Building the home of your dreams should be easy, so we don’t want to add any complication for our customers or our team. With Chromeboxes, we can give our customers an easy, hands-on experience without worrying about security issues. And, on top of it all, we’re saving money. Now, that’s simplicity.
Google Maps let us visualize data in a context that’s important to homebuyers. Instead of a list of crime statistics, we can create a color-coded heat map where our users can look around the city or town they’re exploring and compare neighborhoods, or even streets that are close to each other. We can present home buyers, sellers, and renters data about schools, public transit, nightlife, environmental and natural disaster risks, property valuations, and sales trends.
Google Maps also lets Trulia run efficiently on all mobile platforms. In addition to our mobile site, we have 14 different apps for homebuyers, agents, renters, mortgage representatives and more, with over 11 million mobile users each month. The Google Maps API ensures that we have full functionality across all of our apps, no matter the platform.
Trulia’s business is built on providing insights to consumers who are looking for the right place to live and then connecting them to a real estate professional. Google Maps adds color and life to that process by giving us a platform to tell a story about a particular neighborhood or property. It gives users clarity and simplicity in what can be an extremely complicated and confusing process, and that’s the absolute most valuable thing we can offer our users.
This app is designed for admins and requires API access to be enabled. Install the Google Admin app from Google Play. To learn more or contact support, visit the Help Center.
As we continue to bring smarter technology to our cars, drivers will find the most relevant information they need, when they need it most. Now Lexus drivers can have access to map features with Google, ensuring a much more informed drive wherever they’re going.
To help you find the content you care about, Drive files will now be displayed in a clean, simple card-style. You can swipe between files to see large previews that let you quickly review and discover the information you’re looking for. And if you want to keep some Drive files on your Android device, you’ll now be able to “download a copy” from the actions menu inside settings.
The updated Drive for Android app also gives you to a way to keep track of important paper documents like receipts, letters, and billing statements. Simply click “Scan” from the Add New menu, snap a photo of your document, and Drive will turn the document into a PDF that’s stored for safekeeping. And because Drive can recognize text in scanned documents using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology, a simple search will retrieve the scanned document later. No more frantic scrambling through drawers looking for a receipt or digging through your pockets to find that business card -- just scan, upload and search in Drive.
The editing experience in Google Sheets has also gotten some improvements: now you can adjust font types and sizes for a spreadsheet and tweak the cell text colors and cell alignment right from the app. Plus, the Drive app comes with Cloud Print support so you can print anything from Drive with a Cloud Ready printer -- perfect if you need to, say, print a contract right before a meeting.
Work doesn’t always need to feel like work. Technology should make your life easier, so you can get work done more efficiently and focus on what really matters: building your business, teaching your students, or serving your constituents.
Google I/O continues through the end of tomorrow. Tune in to live sessions at google.com/io.
Deeply rooted in the regions, CBC/Radio-Canada is the only domestic broadcaster to offer diverse regional and cultural perspectives in English, French and eight Aboriginal languages. As Canada’s national broadcaster, we bring Canadians programming when, where and how they want it ― through a comprehensive range of radio, television, Internet, satellite-based services and mobile devices. Our team is stationed all over the world, which means real-time communication is key for up-to-date, consistent reporting.
Achieving this at such a large scale isn't always easy. For more than 10 years, we had been using an on-premise, corporate-wide system for email/calendar. We also had a separate system for collaboration, but neither solution was integrated and drove true inter-office collaboration.
With a company-wide goal to reduce infrastructure and a need for better messaging and collaboration, we decided to look at public cloud solutions, especially Google Apps. It was clear that Google Apps was the right solution for us based on cost, proven service level and availability guarantee and the breadth of tools the platform offered for collaboration. We also had great support from the media groups in our company (about 70% of our employees), as many of them had been using personal Google accounts to communicate already with external users. Once we decided to “go Google” we were able to complete a smooth 90-day deployment with the help of Google Apps reseller, Onix, by March 1, 2013.
Since we went live, adoption of the whole platform has well exceeded our expectations of email and calendaring. Google+ Hangouts has revolutionized the way that our employees interact with each other. Long conference calls are now becoming a thing of the past. We can now jump on a Hangout and have a face-to-face meeting with colleagues across the country via our smartphones, from home or the office, without getting on a plane. It’s cost-effective and more efficient without compromising our core business.
Additionally, Google Docs are helping our reporters become better and more efficient storytellers. For example, before, our writers and reporters in our newsroom brainstormed and drafted copy in separate Word documents, which inevitably led to version confusion and unnecessary time spent merging documents. Now, they use a single, shared Google Doc for all their stories, so the entire team can collaborate together, in real time, regardless of where they’re working. Our freelancers use Docs to make quick edits and communicate on the fly since it's simpler for them to share content and edit in real-time.
We are proud to bring the best tools to our company and see the cultural shift that is happening amongst our employees. We are moving away from managing IT and into improving our core business of content creation. We’re excited about what this means for the quality of our reporting and the happiness of our employees.
Update [May 15]: A slight edit was made to this post.
With this new combined storage, you can use your storage how you need to. If your business or school is like most, you know how many important emails and attachments you receive every day. As a result of today’s storage change, Gmail inboxes for Google Apps customers are no longer limited to 25 GB -- any additional storage you purchase can be shared and used by Gmail. Or alternatively, if you’re only using a few gigabytes of email storage, but have a lot of large documents and files stored in Google Drive, you can now use your storage primarily for Drive.
We'll also be making updates to the Google Drive storage page, so you can better understand how you're using your storage. Simply hover over the pie chart to see a breakdown of your storage use across Google Drive, Gmail, and Google+ Photos.
This update will roll out to Rapid Release domains over the coming weeks.
Being a mom to three boys is my favorite job, but helping moms is a close runner-up. That’s what I get to do as VP of Operations at FIT4MOM, a franchise that offers fitness classes to help mothers stay healthy and in shape. We’re not your typical gym session; we run pre-natal classes for pregnant women, stroller classes for new moms with their little ones in tow and workouts for mothers of all stages to get their pre-baby bodies back. Since launching in San Diego in 2001, we’ve grown to 275 franchises and 1,300 locations nationwide, helping moms from California to Cleveland stay in shape, meet other mothers and have fun with their kids.
We’re a mobile company. Our franchise owners are busy moms who don’t have time to sit in an office and answer emails. They’re teaching classes in the local park, picking up their kids from daycare and taking care of their families. Unfortunately, when we looked at our technology, we realized our email and collaboration system wasn’t doing our on-the-go business owners any favors. After looking at some underwhelming solutions tailored for franchise operations, we discovered Google Apps and knew we’d found the platform we needed to help us get our work done whenever and wherever we had the time.
Our only remaining concern was whether moving from our old system to Google Apps would be difficult without a dedicated in-house IT lead. Our worries disappeared as soon as we spoke with Lark IT, our Google Apps Reseller. Lark walked us through the process step-by-step, from the moment we decided to switch to Apps to the moment we successfully migrated all 300 of our business owners and corporate team members.
Apps has been a game changer for our 11-person corporate team. We store all our essential documents in a single shared folder on Drive, so everyone on the team has on-demand access to HR-related forms, time-off requests and contact information for our franchisees and partners. We also have a shared Google Calendar that’s always up-to-date with training sessions for new franchise owners and opening dates for new FIT4MOM locations. That way, we know all our moms are always in the loop. Google+ Hangouts have become increasingly ingrained in our daily routine, both for recurring events, like our corporate staff meetings, and impromptu one-on-one check-ins with franchise owners.
Our franchise owners are also over the moon about Apps because they finally have the tools to let them work efficiently and on their own schedules. With Gmail and Calendar on their phones, they have constant access to class schedules and can communicate easily with their instructors and the moms in their groups. No more time is wasted running home to check their laptops.
FIT4MOM isn’t just about fitness - it’s about bringing together active moms who want to be both healthy and part of a like-minded community. Between our Fit4Baby, Stroller Strides and Body Back classes, our employees and customers are getting fit and creating long-lasting friendships. And while we’re having fun on the playground, we know Google Apps is keeping the company running smoothly in the background.
Smart Access is designed to give drivers the most secure and comfortable in-car experience, and Google’s APIs are just some of the features that we’ll be integrating into this innovative system. We look forward to being able to offer drivers around the world access to this connected driving experience when we launch Smart Access this fall.
Receptionists aren’t just the welcome committee for your doctor’s office - they’re the directors of first impressions for companies everywhere, from one-person e-commerce start-ups to global manufacturing corporations. My Receptionist provides virtual receptionists for small businesses who realize the importance of having someone on the front line but don’t have the resources to hire someone full-time. Our 65 employees across two offices provide phone answering services and front office support for our customers, so they can focus on what they do best: growing their business.
In our line of work, a technology hangup is on par with a dropped call, and in 2011, we realized it was time for an upgrade. We had a jumble of Microsoft products that didn’t work well together and made our day-to-day operations difficult. We needed a new platform that required fewer IT resources and helped our employees and clients communicate, collaborate and schedule better together. We experimented with Microsoft Office 365, but the pricing felt unnecessarily complicated and it relied too heavily on additional software to be the fully baked cloud solution we wanted. When we tried Google Apps, we immediately knew it was the right fit: not only was it cost-effective and easy to understand, but we could tell that Google had a more developed product and vision.
While the ease and popularity of Gmail was a key driver in our switch to Google Apps, Google Docs and Drive have completely changed the way we collaborate internally and with our clients. Before, we put our training material in plastic binders, which would then be sent out to 70 people, including clients. Every time we needed to make a change - even to one page - we would need to reprint 70 copies of each page and send new binders out. You couldn't help but sigh heavily when you had to update a piece of information or update a process, because it meant another trip to the printer. Now, with Google Docs, the process, printing and need for mailing disappeared entirely. We just go online, make the change in our doc, and rest assured that everyone has the same up-to-date training manual for immediate access.
Google+ Hangouts have also become a mainstay of our day. Every morning our executive team, which is split between our two offices, huddles on a Hangout. If someone is travelling, they’re patched in and don’t miss a thing. Hangouts are also tightly integrated with Google Calendar, so our meetings are just one click away.
Our virtual receptionists are the first line of contact between a lot of small businesses and their customers, so it’s essential that we give our employees the resources to stay up to date and be knowledgeable about our clients. Our receptionists may not give out candy or cold water to the folks they interact with, but with the help of Google Apps, they have the tools to make our clients - and their customers - happy.
These changes to the Admin console will be rolling out to existing customers over the next few weeks. To learn more about the new Admin console, visit the what's new site or contact our support team that is available by phone or email 24/7.
We chose Google Apps because it gave us the most up-to-date technology to work with and was scalable for our internationally expanding workforce. We found that some of our employees were using Google tools on the side, so we decided to roll it out to the entire company with the help of Google Apps Reseller Cirruseo. We were up and running in less time than it takes to make one of our signature chocolate macaroons. We’ve been happy with the way Google Apps lets us do things that weren't possible before. For example, Pierre Hermé will record a video of himself baking a difficult pastry and store it on Google Drive so our bakers around the world can learn from him while at work or on their mobile devices.
As any pastry chef will tell you, collaboration is key. Pierre Hermé Paris employees need a technology solution that lets them share ideas and recipes easily from anywhere on the globe. Working together on documents may be less sweet, but it’s no less important to our business than working together to produce one of our signature macarons.
