Google Apps highlights – 6/4/2010

This is part of a regular series of Google Apps updates that we post every couple of weeks. Look for the label “Google Apps highlights" and subscribe to the series. - Ed.

Over the last couple of weeks we continued to improve the new versions of Google documents and spreadsheets, introduced some features to Gmail and made it easier for businesses and schools to switch to Google Apps.

Advanced sorting in Google spreadsheets
We added some powerful data sorting controls to the new version of Google spreadsheets. Rather than sorting an entire worksheet by values in a single column, you can now sort any range of cells and sort by the contents of multiple columns.

Formula highlighting in Google spreadsheets
We also made it easier to write formulas in the new version of Google spreadsheets by adding visual indicators to show which cells a particular formula references. These color-coded highlights will help you keep track of your formulas at a glance. This feature works with Google Chrome, Safari and Internet Explorer; Firefox support is coming soon.

Improvements to Google documents
The new version of Google documents also got a few upgrades last week, including improvements to make finding content in your documents, applying text styles and linking to sections within your documents with bookmarks faster and easier.

“Move Icon Column” now in Gmail Labs
Our set of experimental Gmail features has a new addition: the “Move Icon Column” Lab. This Labs feature moves the icons for messages with attachments, chats and calendar invitations from the right side of your inbox to the left, keeping those icons next to your stars. You can enable this feature and many others from the Labs tab under Gmail Settings.

“Reshare” in Google Buzz
As of last week, Google Buzz lets you reshare posts that you find interesting without having to copy and paste the original content. Just click the new “Reshare” link beneath public buzz posts, type up anything you want to add and click “Post.” You can choose to reshare publicly on the web or privately to a select group.

Google Apps Migration for Microsoft Outlook®
We offer an array of migration tools to help businesses and schools move email, calendar and contacts data from their old systems to Google’s cloud. Customers have used these utilities to migrate more than 2 billion email messages to Google’s cloud, and last week we introduced the new Google Apps Migration tool for Microsoft Outlook®. This is a new end-user tool that moves email, calendar and contact data from Outlook® profiles, PST files and Exchange accounts to Google Apps.

Who’s gone Google?
In the spirit of National Small Business Week, we recently profiled a few small businesses doing big things with Google Apps. Revenue Spark is using Google Apps to build up a global presence to help bring green technology products to market. Yola counts on Google Apps to help their business grow fluidly as they bring on more software developers and business employees around the world. Smart Furniture turned to Google Apps to free up precious resources, improve productivity and remove barriers to growth. These are just a few of the millions of businesses that have gone Google. If your company has a story to share, add yourself to the map!

We continue to see more and more schools beginning to use Google Apps as well. A warm welcome to Georgetown University McDonough School of Business, SUNY Oswego, Elon University, Anderson University and Oxford Brookes University.

Posted by Jeremy Milo, Google Apps Marketing Manager