Have you ever wanted to create a form that changes which questions to show next based on an answer received earlier in the form? The two features we launched today make that easy.

First, we've added one of the most requested features for forms: page breaks. Now it is easy to create a form with multiple pages by going to "Add item" and selecting "Page break."
Posted by Dan Ferrara and Jackie Tsay, Bold Practicum Interns, Google Apps team

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One of the benefits of Google Apps is the extensibility and openness of the platform. Today we're pleased to advance that story by introducing a new API for Google Sites in Labs.

Great ideas come from many places, but we believe the best ideas frequently come from you, the admins who work closely with our products. Maybe you would like to sync your LDAP directory with Google Apps, manage your users' profile information in Gmail Contacts with an API, sync your Google Apps email, contacts, and calendar with Microsoft Outlook, or connect your Blackberry Enterprise Server with Google Apps.

All of these great ideas came from our customers, and we are excited that we added these features after hearing your requests on how to improve Google Apps.

Today, we're taking it to the next level with the addition of a new Product Ideas section where Google Apps administrators can submit, comment, and vote on ideas. Our team will keep an eye on the best ideas that "bubble up" to the top, and we look forward to seeing your great ideas!


P.S. Want to find out about new features in Google Apps? Details on the new features dashboard, email alerts, and our RSS feed are available here.

Posted by Chris Cheng, Enterprise Support Strategist

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Everyone benefits from cloud computing, though few stand to benefit more than government. The cloud helps agencies at all levels increase productivity, cut costs, keep pace with technology innovation, and become more open and transparent with their citizens.

That's why we were pleased to join other industry leaders today at NASA's Ames Research Center to hear Vivek Kundra, the CIO of the US Federal Government, announce the launch of Apps.gov. Apps.gov is an online storefront that makes it easy for federal agencies to browse and purchase cloud-based IT services from a variety of service providers, including Google. The cloud is coming of age, and we applaud the Obama Administration's efforts to ensure our government realizes its many advantages.

We also want to do our part to make it easier for government to transition to cloud computing. We recognize that government agencies have unique regulatory and compliance requirements for IT systems, and cloud computing is no exception. So we've invested a lot of time in understanding government's needs and how they relate to cloud computing. To help meet those requirements we're taking two important steps:

• FISMA certification for Google Apps. In July, we announced our intent to secure certification for Google Apps to demonstrate compliance with the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA), the law defining security requirements that must be met by all US Federal government information systems. Our FISMA process is nearing completion. We will submit a Certification and Accreditation (C&A) package to the U.S. Government before the end of this year. Upon review and approval of the Google Apps C&A package, agencies will be able to deploy Google Apps knowing that it is authorized to operate under FISMA.

We look forward to working with governments across the country on these exciting initiatives in the months ahead.

Posted by Matthew Glotzbach, Director, Product Management, Google Enterprise

Earlier this morning, you may have seen Google's Data Liberation announcement, which stemmed from our core belief that it ought to be easy for users to move their data into or away from Google's cloud.

This month, Google Earth Pro and Google Maps API Premier customers will see new aerial and satellite imagery updates across the world and through time.

Let's say you want to do Real Estate research in Portage, Michigan (image below) and you have Google Earth Pro 5.0 installed. You can use the historical imagery feature to research imagery dating back to the 1950's. For example, Engineering firms doing land surveys near McMurdo Station now have imagery updates on this point in Antarctica. This allows them to complete better land assessments.

Below is a list of all the imagery updates to Google Earth Pro and Google Maps API. To find out where the new aerial and satellite imagery might help your spatial business, here is a KML outlining all the areas receiving new data.


Americas
United States: Alburqurque, Beaumont (Texas), part of the Mississippi River, Jefferson County (FL), Cass County (MO), Hamilton County (IA), Western Michigan, Portage (MI), Clinton County (MI), Eaton County (MI), Ingham County (MI), Greenville (SC), Baltimore (MD), Charles County (MD), Calvert County (MD), Dorchester County (MD), Carroll County (MD), Frederick County (MD).

Canada: Surrey (BC)

Peru: Talara

Antarctica: McMurdo Station

New 2.5m base imagery for: Mexico, Argentina, and India

Google Wave has been generating lots of interest among Google Apps users since we unveiled it in May at Google I/O, our annual developer conference. Today we're pleased to announce that we'll be opening up access to Google Wave for some schools and businesses as part of the preview this fall. And while we won't be able to open it up to all Google Apps users just yet, we hope to bring Google Wave to all Google Apps users next year. If you're a Google Apps administrator and you're interested in testing Google Wave, you can sign up here.

Over the last couple of months, we've been very busy developing the product, opening the protocol and learning from the thousands of developers who are using and contributing to Google Wave. While the product, platform and protocols are still being developed, we're extending access to some of the highly collaborative people and communities we hope to benefit in the future – businesses and schools. In turn, we look forward to learning from these Google Apps users, so we can continue to tweak and develop the product as we gain insight from their experiences.

A wave is equal parts conversation and document, where individuals communicate and work together in a multimedia environment – the wave itself. You can check out the video below (it's long – lots to see!) and it's easy to imagine its utility for groups within a business or academic environment. Whether there's a report to write, an event to plan, research to do or communications to conduct, we're building Google Wave so people can be more productive and collaborate more effectively in a real time environment. Users can insert text, photos, gadgets, maps, web feeds and edit instantaneously. Organizations can extend Google Wave using APIs to tightly integrate with existing tools and workflows. It's communication and collaboration, conversation and document, in one unified, cloud-based space.

We recently shared an update on the Google Apps Blog about new features in Google Sites, the web creation and publishing application included in Google Apps. The new features let you copy your site, use more options to search, and more easily announce updates. Since these features are useful for anyone who uses Google Sites as part of the Google Apps Premier or Education editions, we wanted to make it easy for you to read about the features.

Posted by Ellen Leanse, Google Enterprise team

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At Google, I often collaborate with colleagues around the world, so it's quite common to be working with someone whose native language is different from my own. To make sharing content easier, we just added the ability to translate documents into Google Docs.

With this feature you can write a doc once, and with a few clicks make it available in any of 42 supported languages: Albanian, Arabic, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese, Croation, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Filipino, Finnish, French, Galician, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, and Vietnamese.

Here is an example of an interview feedback form being translated from English to Russian.

When you combine this new feature with the template gallery, things get more interesting. Anyone in your domain can make a template, and put it in your organization's own gallery. From there, colleagues from around the world will be able to grab a copy of the template and with a couple of clicks, localize it into the language that they're most comfortable with. All of the document's original formatting and layout will be preserved.

You can find the Translate option under the Tools menu.

Posted by Jeff Harris, Associate Product Manager, Google Docs team

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Have you ever wanted to watch a training video, but didn't feel you could take the time for it? Ever wished a slow speaker would talk just a little faster? Or maybe you'd like to skim through a presentation at high speed until you got to something really interesting?

All that is now possible with Google Video for business. Just select the video you want to watch, and you'll see a speed control in the player. Click the button to switch between 1.5x and real-time, or drag the pop-up slider to select the speed you want. The new speed setting is "sticky"...in other words, you can find particular sections of interest by dragging the position marker or clicking in the Scenes bar without dropping back to normal speed.

We've found that most videos are very comprehensible at 1.25x to 1.75x speed. If your video is captioned, you'll find that you can go even faster.

Give it a try. Once you start watching videos at 1.5x, you might never go back to real-time!

Google Video for business is part of Google Apps Premier and Education Editions, included with Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs, Google Sites, and more. To learn more about Google Apps, get started here.

Posted by Daniel Steinberg, Google Video team

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In May, we announced our plans to integrate Google Apps with BlackBerry Enterprise Server, a popular feature request from many of our enterprise customers. Today, our team is excited to let you know that this integration is complete. Now, customers of Google Apps Premier and Education Editions can give their users access to Google Apps email, calendar, and contacts from the built-in BlackBerry applications that many users are already accustomed to. The tight integration between our connector and the BlackBerry Enterprise Server lets administrators manage BlackBerry access using the tools and policies they're already familiar with.

Since our announcement in May, the Google Apps team has worked hard to prepare this feature for public release, testing it extensively with select companies and universities, including Sanmina-SCI. "With Apps Connector, our BlackBerry mobile users get to use native applications that they are already familiar with and we get to manage them using familiar tools. It's great to combine the benefits of Google Apps like 25GB storage per user and ubiquitous accessibility with the push mail capabilities of BlackBerry," said Manesh Patel, CIO of Sanmina-SCI.

Features include:

• Messages sent to your Gmail inbox are pushed to your BlackBerry within 60 seconds.
  
• Emails read/deleted on your BlackBerry are marked as read/deleted in Gmail, and vice-versa.
  
• Emails archived/starred on your BlackBerry are archived/starred in Gmail, and vice-versa.
  
• BlackBerry folders are synchronized with labels in Gmail.
  
• You can search for contact information of coworkers from the global address list on your BlackBerry.
  
• Contacts in Gmail are automatically synchronized with your BlackBerry address book.
  
• You can view your Google Calendar schedule with the native BlackBerry application, with one-way synchronization from Google Calendar to your BlackBerry device. Two-way calendar sync with the ability to accept, decline and schedule meetings from your BlackBerry device is not available with this release but we are working on it.
  
• Administrators can use the management and security tools that are part of BlackBerry Enterprise Server.
  

Google Apps Premier and Education Edition customers worldwide can get started with this feature at no charge by downloading Google Apps Connector for BlackBerry Enterprise Server. If you have any questions, please visit the Help Page. Both of these links are also available through the Google Apps control panel.

Learn about all of the mobile options available to Google Apps users at www.google.com/apps/mobile.

Posted by Anthony Lee, Google Apps Engineer

Find customer stories and product information on our resource sites for current users of Microsoft Exchange and Lotus Notes/Domino.

Back in May we announced a pilot release of Google Apps Script, and after thousands of hours of use, and lots of valuable feedback, we're excited to launch Google Apps Script to all Google Apps Premier and Education Edition customers today.

Google Apps Script provides the ability to automate a variety of features in Google Apps, such as reading and changing values in Google Spreadsheets, creating Google Calendar appointments, sending email and much more. Check out the Google Apps Script Overview video, below, taken from our May announcement.


Our favorite user example is a bureaucracy-busting Expense Approval Script, which expands one of the tutorials we've assembled to help people see how to use Google Apps Script. Submitting and approving expense reports can be tedious. Adding a script automates the drudgery by doing the following:

• automatically converting foreign currency amounts to local currency
  
• looking up historical exchange rates from external web services
• catching basic errors – things like missing dates, descriptions, and amounts
• triggering business logic to flag certain expense categories 'For Review'
  

Even more useful, the script can figure out whose approvals are needed, and automatically request approval from those people. And once approved, the script sends a note to the finance department for payment – all without writing a single email!


This is just one of hundreds of business processes that can be customized and streamlined using Google Apps Script within Google Apps Premier and Education editions. From expenses and timesheets to trouble tickets and order tracking – really, anything that you might want to calculate, organize and automate – is now easier than ever with Google Apps Script.

Starting today, all Google Apps Premier and Edu domains will now see "Scripts" in the Google Spreadsheets "Tools" menu – so check it out.

We're looking forward to seeing how users put Google Apps Script to creative (and valuable) use, so start scripting, and let us know what you come up with. We'll feature some of our favorite user submissions over the coming weeks!

Posted by Evin Levey, Product Manager, Google Apps team

The conversation around enterprise search often centers on advanced refinement options, visualization, U/I design elements, and so on. Of course, these are all important nuances – and things we are working to evolve – but what seems to be lost is the focus on the real goal of search: delivering relevant results. Within an enterprise, users ultimately want the confidence that they'll get the result they're seeking, right there on top, regardless of how the results interact with advanced options.

Today, we're showcasing the value of relevance and introducing our latest Enterprise Labs tool, Side-by-Side search. The concept is simple: let's say you want to compare the relevance of two separate search engines across the same body of data.

For instance, you might want to compare the results you get from your existing search solution with what you get from the Google Search Appliance (GSA). You might want to compare two different back-end settings for the GSA, or two different solutions altogether. As shown below, Side-by-Side shows your users two panes on their screen, each containing a unique set of results – hence, "side-by-side." Users can then compare the results and vote on which set they prefer.

Side-by-Side makes it easy to test the GSA with other enterprise search engines, ensuring people in the workplace can get the highest-relevancy results and bringing Google.com search quality to the enterprise.

If admins want to conduct a full relevance test for results of multiple search queries, they can feed in whatever queries they'd like to test. All of the Side-by-Side administration can be done with a simple web interface, and admins can anonymize each panel, so users don't know which search engine or setting powers which set of results. Essentially, admins can now test any search products they want and provide their organization with the setting or solution that employees rate highest.

If you're already powering search with a GSA, download Side-by-Side and test your results. You can also check out our ROI JumpStart offer, which helps get companies up and running with the Google Search Appliance quickly and with professional support.

Ultimately, no matter what you're searching, relevant results are the critical outcome.

Posted by Cyrus Mistry, Mistry, Product Manager, Google Enterprise

On the heels of the June Google Search Appliance (GSA) 6.0 release we're announcing an upgraded suite of GSA Connectors – including connectors to integrate offline company data with information stored in the cloud. GSA Connectors make it possible to connect the GSA with popular content management systems and other repositories, so that users can easily find the information they are looking for in a single page of unified search results, wherever it resides within the company.

Ultimately, GSA Connectors make companies more agile, so they can increase the Return on Information on thier investment in ECM, CRM, and other content management systems. Check out some of our GSA customers, including Mercer, Honeywell, and Sunnybrook, to see how they are benefiting from using GSA Connectors.

A few weeks back, we let you know that Google Apps Premier Edition would soon support two new business-focused features: email retention policies and email delegation. Today we're happy to share the news that both features have been rolled out to Google Apps Premier Edition customers.

Email retention policies help companies comply with industry and government regulations by allowing their admins to determine how long an email should remain in the system before being automatically deleted. Email delegation allows employees to specify other users allowed to manage email for them – especially useful to executives and administrative assistants.

Premier Edition administrators can enable these features from the administrative control panel under the 'Email Settings' tab.

Posted by Rajen Sheth, Google Apps Product Manager

We often hear people ask, "How do I add a Google Map to my website?" Sometimes, it's from a small business owner simply trying to show directions to their store. Other times, it's from larger enterprises that want to create more complex mapping applications, overlaying their own proprietary layers of data on the map.Posted by Andrew Chang, Google Maps team

Today we're releasing two enhancements to Google Apps Directory Sync, a tool that helps businesses synchronize the user and directory information in their LDAP systems with Google Apps. These changes complement the improvements to contacts in Google Apps that we announced a few weeks ago.

Now Google Apps Directory Sync not only helps synchronize employee contact information, but also information for non-employees that are listed in the central LDAP directory. This way, employees can easily look up and contact important customers, partners and vendors, too.

This release also expands the list of contact fields that can be synchronized between an LDAP system and Google Apps. Rich user profile information like multiple phone numbers, addresses and job titles are now supported, making full profiles easily accessible by employees.

Posted by Navneet Goel, Product Manager, Google Apps team

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We wanted to share a quick update regarding the Google Apps Connector for BlackBerry Enterprise Server, which we pre-announced in May. We've been working hard to make this feature publicly available in Google Apps Premier Edition and Education Edition, and a significant number of our customers have been actively using and testing the Apps Connector over the last several months. The feature is very close to being ready for prime time, and as we move toward the finish line it's looking like the Apps Connector will be launched in August, not July as previously hoped.

Get timely updates on new features in Google Apps by subscribing to our RSS feed or email alerts.

Like many of you, I use tools like Google Reader to keep up with and share interesting tidbits on the web. These services deliver the content that matters most to me in a convenient and timely format. In that spirit, we're happy to announce that starting today you can add an RSS feed for the Apps Status Dashboard, letting you receive performance status updates for Apps products in any of the 25 languages the Dashboard supports.

Visit the Apps Status Dashboard at http://www.google.com/appsstatus and click on the RSS icon at the bottom right to get the feed in the same language you see when using the Dashboard. Every post to the Dashboard will trigger a post to the feed. To keep you updated, each post to the feed will include all the messages and updates pertaining to the corresponding Dashboard event. That way you won't need to dig through your feed history to piece together how things are progressing.

We know how much our users appreciate the transparency that the Apps Status Dashboard provides, and we hope the RSS feed enables them to get performance status information about the applications they care about in an efficient way.

Posted by Tony Scelfo, Software Engineer, Google Apps team

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Today, we're thrilled to host more than 150 Enterprise customers and partners at Google headquarters for the second annual Google Earth Enterprise user forum. This event is an opportunity to hear the latest news about the 3.2 release of Google Earth Enterprise and other Google innovations directly from our product managers and engineers, to learn from customers like the US Army Corps of Engineers and Caltrans about how they're using the product, and to exchange ideas.


The people at this user forum come from the federal government, state and local governments across the country, and a range of companies, large and small. They've travelled from as far away as Asia and Europe (not to mention the east coast) to be here. All with one thing in common: putting the power of Google Earth to work to make information accessible within their organizations in an intuitive, visual way.

At Google, we have a firm belief that our customers are the most important source of feedback about our products. We look forward to a productive dialog about what's working with Google Earth Enterprise, and what we can do better.

Welcome to Mountain View, Google Earth Enterprise users! We're glad to have you here.

Posted by Dan Israel, Product Marketing Manager, Google Earth Enterprise