Tag Archives: Google Slides

Embed charts from Google Sheets in Google Docs and Slides and update them with a single click

Charts help you display data in a visually compelling way. At work, the same chart may be used across multiple documents and presentations, to help you better convey your message and strengthen your argument. If that chart changes, it can be tedious and time-consuming to replace it in each and every file. To save you valuable time, we’re now making it possible to update your chart with a single click—without ever needing to leave your document or presentation.

To get started, simply go to Insert > Chart in Google Docs or Slides on the web. Insert a new chart, or select From Sheets to add an existing chart from the spreadsheet of your choice. As long as you check the Link to spreadsheet box, you’ll be given the option to update the chart with one click if its underlying data in Google Sheets changes. Should you no longer want to be notified of updates to a particular chart, you can simply unlink it. This same functionality is available if you copy and paste a chart into a document or presentation.



Please note that the ability to import or update linked charts will only be available to collaborators with edit access to the document, presentation, or underlying spreadsheet. For more information on embedding charts in your Docs and Slides files, check out the Help Center articles below.

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

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

Impact:
All end users

Action:
Change management suggested/FYI

More Information
Help Center: Add a chart to a slide
Help Center: Add a chart to a document

Note: all launches are applicable to all Google Apps editions unless otherwise noted

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Opening Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides files on mobile now easier when you’re offline

We know that internet connections can be spotty when you’re working on your phone on the go. And we recognize that sometimes you need access to a file you didn’t remember to make available offline. With this launch, we’ll make it easier to open Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides files on your Android and iOS devices when you’re not online.

Starting today, any Docs, Sheets, or Slides files you’ve recently worked on will be automatically synced to your mobile device, so you can open them even if you don’t have an internet connection. As your documents, spreadsheets, and presentations go stale—or if your phone or tablet maxes out on storage space—we’ll remove those older files from your device. To see what documents are saved to your device and to access them later, simply select Offline from the overflow menu in your Docs, Sheets, or Slides app. This will show files synced both automatically and manually (note that manually synced files will now be labeled with a checkmark, instead of a pin icon).



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

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: Work on Google files offline

Note: all launches are applicable to all Google Apps editions unless otherwise noted

Launch release calendar
Launch detail categories
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New ways to keep data flowing between your apps and ours

Posted by Tom Holman, Product Manager, Google Sheets

There was a time when office work used to be all about pushing physical paper. Computing and productivity tools have made things better, but workers still find themselves doing the same tasks over and over across the different apps they use: copying and pasting from a CRM app to a slide presentation, or manually exporting data from a project management app just to turn around and import it back into a spreadsheet. It’s the digital equivalent of pushing paper.

To make it easier to get the job done across multiple apps, without all the copy and paste, we’re announcing three new APIs and a new feature to help workers get to the data they need, when and where they need it.

Build seamless integrations with the new Sheets and Slides APIs

Our new APIs let developers connect their apps—and the data within them—more deeply with Google Sheets and Google Slides.

The new Sheets API gives developers programmatic access to powerful features in the Sheets web and mobile interfaces, including charts and pivot tables. For example, developers can use Sheets as part of a rich workflow that pushes data from their app into Sheets and allows users to collaborate on that data before the updated data is pulled back into the original app, removing altogether the need to copy and paste.

Teams at Anaplan, Asana, Sage, Salesforce, and SAP Anywhere are already building interesting integrations with the new Sheets API. Check out the video below to see an overview of what’s possible as well as several example integrations.


Partner integrations with the new Google Sheets API

The new Sheets API is available today. Find the developer documentation as well as a codelab to help you get started at developers.google.com/sheets.


Similar to the Sheets API, the new Slides API gives developers programmatic access to create and update presentations. For example, developers can use this API to push data and charts into Slides to create a polished report from source data in other application, ready to present.

Conga, ProsperWorks, SalesforceIQ and Trello are all building integrations with Slides using the new API. Several examples of what’s possible are in the video below.


Partner integrations with the new Google Slides API

The Slides API will be launching in the coming months, and these partner integrations will be available soon after. You can sign up for early access to the Slides API at developers.google.com/slides.


Keep your data in sync with the new Classroom API

For developers building tools and workflows for schools, the Classroom API has launched new coursework endpoints to help you build stronger integrations that keep your data in sync. Read the full announcement on the Google for Education blog, here.

Sync assignments & grades programmatically with the Google Classroom API


Say goodbye to stale data with linked charts

Finally, to make sure we can help keep all this data flowing seamlessly from app to app, users can now also embed linked charts from Sheets into Docs or Slides. The result? Once the underlying data in a spreadsheet changes, whether that change comes from an action taken in another app via the API or a collaborator, an updated chart in the corresponding presentation or document is just one click away.

Linked charts allow for easy updates in Docs & Slides

For more information, see how to add a chart to a document or to a presentation.

We can't wait to see what you build.

How oil and gas company Imaginea Energy built a productivity pipeline

Posted by Greg Bennett, Imaginea

Editor's note: Today we hear from Greg Bennett of Imaginea Energy, an oil and gas company based in Calgary, Alberta Canada. Learn how Google Apps helps Imaginea defy industry stereotypes as they work to produce energy sustainably, securely and profitably.

At Imaginea Energy, our vision is an Oil and Gas industry that is much better for the Planet, and for People, and for Profits. This vision is reflected in our culture, the mindsets of our people as well as in our organizational model. Together, our organizational model and culture promote curiosity, teamwork and 10X thinking — values that affect everything from our team-driven project pitches, to idea generation to the tools that are integral to creating solutions that match our aspirations, like Google Apps for Work.

We switched from our previous platform because our legacy storage, productivity and email tools didn’t reflect our open and transparent culture or our vision of the future. The closed IT environment made it difficult to collaborate together beyond very small teams: file-sharing was non-existent, which created insane revision situations and confusion about document version control. Google Drive changes all of that. We've migrated nearly 260,000 files to Drive, all of which can be accessed from anywhere, on any device, without deploying a rigid shared drive structure.

Google Docs, Sheets, Slides and Forms have absolutely transformed how we work together. With real-time editing, commenting and data collection, we can quickly share ideas and insights and rapidly move work forward together. At a recent meeting we had over 30 people generate 20 pages of new ideas in under two hours. Seamless collaboration and rapid ideation like this simply wasn’t possible before.

Google Apps for Work combined with our flexible working environment provide maximum autonomy, which our employees leverage to increase their productivity both in and out of the office. Visit our headquarters on a Friday and you might find up to 40% of our people foregoing their commute in favour of working from home (or a coffee shop, or a park). This flexibility really works for our company and our team.

With access to information online or offline, the ability to work remotely extends to the vast 30,000 km2 of rolling prairie that our operations cover. Operators can capture data even without internet access. Once they re-connect, all of their offline work is instantly synced, eliminating redundant data-entry and confusion.

Our ability to work from anywhere has been further enhanced by using Google Hangouts. Whether a field operator is at one of our 600+ active wells or a team member is running a training presentation from 7,000 kms away in Europe, Hangouts connects our people face-to-face. Our field staff have cut down on the 500 km round trip visits to headquarters — now they can spend more time on-site, and less time driving by communicating and holding meeting via Hangouts. Reducing driving time increases the safety of our team, and also reduces our environmental footprint and operating costs.

Not only has switching to Google Apps saved us significant time, it will also reduce our IT spend. By mid-2016, we’ll have saved over 50 percent on IT maintenance, money that can be redeployed to develop solutions to business problems and maximising our team’s capabilities.

Google Apps gives us the security we need without compromising information flow or flexibility. The Admin console lets us customize mobile device management and quickly respond to changing security events. On a recent trip to Paris, a company device was stolen on the subway. Within 12 minutes, access credentials were changed and our data was secured. This security extends behind the scenes to every part of Google Apps. We may never have world-leading security experts on our staff, but luckily we don’t have to: Google does. Having trust in our tools, combined with the trust we invest in our employees, means we can focus on creating value without obsessing over security.

At Imaginea, we defy industry stereotypes by focusing on Planet, People and Profit together. When you set out to reimagine an industry like oil and gas, achieving that vision is only possible with the right people and the right tools. With Google Apps, we’ve set course to truly transform our business and the energy industry.

Accept questions from your audience when presenting in Google Slides

Any skilled presenter knows that an interactive presentation is often an effective presentation. Starting today, you can better engage your audience by allowing them to submit questions and vote on them during Google Slides presentations.

To see the feature in action, check out this video in which Google Science Fair winner Shree Bose fields questions from a group of 200 middle school students.



A few things to note:

  • You can only use Slides Q&A if you have edit or comment access to that Slides presentation.
  • By default, any user in your domain can submit a question. If your organization permits external sharing, you can allow external users to submit questions as well.

For more information on how to accept, submit, and view audience questions in Google Slides, check out the Help Center.

Bonus! Allowing your audience to ask questions isn’t the only way we’re improving the presentation experience on Slides today. We’re also making the following possible:

  • Use your mouse as a laser pointer in Slides on the web. Just choose the laser pointer option from the toolbar and move your mouse, and a red laser-like dot will appear in the same place on screen, helping your audience know where to look and when.
  • In the Slides iOS app, present to a new Hangout or to a Hangout selected from a meeting on your Google Calendar. For more information, check out the Help Center. 

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

  • All mobile features
  • All audience features on mobile and desktop

Launching to Rapid release, with Scheduled release coming in two weeks:

  • Ability for a presenter to enable Q&A on desktop

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: Ask and present audience questions
Help Center: Present slides
Google for Work Blog: Talk with your audience — not at them — with Slides Q&A

Note: all launches are applicable to all Google Apps editions unless otherwise noted

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Launch detail categories
Get these product update alerts by email
Subscribe to the RSS feed of these updates

Talk with your audience — not at them — with Slides Q&A

Posted by Michael Frederick, Google Slides Engineer

(Cross-posted on the Google Docs Blog.)

Public speaking can be intimidating—even for veteran speakers with phenomenal ideas and experiences to share. Take Shree Bose, for example.

At just 17 years old, Shree took home the top prize at the first ever Google Science Fair for her research on drug resistance in ovarian cancer. Now, a senior at Harvard, she’s met with President Obama twice, crowdfunded a Minecraft computer program to support STEM education, and has given talks across the globe. But she still gets nervous every time she’s asked to speak at events.

When Shree recently visited our New York office to present to 200 middle school students, we invited her to try a new feature in Google Slides: Slides Q&A. This update—rolling out globally today—helps speakers connect with their audience and collect real-time feedback. With a simple link displayed on a Slides presentation, audience members can submit questions from their phones, laptops, and tablets—and vote on those they want answered the most.

Hear what your audience has to say 

Slides Q&A is great for audience members, too. During Shree’s talk, students submitted more than 170 questions and voted 800 times. They enjoyed being able to submit questions online the moment they thought of them instead of having to remember them until the end of the presentation. Some students also chose to submit questions anonymously.

At the end of her talk, Shree left time for Q&A, but she couldn’t possibly answer all 170 questions. So, she sorted the questions based on audience votes—and responded to the top ones. The question with the most overall votes was submitted by a seventh grader named Leila. She says, “I was so surprised when I saw my question was the most liked. I probably wouldn’t want to stand up and ask the question because I’m kind of shy.”

Focus on your ideas, not set up 

Slides Q&A makes it easy to interact with your audience—without having to worry about mics or moderators. Slides also helps you get your big ideas and stories on screen—without having to worry about wires or set up stress. Starting today, we're improving this "Show up, don't setup" experience in two ways:
  • You can now present your slides to a Hangout from your iPhone or iPad. So with just your phone or tablet and the Slides app, you can present to any screen using Chromecast, AirPlay or Hangouts. 
  • And for those of you who like presenting from a computer, we're introducing a new laser pointer on the web. Just in time for May the 4th (be with you). 
Today’s Slides updates are rolling out globally on Android, iOS, and the web. So go on, share your stories and present with confidence.

And for a little inspiration, check out Shree’s full talk, #HowCanWe Make the World Better with Science? on the Talks@Google channel.

Talk with your audience — not at them — with Slides Q&A

Posted by Michael Frederick, Google Slides Engineer 

 (Cross-posted on the Google Docs Blog.)

Public speaking can be intimidating — even for veteran speakers with phenomenal ideas and experiences to share. Take Shree Bose, for example.

At just 17 years old, Shree took home the top prize at the first ever Google Science Fair for her research on drug resistance in ovarian cancer. Now, a senior at Harvard, she’s met with President Obama twice, crowdfunded a Minecraft computer program to support STEM education, and has given talks across the globe. But she still gets nervous every time she’s asked to speak at events.

When Shree recently visited our New York office to present to 200 middle school students, we invited her to try a new feature in Google Slides: Slides Q&A. This update—rolling out globally today—helps speakers connect with their audience and collect real-time feedback. With a simple link displayed on a Slides presentation, audience members can submit questions from their phones, laptops, and tablets—and vote on those they want answered the most. Hear what your audience has to say 

Slides Q&A is great for audience members, too. During Shree’s talk, students submitted more than 170 questions and voted 800 times. They enjoyed being able to submit questions online the moment they thought of them instead of having to remember them until the end of the presentation. Some students also chose to submit questions anonymously.

At the end of her talk, Shree left time for Q&A, but she couldn’t possibly answer all 170 questions. So, she sorted the questions based on audience votes—and responded to the top ones. The question with the most overall votes was submitted by a seventh grader named Leila. She says, “I was so surprised when I saw my question was the most liked. I probably wouldn’t want to stand up and ask the question because I’m kind of shy.” Focus on your ideas, not set up 

Slides Q&A makes it easy to interact with your audience—without having to worry about mics or moderators. Slides also helps you get your big ideas and stories on screen—without having to worry about wires or set up stress. Starting today, we're improving this "Show up, don't setup" experience in two ways:

  • You can now present your slides to a Hangout from your iPhone or iPad. So with just your phone or tablet and the Slides app, you can present to any screen using Chromecast, AirPlay or Hangouts. 
  • And for those of you who like presenting from a computer, we're introducing a new laser pointer on the web. Just in time for May the 4th (be with you). 

Today’s Slides updates are rolling out globally on Android, iOS, and the web. So go on, share your stories and present with confidence.

And for a little inspiration, check out Shree’s full talk, #HowCanWe Make the World Better with Science? on the Talks@Google channel.

Choose the Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides files you want to access offline

An internet connection isn’t always easy to come by, but that shouldn’t stop your employees from completing their work. That’s why we give Google Apps admins the option of allowing their users to enable offline access to Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides files. Once an individual user has enabled offline access in Google Drive, a subset of their Docs, Sheets, and Slides files are synced to their computer or device. The specific files synced are based on certain criteria, primarily recency. 

With this launch, we’ll allow end users to choose the specific files they want to make available for offline access when they’re working in a Chrome browser on their desktop computer. This will make it easy for individuals to work anywhere, anytime, even when they don’t have an internet connection. To make a file available for offline access, a user simply needs to visit the Docs, Sheets, or Slides home screen and toggle the Available offline switch in a file’s overflow menu to ON.



Please note that this feature will only be available to users working in a Chrome browser on desktop and whose admins have allowed them to enable offline access in Drive. For more information, check out the Help Center.

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

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

Impact:
All end users

Action:
Change management suggested/FYI

More Information
Help Center

Note: all launches are applicable to all Google Apps editions unless otherwise noted

Launch release calendar
Launch detail categories
Get these product update alerts by email
Subscribe to the RSS feed of these updates

Change your filters, themes, and layouts in the Google Sheets and Slides apps for iOS

New versions of the Google Sheets and Slides apps for iOS are available in the App Store. With these updates, you can now:

  • View and modify existing filters in the Google Sheets iOS app.

screen_filter.png

  • Change the theme or layout of a presentation in the Google Slides iOS app.

Check out the Help Center articles below for more information.

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

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: Sort and filter data on iPhone and iPad
Help Center: Customize a slide with layouts and themes

Note: all launches are applicable to all Google Apps editions unless otherwise noted

Launch release calendar
Launch detail categories
Get these product update alerts by email
Subscribe to the RSS feed of these updates

Support for more file formats in the Google Sheets and Slides Android apps

Updated versions of the Google Sheets and Slides apps for Android are now available on Google Play. Check out what’s new below:

In the Sheets Android app, you can now:

  • Send a copy of or save a spreadsheet as an HTML web page file (provided in a .ZIP folder) from the Share & export menu.
  • Save the sheet you’re currently viewing as a .CSV or .TSV file from the Share & export menu.
  • View Google Drawings in spreadsheets (note that Drawings will not be visible in frozen rows and columns).


In the Slides Android app, you can now:

  • Send a copy of or download the slide you’re currently viewing as a .JPEG, .PNG, or .SVG file from the Share & export menu.



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

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: View and create spreadsheets on Android
Help Center: Use the Google Slides app for Android

Note: all launches are applicable to all Google Apps editions unless otherwise noted

Launch release calendar
Launch detail categories
Get these product update alerts by email
Subscribe to the RSS feed of these updates