Sneak Peek - Calendar updates noted

Today I found a new feature in the Calendar area.  On meeting invite, there was a new button that allows one to get a "sneak peek" of a feature to review others invitee's calendar items as you schedule.

Check it out in your premier version of Google Apps Premiere.

Oh, and Merry Christmas!!

Google Grants 2009 - Year Wrap-up

Here is the latest the from the Google Grants team.

2009 was a big year for educational resources and support! We implemented major changes to our existing support model, while providing new content and additional resources.

Email Support

For direct support requests, we instituted categorized webforms where you can identify your issue prior to contacting our team. This way, your inquiry will be sent to an expert who specializes in troubleshooting the specific issue. Our webform system is designed to increase the efficiency and accuracy of the support you receive.

Help Center

In 2009, we also focused on increasing the content in our Help Center. We identified common themes in your emails and frequently asked questions, and formulated them into more than 10 new Q & A's in our Help Center. Now you can quickly find an answer to your question by simply searching the Help Center.

Discussion Forum

We found that one of our most valuable educational resources this year was our Discussion forum. The learnings gained from other non-profits shed a different light on the Google Grants program. Not only can you post questions and learn from others' experiences, you can gather tips and best practices based on the success of other nonprofits.

In the past 12 months, the forum has grown immensely in number of users. People are coming back to regularly to ask and answer questions, like:

How can we tell how our application is progressing?

Have recently been accepted by Google Grants, followed the instructions but account still not activated?

Any suggestions for goals to track other than donations?

Looking ahead

As the year comes to a close, we are strategizing on different forms of educational materials for 2010. Here is a sneak peak of what we are working on:

The image depicts the lifecycle of a Google Grants application, describing each step in the application and account activation process. Visit our Help Center next month to see this visual graphic in more detail.

Latest Google Apps Sites updates. Translation and PDF reading in place.

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Google Apps Suite of applications just keeps getting better... Translate a site, preview PDFs and page templates location released in Google Sites Posted: 18 Dec 2009 03:29 AM PST In Google Sites you can now: - Translate a site you visit that's not in your default language for Google Sites. This could be used by international co-workers to view the project site of a remote office if that project site is in the local language of that office. - PDF files attached to pages and file cabinets can now be previewed with the Google Docs viewer so no need to download the file. - You can now set a default location in your site for page templates. Editions included: Standard, Premier, Education, Team and Partner Editions Languages included: All languages supported by Google Sites How to access what's new: - If you visit a site that's not in your chosen language for Sites, there is now a 'Translate' link at the bottom right of the page which will translate the site for you using Google Translate. - For a PDF file in Sites, clicking on 'View' instead of 'Download' now previews that PDF in Google Docs viewer. - When saving or modifying a page template, choose 'Default location' to specify a location in your site structure. If a page is then created using this template, then the default location will be what you've specified.

New version of Google Apps Directory Sync

As stated earlier, the Google Train of innovation keeps steaming forward. 

New version of Google Apps Directory Sync released

Posted: 17 Dec 2009 02:22 AM PST

Version 1.6.12 of Google Apps Directory Sync has been released with new features including:
- Compatibility with the new Groups (user-managed) service that will automatically detect groups that users create, and will not delete or overwrite them.
- Delete limits: Delete limits now apply to users, groups and shared contacts. These limits stop any synchronization that deletes more than the specified percentage (or number) of users, groups or shared contacts.

Editions included:
Premier and Education Editions

Google Apps Updates - Recurring Calendar

Improvements to recurring events and Tasks in Google Calendar Posted: 17 Dec 2009 03:36 AM PST Improvements to recurring events and Tasks in Google Calendar have been made: - You now have the ability to change locations, add attendees, and change event descriptions without having the meeting break out of the series of recurring events. - Tasks in Calendar is now available in 38 languages. Editions included: Standard, Premier, Education, Team and Partner Editions Languages included: Tasks: All languages supported by Google Calendar except Hebrew/Arabic How to access what's new: - In Calendar when modifying an event, when you change the time, title, description, location, or attendees of an individual meeting in a series, that meeting now remains part of the series. - If you change the title, description, location, or attendees of a series of events, these changes will be applied to all events in the series, including those that have overridden fields. However, Calendar will intelligently keep track of what fields you override, and not change those fields e.g. if you change the location of one particular event instance in the series, then later modify the location for the entire series and give it a new title, the one particular event will be updated with the new title but the location will remain at what you had overridden. - Changing the time or frequency of any series still resets all information in the series, even those that have been manually overridden. - If you make any changes to a series and apply to "All Following", it will reset all information in all future meetings, and the future meetings will be become a new distinct series. This will override any fields that you may have manually overridden. For more information: http://www.google.com/support/calendar The train of innovation keeps moving at a rapid pace.

Google Apps update alerts - One button to merge all duplicate contacts in Contacts

Latest announce update to Google Docs suite.

ne button to merge all duplicate contacts in Contacts

Released on 12/16/2009

You can now merge any duplicate contacts in your contacts manager all at once

Editions included:
Standard, Premier, Education and Partner Editions

Languages included:
All languages supported by Gmail

How to access what's new:
To tidy up your contact list in one go, just click the "Find duplicates" button in the contact manager, review the merge suggestions (and uncheck any suggestions you don't want merged), and hit the "Merge" button.

For more information:
http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2009/12/one-button-to-merge-all-duplicate.html

Google Docs Presentation - Strong reason for Google Apps adoption.

Here is a webinar detailing the power of  Google Apps - Google Docs.  Contact us if you would like to explore Google Apps further.  www.JustTechnologies.org.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bznsgNyQXKw&feature=player_embedded

Google Apps continues to amaze me.

Yesterday I attended a webinar detailing Google Apps Sites updates and functionality. They have added a great deal of templates that will rapidly expand the usability of this collaboration platform.

Here is a replay of this presentation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTmsDML_V_M&feature=player_embedded#

I am sure that you will gain new insight and love to see the new templates.  You will also hear about the roadmap for this product and the API.

 PR