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Friday, March 13, 2015

Manymoon sees 30 higher conversions on Google Apps Marketplace

Editors Note: This post was written by Amit Kulkarni, CEO at Manymoon, a company that provides team and project management software. We invited Manymoon to share their experiences building an application on top of Google Apps utilizing some of our APIs.An IdeaWe started Manymoon with the idea of bringing social communications to the workplace. Not because it was cool, but because we think the best way to get work done is with the help of the people around you while still minimizing interruptions.Like...
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Thursday, March 12, 2015

Email address validation with Actions in the Inbox and Mandrill

We launched Actions in the Inbox at Google I/O 2013 as a quick way for users to get things done directly from Gmail. Integrating with this technology only requires adding some markup to an email to define what the message is about and what actions the user can perform. We support a variety of action types covering common scenarios such as adding a movie to a queue, product reviews, or other even pre-defined...
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Facilitating a retrospective with 50 people in an hour

As one of the volunteers at Agile 2012 I was honoured to be asked to facilitate the volunteer retrospective. There were a few constraints that made this retrospective challenging. First, due to our volunteer responsibilities we had just under an hour to eat lunch and complete the retrospective. Second, there are about 50 volunteers - allowing everyone to have a voice in such a short time frame would...
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A short story about co location

The post I created yesterday reminded me of this story:A team I was working on was asked to sit together in a rather cramped area. Five of us (two developers, one application architect, one tester, one business analyst) were asked to share a very small area about the size of a typical office. The business analyst had desk space equivalent to the size of a typical end table; there were monitors perched precariously above us on small shelves; we shared one phone; and the limited wall space...
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Domain user management with Apps Script

Managing the user accounts in a Google Apps domain can be a daunting task when you have hundreds or thousands of them and you have no tools to automate the process. The Google Apps Provisioning API allows developers to write user management applications in the programming language of their choice, but many system administrators prefer a script-based solution instead. The recently launched UserManager...
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Wednesday, March 11, 2015

It’s the system not and the people

I live and work with two phrases in my head that are important to me: “It’s the system, not the people” – Deming And, paradoxically:“It’s all about the people” – a statement heard often at Protegra that we try to use to guide how we work together.An event this weekend helped me to understand these seemingly contradictory ideas. My brother (as coach) and nephew (as player) are participating in the junior varsity (gr. 9/10) provincial basketball championships. Last night I was able...
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I will continue using Chrome

I dont like to write about hot topics. Waste of time mostly since everyone tends to overpush it. But IE 9 Beta brings important points, so here is my resume:1. Nicely implements Chrome logic of tabs and big screen for website2. Speed is nicely improved, though the feeling of being stuck is still there3. Its designed as it should be. The great MS feeling for design. Windows and Office users will LOVE...
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More ways for apps to write to Drive

Today we’re introducing two new ways for apps to build even richer integrations with Drive: app data folders and custom properties. In order to run smoothly, your app may depend on data it stores in Drive. But occasionally, users may accidentally move or delete the very file or folder your app needs to function. The app data folder is a special folder in Drive that can only be accessed by your app....
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Download or print Google docs viewer file

Today I was amazed by not being able to properly print a Google Docs Viewer file. Not sure if that was due to some protection of the document, but it was really not nice. All I got from printing was the first page. Through PDF or direct print. No "Download" button or anything like it. I assume it is due to protection levels anyway.After few minutes, the only solution possible was:1. Open Firefox2....
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Freemium model for enterprise software

The Freemium business model is normal for consumer applications, but can it work for enterprise software? Freemium usually means a free service with an "up sell" to paid premium subscriptions. Examples include Skype, LinkedIn, Flickr, Ancestry.com, Typepad, Dropbox, and many others. Freemium differs from Free Trial in that a free trial is the fully functional product but only for a limited time. Freemium is always free, but you can purchase additional features or service for a premium...
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Sheetcaster 3D in Apps Script

Editor’s note: This is a guest post by Thomas Coudray, Amaury de la Vieuville, and Ahmed Bougacha. Thomas, Amaury, and Ahmed attended the Google Apps Script Hackathon in Paris, and in this post they are sharing their creative use of Google Apps Script to render a 3D scene in a Google Spreadsheet. -- Jan Kleinert Recently, we heard about the Google Apps Script Hackathon arriving in Paris, France....
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Improving the Apps Marketplace Sign in experience

Easy access and single sign-on to applications has been a cornerstone of the Apps Marketplace since it launched. When a user clicks on an app in the Google Apps universal navigation (the “more” menu), they’re immediately signed into the app resulting in the same experience as when switching between Gmail, Calendar, and other Google apps. However, sometimes users navigate directly to the homepage...
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Upload all file types to any Google Account

Over the next few days we will be rolling out an expansion to the feature set of the Google Documents List API. Third-party applications may now upload files of any type to any Google Account. Previously, this was only possible for Google Apps for Business users.This feature allows developers to roll out their solutions to all Google Docs users. For instance, it’s now possible for developers to...
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A One Two Punch for Getting Even More out of Google Apps APIs

Editor’s Note: Guest author Steve Ziegler is a senior architect at BetterCloud—Arun NagarajanFlashPanel, a leading enterprise-grade security and management application for Google Apps, makes use of many Google Apps APIs. Each API comes with its own set of rate-limiting quotas, network traffic behavior and response conditions. The challenge we face is to provide our customers with a stable, consistent experience despite these API behavior differences. Fortunately, Google has provided two...
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Using Google Document List APIs to build Memeo Connect for Google Docs

Building Memeo Connect™ for Google DocsEditors Note: This post was written by our partner Memeo, a digital media management company. Memeo Connect™ for Google Docs enhances Google Docs capabilities. We invited Memeo to share their experiences building an application on top of Google Apps utilizing some of our APIs. Other partners will share their experiences in future posts. Hi Im Matthew...
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