New Holiday templates in Google Docs to keep you organized this Holiday season

You can save time and money with the Google Docs template gallery for documents, spreadsheets and presentations. The templates are useful for every one from a small business owner or the chief holiday organizer. The gallery includes a few special templates designed to help you manage holidays this season better. Here are some of the useful templates:

• Survey form to update mailing list
• Holiday Postcard
• Mailing Labels
• Gift Tags
• Video Cards
• Newsletter
• Gift certificates
• invitation cards
• RSVP capture to Party
• Budget Tracker

It's easy to get started with any of these tips.

Click File -> New -> From Template to be taken to the main template gallery where you click the "Holiday" category to see just the holiday templates, or you can tab through to filter results by product. Pick the design you like and edit it for your needs.

Read post on Google Blogs (Part 1 Part 2)

View Calendar and Docs in you Gmail

Some new features are released in Google Labs this week. These include Gadgets to see Google Docs and Google Calendar in Gmail interface.

With the Google Calendar Gadget you can see your Google Calendar agenda and get an alert when you have a meeting.

The Google Docs gadget shows a list of your recently accessed Google Docs and lets you search across all of your documents right from within Gmail.


Another Gadget lets you add any new Gadget by URL.

To enable these features in your gmail go to your tab of settings >> Labs and enable the desired option and save.

More: Send SMS from your chat. I have not seen this but was told that there is SMS feature which will be enabled (gMark) which will help in sending SMS to mobiles from Google Gmail (like in Yahoo Mail).
Together above gadgets will be killer Gadgets.

Google Spreadsheet has "New Menu"

As an avid user of Google Apps and Google Docs I have always wondered about when the Google spreadsheet will be more closer to the MS office Excel Spreadsheet in terms of its usability, navigation and features. For a detailed description of the new interface you can go to the already updated Google Docs help page.

Here are some key changes:


One step has been taken by launching the new 'Google Spreadsheets’ menu. Now, Google decided to reorganize the interface a bit and give it a real looking menu. The menu now gives you the standard menu format like - “File, Edit, Format, Insert, Tools, Form, Help,”.

These were the options I was accustomed to in almost much all Office suites. Menus neatly provide access to all commands and functions.








Updated Toolbar: The updated toolbar gives shortcuts to the most commonly-used commands, including one-click access to currency, percent, and other cell formats.

Formulas are now accessible from the toolbar (or, as always, by typing them directly into the cell).

Hover over the sort bar to expose sorting tools. Drag it by the handle on the left to freeze header rows so they are visible while you scroll.


In the Share menu you can invite people, see who has access, publish to the web, and find other advanced sharing features.

Chat with people who are editing at the same time, or just see who's there.







An additional (additional to the other spreadsheets) is the Form option which is now accessible from the standard menu.

So now no need to go to another page to create a form - you can create and edit form right from the standard menu.

I am loving it!

Google Apps Primer for Small Business

What is Google Apps?

Google Apps are a set of online applications (also know as Software as a Service - SaaS applications) which enable collaboration among your your enterprise users.


What services are included in Google Apps?

Google Apps services include - Google Mail, Google Talk, Google Calendar, Google Docs and Google Sites, Google Start Page (additional in Premier Edition - Google Video). The Google services are customized for a business domain name i.e. your email are like - john@yourdomain.com (and not john@gmail.com).


Do I need to install, download any software or purchase any hardware?

Google Apps does not requires any software or hardware installation and maintenance so no more extra cost for your company. You only required to have a domain name and you can start getting benefit from Google services for free (standard edition).


Who is using Google Apps?

Many small business firms, educational institutions and nonprofit organizations have already adopted and benefited greatly from Google Apps services. Google Apps are well positions to help small businesses and non profits in their endeavor.


Why should I use Google Apps?

Here are few reasons

1. The small to medium size business (SMBs) and Startup Business take hard route to save company cost which also includes the software cost. Google Apps Standard edition (which is free) is a great way to save money.
2. Google Apps gives you fast and secure communication software - custom email address, calendar, spreadsheet, document tools, presentations, and more.
3. Google Apps GMail allows user to send and receiving mails and offers large storage capacity. Large number or mails archived, attachments or mail address can safely kept without worry that you are going to run out of space. Gmail’s also has a very strong virus and spam protection.
4. Google Talk is instant messaging facility integrated to Gmail. Text message as well as voice message can be sent worldwide instantly.
5. Google calendar can be used to share events, fix up meetings and organize schedules. You can even publish your company events on the web.
6. Google docs allows your employees to collaborate online over spread sheets, documents and presentations. Now one can create, edit and share their documents and presentations. And you can publish your document so that anyone can access your contents. They allow you to have option to restrict access only to your team or to some individuals.
7. Email can be delivered to your mail clients, hand held devices like blackberry, iphone etc without any additional charges
   

How Google Apps Mail is different from Gmail

Google Apps mail is for your domain - i.e. your email are like - john@yourdomain.com (and not john@gmail.com).


Whether I should use Standard Edition (Free) or Premier Edition of Google Apps?

Google Apps provide their service with some limitation. For most small companies, the free version will be adequate. You can consider to use upgraded version when your organization become bigger and more complex. You can see Google Apps comparison table for free edition versus paid edition on their website.

The key additions in Premier Edition are - higher mailbox size (25GB in premier edition v/s 7GB in Standard Edition), Ad free online email interface, Additional features in Calender, Additional Service - Google Video, and Additional administration features to integrate Google applications in your IT systems.

If you use free edition, you probably need to find good support. While using free edition you can still go for a trial of premier edition (which is 50$ per user) if you need. Google gives an option to Standard Edition users to try Premier Edition for one month free of cost.


What benefits organizations have derived from Google Apps?

There are many benefits but the prime benefits are

• Lower costs
  
• Reduced strain on IT departments due to streamlined operations and low maintenance
  
• Higher business scalability through easily-deployed services
• Availability of up to date version of software
  
• More productive and efficient employees with best of class communication tools

I am setting Up Google Apps for the first time. What I should keep in mind?

Setting Google Apps is relatively simple. There is ample help available on Google's website. If you do not have a domain you can buy the domain through while registering with Google Apps. This will save you from additional setup work. If you already have a domain and you are not IT saavy - you can take help of a host of service providers available in Google Solutions Marketplace.

Inline Google Docs for Wordpress

Many of the Google Apps users have blogs based on Wordpress. This plugin would allow them to simply view some shared docs without having to leave their site. This plugin supports private Google Docs.

This will be a very useful plugin that I could visualize. Google has a very good ability to import Word and Excel spreadsheets. This plugin would allow you to display some work (Word and Excel) in your blog without having converting to HTML.

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/inline-google-docs/

Create Templates in Google Docs

It looks like a lot of people want to create templates and share them. There is a way to do that:

1. Create your Doc
2. Go to Share and select the checkbox "Anyone can VIEW this document..."
3. Copy and paste the URL to your website, blog, email, etc., appending &newcopy to the end of the URL like the one below:

http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pIM_J1gg-sMPaQvhL86Q-cw&hl=en&newcopy

You also can leave off the &newcopy. If you do, then this will open the Doc in View mode, and then the person can choose to make a copy (from the File menu). But that might confuse them, so using &newcopy is probably a good idea.

Track sites in Google Docs

Mysterious hacker shows how to create a webpage monitor in Google Docs that tracks the websites of your choice:

http://www.mystichackers.com/build-a-web-page-monitor-with-google-docs-and-track-changes-automatically.html

More features in Google Docs

Looks like adding new features is a way of life at Google. Just seen a flashing message on one of help pages now again they have released some new features. It is really amazing the ease by which they are able to add new features. Just compare this to a PC based application like outlook - you will keep installing packs and not everyone will do. With Google apps everyone is upgraded and they (users) need not make a single click.

Here are new features:

• Help menu in document toolbar
  Help is really closer now. Google has added a Help menu just to the right of the document Tools menu. Check out especially the "Learn from other Google users" option, which takes you straight to the Google Docs Help Group.
  

• Choosing the size for embedded presentations
  Google has added an option to choose a size for your embedded presentations to the websites. While publishing you can select the size. Learn more.
  

• Select multiple objects on a slide
  Now you can select multiple items by holdding the shift key. You can now select multiple objects at once -- then move them around, resize them, copy and paste them and more. Learn more.
  

New features in Google Docs

Google is fast - shortly after the offline version of Google Docs (through Google Gears) they have continued with their fast development cycle and have launched some of the really good new features:

More sharing options in Docs list
Now you can both add and remove people's access and set advanced permissions from the Docs list (not implemented for spreadsheets). Check at Share tab in any document


Presentation speaker notes
You can now add speaker notes to your slides. These notes will be visible to you and your viewers in presentation mode or when you print your slides.

To include speaker notes, click the View Speaker Notes button at the bottom-right of a presentation while editing. This will bring the Speaker notes, where you can add and format notes for the current slide.

When in view presentation mode, you'll be able to view your notes by clicking the View speaker notes option at the top-right of your screen, directly above the chat module. Your collaborators and viewers will also be given the option to view your notes.

There are also options to print your speaker notes alongside your slides. Just click the File > Print menu item to access the print functionality, then click the checkbox to 'Include Speaker Notes' in your preferred layout.

You can export your notes to .ppt or .pdf as well; however, we don't support importing notes from .ppt at this time.

Insert videos into your presentations
In the Edit toolbar you'll see the new "Insert video" option which allows you to embed videos into your slides.


Save presentations as .ppt
Now you can save your presentations as PowerPoint files in addition to basic text and PDF.


Printing of documents
Choose File > Print to webpage to print your documents directly from the browser.
Print Settings - now a separate File menu option - only apply to regular printing (via PDF)

These are great features and will take Google Docs closer to MS Office (In fact some of the features are better than MS office)

Offline Access for Google Docs

Now you can work on your documents off line when you do not have an internet connections. So you can work on your document while you are waiting at reception or traveling to California.

For offline access - Google Docs is using Google Gears, another open source technology (technically a browser extension) that enables web applications to run offline. So even when you aren't connected to the Internet, Google Docs will use information stored on your computer's hard drive rather than relying on information sent across the network. When you're offline, your edits are stored on your own computer and when you re-connect, your changes are going to be synchronized Google Docs' servers and made available to collaborators.

How to Enable Offline Google Docs

Here are instructions from Google: To install or enable Gears for Google Docs, click the Offline link in the upper-right corner of your Docs list. (If you do not see this link ask your administrator to enable new features)

Once clicked you will see the following dialogue box, here click the Get Google Gears now button.

During the process you will be asked to allow https://docs.google.com as a trusted site. Check the box next to 'I trust this site.

Allow it to use Google Gears.' Then, click Allow.

Once you've enabled Google Gears, you'll be able to edit your existing documents anywhere, even without an Internet connection. It will also create a shortcut at your desktop to access offline.

How to access offline?

To access Docs offline, just open a browser and enter the address http://docs.google.com or simply click the Google Docs desktop shortcut, which will look like this:

Cool! I am getting used to this and like this a lot.

Using Panorama Pivot Table for Google spreadsheets

Panorama Pivot Table for Google Spreadsheets in Google Apps (a Gadget provided by Panorama) is an interactive table that automatically extracts, organizes, and summarizes your data.

You can use this report to analyze the data, make comparisons, detect patterns and relationships, and discover trends. In just a few steps any users can find answers such as the best selling region, and best selling product or analyze results of an academic research. Interact with the data and look at it in various ways in a simple drag and drop environment.

Check an online tutorial on how to use Panorama Pivot in your Google Apps Spreadsheet

http://www.panorama.com/google/pivot-table/tutorial/

Let us know how useful this feature is for you? Leave your comments