The Google Apps Blog

Prisma Media Saves 30 percent in 45 Days with Google Apps

2013-03-15T16:06:00Z

Posted by Franck Barlemont, Director of Information Systems at Prisma Media

Editor's note: Today’s guest blogger is Franck Barlemont, Director of Information Systems at Prisma Media, the second largest magazine publisher in France. See what other organizations that have gone Google have to say.

Prisma Media is a French magazine publisher with approximately 20 titles in subjects such as photography, art and travel. From how to take the best photos to how to properly cook a souffle, our titles, including National Geographic, Female Current and Current Kitchen, have been informing and entertaining readers for years.

As Director of Information Systems at Prisma Media, it’s my job to keep a finger on the pulse of how our employees are using technology. Just as the publishing industry has had sweeping changes the past few years, so too has the way our employees use technology. Last year, I discovered a few enterprising employees who were forgoing our hosted corporate email system in favor of Gmail. They had reached the limit of their email storage and needed a way to stay productive.

Traditionally, bringing outside, unsupported technology into the workplace is fraught with concerns around security, lack of manageability and control. Other companies might have quickly revoked access to Gmail for the employees in question and reminded them of the standard company policy when it comes to using unsupported technology at work. Instead, we chose to look at this as an opportunity and reevaluated our technology environment.

We decided to go with Google Apps for Business for a number of reasons. First, Apps requires much less support than our previous solution. Simply by going Google, we cut our IT support calls by approximately 30 percent, which saved us money and freed up our IT department for other tasks. The second reason was cost. By switching to Google we cut our email costs by approximately one-third, which is a lot, especially when you consider we’re getting access to a much better, more modern product. Lastly, the switch itself was seamless. By working with Google Apps Reseller GPartner, we were able to continue to manage and run our business without missing a beat, while GPartner handled the switch in approximately 45 days.

Google Apps gives us a more modern, robust and flexible platform at a third of the cost and frees up our tech support resources. It also allows us to do what’s most important: focus on our business. The only drawback is I wish we would have made the move sooner.

Hard Rock Hotels in Mexico & the Dominican Republic find their groove with Google Apps

2013-02-06T16:07:00Z

Posted by Jaime Garcia, IT Corporate Director of the All Inclusive Collection

(Cross-posted on the Google Latin America Blog)

Editor's note: We are excited to have guest blogger Jaime Garcia, IT Corporate Director of the All Inclusive Collection with over 5,000 employees at Hard Rock hotels in the Mayan Riviera, Cancún, Puerto Vallarta, and Punta Cana. See what other organizations that have gone Google have to say.

At Hard Rock hotels, we don’t want to be a normal hotel; we want our guests to feel like rock stars from the moment they walk in the door. But, with 1,200 employees that use our IT platform across four locations, it can be challenging to create a consistent guest experience. We need tools that help us make decisions in the moment -- the party doesn’t stop at the Hard Rock!

As the IT Corporate Director of the All Inclusive Collection (which runs all of the Hard Rock Hotels in Mexico and the Dominican Republic), I’m responsible for providing tools to our employees that will let them to work together effectively and focus on our customers. On our old system, Microsoft® Exchange, we had a large datacenter for the hotels to maintain. Our communication tools weren’t flexible enough to make decisions on the go and we couldn’t guarantee that we were running the same promotions at the same time. We worried about the effect on our guests’ experience. I decided that we needed to move to Google Apps and get off of our on-premise infrastructure. Google Apps was fast, safe, and agile and met all of the security standards I was looking for, so I knew that all of our customers’ information would be protected, too!

Since moving to Google Apps, we've improved internal communication and are now spending half as much time on things as we were previously. While our hotels are in Mexico and the Dominican Republic, our sales teams are located all over the globe—North America, Europe, Asia, and here in Latin America—and they’re moving all the time. With Google Talk and Google+ Hangouts, we rarely use the phone anymore, it’s easier to jump on a Hangout from any device and from any of our locations. When our sales team in Miami make an important reservation for a wedding or a big group, they chat via Google Talk with the hotel in Cancun, providing immediate assurance and confirmation that everything will run smoothly.

Having so many guests across our hotels, problems can arise at anytime day or night, so we can’t have downtime. Rather than worrying about keeping our servers and email running, we spend our time managing tools through a browser. We've saved thousands of dollars in IT infrastructure and telecommunication costs, and my IT headaches are gone. I used to have a team of guys helping me manage servers and keep our email up and running. Now, only two of us manage all of the tools.

Google Sites and Google Calendar have been fundamental in organizing our promotions and standardizing our guest experience by allowing us to share across hotel locations. We just had a promotion across all our branches for Christmas and the holidays. We made a site with all of the dates, rates, and details of the deal and we could easily monitor how it was rolled out across each hotel. This process used to take weeks, and fixing discrepancies between the locations was messy. Now, it’s simple, consistent, and happens in real time.

On Google Apps, we really feel like a team, working together despite being countries apart. We are able to provide the same level of rockstar service in all of our hotels and create great experiences for our guests. All while improving our customer experience – rock on!

Introducing the new compose in Gmail

2012-10-30T16:00:00Z

Posted by Phil Sharp, Product Manager

We're always trying to make Gmail faster and easier to use, so today we're introducing a completely redesigned compose and reply experience that does just that.

Faster
How many times have you been writing an email and had to reference something in another message? Saving a draft, opening the old email, and then reopening your draft wastes valuable minutes. The new compose pops up in a window, just like chats (only larger).This makes it easy to reference any other emails without ever having to close your draft. You can even do a search or keep an eye on new mail as it comes in. And because the compose window works the same way as chats, you can write multiple messages at once and minimize a message to finish it later.

Easier to use
The new compose is designed to let you focus on what's important: your message. The controls are still there when you need them but get out of the way when you don’t. We’ve even added some new features like the ability to easily insert inline images and have more to come.

And, when you add recipients to your message, you'll see profile pictures of your contacts in autocomplete helping you find the right person faster. You can also drag and drop the new address chips between to:, cc: and bcc:. When you’re done adding recipients, the address area collapses automatically to get out of your way.You’ll also see these same changes when you respond to a message. The reply experience has been designed to fit better inline as part of your conversation -- replies take up much less vertical height, intelligently expand to fit your content, and always keep the recipients and other controls in view no matter how long your message gets.

We're rolling out a preview of the new compose and reply today. After we've added some finishing touches over the coming months, we’ll enable it for everyone.

Bringing Google Calendar to the Play Store

2012-10-17T23:15:00Z

Posted by Michael Chan, Tech Lead

Previously available only on select Android devices like Nexus S and Galaxy Nexus, you can now download the official Google Calendar app for Android from Google Play. Google Calendar makes it easy for you to manage all your calendars in one place, including those from your Google accounts and other calendars synced to your Android device.

Beyond supporting the basics such as creating, editing, deleting events and responding to invitations, the new Google Calendar app has extra features that help you manage your time and communication more easily:

Snooze events directly from a notification if you’re not quite ready and want to be reminded later.
Use predefined messages to send quick "I'll be late" updates to your event participants directly from the notifications or the event itself (of course, you can always write your own).
Pinch to zoom in and out of a day.
Set a home time zone to help you manage your time better when traveling.

In addition, we also expanded the sync period so you can review past events from up to one year ago directly on your device. Download Google Calendar on Google Play today for devices running Ice Cream Sandwich (4.0.3+) or Jellybean. Use the Google Feedback feature in the app to let us know how we can make Calendar work better for you! (Cross-posted on the Official Android Blog)

Find your stuff faster in Gmail and Search

2012-10-15T21:46:00Z

Posted by Bram Moolenaar, Software Engineer

When you’re looking for something, you should be able to find what you need quickly and easily without needing to think about where it might be, whether it's in your email or out on the public web. That’s why this past August we opened a field trial allowing you to sign up to get information from Gmail right from the Google search box.

We’ve gotten very positive feedback from those of you testing it out -- such as this note: “The Gmail results feature is awesome! The fact that it's all integrated into one screen is huge.” Many testers have requested being able to find Drive files as well -- as one of you put it, “It would be awesome if I could search my google drive from google search as well :)”.

So starting today, you can sign up for a new and expanded field trial that makes it easier to find your stuff across Google, whether you’re searching on Google.com or searching in Gmail.

In Gmail, as you begin to type into the search box, you'll instantly start seeing relevant emails from Gmail as well as results from Google Drive, Google Calendar, and more:
Similarly, when you search on Google.com, your results will include relevant information and messages from Gmail (something familiar to those who joined the original field trial) and now -- new in this field trial -- also files, documents, spreadsheets and more from Google Drive:
To give this a try, please visit the updated field trial page and select Join the field trial. Please note that this trial is only accessible in English and for @gmail.com addresses (not available on Google Apps accounts). And keep the feedback coming!

(Cross-posted on the Inside Search Blog)

Communicate more easily across languages in Gmail

2012-10-09T16:00:00Z

Posted by C. Andrew Warren, Product Manager

Finding the right words can be difficult, especially across languages, and once you choose them, finding a way to type them can be even harder. Try emailing family in Germany, chatting with friends in China or adding a Russian business partner's name to your contacts and you may find yourself limited by the language of your keyboard.

That's why today we’re adding more than 100 virtual keyboards, transliteration and IMEs—collectively called input tools—in Gmail. These tools enable you to type in the language and keyboard layout you’re accustomed to, making it easy to keep in touch with family, friends and coworkers from any computer. You can even switch between languages with one click.
To try it out, check the box next to Enable input tools under Language in Settings.

Once you’ve enabled it, you’ll see the Input Tools icon next to the Settings button in your toolbar, and you can turn on and off any Input Tool from there.
With these new virtual keyboards, Gmail supports typing in 75 languages—a big jump from the five languages that were initially supported when we introduced Indic transliteration in Gmail in 2009.

Gmail’s users are from all over the world—and language should never get in the way of a good conversation. If you'd like to use Input Tools in other places, try out the Chrome extension, the Windows desktop client or the Android apps.

A new way to sync Google Contacts

2012-09-27T17:00:00Z

Posted by Jeff Ellingson, Product Manager

For many years, we've supported two open protocols for accessing Gmail and Calendar from mobile apps
and devices: IMAP for email and CalDAV for calendar. These protocols, combined with the options to
access Gmail, Calendar, and Contacts with your desktop or mobile browser and via native apps on iOS and
Android, help ensure you have a great experience regardless of the device you use.

Starting today, we're adding CardDAV - an open protocol for contacts - to that list. CardDAV enables 3rd
party clients, like the iOS contacts app, to sync your Google contacts. By supporting IMAP, CalDAV, and
CardDAV together, we’re making it possible for 3rd parties to build a seamless Google Account sync
experience.

To sync your Google Contacts on iOS using CardDAV, please follow these instructions in our Gmail Help
Center.

Hangouts in Google Calendar

2012-08-30T17:00:00Z

Posted by Boris Khvostichenko, Product Manager

Do you use Google Calendar to schedule catch ups with distant friends and family? Now, if you've upgraded to Google+, you can schedule a face-to-face video chat right from Google Calendar using Google+ Hangouts. It takes one click to add a hangout to an event and another click to join the hangout.

Make mobile more manageable

2012-08-02T20:00:00Z

Posted by Hong Zhang, Google Apps Enterprise Mobile

People are using phones and tablets more than ever before to get work done from anywhere – in the field, at home or while traveling. Along with this increase in flexibility and productivity come new challenges for businesses managing all of these mobile devices. We launched tools to manage mobile devices across all mobile platforms for Google Apps last year, and since then we’ve been hard at work adding a number of new capabilities to help organizations better manage smartphones and tablets.

Some of our newest features are focused on helping administrators enforce tighter security using mobile settings in the Apps control panel to keep company data safe. We now offer administrators more ways to promote strong passwords on users’ phones and tablets and allow policies that enforce data encryption. New features also let administrators set policies to allow or block the use of the phone’s camera on Android 4.0+ devices and comply with organizational email retention policies. And now administrators can enforce these policies where available without disabling phones running older versions of Android that don’t support all the latest policies.

Through the Google Apps Device Policy app, administrators have the ability to remotely erase data from lost or stolen devices. Now we’re extending this capability so that IT admins can grant end users the ability to remotely delete data from their phone as soon as they notice it’s missing using the My Devices page.

As employees increasingly depend on their phones and tablets we’ll continue to work on making it easier and more secure for organizations to manage their fleet of devices. You can watch this video or visit our Help Center for a detailed look at how our enterprise mobile offerings can benefit your business.

Video chat face-to-face-to-face with Hangouts in Gmail

2012-07-30T16:00:00Z

Posted by Fred Brewin, Product Manager

Since the introduction of Gmail video chat back in 2008, many of you have told us that you love the direct, personal communication it provides. That's why we're excited to announce that video chat is being upgraded to a more modern video calling technology -- Google+ Hangouts.

Unlike the old video chat, which was based on peer-to-peer technology, Hangouts utilize the power of Google’s network to deliver higher reliability and enhanced quality. You’ll be able to chat with all the same people you did before and, in fact, with Hangouts you’ll now be able to reach them not only when they are using Gmail but also if they are on Google+ in the browser or on their Android or iOS devices.

All Gmail users will benefit from this upgrade, but if you and the person you're chatting with also use Google+, you’ll get even more from the Hangouts experience. You'll be able to video chat with up to nine people at once, watch YouTube videos together, collaborate on Google documents and share your screen. Plus, Hangouts has a bunch of fun effects that you can try out...because any conversation is better when you're wearing a virtual mustache or pirate hat.

We’ll be rolling out Hangouts in Gmail starting today and then gradually over the coming weeks. We hope you enjoy hanging out with your friends and family. Arrrgh!

Get things done anytime, anywhere: Announcing offline document editing and Google Drive for iOS

2012-06-28T18:17:00Z

Posted by Clay Bavor, Product Management Director

(Cross-posted on the Google Docs Blog.)

In April, we introduced Google Drive, a place where you can create, share, and keep all your stuff. Today at the Google I/O conference we announced two new ways to get things done in the cloud: offline editing for Google documents and a Drive app for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.

Offline document editing
No internet connection? No big deal. With offline editing, you can create and edit Google documents and leave comments. Any changes you make will be automatically synced when you get back online.

You can enable offline editing from the gear icon in Google Drive and find more detailed instructions for getting set up in the Help Center. Note that you’ll need the latest versions of Chrome or ChromeOS to edit offline. We’re also working hard to make offline editing for spreadsheets and presentations available in the future.

Google Drive for iOS
We launched the Drive app for Android phones and tablets a few weeks ago, and starting today, Google Drive is available for your iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.

With the Drive app, you can open PDFs, photos, videos, documents and anything else stored in your Drive while you're on the go. You can also search all your files, add collaborators to documents, and make files available offline to view them even without an internet connection. For blind and low-vision users, the app also works great in VoiceOver mode. Learn more about what you can do with the app in our Help Center.

Get Drive in the App Store for your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch running iOS 5.0+ and visit the Play Store to get the latest on your Android phone or tablet.

To learn more about Google Drive, visit drive.google.com/start.

Google+ Events in Google Calendar

2012-06-27T18:26:00Z

Posted by Michelle Chen, Software Engineer

Today at Google I/O, we announced Google+ Events, a new way to create, capture and share public and private events. Google+ Events are seamlessly integrated with Google Calendar to simplify the planning process, so you’ll always know when you have something coming up.

When creating a Google+ event, you can check your Google Calendar to make sure you pick the best time to party. Google+ events also sync to your mobile device's calendar, so you can have them handy when you are on the go.

In week and day views in Calendar, you’ll recognize Google+ Events by the event owner's profile picture. When you click to expand the event in Calendar, it displays a beautiful theme and allows you to set reminders, see other guests, and respond to the event.

Clicking ‘View on Google+’ takes you to the event page, where you can exchange comments with other guests, view photos, and more. Learn about Google+ Events here, and see our post on the Official Google Blog.

Notification Center support for Gmail on iOS

2012-06-25T17:14:00Z

Posted by Jason Parachoniak, Software Engineer

Our team has been working hard to bring your most-requested features to the Gmail app for iOS. Today, we’re excited to add three new improvements to that list of updates: full notification center support, the ability to send messages from your alternate email addresses and an improved login experience.

First up, Gmail is now fully integrated with Notification Center and supports banners, alerts and lock screen options. Plus, notifications are now incredibly fast -- up to 5x faster than in the previous version.
Next, you now have the option to send mail from alternate email addresses. If you have configured alternate sender addresses in Gmail on your desktop under Settings->Accounts->Send mail as you will see a From: option when composing new messages in the app.
Lastly, we’ve improved the login process to allow you to stay logged into the app for as long as you’d like. You can still choose to sign out of your account, but you won't be automatically logged out after a certain period of time has elapsed.

We’ll continue to improve the app, and we’re looking forward to bringing you more features in future releases, including support for multiple accounts.

Willkommen bei Gmail, Deutschland. It’s official: Gmail is Gmail everywhere

2012-06-20T07:15:00Z

Posted by Mark Striebeck, Engineer Director

As a German working on the Gmail team, my friends and family back home often ask why they have a @googlemail address instead of @gmail.com. Today, I’m happy to announce that is no longer the case: Google Mail is becoming Gmail in Germany. To celebrate, we’ve created a video that explains what it’s like to Go Google in German:

All new accounts will receive an @gmail.com address and if you have an existing @googlemail.com address, you'll soon be able to switch to @gmail.com. Once you make the change, you will still receive mail sent to your @googlemail.com address and all of your emails, contacts, and account settings will stay exactly the same. Plus, you can switch back at any time if you change your mind.

For more details, check out our FAQ. If you're ready to make the change, over the next few weeks, a link will appear at the top when you login over the coming weeks.

Custom themes in Gmail

2012-06-19T18:02:00Z

Posted by Greg Bullock, Software Engineer

Themes have been an important part of Gmail ever since we launched them back in 2008. Not only do they let you personalize your inbox with fun backgrounds, but they’re also practical, helping you easily differentiate between multiple Gmail inboxes (e.g. work and personal).

When we unveiled Gmail’s new look back in November, we introduced a number of new, beautiful HD themes. We also heard that many of you wanted to bring an even more personal touch by setting your own background. So over the next couple of days we are rolling out a new Custom themes section with two options, Light and Dark where you can do just that. Watch the video to see some examples:

You can upload your own images directly, select from your Google+ photos or simply paste any image URL. Or, if you don't have a particular image in mind, you can browse our searchable Featured Photos section to find one that speaks to you. With so many great options, it may be hard to choose, so to get a sense of the images available, try searching for ‘hdr scenery’ or ‘bokeh wallpaper' in the Featured tab.

Whether you want to bask on a tropical island or simply reminisce about last year’s holiday with the family, your Gmail can now be customized to your mood. Find your perfect image and make your Gmail your own with custom themes.

Gmail now available in Welsh and Latin American Spanish

2012-05-24T19:01:00Z

Posted by Chris Yang, Product Manager, Translator Toolkit

Languages can provide identity, pride, a sense of belonging and spiritual guidance to communities. We hope that by making Gmail available in both majority and minority languages, more people will be able to share their culture and knowledge with others worldwide. Today, we’re very excited to announce that Gmail is now available in Welsh and Latin American Spanish. You can select Welsh and Latin American Spanish as your default language in Settings:

Welsh, as a living language, is used by an increasing number of speakers, in their everyday life. For this project, we’d like to thank the Welsh Language Commissioner for working with us to make Gmail available to Welsh speakers around the world. The project was completed through Google Translator Toolkit, which is a Computer-Aided Translation tool supporting over 100,000 language combinations.

Spanish is spoken by more than 300 million people in the Americas and the Caribbean. The Latin American Spanish version of Gmail is designed to be a closer match to the expectations of Spanish speakers in the Americas.

These two languages bring the total number of supported languages in Gmail to 56.

Improved search in Gmail

2012-05-21T18:03:00Z

Posted by Isaac Elias, Software Engineer

When we built Gmail, we wanted to bring that same great search experience Google is known for to email. And today, we are making that experience even better by improving the autocomplete predictions you see when you search in Gmail.

Now when you type something into the Gmail search box, the autocomplete predictions will be tailored to the content in your email, so you can save time and get the information you want faster than ever before. For example, you might now get lax reservation or lax united as predictions after typing "lax" if you have received an email with a flight confirmation for your trip to Los Angeles in your inbox recently.

We will be rolling out improved autocomplete in English over the next few days and will follow with more languages over the next few months. While initially improved autocomplete will not be available for Google Apps customers, we plan to bring this feature to Apps domains in the future.

Continuing to bring people front and center in Gmail

2012-05-16T18:26:00Z

Posted by Itamar Gilad, Product Manager

Email is more than just messages going back and forth -- it's also about the people sending them. That's why today we're introducing changes that continue to bring people front and center in Gmail, just as we did with profile photos in conversation view, the people widget and last year's integrations with Google+. Today’s changes include quick access to contact details when viewing past conversations as well as improved integration with Google+ circles.

Quick access to contact details
When you search for an email address, the search results will now show you contact details in addition to that person's profile photo and the emails sent from and to them. From here, you can start a chat, call their phone and more. Plus, if your contacts have a Google+ profile, this information will stay up to date automatically.

You can get to these same results in a variety of ways including from the people widget, contacts and the chat list search menu.

Improved circle integration and circle search
In addition to adding contact details to search results, we've made some improvements to the circles integration announced in December. When you select a circle, you'll now see profile photos of people in that circle at the top right of the page. Plus, when you click on these images you'll be taken directly to search results with contact details.

Circles are also now supported in search and filters. Find messages from a specific circle by typing circle:[circle name] in the search box. You can also find mail from any of your circled contacts by searching with has:circle. You can refine your search even further with other criteria and create filters based on circles. This means you can now view all the unread emails from your ‘Friends’ circle or automatically star every message that comes from your ‘VIP’ circle.

These updates are helping us to provide a more consistent, beautiful experience across all of our products. Quick access to contact details will be rolling out to everyone today. To take advantage of circles and more in Gmail, you'll need to join Google+.

Find facts and do research inside Google Documents

2012-05-15T23:17:00Z

Today we’re introducing the research pane—a new feature that brings the web’s wealth of information to you as you’re writing documents.

The research pane taps into Google Search directly from Google documents, so whether you want to add a cool destination to your itinerary for an upcoming trip to India or you're looking for the perfect presidential quote for a political science paper, you don’t even have to open a new tab.

You can access the research pane from the Tools menu by right clicking on a selected word that you want to learn more about, or by pressing Ctrl+Alt+R on Windows or Cmd+Alt+R on Mac. From the research pane, you can search for whatever info you need to help you write your document. With just a couple clicks you can look up maps, quotes, images, and much more.

If you find something you like, you can add it by clicking the insert button or, for images, by dragging them directly into your document. If appropriate we’ll automatically add a footnote citation so there’s a record of where you found the info.

Hopefully bringing knowledge from the web to Google documents will make your writing process just a little bit more efficient.

Posted by Sarveshwar Duddu, Software Engineer

Follow an email’s journey with Story of Send

2012-05-15T10:00:00Z

Posted by Erin Reilly, Google Green team

If you’re anything like me, you send and receive a lot of emails every day. But have you ever wondered where your message goes after you hit “send?” How does an email travel from your computer to your friend’s smartphone across the country or around the world?

We’re answering those questions with Story of Send, a new site that gives you a behind-the-scenes look into how all that virtual information makes its journey through the real world—from your Internet service provider to our data centers and beyond. Along the way, you’ll discover everything from where we filter for spam and scan for viruses to how we’re minimizing our impact on the environment through energy efficiency and renewable power.

We’ve included videos and photos throughout the journey so you can explore certain areas more deeply. For example, if you’re curious what data center servers look like, we’ve included some photos. Or you can watch a video to learn about how we purchase clean energy from wind farms near our data centers. And because technology doesn’t always have to be serious, you might find a vampire or two lurking around or uncover other surprises on the journey.

In the past, Gmail fans have shown us how emails connect people across the world. Now we’re providing a glimpse into how those emails go from one place to another. So hit send and start the journey today.

Cross-posted from the Official Google Blog