An update for our customers on Google Apps and China

Yesterday, we stopped censoring our search services – Google Search, Google News, and Google Images – on our Chinese domain, www.google.cn. This makes good on our commitment to stop censoring search results in China, and you can read more here. In terms of Google's wider business operations, we intend to continue R&D work in China and maintain a sales presence there. We’d like to share some additional information on how this may affect your employees that use Google Apps within mainland China.

First, we very much hope that the Chinese government respects our decision, though we are well aware that China could at any time block access to our services in mainland China. We will be carefully monitoring access issues and we have created this new web page, which we will update regularly each day, so that you can see which Google services are available in China.

Note that you can continue to view performance information for Google Apps services outside of China on the Google Apps Status Dashboard.

Second, it is important to know that there are several networking configurations and associated technologies available to help ensure ongoing access to your critical business services such as Gmail, Google Calendar, and Google Docs. These network configurations, such as a Virtual Private Network (VPN) connection, secure shell (SSH) tunneling, or using a proxy server, are already in place by many businesses with worldwide operations who serve their users from various locations. Companies should consult their own technical, legal and policy personnel to find a solution that works best for them.

Finally, we do not host any Google Apps services, or your data, in mainland China. Moreover, Google employees in mainland China do not have access to any Apps systems or customer data.

We recognize that these issues are not unique to Google; many technology companies serving users in China face challenges in providing access to their services, and we don't see yesterday’s news changing how we serve you moving forward.

Feel free to contact us with any questions via our support channels. Thanks for reading.

Posted by the Google Apps team

Launched: Google Apps Script for Google Apps Standard Edition

Back in August we released Google Apps Script to Google Apps Premier and Education Edition customers. Today we're excited to extend the availability of Apps Script to Google Apps Standard Edition, used by millions of groups, families, clubs and other organizations around the world.

Google Apps Script provides the ability to automate a variety of tasks such as modifying Spreadsheets, creating Calendar appointments, checking stock prices, sending email, looking up Contacts and much, much more. For a more detailed overview, check out the video below:



Getting started is easy. You can take a look at the Apps Script Welcome Page, and then work through some of the Tutorials. Before long you'll be writing scripts to automate all kinds of repetitive tasks like keeping track of group expenses and sending out automated reminders triggered by values in a spreadsheet.

In this example, we're using a Google Docs spreadsheet to keep track of our soccer team's weekly dues. Each player owes $5 per game towards shared expenses. Unfortunately the players can be an absentminded bunch that need frequent payment reminders. In the spreadsheet, every amount entered updates a player's column to indicate which weeks are PAID (in green), and how much is DUE (in red). We've also used Apps Script to add a custom menu:

• 'Refresh' recalculates and colors cells to indicate which weeks are PAID and which are DUE
• 'Send Reminders' emails a polite message reminding players in debt to pay up

Go ahead and take a look at the sample code in this template. After choosing Use This Template, select Scripts... from the Spreadsheet's Tools menu. It's a very basic script, but it gets the job done!

Check it out, and let us know what you think!

Posted by Evin Levey, Product Manager, Google Apps team

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

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

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

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

Submit now: product ideas for Google Apps administrators

Great ideas come from many places, but we believe the best ideas frequently come from you, the admins who work closely with our products. Maybe you would like to sync your LDAP directory with Google Apps, manage your users' profile information in Gmail Contacts with an API, sync your Google Apps email, contacts, and calendar with Microsoft Outlook, or connect your Blackberry Enterprise Server with Google Apps.

All of these great ideas came from our customers, and we are excited that we added these features after hearing your requests on how to improve Google Apps.

Today, we're taking it to the next level with the addition of a new Product Ideas section where Google Apps administrators can submit, comment, and vote on ideas. Our team will keep an eye on the best ideas that "bubble up" to the top, and we look forward to seeing your great ideas!

P.S. Want to find out about new features in Google Apps? Details on the new features dashboard, email alerts, and our RSS feed are available here.

Posted by Chris Cheng, Enterprise Support Strategist

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JohnsonDiversey: migrating 12,000+ users from Lotus Notes/ Domino to Google Apps in 48 hours

Editor’s note: Brent Hoag is Senior Director, IT for JohnsonDiversey, formed when Johnson Wax Professional acquired DiverseyLever. Its focus is on providing products to commercial businesses for food safety, housekeeping, and industrial cleaning. Throughout its history, the company has been dedicated to leadership in environmental issues, health, and safety. You can read more about the company's work in these areas in the post we shared a few days back.

Please join Brent and members of the Google Enterprise team for a live webcast this Thursday, September 17, at 2:00 p.m. EDT / 11:00 a.m. PDT.

When we first decided to switch to Google Apps from Lotus Notes/Domino, we planned on using a typical IT deployment process. As a global company, JohnsonDiversey (JDI) conducts "go-lives" in its IT environment almost weekly, and therefore we are all old hands at managing rollouts to achieve a smooth technical transition and minimize business disruption.

Given that Google Apps would impact all of our 12,000 global users spread across 168 locations and 70 countries, we made two assumptions. First, we thought a phased migration would be best. We planned to migrate employee data and continue to support our two legacy local email clients at the same time. Second, we’d staff a command center to handle the flood of calls from employees trying to learn the new system.

Both assumptions proved totally wrong.

As we delved deeper into our migration planning and learned from our early adopters, we realized that we would be better off using a big bang approach. One major reason is that getting everyone onto a single system faster reduces the largest pain of having co-existence of two systems for any amount of time.

Google Apps is helping JDI, as a global company, communicate and collaborate better from a single platform. Under our old Lotus Notes/Domino system, even simple tasks like booking meetings were difficult, because employees could not easily see the details of someone's availability, an agenda or other participants. People’s inboxes were also filling up when they were traveling. With Google Apps, we realized we would solve many problems at once (read Part I of our story here).

What did we actually end up doing? We provided Apps to early adopters who became business champions – and ultimately helped others if they ran into issues. We decided to support only the web interface and provided early access prior to go-live to mitigate login issues. We also provided tools for self-service migration and put up a Google Site providing a centralized point of information. We offered global deployment support for the first two days after go-live.

Since deploying, we've received some nice feedback and results:

• one employee told us "this is the first project that IT did for the users rather than to the users"
• our help desk volume has substantially dropped from our legacy steady state call volume and most of the questions are "how-to"
• our department has more time to work on strategic initiatives

You can watch a bit more about our success with Google Apps here:

Moving 12,000 people over to any new solution can be daunting – but it can also be painless. We found that out the easy way. We would be happy to share our experiences with you. Join us for a webinar:

Migrating 12,000+ users from Lotus Notes/ Domino to Google Apps in 48 hours
Thursday, September 17, 2009
2:00 p.m. EDT / 11:00 a.m. PDT

We'll share our story and be happy to answer your questions.

Brent Hoag, Director, IT, JohnsonDiversey

Posted by Serena Satyasai, The Google Apps team

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

Google at SMB Nation Fall Conference

As part of our continued outreach to find leading solution providers and MSPs for our Google Apps Authorized Reseller program, the Google Apps Partner team will head to Las Vegas on October 2, 3, and 4 for "SMB Nation Fall 2009." This conference, focused on technologies for small and medium businesses, is designed for consultants, channel partners and VARs, and offers the community a chance to engage in conversations around hosted, cloud-based solutions. It's targeted at both technical and business audiences, with an emphasis on managed services.

Program managers from Google will speak about opportunities for Google Apps Authorized Resellers. They'll also be listening to feedback from the community on areas for further improvement to the program. Google's partners often play a critical role in helping customers get the most out of Google Apps, and building a strong partner network will be key to keeping up with the accelerating adoption of Google Apps.

Learn more and register at smbnation.com, and be sure to find members of the Google team when you're there.

Posted by Jeff Ragusa, Google Apps Partner team

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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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The movement continues: "Going Google" at school & with Postini

In the past month, many of you told us how you've "gone Google" with Google Apps in your workplace. We're excited that the #goneGoogle movement continues with the millions of students who have switched to Google Apps in schools, as well as growing adoption of our Postini email security and archiving services.

More than 5 million students in 145 countries around the world have gone Google at school with our Google Apps Education Edition. To celebrate this milestone, Google's "EDU" team has created a new site that highlights many of the schools that have gone Google, as well as tips for students and educators.

Schools as well as businesses of all sizes have also chosen to protect their on-premise email systems with our hosted email security and archiving services – more than 3 billion email messages are protected by Postini each day. Postini helps your organization keep email secure, spam-free and centrally archived, without the need for hardware or software installations and upgrades. If you're still dealing with tuning your spam appliance and searching your backup tape drives, now is a good time to go Google with Postini.

We've loved hearing your feedback and encourage you to continue the conversation with us via Twitter (hashtag #gonegoogle) as well as through our Spread the Word site. The billboards may be complete (you can check out the recap video here), but we're not finished yet. Look for more "gone Google" initiatives in the US and abroad in the next few months – and don't forget to sign up for free Gone Google goodies!

Posted by Vivian Leung, Google Apps Team

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Waving hello to Google Apps

Google Wave has been generating lots of interest among Google Apps users since we unveiled it in May at Google I/O, our annual developer conference. Today we're pleased to announce that we'll be opening up access to Google Wave for some schools and businesses as part of the preview this fall. And while we won't be able to open it up to all Google Apps users just yet, we hope to bring Google Wave to all Google Apps users next year. If you're a Google Apps administrator and you're interested in testing Google Wave, you can sign up here.

Over the last couple of months, we've been very busy developing the product, opening the protocol and learning from the thousands of developers who are using and contributing to Google Wave. While the product, platform and protocols are still being developed, we're extending access to some of the highly collaborative people and communities we hope to benefit in the future – businesses and schools. In turn, we look forward to learning from these Google Apps users, so we can continue to tweak and develop the product as we gain insight from their experiences.

A wave is equal parts conversation and document, where individuals communicate and work together in a multimedia environment – the wave itself. You can check out the video below (it's long – lots to see!) and it's easy to imagine its utility for groups within a business or academic environment. Whether there's a report to write, an event to plan, research to do or communications to conduct, we're building Google Wave so people can be more productive and collaborate more effectively in a real time environment. Users can insert text, photos, gadgets, maps, web feeds and edit instantaneously. Organizations can extend Google Wave using APIs to tightly integrate with existing tools and workflows. It's communication and collaboration, conversation and document, in one unified, cloud-based space.

To learn more about Google Wave check out wave.google.com, and to sign up for Google Apps so you're ready when Google Wave rolls into businesses in the future, visit google.com/a.

Posted by Matthew Glotzbach and Stephanie Hannon, Google Enterprise and Wave teams

Google Docs: now with translation

At Google, I often collaborate with colleagues around the world, so it's quite common to be working with someone whose native language is different from my own. To make sharing content easier, we just added the ability to translate documents into Google Docs.

With this feature you can write a doc once, and with a few clicks make it available in any of 42 supported languages: Albanian, Arabic, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese, Croation, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Filipino, Finnish, French, Galician, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, and Vietnamese.

Here is an example of an interview feedback form being translated from English to Russian.

When you combine this new feature with the template gallery, things get more interesting. Anyone in your domain can make a template, and put it in your organization's own gallery. From there, colleagues from around the world will be able to grab a copy of the template and with a couple of clicks, localize it into the language that they're most comfortable with. All of the document's original formatting and layout will be preserved.

You can find the Translate option under the Tools menu.

Posted by Jeff Harris, Associate Product Manager, Google Docs team

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Getting up to speed in Google Video for business & education

Have you ever wanted to watch a training video, but didn't feel you could take the time for it? Ever wished a slow speaker would talk just a little faster? Or maybe you'd like to skim through a presentation at high speed until you got to something really interesting?

All that is now possible with Google Video for business. Just select the video you want to watch, and you'll see a speed control in the player. Click the button to switch between 1.5x and real-time, or drag the pop-up slider to select the speed you want. The new speed setting is "sticky"...in other words, you can find particular sections of interest by dragging the position marker or clicking in the Scenes bar without dropping back to normal speed.

We've found that most videos are very comprehensible at 1.25x to 1.75x speed. If your video is captioned, you'll find that you can go even faster.

Give it a try. Once you start watching videos at 1.5x, you might never go back to real-time!

Google Video for business is part of Google Apps Premier and Education Editions, included with Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs, Google Sites, and more. To learn more about Google Apps, get started here.

Posted by Daniel Steinberg, Google Video team

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Google Apps Connector for BlackBerry Enterprise Server now available

In May, we announced our plans to integrate Google Apps with BlackBerry Enterprise Server, a popular feature request from many of our enterprise customers. Today, our team is excited to let you know that this integration is complete. Now, customers of Google Apps Premier and Education Editions can give their users access to Google Apps email, calendar, and contacts from the built-in BlackBerry applications that many users are already accustomed to. The tight integration between our connector and the BlackBerry Enterprise Server lets administrators manage BlackBerry access using the tools and policies they're already familiar with.

Since our announcement in May, the Google Apps team has worked hard to prepare this feature for public release, testing it extensively with select companies and universities, including Sanmina-SCI. "With Apps Connector, our BlackBerry mobile users get to use native applications that they are already familiar with and we get to manage them using familiar tools. It's great to combine the benefits of Google Apps like 25GB storage per user and ubiquitous accessibility with the push mail capabilities of BlackBerry," said Manesh Patel, CIO of Sanmina-SCI.

Features include:

• Messages sent to your Gmail inbox are pushed to your BlackBerry within 60 seconds.
  
• Emails read/deleted on your BlackBerry are marked as read/deleted in Gmail, and vice-versa.
  
• Emails archived/starred on your BlackBerry are archived/starred in Gmail, and vice-versa.
  
• BlackBerry folders are synchronized with labels in Gmail.
  
• You can search for contact information of coworkers from the global address list on your BlackBerry.
  
• Contacts in Gmail are automatically synchronized with your BlackBerry address book.
  
• You can view your Google Calendar schedule with the native BlackBerry application, with one-way synchronization from Google Calendar to your BlackBerry device. Two-way calendar sync with the ability to accept, decline and schedule meetings from your BlackBerry device is not available with this release but we are working on it.
  
• Administrators can use the management and security tools that are part of BlackBerry Enterprise Server.
  

Google Apps Premier and Education Edition customers worldwide can get started with this feature at no charge by downloading Google Apps Connector for BlackBerry Enterprise Server. If you have any questions, please visit the Help Page. Both of these links are also available through the Google Apps control panel.

Learn about all of the mobile options available to Google Apps users at www.google.com/apps/mobile.

Posted by Anthony Lee, Google Apps Engineer

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

Launched: Google Apps Script

Back in May we announced a pilot release of Google Apps Script, and after thousands of hours of use, and lots of valuable feedback, we're excited to launch Google Apps Script to all Google Apps Premier and Education Edition customers today.

Google Apps Script provides the ability to automate a variety of features in Google Apps, such as reading and changing values in Google Spreadsheets, creating Google Calendar appointments, sending email and much more. Check out the Google Apps Script Overview video, below, taken from our May announcement.

Our favorite user example is a bureaucracy-busting Expense Approval Script, which expands one of the tutorials we've assembled to help people see how to use Google Apps Script. Submitting and approving expense reports can be tedious. Adding a script automates the drudgery by doing the following:

• automatically converting foreign currency amounts to local currency
  
• looking up historical exchange rates from external web services
• catching basic errors – things like missing dates, descriptions, and amounts
• triggering business logic to flag certain expense categories 'For Review'
  

Even more useful, the script can figure out whose approvals are needed, and automatically request approval from those people. And once approved, the script sends a note to the finance department for payment – all without writing a single email!

This is just one of hundreds of business processes that can be customized and streamlined using Google Apps Script within Google Apps Premier and Education editions. From expenses and timesheets to trouble tickets and order tracking – really, anything that you might want to calculate, organize and automate – is now easier than ever with Google Apps Script.

Starting today, all Google Apps Premier and Edu domains will now see "Scripts" in the Google Spreadsheets "Tools" menu – so check it out.

We're looking forward to seeing how users put Google Apps Script to creative (and valuable) use, so start scripting, and let us know what you come up with. We'll feature some of our favorite user submissions over the coming weeks!

Posted by Evin Levey, Product Manager, Google Apps team

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.

Today's the day: signups open for free Google Message Security for K-12 schools

Last week we announced we will begin globally offering email security free to current and new eligible K-12 Google Apps Education users that opt-in by July 2010 – and starting today eligible schools can learn how to opt-in to enable Google Message Security for their domain.

Google Message Security – powered by Postini – provides the capability for administrators to limit messages based on who they are from, where they are going, or the content they contain. Message rules can be applied to groups of users, allowing customization for different user sets (like younger students, older students, and teachers).

To further celebrate our support of K12, we launched the Google Apps Education Community site for educators and students to share and learn more about Google Apps, as well as the Google Apps Education resource center with more than 20 classroom-ready lesson plans – and we're committed to providing even more educational resources in the future, as the Google Apps Education community grows.

If you know of a K-12 school or educator who might benefit from this opportunity, please share this post with them. Many thanks for your ongoing support of Google Apps in education.

Posted by Dana Nguyen, Google Apps Education team

Building blocks: connecting Google Apps for Education with Blackboard

We view Google Apps for Education as both a product and a platform. That's why we work hard to open up lots of integration points, letting our tools interact with other systems used by our Education customers.

For example, we've supported work that has integrated Google Apps into environments such as Moodle. We also share a large number of APIs to allow integration into our user management system, and many of our individual apps like Google Docs and Google Calendar.

Because we care so much about integration, we were excited to discover that Northwestern University has been working to integrate Google Apps Education Edition with Blackboard, one of the predominant providers of educational technology. Northwestern was one of the first schools to deploy Google Apps in 2007; it joined our Higher Education Customer Advisory Board as a founding member later that year.

This week at the BB World conference, Northwestern is unveiling a Blackboard Building Block called "Bboogle" that they have built and are releasing to the community as open source. Building Block includes single sign-on, automated account provisioning, and automated sharing of Google Documents and Calendars through Blackboard course sites.

According to Jonathan Smith, Software Architect at Northwestern, "I initiated our Google integration project because we were approached by a faculty member in anthropology who had been using Google Apps in his classes. In the past we had used wikis in history classes to allow students to work directly with primary source materials, and it occurred to me that Google Apps could support a much higher level of student and faculty collaboration. By integrating the applications into Blackboard we could make that kind of collaborative learning experience available to more of our students than ever before."

These images show the process of creating a link to a Google document....

...and the resulting link in the BlackBoard course site:

We love to see customers and partners innovating and integrating with our products. The power of Google Apps comes not only from Google's applications, but the ability to integrate them with other environments our customers use. Incorporating Google Docs and Sites into systems likeMoodle and Blackboard make it easier for student and professors to collaborate seamlessly.

Thanks to the team at Northwestern for this integration, and for opening it up for others to use. It's still early days, and Northwestern is still polishing the code, but check it out and let us know what you think.

Posted by Gabe Cohen, Product Manager, Google Apps team