuglin, Senior Tech Consultant & Former Associate Dean, Univ of Montana 

Manymoon - Team collaboration and project management application

“At Le Moyne College... class assignments, relevant media, documents, student discussions and papers are all posted on Manymoon... All e-mails, documents, links etc are in one place and easy to find... which saves lots of time for me and my students. Manymoon and Google Apps are useful for connecting my students with others in the wider community. This semester, for instance, my Le Moyne College students are using Manymoon to work with college and high school students on a Juvenile Justice Experiential Education collaboration which involves more than 200 students from local universities and high schools. This is made possible by Manymoon and the suite of Google Apps.”

-Jim Dessauer, Adjunct Associate Professor in Sociology at Le Moyne College

The introduction of Grockit is our most recent step to help schools and universities discover and deploy relevant applications from our Marketplace. Grockit is a social learning platform for students in K-12 and for college entrance exams. They were eager to join the Marketplace because of the 8 million students that currently use Google Apps. Through Grockit integrations with Apps, students can now easily access their Grockit account through the universal navigation bar, sync training sessions with Google Calendar and store critical documents in Google Docs.

"The response from School Administrators has been outstanding. Each day we are contacted by a new school that is thrilled Google has begun adding educational apps to the marketplace and they have access to Grockit’s learning platform through it. They are already asking how they can make Grockit available to their students beyond this school year. We are stoked that educators see the additional value they provide their students when they are able to combine the benefits of Google and Grockit together."

-Farb Nivi, Founder and CEO of Grockit

We are constantly seeking to bring applications that our customers want to the Marketplace, so help us out by suggesting apps you think would be good for the Marketplace. In the meantime, check out the Google Apps Marketplace and get your head in the cloud:

Aviary, Manymoon, SlideRocket, SurveyMonkey, TripIt, OffiSync, and Sherpatools

Posted by Harrison Shih, Google Apps Marketplace Team

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

Go-Go (Gmail contextual) Gadgets - get more done right from your inbox

The email inbox has become the hub for most people’s business day. With Gmail contextual gadgets, available in the Google Apps Marketplace, instead of having to open additional applications to take action or get more information, these applications intelligently bring what you need right into your inbox. Gmail contextual gadgets scan for triggers, such as names or purchase order numbers, within a message and present relevant actions in-line with the email. Attend our webinar on Sept 8th to learn more about this feature. Here are a few examples of the wide range of applications that offer Gmail contextual gadgets in the Marketplace.

Customer management (CRM) solutions are one of the most sought after applications in the Marketplace. The newly launched Solve360 contextual gadget demonstrates the advantages of having access to CRM information within a message. Alongside each Gmail message, Solve360’s gadget shows off a clean, at-a-glance view of everything your team knows about the person behind the message. Before taking further action, you can examine the customer’s previous interactions and special considerations. Advanced customer management is now no more complicated than a few extra clicks inside an email exchange with a client.

Video Demonstration

Tracking time can be quite cumbersome for employees and businesses, so Harvest has developed a web-based solution for managing your timesheets. With Harvest for Google Apps, entering time is as simple as filling out a timesheet right within Gmail. Harvest sends automatic reminder emails to employees to fill out relevant timesheets. With contextual gadgets, these emails display the recipient’s timesheet right below the body of the message so users can fill out and submit their timesheet without ever leaving their inbox. Bringing this crucial task right into your email takes out unnecessary steps and helps you save time and stay on track.

Video Demonstration

Smartsheet, a popular project management solution, offers integration across various Google Apps products. With their Gmail contextual gadget, any email that references a Smartsheet item allows task management right from your inbox. This functionality is interactive with your daily needs - as Smartsheet tracks project progress, if it detects a change in status based on your parameters, it will deliver an email to your inbox. Right from that email, you will be able to fully assess and edit each aspect of the project. The volatility of project management just got that much smoother.

Video Demonstration

Gist demonstrates how deeply rooted and useful social networks have become. This application delivers social media in a way that changes how you manage relationships. Gist removes the noise from individual email alerts, eliminates the hassle of going to multiple services for updates, and automates the delivery of the most important information about the contacts in your professional network. With their Gmail contextual gadget, you can better understand the context of each email without any extra work and better frame your actions. Valuable social information is available to you exactly where you need it - your inbox.

Video Demonstration

These are just four of the applications in the Google Apps Marketplace that have taken Gmail contextual gadgets to the next level. For more contextual gadgets, check out:

• Project and collaboration apps: Manymoon, Socialwok
• Relationship management apps: Applane, Rapportive, Kwaga
• Productivity apps: Organizer, AwayFind, Pixetell

Remember to sign up for our webinar on Sept 8th to learn more about these great gadgets.

Webinar:
All about Gmail contextual gadgets: Learn how to access Line of Business data from your inbox
Wednesday, September 8th, 2010
11:00 a.m. PDT / 2:00 p.m. EDT
Register here


Posted by Harrison Shih, Google Apps Marketplace Team

App Tuesday: nine new apps announced for the Apps Marketplace to help your business grow

As your business grows, so does the complexity of managing projects, securing data, tracking resource usage, and communicating with coworkers. Today, we are excited to announce nine new installable apps in the Google Apps Marketplace that can help ensure that your business growth doesn't outpace your technological capabilities. So instead of patching servers and updating desktop-based software today, check out some of our more than 150 installable web apps available to Google Apps users. All of these installable apps offer single sign-on functionality so your users can start using them conveniently right from the universal navigation bar in Google Apps. Some have additional integrations with Gmail, Calendar, Docs and other apps, which makes these Marketplace apps more powerful than comparable stand-alone offerings.

Google Apps Premier, Education and Standard Edition administrators can install Marketplace applications in a few simple steps -- watch this video to see how it works.

Complex projects and tasks have a potential to grow out of control and lose focus, so we’ve included a series of project, communication, time, and task-specific management apps in this App Tuesday launch.

• DeskAway is a simple, yet powerful web-based project collaboration tool that streamlines the way you and your team work by giving you an accurate view of project progress and tackling some common problems that occur when multiple people are collaborating.
• Acunote is an online project management software. It helps you manage projects, products and requirements, track progress, realistically predict completion dates and analyze company productivity.
• RescueTime is an automatic time and attention tracker that helps teams work smarter. It is widely used by a range of companies and now has user and team sync for Google Apps accounts, plus a real time stats gadget in Gmail.
• ToBeeDo is an online task management service. The familiar, fast and intuitive interface helps you to organize your workflow and it doesn’t require any setup.
• Ketera is a network that simultaneously offers savings for business buyers and online sales opportunities for B2B suppliers to help members discover new trading partners and market insights, aiding in billions of dollars in transactions every year.

Your business also requires additional apps to help manage its growing mounds of internal and external information. These applications can help streamline this process:

• FormLizard is for when you need paperwork completed properly. You and your customers can complete forms, contracts, and more online, giving you complete, accurate, legible, and professional paperwork every time.
• LumoFlow provides social collaboration workspaces for enterprises to manage projects, share documents and keep teams in sync. It also helps connect global business operations and manage joint projects with partners and customers.
• MangoSpring Collaboration Suite seamlessly integrates all the MangoApps to provide next generation collaboration experience. Each MangoApp solves an important part of the business workflow.
• Backupify provides secure, scalable, and automatic backup for your Gmail, Docs, Calendar, Contacts, and Sites. You can securely access and manage archives of backups from any web browser.

We encourage you to explore some of these great new apps in the Marketplace. Join us next Wednesday when we hold a live webinar to discuss with a few of the app creators on maximizing your productivity with these apps.

Webinar: Increase productivity with new Google Apps Marketplace Apps
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
11:00 a.m. PDT / 2:00 p.m. EDT
Register here

If you've #gonegoogle and tried the #appsmarketplace, let other users know what you recommend via Twitter or submit your suggestion for additional apps.

Posted by Harrison Shih, Google Apps Marketplace Team