Google Apps

 


Google Apps News:

February 2011

Table of Contents

Hello Google Apps administrators!

We're back with this month's edition of Google Apps news and updates. We hope you enjoy it and pass on the word to your users. As always, we'd love to know what you would like to see in upcoming newsletters and we welcome you to submit your feedback. Thanks to all those who submitted valuable feedback on the last edition.

To stay on top of announcements, you can get new feature notifications by email, subscribe to the RSS feed, or follow us on Twitter.

Thanks for reading,

Paul M.
The Google Apps Team

 

Get more for your business
Upgrade to Google Apps for Business and get 24/7 phone and email support. Plus, add 3x more email storage per inbox, a 99.9% uptime SLA*, and more. Start today.

New features in Google Apps

DKIM Email Authentication
We recently made it possible for all Google Apps domains to enable and sign their outgoing email with DKIM signatures. This helps authenticate email from that domain, so their sent mail is much less likely to get caught up in recipient's spam filters. You can find this feature in the "Advanced tools" section of your admin control panel. Administrators must enable it there but also have to make some changes to their DNS records with their domain host. If you purchased your domain name from one of our registration partners while signing up for Google Apps, some of the steps are not necessary. For a complete overview of this feature and how to set it up, please visit this Help Center article.

Restrict Email Delivery
One of our most common feature requests was the ability to restrict the ability for certain groups of users to send email. We're happy to have recently launched this feature for Google Apps for Business, Education and Government editions. Admins can now create policies specifying which domains their users are allowed to send mail to as well as applying these policies to different organisations within the domain.

For example, management at a retail business can have unrestricted email access while store employees can send and receive email within the business, but not to outsiders. More information on this feature here.

Google Chrome for Business
This web browser is now available for download with support for the following administrator functionality:

  • MSI Installer: A standalone installer that allows admins to install the Chrome browser at a system-level across the organization.
  • Group Policies: These allow admins to configure common behaviours across the organization such as default search provider, default homepage and many more.
  • Policy Templates: ADM and ADMX templates are included in order to help admins easily configure these policies that manage security and privacy including the ability to disable auto-updates.

More information on these features and how to deploy Chrome to your business here. Note that support for Chrome is only available with Google Apps for Business.

Google Docs improvements
Users can now view any video files that they've uploaded to the documents list directly in the browser. These videos go towards the 1GB storage limit for uploaded files and must be in a supported format. Additionally, we recently introduced a new look and improved experience for revisions in Spreadsheets. Your users can now see all of the changes that collaborators have made cell-by-cell. To see the new interface, go to 'File', then 'See revision history' when editing a spreadsheet.

Google Apps Marketplace

  • Shop the Google Apps Marketplace to extend your Google Apps functionality
    • Discover, purchase, and deploy over 200 applications easily found in the Marketplace, including CRM, project management and accounting.
    • Manage integrated applications that provide single sign-on convenience and access through the universal navigation bar as well as other integrations
  • Tackle this tax season with integrated finance apps from the Google Apps Marketplace
  • Apps Marketplace featured Marketplace customer story of the month: Invoicera
    • Invoicera is an online invoice and billing solution that helps businesses achieve quick invoicing and streamlined workflow processes.

How are other customers using Google Apps?

Broadway Malyan is an award-winning international practice of architects, urbanists and designers with over 500 employees around the world. Discover how moving to Google Apps has increased their efficiency through collaboration, saved them money with a reduced need for travel, and how they created a replacement for their old public folders. Learn more about how they did this here.

Get the most out of Google Apps: Tips and Tricks for your users!

Gmail Search
Your users might be used to sorting messages in their Inbox, listing them by sender, for example, or the date they're received. In Gmail, you can do essentially the same thing by searching for messages. Searching may sound like more work, but it can actually be easier and a lot more powerful than sorting. Tips on how do to this that you can share with your users here.


Recent launches

In-Product Help for the Administrator Control Panel
You can now get the help you need without leaving the control panel. If you're using the "Next generation" control panel, there's now an FAQs link in the top right corner of the "Organization and users" and "Advanced tools" tabs. This provides quick help related to your current tab, plus the ability to search for additional help articles. The FAQs help widget will be available in more tabs in the coming months.

Help your users

If you have just recently signed up to Google Apps, did you know we also have a Google Apps Learning Center which includes everything users need to make the transition to Google Apps—all from one easy-to-use site. Point users to the site before or at launch time where they'll find quick-start guides and training videos on using Gmail, Google Calendar, and their other new apps; instructions on migrating data and accessing Google Apps from mobile devices, tips for switching from Microsoft® Outlook and Lotus Notes®, and much more.

Use our publicly available site as is, or customize the site for use within your own domain. For existing customers, it's also a great resource for your users and has specific sections for Executive Assistants and HelpDesk Reps which may suit your needs.

Google
Google Inc. | 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway | Mountain View, CA 94043
© 2011 Google Inc. Google and the Google logo are registered trademarks of Google Inc.

* The 99.9% uptime SLA for Google Apps is offered to organizations using Google Apps for Business, as described in the Google Apps for Business Terms of Service.

Email preferences. We sent you this email because you indicated that you would like to receive email notifications from Google Apps. To change your preference, access your Google Apps control panel http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/business/index.html - sign in required), click 'Domain Settings,' and then 'Account information.' Remove the check beside 'Receive occasional email notifications about new services or features,' and click 'Save Changes'.