Official Google Cloud Blog

Webinar: Improving operational efficiency with Google Apps and Smartsheet

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Last week, we shared the story of how LiquidConcrete has used Google Apps and Smartsheet, a Google Apps Marketplace app, to move customer and project management to the cloud, and significantly increased the efficiency of their manufacturing operation.
Next Tuesday, May 11, LiquidConcrete and Smartsheet will be joining us for a free webinar to discuss their story. The webinar will focus on extending Google Apps and running more of your business in the cloud with integrated apps from the Google Apps Marketplace. Please join us!
Increasing operational efficiency with Google Apps and SmartsheetTuesday, May 11, 201011:00 a.m. PDT / 2:00 p.m. EDT / 7:00 p.m. GMTRegister here
Posted by Chris Kelly, Google Apps Marketplace team

“Springing” into a new shopping season with Google

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

It’s that time of year again. Brick-and-mortar stores are clearing out the sweaters and snow-mobiles and revamping window displays with sandals and scuba gear. We know that online retailers are painstakingly updating their virtual window space as well and (perhaps even more importantly) are thinking hard about how new technologies can bring a fresh edge to their website – and the bottom line.
To kick off the season, Google hosted “search summits” for more than 200 retailers in our London and New York offices last month. These summits allowed retailers to share their top priorities and concerns from a technology and business standpoint, and provided an opportunity for Google Product Managers, Engineers, Partner Managers, and customers to trade best practices in the industry.
We want to share the learnings with people who weren’t able to attend, so we’re extending an invitation to a live webcast on Friday, May 14 presented by Nitin Mangtani, Senior Product Manager for Google Commerce Search. We’ll cover all the basics of what makes good search on e-commerce sites, how improving search speed and usability can help improve customer satisfaction and increase sales, and how top online retailers have made the switch.
Join us to learn more – and bring your questions!
Google Commerce Search – Basics & BeyondFriday, May 14, 201010:00 a.m. PDT / 1:00 p.m. EDT / GMT 06:00Register here.
Posted by Anna Bishop, Enterprise Search Marketing team

New reset cookie functionality on Google Apps

Monday, May 3, 2010

help pagePosted by Will Smit, Software Engineer, Google Apps

"Made-to-order” results with Google Site Search

Monday, May 3, 2010

Recently, we showed you how Google Site Search Themes can help you customize the look and feel of your website’s search engine with just a few clicks. We know it’s just as important to be able to quickly and easily modify the format of search results so they appear exactly as you’d like.
With Google Site Search's new data rendering features, you can enable the return of search results in whatever format you’d like. You can control the size and position of images, personalize the attributes that are shown, insert lines of metadata into search results, and much more.

You can find more about the technical implementation details on the Google AJAX API blog, and can add Google Site Search to your website by visiting google.com/sitesearch.
Posted by David Gibson and Nicholas Weininger, Software Engineers

Adobe Community Help and Google Site Search: Making search come alive in CS5

Friday, April 30, 2010

Editor’s note: Today’s guest blogger is Mark Nichoson, Product Manager at Adobe Community Help.
Back in 2008, Adobe began to use the power of Google Site Search to “plug the whole community brain trust right into the Creative Suite,” as we liked to say.
Now with the launch of Adobe® Creative Suite 5, we’ve taken that brain trust to a whole new level with the introduction of our new Community Help application. It’s an Adobe AIR®-based companion that’s automatically installed as part of any new Adobe CS5 product.
Launched directly from the Help menu of any CS5 product, the Community Help application enables customers to:

find fast answers with powerful new search options that let them focus results to just Adobe content, community content, developer resources, or even code samples
download core Adobe Help and language reference content for offline viewing (thanks to the Adobe AIR runtime)
see what the community thinks is the best, most valuable content via ratings and comments
share their expertise with others and find out what experts have to say about using their favorite Adobe product

Google Site Search: integration and innovationUnder the hood of the Community Help app lies our Google Site Search engine. This search engine searches across about 3000 sites – content such as product Help, language references, Tech Notes, Developer Connection articles, and Adobe TV videos as well as the best online content from the Adobe community. Content is chosen by experts at Adobe and in the design and developer communities, meaning customers find the answers they need faster.
Thanks to the robust Google Site Search APIs, the development team was not only able to easily integrate search results but also create unique innovations such as our new Code Search functionality. Formerly known as Blueprint, this new search option allows Adobe Flash® and Flex developers to search for relevant code samples so that they can write better code, faster.

A new definition of HelpBy combining the best community content with the definitive reference that customers traditionally expect from Adobe, Community Help allows us to expand the definition what help means. Now users can tap into an entire ecosystem of content — one that can dynamically adjust to changing user needs and provide a much richer set of resources over the lifetime of the product.
Community Help can also be used as a standalone application. To give it a try, you can download it from adobe.com.
Mark Nichoson, Product Manager at Adobe Community Help
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If you’d like to learn more about what Google Site Search can do for your website, join us for this upcoming webinar:
Google Site Search: an introductionThursday, May 13, 201011:00 a.m. PDT, 2:00 p.m. EDT, GMT 07:00Register here

Update to Google Maps in Canada

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

The data that powers API features like the map tiles, geocoding, and driving directions has been updated in Canada! The new base map in Canada will have expanded features such as more detailed water bodies, university campuses, postal code coverage, and a shorter feedback cycle for Maps updates – all leading to better, more accurate maps for employees and customers.
Along with this update we've launched the popular "Report a Problem" feature that's used in the United States to our Canadian users, too. It's recommended that you re-geocode all of your data to take advantage of the update.
Learn more about the Google Maps API Premier at google.com/enterprise/maps.
Posted by Dan Chu, Product Manager, Google Enterprise team
Editor's note: Updated the post to say postal codes instead of zip codes. Thanks to our sharp-eyed readers for catching that!

Manufacturing in the Cloud with Google Apps and Smartsheet

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Editor's Note: Tom Hippensteel is the Vice President for LiquidConcrete, a medium-sized Seattle-based manufacturer of high-performance concrete coatings and flooring systems for industrial and transportation markets. LiquidConcrete relies on Google Apps for email, calendar, and document collaboration, and on Smartsheet, an integrated app from the Google Apps Marketplace, for online project management, general work management, and team collaboration.
Smartsheet's integration with Google Apps enables businesses to transform the work they routinely track in spreadsheets into a complete solution for managing business operations. Smartsheet currently offers three versions in the Google Apps Marketplace: online project management, sales pipeline management, and crowdsourcing.
Below, Tom explains a bit about LiquidConcrete and the steps they took to get the entire business – from the front office to the warehouse – to operate in the cloud.
To learn more about LiquidConcrete's success with Google Apps and Smartsheet, please join us for a webinar on Tuesday, May 11 at 11:00 a.m. PDT.
We win business because we have great products, and because we run a lean operation that differentiates on quick turnaround of custom jobs with high levels of customer service. Everything about our operation is focused on efficiency, so we’re always looking for software solutions that fit that model. We’ve had successes and setbacks in getting our operations into the cloud in a way that works for all of our employees. We needed tools that "just work the way that we work."
We use Quickbooks for accounting and have had great success with Google Apps for email and calendar, but had trouble finding a tool that combined the ease of use, power and flexibility we needed to manage the rest of our operations. We tried various CRM, ERP and manufacturing solutions but they made us work in a certain way and were difficult to use – people just went back to how they were doing it before.
Then we found Smartsheet, a cloud-based project management tool. It was already integrated with Google Apps, and as we began deploying it more broadly, made Google Docs much more useful. Smartsheet and Google Apps are the only tools that have been readily adopted across our whole company, all the way out to the guys on the warehouse floor.
Here’s how we use them:
Project & task management We started tracking various projects and shared task lists in Smartsheet. User adoption was not a problem and the ability to launch Smartsheet from Gmail (the first app we open every morning) might sound simple, but it was a big win. Most of us check into Smartsheet dozens of times per day and we all have it added to the first screen on our iPhones.
Order-to-ship process We then realized that Smartsheet and Gmail could help with our order entry and shipping process. It was easy to set up and quickly adopted by reps on the phones with customers as well as people in the factory and at the warehouse. Here's our new streamlined process:
1. New orders are entered in a Smartsheet with the packing slip attached to the order and special instructions added as discussion notes

2. The people at the warehouse are automatically notified by Smartsheet (via Gmail on their iPhone) that a new order needs to be shipped

3. They access Smartsheet from their email, download the packing slip and prep the order
4. Once the order is shipped, they fill out the "tracking number" field for that order in Smartsheet and change the dropdown status from "waiting" to "shipped"
5. The right people receive a Smartsheet notification that a new order has been shipped with the tracking number available

Inventory tracking We also track raw and finished goods inventory in Smartsheet, giving salespeople instant access to the latest information online or via their iPhone.
Sales pipeline We have recently started using Smartsheet to manage the sales pipeline. It's been great to have all of our client projects and potential leads tracked in one place with their relevant documents attached to their record. We have instant status updates, forecast amounts and recent call notes at our fingertips and use reminders to make sure follow up happens.
Specification document management Since we are able to easily attach Google Docs to our Smartsheets, we decided to go forward with converting hundreds of specification documents into Google Docs. Google Docs gives us collaborative writing and review to get the specifications right, and Smartsheet organizes them conveniently right inside the project workflow. Accessing files directly from our sales, inventory and order processing sheets has been a big productivity win.

Smartsheet and Google Apps are changing the way our company communicates. Our CEO loves it because he gets an update on order status or a key customer in real time. Our reps love it because they can quickly pull up an order while on the phone with a customer and give an instant answer without waiting for someone at the warehouse to call them back. This saves us a tremendous amount of time.
The two keys for us are ease of use and the flexibility, and we've yet to come across a type of work that can't be managed in Smartsheet and Google Apps. We also love that it's a fraction of the cost of many of the other solutions we've looked at and we don't have to hire expensive consultants to customize it.
Bottom line is that we serve our customers better than bigger competitors because we're nimble and agile, and we feel the same way about Smartsheet and Google Apps.
Tom Hippensteel, VP, LiquidConcrete
Join Tom and the Smartsheet team for a webinar to learn more about this customer success story. This online discussion will include a question and answer session.
Improving operational efficiency with Google Apps and SmartsheetTuesday, May 11, 201011:00 a.m. PDT / 2:00 p.m. EDT / 6:00 p.m. GMTRegister here

You can watch it at work here:

To learn more about Smartsheet's experience selling their app in the Google Apps Marketplace, please read their post on the Google Apps Developer Blog. To learn even more about Smartsheet, check out their Google Apps Marketplace listing.
Posted by Chris Kelly, Google Apps Marketplace team

Official Blog

Webinar: Improving operational efficiency with Google Apps and Smartsheet

“Springing” into a new shopping season with Google

New reset cookie functionality on Google Apps

"Made-to-order” results with Google Site Search

Adobe Community Help and Google Site Search: Making search come alive in CS5

Update to Google Maps in Canada

Manufacturing in the Cloud with Google Apps and Smartsheet

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