Category Archives: Google Drive Blog

News and notes from the Google Drive team

How The New York Times used Google Sheets to report congressional votes

There’s a common phrase among reporters: “The news never sleeps.” This is why many news outlets rely on cloud-based productivity tools like Google Docs and Sheets to share information, check facts and collaborate in real time. And The New York Times is no exception.

In May 2017, the U.S. House of Representatives voted on a new health care law affecting millions of Americans. To report the news as fast as possible, The Times’ editorial team used Sheets to tally and display House votes in real time on NYTimes.com.

Engaging voters with the Sheets API

“People want to feel connected to the decisions their legislators make as soon as they make them,” said Tom Giratikanon, a graphics editor at The Times. But rules in the House chamber make reporting on how every representative votes in real time difficult. Photography is restricted on the assembly floor, and there is a delay until all votes are displayed on the House website—a process that can sometimes take up to an hour.

To get around this lag, Giratikanon’s team used the Google Sheets API. The editorial team dispatched reporters to the chamber where they entered votes into a Google Sheet as they were shown on the vote boards. The sheet then auto-populated NYTimes.com using the Sheets API integration.

Says Giratikanon: “It’s easy to feel like decisions are veiled in the political process. Technology is a powerful way to bridge that gap. Sharing news immediately empowers our readers.”

It’s easy to feel like decisions are veiled in the political process. Technology is a powerful way to bridge that gap. Tom Giratikanon
Graphics Editor, The New York Times

How it worked

To prep, Giratikanon tested the Sheets integration ahead of the House vote. He created a sheet listing the names of legislators in advance, so his team could avoid typos when entering data on the day of the vote. Next, he set up the Sheet to include qualifiers. A simple “Y” or “N” indicated “yes” and “no” votes.

After a few practice rounds, Giratikanon’s team realized they could add even more qualifiers to better inform readers–like flagging outlier votes and reporting on votes by party (i.e., Democrats vs. Republicans). The editorial team researched how each of the 431 legislators were expected to vote in advance. They created a rule in Sheets to automatically highlight surprises. If a legislator went against the grain, the sheet highlighted the cell in yellow and the editorial team fact-checked the original vote to reflect this in the article. Giratikanon also set up a rule to note votes by party.

As a result, The Times, which has roughly 2 million digital-only subscribers, beat the House website, reporting the new healthcare bill results and informing readers who were eager to follow how their legislator voted.

Try G Suite APIs today

You can use Sheets and other G Suite products to help speed up real-time reporting, no matter the industry. Get started using the Sheets API today or check out other G Suite APIs, like the Slides API, Gmail API or Calendar API.

Source: Drive

How The New York Times used Google Sheets to report congressional votes

Engaging voters with the Sheets API

Says Giratikanon: “It’s easy to feel like decisions are veiled in the political process. Technology is a powerful way to bridge that gap. Sharing news immediately empowers our readers.”

It’s easy to feel like decisions are veiled in the political process. Technology is a powerful way to bridge that gap. Tom Giratikanon
Graphics Editor, The New York Times

How it worked

Try G Suite APIs today

Source: Drive

Track projects with G Suite and Asana

Technology has transformed the way businesses operate—your teams likely do not look like they did 10 years ago. Now, companies rely on a mobile workforce and require productivity tools to help them collaborate no matter the location, and more importantly, without holding up work.

Businesses are using Asana and G Suite to collaborate and manage projects from start to finish. Asana is a project management tool that helps teams plan, manage and track work, and is a part of the Recommended for G Suite program. With these two tools, your organization can:

Create tasks in Asana directly from Gmail
Add files directly from Google Drive to tasks in Asana
Keep track of deadlines by syncing your tasks in Asana with Google Calendar
Build custom reports in Google Sheets to analyze project data in Asana

How OutSystems uses G Suite and Asana to drive marketing launches

OutSystems is a low-code application platform that uses Asana and G Suite to manage digital marketing and advertising projects to reach its more than 7 million users. With 30 marketers across the globe, it’s important that OutSystems uses tools to streamline reviews and track project status.

With more than 90,000 apps built on their platform, OutSystems relies on Asana to prioritize projects and create templates for marketing launches. G Suite apps are built in, which means OutSystems employees can access their favorite productivity tools, like Google Drive, Docs and Sheets, in one place.

Teams use Drive to attach files to tasks in Asana, Docs to edit web content, and Sheets to analyze project data. OutSystems marketers also work with external freelancers, and G Suite’s permission sharing settings make it easy to protect proprietary information.

You can get started using Asana and G Suite at your business. Sign up for this free webinar on Tuesday, June 27, 2017 at 9 a.m. PT / 12 p.m. ET.

Source: Drive

Track projects with G Suite and Asana

Create tasks in Asana directly from Gmail
Add files directly from Google Drive to tasks in Asana
Keep track of deadlines by syncing your tasks in Asana with Google Calendar
Build custom reports in Google Sheets to analyze project data in Asana

How OutSystems uses G Suite and Asana to drive marketing launches

You can get started using Asana and G Suite at your business. Sign up for this free webinar on Tuesday, June 27, 2017 at 9 a.m. PT / 12 p.m. ET.

Source: Drive

Four signs you’re wasting time at work and how G Suite can help

We all waste time at work, whether it’s on purpose (brushing up on Wonder Woman's history) or on accident (really should have budgeted more time for internal reviews). Luckily, G Suite can help you accomplish more at work, quicker. Here are four tell-tale signs you’re spending time on the wrong things, and tips on how to avoid these time-sinks.

1. You’ve spent more time emailing co-workers than you have actually working

The average worker spends an estimated 13 hours per week writing emails—nearly two full work days. Luckily, you can cut back on time spent replying to emails with Smart Reply in Gmail. Smart Reply uses machine learning to generate quick, natural language responses for you.

2. You’ve spent the past hour formatting slides for a presentation

Is an image centered? Should you use “Times New Roman” or “Calibri?” Formatting presentations monopolizes too much of our time and takes away from what’s really valuable: sharing insights.

But you can save time polishing your presentations by using Explore in Slides, powered by machine learning. Explore generates design suggestions for your presentation so you don’t have to worry about cropping, resizing or reformatting. You can also use Explore in Docs, which makes it easy to research right within your documents. Explore will recommend related topics to help you learn more or even suggest photos or more content you can add to your document. Check out how to use Explore in Slides and Docs in this episode of the G Suite Show:

Explore feature for Docs and Slides | The G Suite Show

3. You can’t find a file you know you saved in your drive

Where is that pesky file? According to a McKinsey report, employees spend almost two hours every day searching and gathering information. That’s a lot of time.

Curb time wasted with Quick Access in Drive, which uses machine intelligence to predict and suggest files you need when you need them. Natural Language Processing (NLP) also makes it possible for you to search the way you speak. Say you’re trying to find an important file from 2016. Simply search “spreadsheets I created in 2016” and voilà!

Another way to avoid losing files is by using Team Drives, a central location in Drive that houses shared files. In Team Drives, all team members can access files (or manage individual share permissions), so you don’t have to worry about tracking down a file after someone leaves or granting access to every doc that you create.

4. You’ve fussed with a spreadsheet formula over and over again

According to internal Google data, less than 30 percent of enterprise users feel comfortable manipulating formulas within spreadsheets. “=SUM(A1, B1)" or "=SUM(1, 2)" is easy, but more sophisticated calculations can be challenging.

Bypass remembering formulas and time-consuming analysis and dive straight into finding insights with Explore in Sheets, which uses machine learning to crunch numbers for you. Type in questions (in words, not formulas) in Explore in Sheets on the web to learn more about your data instantly. And now, you can use the same powerful technology to create charts for you within Sheets. Instead of manually building graphs, ask Explore to do it for you by typing the request in words.

Stop wasting time on menial tasks and focus more on important, strategic work. To learn more about other G Suite apps that can help you save time, visit https://gsuite.google.com/.

Source: Drive

Four signs you’re wasting time at work and how G Suite can help

1. You’ve spent more time emailing co-workers than you have actually working

2. You’ve spent the past hour formatting slides for a presentation

Is an image centered? Should you use “Times New Roman” or “Calibri?” Formatting presentations monopolizes too much of our time and takes away from what’s really valuable: sharing insights.

Explore feature for Docs and Slides | The G Suite Show

3. You can’t find a file you know you saved in your drive

Where is that pesky file? According to a McKinsey report, employees spend almost two hours every day searching and gathering information. That’s a lot of time.

4. You’ve fussed with a spreadsheet formula over and over again

According to internal Google data, less than 30 percent of enterprise users feel comfortable manipulating formulas within spreadsheets. “=SUM(a+b)” is easy, but more sophisticated calculations can be challenging.

Bypass remembering formulas and time-consuming analysis and dive straight into finding insights with Explore in Sheets, which uses machine learning to crunch numbers for you. Type in questions (in words, not formulas) in Explore in Sheets on web, Android or iOS to learn more about your data instantly. And now, you can use the same powerful technology to create charts for you within Sheets. Instead of manually building graphs, ask Explore to do it for you by typing the request in words.

Stop wasting time on menial tasks and focus more on important, strategic work. To learn more about other G Suite apps that can help you save time, visit https://gsuite.google.com/.

Source: Drive

English county council saves millions switching to G Suite and Chromebooks

A day in the life of an employee at Northumberland County Council in northern England involves everything from running schools, repairing roads or literally putting out fires. It’s work that never stops and that stretches across a rural area the size of Greater London with 330,000 citizens and three million sheep.

Two years ago, the Northumberland IT team started to notice strain in their service infrastructure which connects 380 locations across the region, and recent budget cuts made that system feel increasingly unworkable.

"We had a very big legacy setup that was costing us a fortune in licensing and devices,” says Neil Arnold, Chief Information Officer at Northumberland County Council. “We decided to bring people together in a central hub to make teams more agile."

Creating G Suite champions

After evaluation, Arnold and his team chose G Suite for its functionality and flexibility. The team relied on Netpremacy, a Google Cloud partner, to train 300 staff members to educate colleagues on how to use G Suite. Within months, 5,500 corporate users and 11,500 schools users had been set up with G Suite accounts. “Without the support of Netpremacy, we wouldn't have been able to implement as rapidly as we did,” says Arnold. “They recognised the cultural challenges. There was skepticism at first, but users really took the tools to heart when they could see the benefits.”

From different locations across the region, staff began working collaboratively on Docs and Sheets and inviting others to join. The team saved money by switching to Chromebooks and Arnold and his colleagues started using Hangouts to join meetings to stay synced on daily work.

Even firefighters, who were reluctant to try out Hangouts at first, started using it regularly. “Firefighters now use Hangouts at the scene of fires to communicate with central command, monitor the fire, and decide how many vehicles they need,” says Arnold. “The chief fire officer doesn't have to get in his car and drive out to the scene to help — he can do it all from wherever he is.”

Firefighters use Hangouts at the scene of fires to communicate to central command, so the chief fire officer doesn't have to drive to the scene. Neil Arnold
CIO, Northumberland County Council

Saving big by going cloud-first

Arnold expects switching to Chromebooks will help Northumberland County Council save close to £2.5 million on licensing and hardware, without sacrificing data security since Chromebooks have multiple protection layers.

The next step for Arnold and his team is to bring G Suite to the classroom. “We've got a lot of schools using Google Classroom successfully,” he says, “and we want to roll G Suite out to more schools. It’ll be a big efficiency for them, because many have small file servers on site, that they manage themselves or pay a third-party to manage. Drive will help them decommission that.”

Meanwhile, outdated exchange and file servers are being closed down across the council as data is seamlessly transferred to Google Cloud. The new central office for the county is set to open in 2019, and Arnold does not plan to have a datacenter at the new building: “That footprint’s going to reduce over the next three years to virtually nothing.”

“I've been working in IT for over 30 years and this has been one of the most successful and satisfying projects I've ever been involved in,” says Arnold. “We’ve achieved more than we expected and using G Suite has been a tremendous catalyst for change.”

Source: Drive

Let’s jam—Jamboard is now available

Good ideas become great ones when you work together with your teammates. But as teams become increasingly distributed, you need tools that spur visual creativity and collaboration—a way to sketch out ideas, rev on them with colleagues no matter where they may be in the world and make them real. That’s where Jamboard, our cloud-based, collaborative whiteboard, can help. Starting today, Jamboard is available for purchase in the United States.

Breaking down creative barriers

We tested Jamboard with enterprise early adopters like Dow Jones, Whirlpool and Pinterest, who shared how Jamboard helped their businesses collaborate more efficiently and bring the power of the cloud into team brainstorms.

Shaown Nandi, chief information officer at Dow Jones, saw his teams became more hands-on in creative sessions thanks to Jamboard. “Jamboard breaks down barriers to interactive, visual collaboration across teams everywhere,” said Nandi. “It’s the perfect anchor for a meeting and encourages impromptu, productive sessions. We can easily add any content to the Jamboard to capture great ideas from everyone. We immediately saw the benefits.”

Jamboard is the perfect anchor for a meeting. We can easily add content and capture great ideas from everyone. Shaown Nandi
Chief Information Officer at Dow Jones

We received great suggestions from customers on how to make Jamboard even better, such as adding a greater range of secure Wi-Fi network configurations so it’s easier to jam in different business settings. Customers also confirmed how important high speed touch is when using a digital whiteboard, and we’re using the Nvidia Jetson TX1 embedded computer to make sure Jamboard’s 4K touchscreen delivers a responsive experience. Starting today, you can purchase a Jamboard in three colors: cobalt blue, carmine red and graphite grey.

Order Jamboard today

You can purchase Jamboard for $4,999 USD, which includes two styluses, an eraser and a wall mount. We’re also running a promotion—if you order on or before September 30, 2017, you’ll receive $300 off of the annual management and support fee for the first year, as well as a discount on the optional rolling stand.

Keep in mind that a G Suite plan is required to use Jamboard so that you can access files from Drive, use them in your brainstorms and come back to your work later. Plus, the Jamboard mobile companion apps can be used remotely so you can work on the go. Also, we’re teaming up with BenQ to handle fulfillment, delivery and support. Check out pricing details below.

Jamboard is available in the U.S. to start, and will be available for purchase in the U.K. and Canada this summer, with more countries becoming available over time. Contact your Google Cloud sales rep or visit google.com/jamboard to learn more about how you can start jamming with colleagues today.

If you’re a current G Suite admin, check out this post for more information.

Source: Drive

Let’s jam—Jamboard is now available

Breaking down creative barriers

Jamboard is the perfect anchor for a meeting. We can easily add content and capture great ideas from everyone. Shaown Nandi
Chief Information Officer at Dow Jones

Order Jamboard today

If you’re a current G Suite admin, check out this post for more information.

Source: Drive

Build with G Suite

Today wraps our annual Google I/O conference. Thousands of developers from around the world gathered to learn about our latest developer products and share best practices, including how to build next-gen business applications using G Suite. In case you need it, here’s a list of the various developer tools you can use to customize app your G Suite experience at your organization.

1. Build and deploy custom apps using App Maker

App Maker is a low-code, application development tool in G Suite that helps developers quickly build and deploy custom apps securely. It comes with built-in templates, a drag-and-drop UI and point-and-click data modeling. Plus, you can customize your app to connect with a wide range of APIs using Apps Script. App Maker is currently available as part of an Early Adopter Program for G Suite Business customers. Learn more.

2. Create seamless integrations with the G Suite APIs

Speaking of APIs, G Suite offers a number of ways for developers to integrate their app with ours and create a seamless experience for users. Here are a few of our favorite G Suite APIs.

Try the Sheets API which lets your developers read, write and format data in Sheets. Plus, you can automatically generate and update charts, pivot tables and more.
The Slides API helps you access and update presentations programmatically, pulling in data from various sources (including popular third-party apps) and producing polished template-based presentations in a fraction of the time.
Leverage the Gmail API to access and organize your Gmail inbox. You can program your application to read and send messages, create filters to automatically label, forward and archive messages, or even update vacation responders.
Finally, the Drive API allows you to manage Google Drive files and/or folders as well as leverage new Team Drive features programmatically. Developers can also use the Drive SDK to create Drive-enabled apps that handle custom files.

3. Customize your G Suite experience with Add-ons

Using Apps Script, G Suite's native JavaScript-based development platform, developers can easily customize their favorite apps like Sheets, Docs, and Forms by adding menu items, sidebars or editing files programmatically directly within these apps. We also recently introduced Gmail Add-ons in developer preview, so that third-party developers can bring the power of their apps directly into Gmail. Better yet, developers need only write their Gmail Add-on once, and it’ll run natively in Gmail on web, Android and iOS right away.

To learn more about how you can integrate and better customize your business applications for G Suite, check out the G Suite Developers blog or the G Suite Developers show. You can also subscribe to the G Suite Developers newsletter for updates.