Tag Archives: Google Forms

Use new theme options to customize and brand your Google Forms

To help Google Forms users create more personalized surveys, feedback forms, quizzes, and more, we’re introducing new theme customization options. Specifically, you can now choose colors and fonts to theme your form. This has been a top feature request from our users, who have asked for more options to create forms that match their organization or team branding. We hope these options help you build forms that look and feel just right.


Pick a theme and background color 

You can choose a color for your theme. When you choose a theme color, it will apply to your header background, titles, action buttons, and more. You can pick a predefined color, or a custom one. After you pick a theme color, you can select a complementary color for the background.

Use an image for the form header 

By default, the form header matches the theme color you select. If you want, you can change this and use an image to display in the header instead.

Customize the font style

You can pick from several font styles to apply to your form. When you pick a style, it will apply to your form title and question text.

New theme options for Google Forms 

See our Help Center for more details on how to change the theme of your Google Form.


Launch Details 

Release track:
Launching to Rapid Release, with Scheduled Release coming in two weeks

Editions: 
Available to all G Suite editions

Rollout pace: 
Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility)

Impact: 
All end users

Action: 
Change management suggested/FYI

More Information 
Help Center: Change the theme or font of your form


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Improving the menus in Google Docs editors

Based on usage data and your feedback, we’re making some changes to the menus in the web versions of the Google Docs editors. These are similar to the changes we made in December and in January and will make it easier to find certain items.

Changes that affect all Docs editors menus (including Google Docs, Slides, and Sheets):
  • In the Tools menu, “Spelling” will be renamed “Check Spelling.”
  • In the Edit menu, “Select none” will be removed. 
  • Items in the File, Edit, and Tools menus will be reordered. 


Changes that only affect Google Sheets menus:
  • In the Data menu, “Filter” will be renamed “Create a filter.”
  • In the Data menu, “Validation” will be renamed “Data validation.”
  • Items in the Data menu will be reordered. 
  • Items in the Format menu will be reordered. 


These changes will only affect the visual menu on the web version of these products. All options will still be available via keyboard shortcuts and the search box in the Help menu.


Launch Details
Release track:
Launching to Rapid Release, with Scheduled Release coming in two weeks

Editions:
Available to all G Suite editions

Rollout pace:
Extended rollout (potentially longer than 15 days for feature visibility)

Impact:
All end users

Action:
Change management suggested/FYI

More Information
Help Center: Keyboard shortcuts for Google Docs
Help Center: Keyboard shortcuts for Google Sheets
Help Center: Docs editors homepage


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New languages now supported in Google Docs and Slides files, as well as Docs editors templates

No matter where you or your customers or colleagues are located, we want to make sure Google Docs and Slides work for you at work. That’s why we’re expanding the font catalogue in Docs and Slides to support 62 languages, including non-Latin scripts like Cyrillic and Devanagari (with more coming soon!).

To find these new fonts and others, simply click More fonts at the bottom of the Fonts menu. There you’ll also find suggested fonts, based on your document’s language.


In addition, we’re making Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Forms templates available in four new languages: European Spanish, Latin American Spanish, French, and Brazilian Portuguese. Stay tuned for additional languages, including Hindi, coming soon.

Launch Details
Release track:
Launching to both Rapid Release and Scheduled Release

Editions:
Available to all G Suite editions

Rollout pace:
Full rollout (1–3 days for feature visibility)

Impact:
All end users

Action:
Change management suggested/FYI

More Information
Help Center: Change how paragraphs & fonts look


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Get on the same page: new Google Docs features help power team collaboration

(Cross-posted from The Keyword, with some additional details)

Getting people on the same page for a project can be tough. It requires managing a ton of opinions and suggestions. The last thing you should have to worry about is making sure your team is literally working on the same document. That’s why we built our powerful real-time editing tools to help with this—Google Docs, Sheets and Slides—so that teams can work together at the same time, using the most up-to-date version.

Today, we're introducing new updates to better help with "version control," to customize tools for your workflows, and to help teams locate information when they need it.

Track changes, make progress

It can take dozens of edits to make a document just right—especially a legal agreement, project proposal or research paper. These new updates in Docs let you more easily track your team’s changes. Now, your team can:

1. Name versions of a Doc, Sheet or Slide on the web.
Being able to assign custom names to versions of your document is a great way to keep a historical record of your team's progress. It's also helpful for communicating when a document is actually final. You can organize and track your team’s changes in one place under “Version history” (formerly known as “Revision history”) on the web. Select File > Version history > Name current version. For even quicker recall, there’s an option to select “Only show named versions” in Docs, Sheets or Slides.

2. Preview “clean versions” of Docs on the web to see what your Doc looks like without comments or suggested edits.
Select Tools > Review suggested edits > Preview accept all OR Preview reject all.

3. Accept or reject all edit suggestions at once in your Doc so your team doesn’t have to review every single punctuation mark or formatting update.
Select Tools > Review suggested edits > Accept all OR Reject all.

4. Suggest changes in a Doc from an Android, iPhone or iPad device.
Click the three dots menu in the bottom right of your Doc screen to suggest edits on the go. Turn on the “Suggest changes” toggle and start typing in “suggestion mode.”

5. Compare documents and review redlines instantly with Litera Change-Pro or Workshare Add-ons in Docs. 


Here’s a quick way to preview and accept all changes (or reject them) and name versions of your document.


Use new templates, add-on time-saving functionality

Teams use templates in Docs and Sheets to save time on formatting. At the same time, developers are building add-ons to customize functionality. We thought, why not bring these two together? That’s why today, we’re introducing new templates with built-in add-ons and the ability to create your own, so your templates not only look good—but they make sure the work gets done.

These templates allow you to customize and deploy tools specific to your organization’s workflows. We’ve launched five examples of this in the general template gallery, like the new Mutual Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) template from LegalZoom and DocuSign. With this template, businesses can quickly create an NDA and collect signatures using the DocuSign Add-on for Docs. Bonus: it also automatically detects the required signature fields on the template, which saves even more time when you request signatures. This is just one of a few new templates—we’ve also worked with Lucidchart to create a business process manual, PandaDoc for a consulting agreement, Supermetrics for a website paid traffic report, and EasyBib for an MLA report. Each should help you save time and maximize efficiency throughout your team’s workflows.

In addition, you can create your very own template with built-in add-on customized to your company’s workflows. For example, create a Sheets template paired with an add-on to gather internal approvals or an invoice template in Docs (paired with an add-on) that pulls information from your CRM system.

Admins, if you don’t currently allow your users to install add-ons, you can still use these new templates by deploying specific add-ons only. Or, if you’d prefer to allow your users to install only certain add-ons, you can block specific third-party OAuth scopes and whitelist only those add-ons you trust.

Note that templates paired with add-ons abide by the same Admin console settings as all other templates and are available in English only.


The new Mutual NDA template from LegalZoom and DocuSign lets you collect NDA approvals stat.


Find the information you need, when you need it

Sometimes the hardest part of creating a proposal or client presentation is tracking down the information you need to include in it. Starting today for G Suite Business and Enterprise customers, Google Cloud Search will integrate with Docs and Slides via the Explore feature. Using Machine Intelligence, Cloud Search surfaces relevant information to help you work more efficiently throughout your day.

To get started, open the Explore tab in Docs or Slides and type what you’re looking for. Cloud Search will show you important details from your information across your G Suite apps including Gmail, Drive, Calendar, Sites and more, to help you create top-notch Docs and presentations.


Now you can use Google Cloud Search through the Explore feature in Docs and Slides.


Teams are using Docs to collaborate in creative ways. Check out this post for inspiration, or visit the Docs site to get started.

Launch Details
Release track:
  • Versions and Cloud Search in Explore
    • Launching to Rapid Release, with Scheduled Release coming in two weeks
  • Suggestions
    • Mobile features launching to both Rapid Release and Scheduled Release
    • Web features launching to Rapid Release, with Scheduled Release coming in two weeks
  • Templates
    • Launching to Rapid Release, with Scheduled Release coming in two weeks*
*Templates created by our partners will appear immediately in all template galleries, but the add-on functionality associated with them will launch only to domains on the Rapid Release track. Domains on the Scheduled Release track will see add-on functionality in two weeks.

Editions:
  • Versions, Suggestions, and Templates
    • Available to all G Suite editions
  • Cloud Search in Explore
    • Available to G Suite Business and Enterprise editions with Cloud Search enabled only

Rollout pace:
  • Versions, Suggestions, and Templates
    • Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility)
  • Cloud Search in Explore
    • Extended rollout (potentially longer than 15 days for feature visibility)

Impact:
  • Versions and Suggestions
    • All end users
  • Templates and Cloud Search in Explore
    • Admins and end users

Action:
  • Versions and Suggestions
    • Change management suggested/FYI
  • Templates and Cloud Search in Explore
    • Admin action suggested/FYI

More Information


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Smarter Google Forms to save you time

Google Forms makes it easy to collect information, plan events, solicit feedback, and more. Today, we’re adding new features and using machine learning to make Forms work better for your business. Read on for more details.

Intelligent response validation
When you know the specific type of answer you’re looking for, it’s often helpful to validate responses in Forms. For example, if you’re asking for a website, Forms can double-check that the answer provided is a URL. Following this launch, when we can, we’ll suggest response validation based on the question you ask. If you ask respondents for their age, for instance, we may recommend validating that the answer they provide is a whole number. (Note that this feature is rolling out gradually and may take several weeks to appear in your domain.)


Cross-domain file uploads
Oftentimes, when you use Forms, you’re not collecting data from your colleagues—you’re gathering information from third parties, customers, and more. To guarantee you get the information you need, we’ll now allow users outside of your domain to upload files as responses to your questions—provided both of your organizations allow cross-domain sharing in Google Drive. Based on usage patterns, total uploads to new forms will be capped at 1GB, with an option to increase that limit to 1TB. Uploads to existing forms will be capped at 1TB.

Preferences
If you use similar settings across all of your forms, you can now save time by assigning default settings to apply to any new forms you create. For instance, you can choose to always collect email addresses, make questions required every time, and assign default quiz point values.



“Checkbox grid” questions
Sometimes a question is more complex than multiple choice or checkbox answers alone can satisfy—you need to be able to select multiple options from multiple categories. Going forward, you can use the “Checkbox grid” question type to get the answers you need, like dates and times that work for an upcoming meeting.



Section reordering
We heard you loud and clear—you need an easy way to organize (and reorganize) your questions in Forms. In response to your feedback, we’re now making it possible to reorder whole sections quickly and easily.



Create better forms, more quickly, with these new and intelligent features in Forms.

Launch Details
Release track:
Launching to Rapid Release, with Scheduled Release coming in two weeks

Editions:
Available to all G Suite editions

Rollout pace:
Full rollout (1–3 days for feature visibility)

Impact:
All end users

Action:
Change management suggested/FYI

More Information
Help Center: Edit your form
Help Center: Choose a question for your form

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Create quizzes in Google Forms with Apps Script

Posted by Tynia Yang, Software Engineer, Google Forms

Last year, we launched Quizzes in Google Forms to help teachers and students take assessment to scale. Using Quizzes, teachers are able to automate testing and give feedback to students faster by having Forms check responses against correct answers automatically. Today, we are making that functionality available to developers by extending the Google Apps Script Forms Service. With this feature, you can create and customize quizzes programmatically with Apps Script.

More specifically:
  • Create quizzes 
  • Assign point values and correct answers for questions 
  • Implement custom grading schemes 
Let’s take a look at an example use case and relevant code snippet.

Creating an auto-graded question 

Multiple choice, checkbox and dropdown questions can be auto-graded, which means students can see their grades immediately upon submission. This is done by designating which options are the correct answer. Teachers can also set automatic feedback to show correct or incorrect responses, as well as assign point values to the question.

Here is the Apps Script code that lets you create the quiz above:
function createGradedCheckboxQuestionWithAutofeedback() {
  // Make sure the form is a quiz.
  var form = FormApp.getActiveForm();
  form.setIsQuiz(true);

  // Make a 10 point question and set feedback on it
  var item = FormApp.getActiveForm().addCheckboxItem();
  item.setTitle("What flavors are in neapolitan ice cream?");
  item.setPoints(10);
  // chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry are the correct answers
  item.setChoices([
    item.createChoice("chocolate", true),
    item.createChoice("vanilla", true),
    item.createChoice("rum raisin", false),
    item.createChoice("strawberry", true),
    item.createChoice("mint", false)
  ]);
  // If the respondent answers correctly, they'll see this feedback when they view 
  //scores.
  var correctFeedback = FormApp.createFeedback()
      .setText("You're an ice cream expert!")
      .build();
  item.setFeedbackForCorrect(correctFeedback);
  
  // If they respond incorrectly, they'll see this feedback with helpful links to 
  //read more about ice cream.
  var incorrectFeedback = FormApp.createFeedback()
      .setText("Sorry, wrong answer")
      .addLink(
        "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neapolitan_ice_cream",
        "Read more")
      .build();
  item.setFeedbackForIncorrect(incorrectFeedback);
}
For more details on what you can build with the Apps Script Forms Service, review the documentation, ask questions on Stack Overflow or in the G+ community, and let us know what else you’d like to see using the new public issue tracker for Apps Script.

New Google Drive metrics now accessible from Reports API

Posted by Rio Akasaka, Product Manager, Google Drive and Wesley Chun (@wescpy), G Suite Developer Advocate

You might have read that we launched new metrics in the Admin SDK Reports API to help you gain reliable, easily-validated perspectives about users within your domain. Today, we're building on these features by giving administrators and developers even greater visibility into how files are shared both inside and outside of domain. These changes include:
  1. New metrics to supplement the set of metrics we launched last year 
  2. New visibility information for audit events 
  3. Deprecation of existing metrics from the Reports API

New Metrics

We’ve created a new set of metrics to complete the set we launched last year. With these new metrics you can:
  • Gain insight into the visibility of files and their sharing state, which is useful for security and reporting. This will replace these older metrics:
    num_docs_internally_visible, num_docs_externally_visible, num_docs_shared_outside_domain.
  • Report on product adoption within your domain with summary statistics about groups of users (collaborators, viewers, creators and sharers). Take advantage of key adoption metrics such as 1-, 7-, and 30-day active users for Google Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides, Forms, Drawings and more. 
  • Simplify your calculation of “what has changed” in your domain using delta metrics which pre-calculate changes in visibility and items owned.

New Visibility Information 

Now, new visibility information is attached to every audit event which helps you quickly identify the permission change events that lead to files being shared differently both within and outside your domain. Learn more.

Deprecating Existing Metrics 

While we’re aware of the need to have reliable and timely data about your domain’s users and files on Google Drive, Drive’s data and infrastructure has grown considerably, requiring us to make some difficult technical tradeoffs regarding metrics. As a result, today marks the beginning of a 12-month deprecation timeline that will retire these existing metrics from the Reports API and eventually the Admin Console. These metrics will no longer be available starting May 14, 2018.

To get started using the Reports API and see all the different types of metrics you can report on for your domain, check out the official documentation. We hope you find these features useful in your reporting.

A new admin privilege for managing custom templates in Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Forms

In November 2016, we introduced custom templates in Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Forms, allowing teams to spend less time formatting and more time brainstorming, collaborating, and sharing their ideas. We also gave G Suite Business, Education, and Enterprise customers the following optional controls in the Admin console:

  • Moderated - require that user-submitted templates be approved by admins with the Drive and Docs admin privilege
  • Restricted - restrict template submission to admins with the Drive and Docs admin privilege
With this launch, it’s no longer necessary to provision the full Drive and Docs privilege to admins who want the ability to moderate and manage templates. Instead, you can grant those admins a new Docs Templates privilege, which gives them the ability to approve templates and modify template settings in the Admin console, but not the authority to change other Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Forms settings. Admins who retain the full Drive and Docs privilege will continue to be able to manage templates.



This change will allow your organization to manage custom templates in a scalable way, without relinquishing control over sensitive admin settings. For more details on the Docs Templates privilege and for instructions on managing templates, check out the Help Center articles below.

Launch Details
Release track:
Launching to both Rapid release and Scheduled release

Editions:
Available to G Suite Business, Education, and Enterprise editions only

Rollout pace:
Full rollout (1–3 days for feature visibility)

Impact:
Admins only

Action:
Admin action suggested/FYI

More Information
Help Center: Administrator privilege definitions - Docs Templates
Help Center: Enable custom templates for Docs, Sheets, and Slides


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Creating files from templates now easier in Google Drive

Since 2015, we’ve been making it easier to focus on your content—not your formatting—with templates in Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Forms. We’ve introduced templates for invoices, pitch decks, and cases studies, as well as templates designed by experts and developed specifically for your organization.

Today, we’re making it easier for users to create files from templates by granting access to templates directly from Drive. Instead of navigating to the Docs, Sheets, Slides, or Forms home pages, you can simply go to Drive > New > Google Docs/Sheets/Slides/Forms > From a template. From there, you’ll be directed to the applicable template gallery, where you can select the template of your choice.


For more details on templates, visit the Help Center.

Launch Details
Release track:
Launching to Rapid release, with Scheduled release coming in three weeks

Editions:
Available to all G Suite editions

Rollout pace:
Gradual rollout (potentially longer than 3 days for feature visibility)

Impact:
All end users

Action:
Change management suggested/FYI

More Information
Help Center: Create a file from a template


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Save time with new custom templates in Docs, Sheets, Slides and Forms

We recently launched new tools in G Suite like Explore, Action items, and other features to help your teams save time and focus on what’s important: creating impactful work, quicker. We know time spent re-creating files in the workplace takes away from the time your team can spend collaborating and achieving results.

That’s why, today, we’re introducing custom templates in G Suite for the Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Forms files your teams use the most.

Simply submit files to shared template galleries in the Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Forms home screens for your co-workers to adapt and use as needed. With these customizable templates, your teams can focus less on formatting and more on driving impact and sharing success.


Note that if you disabled template submissions to the old Google Drive templates gallery in the Admin console, users in your organization will not be able to see and use the new galleries when they launch. You can enable the new galleries for your users in the Admin console (Apps > G Suite > Drive and Docs > Templates). You can also configure the categories available for your organization’s templates from that same section in the Admin console.


In addition, G Suite for Business and Education customers can require templates be approved before they appear in the galleries, or prevent end users from submitting new templates altogether. These features are not enabled by default, so you’ll need to update your settings if you want to moderate or restrict template submissions to the galleries.


The old templates gallery will be shut down in early 2017, giving you and your users time to transition to the new galleries. We’ll let you know the exact date with a message in the old gallery, but it will not take place before February 1st, 2017.

An important note regarding this rollout: 
To give you a chance to update your settings and curate your organization’s template galleries, we’re rolling out these features (both in the Admin console and in the home screens) to all admins, regardless of their release track, starting today. We’ll launch to end users on the Rapid release track today as well, with the rollout to end users on the Scheduled release track starting on December 7th. 

Launch Details
Release track:
  • G Suite administrators
    • Launching to both Rapid and Scheduled release
  • G Suite end users
    • Launching to Rapid release, with Scheduled release coming on December 7th

Editions:

  • Template galleries
    • Available to all G Suite editions
  • Moderation and restriction capabilities
    • Available to G Suite for Business and Education customers only

Rollout pace:
Gradual rollout (potentially longer than 3 days for feature visibility)

Impact:
All end users

Action:
Admin action suggested/FYI

More Information
Help Center: Enable templates for Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Forms
Help Center: Create a file from a template


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