Google Data » Scott McMullan

Google Apps Marketplace – Project Management highlights, 11/30/10

Scott McMullan — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 18:00:00 +0000

Editor's note: This is the latest in a series of posts on apps in the Google Apps Marketplace that have caught our eye here at Google. We’ll do this every so often as we see things we'd like to share. Look for the label "marketplace highlights" and subscribe to the series if you'd like to stay tuned.

Today, more than 3 million businesses and thousands of universities not only have access to Google’s core suite of applications, they also get easy access to 200+ of the best apps on the web through the Google Apps Marketplace. These installable Marketplace apps are easy to try and buy, and offer single sign-on and hassle-free access from the Google universal navigation bar. Beyond the convenience of single sign-on, many apps integrate with users’ Gmail inbox, Google Docs, Google contacts, and Google calendar to improve productivity even further.

Across these businesses and schools, there’s one thing all users likely have in common: they have projects to complete. The good news is whether you have a product to build or market, a research study to publish, or an internal project to deliver, there's likely an app in the Marketplace to help you and your type of project succeed.

And since projects come in all shapes and sizes, we’ve categorized the apps in to 5 groups based on their focus, and then further ordered them by most installed first. This should help you better understand which of these 30 apps are right for your projects.

Project Management
Project management, with a focus on planning and tracking

Mavenlink - an end-to-end solution for professional services delivery
Gantter - powerful desktop scheduling right from your browser
Smartsheet - online project task sheets w/dependencies, Gantt charts & files
Zoho Project - beyond planning...get your projects done faster

Viewpath - manage project tasks and resources with drag/drop simplicity
Cohuman - task-centric communications to synchronize people & teams
Comindwork - fully customizable Gantt views, workflows and to-dos

Teamup - anytime, anywhere project tracking for businesses of all sizes
WorkforceTrack - online collaboration, reporting, time tracking and billing

Project Collaboration
Project management, with a focus on communication and sharing

Manymoon - social productivity, project management & task management
Teambox - project management software and social collaboration
Bright Green - intuitive project collaboration - Agile, Kanban and Waterfall
LumoFlow - project workspaces that motivate people to participate
Glasscubes - organize your day to day work - manage projects, info & people
Emforge - project platform with a wide set of tools for distributed teams
DeskAway - simple yet powerful web-based project collaboration tool

Task Management
Project management, with focus on task list sharing and collaboration

RapidTask - make project management as easy as email
Producteev - turn your emails into tasks
GQueues - share lists, assign tasks, get reminders, stay organized
Thymer - project management and task planning for people who hate it
ToBeeDo - simple online task management service with time tracking

Timesheets
Project management, with a focus on tracking and billing hours

gTrax - simple time tracking app to manage resources & project budgets
Harvest - simple time tracking and timesheets for teams and freelancers
Paymo - easy online project management, time tracking and billing app
BeeBole - a fast timesheet for teams - fully customizable.
TrackMyHours - a powerful time tracking & billing solution
Cube - start tracking time and expenses in less than 15 seconds

Product Development Projects
Project management, with a focus on software development

Acunote - enterprise online project management and Scrum software
Jira Studio - software dev tool suite with Subversion and agile management
Gravity - a simple but powerful tool to help you manage agile projects

If you’re looking to improve the way you manage and collaborate on projects, we encourage you to evaluate these apps. We’re adding new apps to the Marketplace all the time, so continue to check back for apps for all your organization’s needs.

Posted by Scott McMullan, Google Apps Partner Lead, Google Enterprise

Google Apps Marketplace – CRM highlights, 7/27/2010

Scott McMullan — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 15:40:00 +0000

Editor's note: This is the latest in a series of posts on apps in the Google Apps Marketplace that have caught our eye here at Google. We’ll do this every few weeks or as we see things that we'd like to share. Look for the label "marketplace highlights" and subscribe to the series if you'd like to stay tuned.

Businesses that use Google Apps not only get access to Google's applications, they also get easy access to some of the best business apps on the web through the Google Apps Marketplace. These Marketplace apps are easy to try and buy; once more, they integrate with Google Apps "out of the box," making it simpler for businesses to run more of their systems in the cloud. You can learn more about the Marketplace and watch a short video on how it works here.

For this highlights post, we decided to focus on the top seach term for installable apps in the Marketplace: CRM. The lifeblood of all businesses, customers come in all shapes and sizes, and have different needs when interacting with businesses. We’re excited to have 13 different installable CRM apps in the Marketplace that can integrate with Google Apps in just a few clicks, each with a unique approach to helping you manage customer relationships. And because things are easier to digest when they come in 3’s, we’ve taken the liberty to present them in 3 different groups: CRM, Social CRM, and Project-based CRM.

>> CRM: apps with a focus on internal processes around selling and serving customers.

Zoho CRM is a complete customer relationship management solution for managing leads, contacts, customers, marketing activities and more. Integrations include:

single sign on from Google Apps
Gmail
Google contacts import
Google Docs attaching and sharing

Applane CRM is an enterprise grade CRM that supports complete sales cycle and customer relationship through an efficient user interface and advanced features. Integrations include:

single sign on from Google Apps
Google contacts import
Gmail (contextual gadget)
view actions in Google Calendar

Capsule CRM is a simple, flexible CRM for small businesses and sales teams that makes it easy to keep track of customers and other contacts, sales opportunities and follow-ups. Integrations include:

single sign on from Google Apps
Google contacts auto-update
Google calendar sharing

TimetoNote is a simple, fast, elegant tool to collaborate and share contacts, emails, notes, tasks, projects and more with your co-workers. Integrations include:

single sign on from Google Apps
Gmail (contextual gadget)
Google contacts synchronization
Google Docs attaching and sharing

Tactile CRM is an easy to use CRM to track the people and companies you do business with, the opportunities in the pipeline, and what needs to be done next. Integrations include:

single sign on from Google Apps
Google contacts import

>> Social CRM: apps with a focus on collaborative customer conversations via social web sites like Twitter, Facebook, and Google Buzz. (For more on Social CRM, see posts by Brent Leary, Paul Greenberg, and Michael Faucette)

Batchbook is a lightweight but powerful CRM that allows you to easily organize contacts, monitor social networks and track leads and deals. Integrations include:

single sign on from Google Apps
Google contacts synchronization

Bantam Live provides a social CRM workspace for business teams to collaborate internally and build relationships across the web. Integrations include:

single sign on from Google Apps
Google contacts import
Google calendar sharing
Google Docs attaching and sharing
Google Buzz feeds in contact records

Gist provides the full view of the contacts in your professional network by creating a rich business profile for each one that includes news, status updates, and work details. Integrations include:

Gmail (contextual gadget)

Rapportive searches the social web to find information which helps you establish rapport, grow your network, and be more productive.

Gmail (contextual gadget)

Etacts is a complete customer relationship management solution for managing leads, contacts, customers, marketing activities and more. Integrations include:

Gmail (contextual gadget)

>> Project-based CRM: apps with a focus on project collaboration before and after the sale.

Insightly lets you track leads, proposals, opportunities, projects and manage files, all through an easy to use interface.

single sign on from Google Apps
Google contacts import
Google calendar sharing
Google Docs attaching and sharing

Solve360 CRM is a modern CRM that integrates features to manage client projects that is ideal for small teams in service based companies that need a flexible solution.

single sign on from Google Apps
Google contacts synchronization
Gmail

Smartsheet pipeline gives you the core features of a CRM built into a familiar Google Spreadsheet format or with one of their sales, service, and marketing templates.

single sign on from Google Apps
Google contacts import
Google calendar sharing
Google Docs attaching and importing

If you’re looking to improve the way you manage and converse with prospects and customers, we encourage you to evaluate these apps. But also know we’re adding new apps to the Marketplace all the time, so check back if these don’t suit your needs.

Posted by Kevin Gough, Sr. Product & Marketing Manager, Google Enterprise

It’s App Tuesday: 10 new apps available in the Google Apps Marketplace today

Scott McMullan — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 16:02:00 +0000

We’re excited to announce the launch of 10 new apps in the Google Apps Marketplace today, joining the more than 150 installable apps made available to Google Apps domains in the Marketplace since March. Instead of spending today patching operating systems, we invite Google Apps users to explore these new applications which can deliver immediate business value to your organization.

These apps, like all installable apps in the Marketplace, offer single sign-on with your existing Google Apps user accounts, so there are no new passwords to manage. Beyond single sign-on, many offer deeper data integration with Google Docs, Gmail, and Google Calendar to help users work more efficiently, regardless of which app they happen to be using to get their job done.

As a Google Apps administrator, once you install and evaluate an app, you can deploy it to your users in only a few clicks. (watch how this works)

Several of the new applications help you manage communications more effectively, from tracking contact with customers and partners to making your inbox more efficient:

Bantam Live is an easy CRM & team collaboration app to track contacts, prospects, deals and organize projects, tasks, and events. It Integrates with Google Apps and social networks to import/aggregate contacts.

Etacts helps grow your relationships. The application and Gmail contextual gadget enable you to instantly find out who you talk to the most and who you’ve neglected.

Organizer by OtherInbox helps cure email overload. It automatically organizes low priority email out of the way, leaving your Inbox much smaller so it's easy to find the important messages from real people.

Here are the other apps launching on the Marketplace today for you to check out:

Aprigo NINJA for Google Docs provides advanced access management controls for Google Docs, giving organizations greater visibility and control over how documents are shared within and outside of the company.

Gliffy makes creating professional-quality flowcharts and diagrams simple, intuitively helping you turn complex information into attractive images everyone can understand

Gminutes is your one stop meeting minutes management solution for professionally executing meetings. All you have to do is create your meeting space, add relevant people to it and you are good to go.

Meetingmix helps you run meetings. It allows you to easily create agendas, take minutes, and share with attendees.

ReachPeople provides easy group alert notifications for critical communications. Now, schools and businesses can send one or thousands of mass notification messages via voice, SMS text, or email.

SiteKreator is an online service that allows anyone to instantly design, build and publish elegant, fully-branded, and interactive business websites.

TheDeadline is an intelligent Todo-Manager. The system makes collaboration very easy and helps users focus on the most important tasks and keep an overview of large sets of todos.

If you’ve #gonegoogle, and tried the #appsmarketplace, let other users know what you recommend via Twitter or submit your suggestion for additional apps here.

Posted by Steven Bazyl, Google Apps Marketplace team

Google Apps Marketplace highlights, 6/29/2010

Scott McMullan — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 14:00:00 +0000

Editor's note: This is the latest in a series of posts on new apps in the Google Apps Marketplace – things that have caught our eye here at Google. We’ll do this every few weeks or as we see things that we'd like to share. Look for the label "marketplace highlights" and subscribe to the series if you'd like to stay tuned.

Businesses that use Google Apps not only get access to Google's applications, they also get easy access to some of the best business apps on the web through the Google Apps Marketplace. These Marketplace apps are easy to try and buy, and integrate with Google Apps "out of the box," making it even easier for businesses to run more of their systems in the cloud.

You can learn more about the Marketplace and watch a short video on how it works here.

Get Satisfaction – Customer communities

Get Satisfaction is a social platform that helps businesses and organizations create customer communities that facilitate conversations, reduce support costs, and gather real-time market feedback.

Build better customer relationships
Reduce support costs
Collect valuable market data

Jobscore – Recruiting and applicant tracking

JobScore is a "hiring headquarters" where your entire team can securely see and search your jobs, resumes & feedback.

Free applicant tracking system and careers site
Easily post to multiple job boards with one click
Unlimited users = more referrals & better feedback

Concur Breeze – Expense Reports
Concur Breeze is designed specifically to help small businesses take the hassle out of expense reporting, enabling employees to spend more time making on productive work.

Expense reports created from credit card charges
Built-in best practice setup
30-day free trial

gTrax – Timesheets
gTrax is an integrated tool for recording and reporting on your employees time usage on a per project basis.

Identify and apply resources to projects
Explore employees' activities
Create time budgets and monitor progress

Surveymonkey - Online Surveys

Quickly and easily gather the insights you need to move your business forward.

Powerful yet simple survey creation
Fast & flexible response gathering
Intelligent reporting & analysis

Posted by Scott McMullan, Google Apps Partner Lead, Google Enterprise

Launched in Apps Marketplace: 16 new apps available for Google Apps

Scott McMullan — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 17:00:00 +0000

We’ve been adding new apps to the Google Apps Marketplace every week since launching in March, but today are happy to bring you 16 new apps in a single day. These apps, like all installable apps in the Marketplace, offer single sign on with your existing Google Apps user accounts, so there are no new user names or passwords to manage. Beyond single sign on, many offer deeper data integration with Google Docs, Gmail, and Google calendar to help users work more efficiently, regardless of which app they happen to be using to get their job done.

As a Google Apps administrator, once you install and evaluate an app, you can deploy it to your users in only a few clicks. (watch how this works)

Here’s the full list of 16 apps launching today on the Marketplace for you to check out:

Applane CRM
Applane CRM is a new approach to CRM that goes beyond capturing sales data to actually facilitating the process of sales and building customer relationships.

Copy2Contact
Instantly grab new contacts and appointments from any text on your screen, including email signatures, search results, Google documents, daily correspondence, and more.

DirectIQ
Create and send email newsletters to your customers, manage contact lists, and get live reports on email opens & clicks. First Month Free if you join through Google Apps Marketplace.

DokDok
DokDok makes it easy and automatic to find and work on the latest version of any document attached to your email.

Express Planner
ExpressPlanner provides event and registration management solutions for organizations that hold many events per year.

Floorplanner.com
Floorplanner is a quick and easy way to create professional looking floor plans in both 2D as 3D and is used by real estate agents and facilities professionals.

Flowr
Bring social collaboration into your enterprise as a private and secure network. Flowr for Google Apps integrates your accounts and syncs with Google Docs and Google Calendar.

Gantter
Gantter.com is a powerful, web-based project management tool that integrates with Google Docs.

GinzaPhone
Ginza Phone provides small businesses & organizations with a business class phone service without the need for any additional phone hardware. Fax service coming soon.

Gravitydev
Gravity is a simple but powerful tool to help you manage agile software development projects.

Harvest
Harvest is a simple time tracking application which makes it fast and easy for businesses to track billable hours and create invoices.

Jive Express
Jive Social Business Software combines collaboration, community, and social networking software so you can engage employees, customers, and the social web.

Promevo GPanel
Promevo gPanel for Google Apps administration is an enterprise class administration console that provides 360° visibility and management ability of any Google Apps environment.

Stupeflix Studio
Create awesome videos in a few clicks. Whether you want to promote your business or tell your story, video is a powerful medium. With the Studio, creating stunning videos is easy as pie.

TheBugTrack.com
TheBugTrack is an easy-to-use, online bug tracking service and team collaboration tool designed specifically for Google Apps users. No setup is required.

YoolinkPro
Add a social layer to Google Apps! YoolinkPro is a design-awarded social network, it allows thousands of companies to foster discussion among their teams, share Google docs and work more efficiently.

If you’re an Apps admin, head on over to the Apps Marketplace to check out these apps and more. If you’re a cloud app developer, we invite you to learn more about selling your app in the Marketplace and check out the Google Apps developer blog to see how current developers are benefiting from joining the Google Apps Marketplace.

Posted by Ryan Boyd, Google Apps Marketplace Team

Google Apps Marketplace highlights – 5/25/2010

Scott McMullan — Tue, 25 May 2010 14:39:00 +0000

Editor's note: This is the latest in a series of posts on new apps in the Google Apps Marketplace – things that have caught our eye here at Google. We’ll do this every few weeks or as we see things that we'd like to share. Look for the label "marketplace highlights" and subscribe to the series if you'd like to stay tuned.

Businesses that use Google Apps not only get access to Google's applications, they also get easy access to some of the best business apps on the web through the Google Apps Marketplace. These Marketplace apps are easy to try and buy, and integrate with Google Apps "out of the box," making it even easier for businesses to run more of their systems in the cloud.

You can learn more about the Marketplace and watch a short video on how it works here.

Bill.com - Simple bill management

Bill.com is used by thousands of businesses to automate bill management. Simply upload bills, route for approval, schedule and pay, and sync with your accounting system.

Eliminate paper filing and storage
Automate approval process
Pay anyone electronically

Syncplicity – Easy sync, backup, share and file management

Syncplicity’s unique Google Apps synchronization means users now have the choice to create and edit their files in desktop apps and then open that same file in Google Docs seamlessly.

Sync your desktop directly with Google Docs
Continue to create and edit files on your desktop
Offline access, backup, and sync for Google Docs

TextFlow – Powerful track changes for Google Docs

TextFlowintegrates with Google Docs to offer a powerful alternative to Microsoft Word(tm) "track changes," document comparison, and review functions.

See what changes have been made by whom
Visualize the full revision history of a document
Decide which changes to accept or reject

Mavenlink – Project collaboration for consultants

Mavenlink manages project communications, documents, budgets, and payments between independent professionals and their clients.

Keep all team members and your clients in the loop
Get paid for your work with controls over budgeting and overages
Email digests keep everyone working together, with minimum noise

Gist Gadget – Rich profiles for your email contacts in Gmail

The Gist Gadget automatically pulls together information for anyone in the “From” or “CC” fields in Gmail and places a profile at the bottom of an opened email.

See contact information and updates
Request profiles to build a direct connection
Search across all your contacts

Posted by Scott McMullan, Google Apps Partner Lead, Google Enterprise

Google Apps Marketplace highlights – 4/21/2010

Scott McMullan — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 16:05:00 +0000

Editor's note: This is the first in a series of posts on new apps in the Google Apps Marketplace that have caught our eye here at Google. We’ll do this every couple weeks or so. Look for the label "marketplace highlights" and subscribe to the series.

Businesses that use Google Apps not only get access to Google's applications, they also get easy access to some of the best business apps on the web through the Google Apps Marketplace. These Marketplace apps are easy to try and buy, and integrate with Google Apps "out of the box", making it even easier for businesses to run more of their systems in the cloud.

Today’s update includes apps for creating diagrams and charts, CRM and project management, accounting, and personal scheduling. Google Apps admins can easily deploy these apps to users in their domain via the Google Apps Marketplace. Many of the apps below are free or offer free trials. You can learn more about the Marketplace and watch a short video on how it works here.

Creately - Online Diagramming and Design

Creately is an online diagramming application built for project teams. Create wireframes, flowcharts, UML diagrams, Network Diagrams, mind maps and more diagram types with ease.

Create ANY diagram: flowcharts, UI Mockups to UML
Powerful project based collaboration
Full featured, intuitive interface

Insightly - CRM and Project Management

Insightly is a CRM and Project Management package designed specially for Google Apps. Track leads, proposals, opportunities, projects and manage files, all through an easy to use interface.

Track leads, proposals, opportunities and projects
Full history of customer interaction
Central shared contact list

Rhino Accounting - Accounting

Rhino Accounting is online accounting software for small businesses. It is totally integrated with Google Apps so you don't need to duplicate your contacts or have yet another login.

Always free
Full double-entry bookkeeping
Easily email invoices

Teambox - Project Collaboration

Collaborate seamlessly with your team Teambox is the better way of managing projects and getting things done. Its Twitter-like approach needs no training Take back control of your projects now

Manage tasks, files and conversations
Easy to use and fun interface
Inbox-driven collaboration

Tungle.me - Personal Scheduling

Tungle.me is a personal scheduling application, which lets businesspeople publish availability, accept appointment requests, and plan meetings - making scheduling meetings easy.

Easily schedule meetings with anyone, anytime
No more double bookings, or time zone mishaps
End the back and forth of finding a time to meet

There are lots of other apps for Google Apps in the Marketplace that can help your business and users become more productive. If you're an Apps user, let your admin know about these great tools for your organization. If you'd like to learn more about the Marketplace, please come to our webinar next week, 11:00am PDT on April 28.

Posted by Scott McMullan, Google Apps Partner Lead, Google Enterprise

Spreadsheet gadgets: free collaborative spreadsheets for your web products or services

Scott McMullan — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 18:19:00 +0000

Posted by Jonathan Rochelle, Product Manager, Google Spreadsheets

If your company, organization or customers are in love with spreadsheets (might be more like a love-hate thing), and you want to more easily integrate other data, services or logic into your spreadsheets, you're in luck. If you're a web software developer looking for simple, collaborative data on the web, you're also in luck.

Using Google spreadsheet gadgets, your programs (html/javascript/flash) can be easily integrated with spreadsheets - either within the spreadsheet itself, or embedded in any web page, where it can access data from a google spreadsheet. Building great re-usable products using this technology is simple - simple enough to make this platform viable even for one-off, custom capabilities. Of course, if the organization you're targeting is a Google Apps user, they'll even be able to use your cool new gadget on their Start Page.

So if you need a specialized, spreadsheet-friendly capability - a special report format, a lookup to an external data source, a custom visualization or chart, a specialized calculation - take a look at spreadsheet gadgets. You might get some ideas of what's possible by looking at some currently available gadgets made by google and other developers.

For example, here's a Gantt Chart Gadget (powered by ViewPath) that’s reading data from a spreadsheet. You or a collaborator could update the underlying spreadsheet - and wham, the Gantt chart is updated. You could even feed that spreadsheet from a form...

Just to prove you can create practically anything, here's a Pile of Money Gadget embedded directly in a spreadsheet to give a vivid representation of cost trade-offs:

...the possiblities are endless. To get started, check out the documentation.

Run Even More of your Business in the Cloud

Scott McMullan — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 13:01:00 +0000

Posted by Scott McMullan, Google Apps Partner Lead; Maureen Bradford, Product Marketing Manager, Google Enterprise

On the Google Apps team we talk a lot about collaboration, and it's usually around user benefits of sharing documents, teamwork on Google Sites, and the like. But we also collaborate with an ecosystem of innovative partners to roll out complementary products that customers are quick to adopt, before asking for more.

One request we often hear is to help streamline customer relationship management, or CRM. Today we're responding in a big way with Salesforce for Google Apps, an integration of two enterprise-class application suites. Available today from Salesforce.com, this new product offers powerful yet easy-to-use productivity tools for smarter management of customers, sales and marketing.

It's natural that we'd collaborate with Salesforce given our shared belief that Enterprise computing's future lies in SaaS. With over a million subscribers, Salesforce brings deep understanding of CRM processes and the market expects this level of integration from the two SaaS leaders. Together we focused on several customer needs:

Tighter teamwork: Avoid the hassle of version control or attachments by using Google Docs right in Salesforce to jointly craft a proposal in real-time - without leaving the browser.
Increased efficiency: Log Gmail messages in Salesforce to track customer communications and keep the team in sync.
Faster communication: Instantly communicate during customer service calls with Google Talk right in Salesforce, archiving chats for the rest of the team to reference.
Simpler coordination: Share and sync sales, marketing, and personal calendars with check-box simplicity and drag-and-drop convenience.

To see some of this in action, check out the product tour, or get a quick overview here:

It's easy to get started. Salesforce for Google Apps is now available to all salesforce.com customers at no additional cost, so you can integrate any edition of Google Apps into any edition of salesforce.com for free. Salesforce will also resell Google Apps Premier Edition, giving customers a single point of contact for deployment and support.

By the way, thanks for everyone's ideas. Our collective efforts are driven by requests from our users, and partners such as Appirio and Astadia are listening too. They're among the first companies to take advantage of the new development opportunities from our collective open APIs. You can find their enhancements in Salesforce's App Exchange and the new Google Solutions Marketplace.

A Little Help for our Friends

Scott McMullan — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 16:08:00 +0000

Posted by Scott McMullan, Google Apps Partner Lead, Google Enterprise

A little over a year ago, we realized there were so many new Google-related solutions being released by 3rd parties that our customers weren't able to keep up. To simplify match-making, we created the Enterprise Solutions Gallery, a simple site to connect our growing Google Enterprise customer base with products and professional services from our expanding developer and partner ecosystem.

Today I'm excited to announce the Google Solutions Marketplace, a site that makes it even easier for our customer and partner ecosystems to find each other and do business. The Marketplace's initial focus is connecting customers of our communications and collaboration products like Google Apps and Enterprise search with 3rd parties that sell complementary products and services. But that's just a start. We expect to grow to fit the needs of an expanding set of Google customers and developers.

For users, the Marketplace has search, browse, and end-user ratings to make it easy to locate and purchase from a vendor that meets their needs.

For developers and partners, the Marketplace makes it easy to create information-rich vendor and product listings to reach new customers and grow sales. And listing is self-service and free -- just sign in with your Google account, create a brief vendor profile, and start adding listings. (Note: your product or service must incorporate a Google API or service to qualify.) See the vendor guide for more info, or better yet, take a quick 2 minute screenshot tour:

Finally, to augment the end-user ratings and reviews associated with each listing, we've set up a companion customer success story blog to make it easier for users to find more in-depth customer stories from marketplace vendors. Click the "story labels" links in the left column to read a collection of customer success stories for a particular vendor, product, or customer scenario.

Announcing the Open Source Google Apps Provisioning Toolkit

Scott McMullan — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 04:02:00 +0000

Posted by Scott McMullan, Google Enterprise Partner Team

One of the steps every organization takes when adopting Google Apps is user provisioning. Quite simply, before users can log in, they need an account to log in to!

There are a number of methods a Google Apps administrator can use to add users, including one at a time and CSV file upload via the control panel, programmatically using the Google Apps Provisioning API, or via commercial identity management products like Sxip Access or PingFederate.

I'm pleased to share another option: the Apache 2.0 licensed Open Source Google Apps Provisioning Toolkit, created in collaboration with Google Enterprise Professional partner SADA Systems.

The Provisioning Toolkit was created for domains with many hundreds or thousands of users with requirements that fall in to one of two scenarios:

bulk provisioning from user information stored in an existing LDAP, SQL database, or CSV file
self-registration, where users input their own info and provision their own account using a web form

The Toolkit should run on any system that supports Apache, PHP, and Python, or any system that supports the VMware Player -- download here.

Once downloaded and configured via a preferences file, the Toolkit presents either 1) a web page that makes it easy for an admin to provision, update, and delete large numbers user accounts very efficiently, or 2) an authenticated web page allowing users to self-register. Note that while it can be used to create, update, and delete accounts, it's not designed for unattended sync of user information.

Here's a quick overview:

It's also worth mentioning the Toolkit joins a few other open source projects that work with Google Apps, including the Google Email Uploader for migrating Outlook mail to a Google Apps mailbox and the Google Apps LDAP Sync project.

OpenSocial for Business

Scott McMullan — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 14:04:00 +0000

Posted by Scott McMullan, Google Enterprise Partner Team

Last night's OpenSocial announcement highlighted the simple idea that the web becomes more valuable for users when they can more easily interact with friends and colleagues.

OpenSocial supports this by providing a common set of APIs between a social application and a website. Developers can reach a broad set of OpenSocial-enabled websites using a single HTML/JavaScript-based API, and websites can tap in to the creative energy of a large pool of third party app developers.

As members of Google's Enterprise team, we have a particular passion for serving business users and use cases, which is why we're extra-excited about the business apps OpenSocial will enable.

In fact, in addition to the support announced last night by folks like LinkedIn, Viadeo, and Oracle, we're proud that several Google Enterprise professional partners participated in last night's announcement with demos to preview how OpenSocial will help businesses:

Salesforce.com demonstrated its platform support as an OpenSocial-enabled website (video, demo about three quarters in)
Theikos and Appirio created OpenSocial apps that run inside Salesforce.com
LimitNone's iBuild app can now add OpenSocial-powered features to its Gadget-based apps

iBuild empowers non-technical users to create lightweight apps that run as Google Gadgets in iGoogle. Apps like team to-do lists or shared contact managers in a business context or tracking sports teams in a consumer context come to mind. And now, by adding OpenSocial support, those apps can take advantage of social features like publishing actions to activity streams in any OpenSocial-enabled site.

Appirio's Google Gadget Builder for Salesforce.com, which currently allows you to display dynamic "dashboards" of Salesforce.com data on iGoogle, will take a similar approach by incorporating OpenSocial-powered features.

Both developers and users win because these products will work across a growing number of OpenSocial-enabled sites.

If you're a developer and would like to learn more about OpenSocial applications for business, you can start today by signing up for an Orkut or Salesforce.com OpenSocial sandbox account. The list of OpenSocial websites for business will grow over time, but these two early adopters enable you to start exploring today.

Google Apps migration tools

Scott McMullan — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 14:59:00 +0000

Posted by Scott McMullan, Google Enterprise Partner Team

In the spirit of celebrating small successes, I want to give a shout out to Google Enterprise Professional partner LimitNone, who recently passed the 100 customer mark for their gMOVE/gXFER Google Apps migration products.

These tools help Microsoft Outlook and Gmail users migrate their data to Google Apps, and complement some of the other migration tools available today, including our own IMAP migration feature.

Congrats to the team at LimitNone!

"Enterprise" Google Gadgets

Scott McMullan — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 17:32:00 +0000

Posted by Scott McMullan, Google Enterprise Partner Team

I continue to be amazed at the pace of innovation and interest around gadgets in general, and Google Gadgets in particular. With thousands of Google Gadgets in the directory and the top gadgets getting tens of millions of pageviews per week, something is clearly working :)

So much so that yesterday we announced Google Gadget Ventures, a new pilot program designed to fund 3rd party gadget developers. This is a great way to help developers pursue the growing opportunities around gadgets.

Speaking of opportunity, to date, the majority of gadget development has focused on consumer or individual productivity use cases. We're seeing increasing interest in gadgets that access password protected information, often pulled from line of business applications behind a firewall.

Interest here is particularly strong amongst Google Apps users, since the Google Apps Start Page effectively gives organizations iGoogle on their own password protected domain.

For example, we're showcasing some of these "enterprise" gadgets in the Start Page category of the Enterprise Solutions Gallery. Entries include Appirio's gadgets for Salesforce.com and LimitNone's gadgets for corporate directories or internal RSS feeds.

If you're interested in developing gadgets, check out the gadget developer pages.

If you'd prefer to have someone create an enterprise gadget for you, there's a growing list of 3rd parties specializing in this type of development in the professional services category of the Enterprise Solutions Gallery.

On How SaaS changes the SI universe

Scott McMullan — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 15:26:00 +0000

Posted by Scott McMullan, Enterprise Partner Team

Phil Wainewright's recent How SaaS changes the SI universe post highlights some important points about the impact Software as a Service is having on professional services.

In interviews with Appirio and Bluewolf, two SI's that are both Google Enterprise Professional partners as well as Salesforce.com partners, he expands on some fundamental differences in project delivery and scope:

"This is typically a business with 30-60 day projects and the ability to show things to customers as they’re being developed, which is not the kind of engagement the traditional SIs are used to."

He goes on to reference Bluewolf's CEO Eric Berridge:

"Berridge said that the focus is very much on best practice business processes and getting close to users in agile development-style engagements where they can see the applications taking shape and see the effect of changes as they happen."

This agile, iterative model of delivery professional services exactly mirrors what customers love about the on-demand model. Namely predictable costs and timelines, transparency because it's easy to "take the taste test", and continual improvements based on direct feedback to the vendor. This is exactly in line with what I saw at JotSpot, and is indeed what we're seeing around Google Apps.

Disruptive? Yes. But I'm personally not counting out the big SI's in this transition.

The upside for SI's of all sizes is large:

More intimate interaction with the customer
More money to allocate to more interesting, higher-value projects
Predictable costs and an agile approach reduce risk to encourage even more experimentation and innovation

One slice of the pie shrinks, while the other grows. The only question is how fast folks want to start investing in the new model.

Webinar: Migration and Spreadsheet tools for Google Apps

Scott McMullan — Tue, 22 May 2007 22:06:00 +0000

Posted by Scott McMullan, Enterprise Partner Team

If you haven't stopped by in a while, the Enterprise Solutions Gallery has a bunch of new third party products designed to help you get the most out of Google Apps and your Google Search Appliance. Among the newest entries are gMOVE and gSHARE, two offerings from Google Enterprise Professional partner LimitNone designed to help you build bridges between your existing data and Google Apps.

In fact, if you're interested in moving email, calendar, or contacts to Google or understanding how you can use Microsoft Excel and Google Spreadsheets together, you'll want to attend this week's webinar: Migration and Excel™ tools for Google Apps. It takes place this Thursday May 24th at 11am PST, and you can sign up here.

Educarchile turns on Google Apps for Education for Chile

Scott McMullan — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 15:06:00 +0000

Posted by Scott McMullan, Google Enterprise Partner Team

Educarchile took advantage of the "turn on, dial up" power of Google Apps recently when they made Google Apps Education Edition available to all their users on the educarchile.cl domain.

Educarchile, created by the Chilean Ministry of Education and Fundación Chile, was founded in order to diminish the digital gap among the poorer schools and students in Chile by spreading the use of communication technologies with educational purposes. Google Apps furthers that mission by bringing the same powerful messaging and collaboration tools like Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Talk, and Google Docs and Spreadsheets, currently used by Google employees, to every Educarchile member. In one fell swoop.

Fast is great, but a key requirement was simplicity. We're constantly asked "why can't it just work like Gmail and Google.com?" The good news is that it can. On a tight deadline, they were able to meet other user experience requirements like Single Sign On with the help of Google Apps APIs and Google Enterprise Professional partner LTech. Suddenly the same user name and password just works with all of Google Apps.

We look forward to spreading this kind of power to more users like Educarchile.