SeaPort Airlines takes off with Google Apps

Editor's note: Our guest blogger today is Dan Shearer, Director of Safety of SeaPort Airlines Inc., a regional commuter airline operating flights to 21 destinations across 9 states. See what other organizations that have gone Google have to say. Planes are a way of life in the rugged inlets of Southeast Alaska. While cars and roads rule the terrain in the lower 48 states, flying is often the easiest way to get around the mountains, moose and water that dominate the North. SeaPort Airlines Inc. was born in these rugged outdoors -- we’ve been flying short routes in and around Juneau, Alaska since 1982, back when the company went by Wings of Alaska -- and have since added commuter routes in Oregon, Southern California and six states in the Midwest and South. Altogether, our staff of approximately 225 is spread out across the country and operates a fleet of 20 planes. You can’t underestimate the importance of communication in the aviation world. Everyone has to be on the same page at all times, so we can accurately communicate weather reports, passenger lists, flight times and other critical information. For years, we did this on paper, by emailing attached spreadsheets or using an outside file-sharing service. While we were meticulous in our method, there was always the risk of grabbing an out-of-date document with incorrect details. We implemented two or three different hosted email systems over a four year period, but none of them lived up to our expectations; we faced ongoing problems with outages, lost emails and not enough storage.  We knew we needed a more stable and collaborative platform. With help from Google Apps Reseller ViWo, we switched to Google Apps in January. ViWo was instrumental in getting us up and running. They showed us the best way to roll out and set up Apps to our 225 employees, pointed out tools for transferring data and helped with ad hoc technical support. With Google Apps, we got a reliable email system with built-in collaboration tools that all our employees can access with a single login. Best of all, it was easy to use. It took me just a few hours one night to create a Google Sheet that’s become the main way we track our departure and arrival status and performance to make sure our flights are running on time and scheduled efficiently. Dozens of agents can update the master Sheet at the same time without us worrying about losing any data or getting a detail wrong. Sheets even translates time zones and lets us easily process monthly reports. We also use Google Docs for internal information like reservation instructions and contracts. We can update these details instantly for the whole company, without printing off hundreds of new pieces of paper. In the past, IT was best described as reactive, and our technology problems took valuable time and energy away from our primary focus: delivering customers and their baggage safely and on-time to their destinations. Google Apps is changing that. Now, it’s simply a matter of people getting more comfortable with using the system. Just like flying in Alaska, IT managers know they’re going to run into pockets of turbulence. Google Apps ensures that at least our email and collaboration experience is a smooth ride.

Mexico’s Secretaría de la Función Pública brings government data to citizens using Google Earth and Google Maps

Posted by Alberto Herrasti, Consulting Director of Digital Government Projects at SFP  Editor's note: Our guest blogger this week is Alberto Herrasti, Consulting Director of Digital Government Projects at the Secretaría de la Función Pública (Secretary of Public Administration, SFP) from the government in Mexico. See what other organizations that have gone Google have to say and discover our interactive demos.  As the Consulting Director of Digital Government Projects of SFP, I work to bring tools that make information easily accessible to Mexican citizens. We recently deployed Google Earth and Google Maps to solve a long-standing problem. In the past, both our local population and our government workers had trouble finding official documents and records about government agencies and services because this information was distributed across various websites in a fragmented way. Finding something as simple as the opening hours of a state-owned gas station, or the location and address of a nearby hospital would require a search across many official sites. The only alternative would be to physically visit the offices likely to have the information and spend more time waiting in long queues. In 2010, the President’s office directed us to address this problem, and we set out to create a consolidated website (now known asmapas.gob.mx) that would serve as a central repository of geo-indexed data, allowing citizens to easily retrieve up-to-date information overlaid on the map data of Mexico.  We reached out to a number of mapping technology providers to evaluate their offerings but the Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía (INEGI) -- Mexico's offical mapping and statistics institution -- identified Google Earth and Google Maps as our best option. We completed and launched the new site by 2012. The site integrates data from more than 70 public organizations and aims to place useful and helpful information in the hands of our local population. Now, with the new Google Maps-integrated site, any user can find information by viewing it on a familiar, easy-to-navigate “globe”. We’ve also added a lot of useful information. The site now consolidates more than 900 maps with government-related information and covers every region of Mexico. As of 2013, more than 300 people use the site daily, and both awareness and use continues to grow rapidly. Instead of waiting in long lines or spending hours searching online, citizens can simply point their browsers to the new site and use maps to quickly find nearby resources and information. Since we launched the tool in 2012, we’ve had more than 16,150 downloads of the geolocalized data and this tool allows government agencies to respond more effectively and efficiently. Thanks to t Google Earth and Google Maps technology which made the tool easy to build and easy to use, we’re able to better serve our citizens and respond to their needs with the right information at the right time.

For more information about Google Apps visit SADA Systems Asia

New research shows that 70% of mobile searchers call a business directly from search results

Posted: 24 Sep 2013 09:04 AM PDT E-commerce continues to grow quickly with people shopping across a variety of devices, but often times there is no comparison to talking with a live person. Phone calls are still an important channel for research and purchasing, with 70% of mobile searchers reporting they click to call directly from the search results to connect with a business. In fact, Google ads drive over 40 million calls each month. As a critical component of today’s digital path to purchase, it’s important for businesses to understand how, when, and why consumers use click to call features. Click image to enlarge Working with Ipsos Research, we surveyed 3,000 mobile searchers who had recently made purchases across different industries to understand the role that click to call - from paid or organic search results - played in the purchase process. We found that calls are not only an important channel for research and transaction, but also the presence of a phone number in search results can strongly influence the perception of a business’s brand. Click to call is important to consumers across all verticals. Across all seven of the verticals we researched (Travel, Restaurant, Auto, Local Services, Retail, Finance, Technology) click to call was an important feature for people looking to find information and make purchases. 62% of consumers searching for auto parts and services would be very likely to use click to call, and 57% would use click to call to compare pricing. 60% of those searching for car rental information on their phone would use click to call, and 44% would call to make a reservation. Within local services, 76% would use call features to schedule an appointment for professional services. 61% of people searching for financial services on their smartphones are likely to use click to call to make changes to their bank accounts.  Consumers rely on calls for research and transacting. We broke down the purchase process into its component phases - Inspiration, Research, Purchase, and Post Purchase Experience – to see when consumers are most likely to call a business. We found that calling is most important during the research and purchase phases, where 52% and 61% of mobile searchers respectively say it’s important to have the ability to call. This means that a large number of calls happen when someone is ready to buy or helps a consumer move closer in purchase consideration. Calls originating from the search results page are valuable for businesses.  88% of mobile searchers indicated that the length of the call is important to them, so we took a look at our our own internal data and found that almost 3 out 4 calls resulting from mobile search ads lasted longer than 30 seconds, and that calls from ads lasted on average six minutes. This suggests that the majority of calls generated by mobile search ads are not quick informational calls, but instead are more substantive research or transactional calls. Adding click to call can also boost the effectiveness of your ad, whether it's because users feel more confident in your business or because of the larger ad size due to the call button. On average, AdWords advertisers that implement click to call see an increase of 8% in the click through rates of their ads. The call button influences brand perception. The ability to call a business directly from the search results not only helps to drive purchase, but is also an important factor in brand perception. Nearly half of mobile searchers, indicated that the lack of a call option would lead them to be both frustrated with the business and more likely to turn to another brand. Additionally, 33% said that they would be less likely to refer the brand to others and would be less likely to use the brand in the future. IMPLICATIONS It’s clear from our findings that driving phone calls should still be a priority for businesses in every industry. Businesses can easily help mobile searchers get in touch by attaching call extensions to their mobile search ads. While the presence of the call button in organic results depends on a number of factors, you can schedule your mobile search ads and call extensions to show only at relevant times or only in specific searches. Advertisers can also view call specific reporting metrics from their call extensions to identify areas to further optimize performance. Additionally, businesses should measure and assign value to the calls driven by their advertising. With AdWords, businesses can now measure calls as conversions, allowing them to assign value to calls that their ads drive. To explore more of the findings from our calls research visit the Think with Google site or click here to learn how to get started with call extensions now. Posted by Adam Grunewald, Mobile Marketing Manager More information visit SADA Systems Asia, Google Adword partner Indonesia

Hangout On Air: Tapping Into Big Data to Discover Future Retail Strategies

Posted by Meghdutt Brahmachari, Product Marketing Manager, Google Enterprise  When it’s raining out, do people’s shopping habits change? Those are the kind of questions the team at Interactions Marketing, working with Tableau Software, think about when analyzing massive data sets on behalf of retailers. In a highly competitive market, retailers need the edge they can gain from business data – and with the analysis they can generate using Google BigQuery. By analyzing these data sets, you can find what Interactions Marketing calls “unexpected insights,” which help businesses make predictions that can improve sales. For example, they look at how external factors like the weather will affect retail sales. Find out more about the value of Big Data and unexpected insights for retailers – and how Google BigQuery supports these analytics projects – in our Hangout On Air on Thursday, September 26, at 9 a.m. PT. Giovanni DeMeo, Vice President of Global Marketing and Analytics for Interactions Marketing; Paul Lilford, Global Director for Technology Partners at Tableau Software; and Daniel Powers, Director of Sales for Google Cloud Platform will explain how retailers can understand their businesses better and boost success: How can unexpected insights help retailers attract and keep customers? What are the pressures on retailers to glean insights from their data? How does cloud storage make Big Data analysis possible? How can you make it easier to visualize and understand your data? If you missed our previous Hangout On Air with Speedway Motors, the world’s largest manufacturer of specialty hot-rodding and racing products, you can catch up on the recording here. More information about Google Apps visit SADA Systems Asia

Property management, powered by Chromeboxes

Posted by Louis Gouletas, Chief Information Officer and Chief Marketing Officer of National Rental Services 

Editor's note: Today’s guest blogger is National Rental Services’ (NRS) CIO/CMO, Louis Gouletas, who worked with Newmind Groupto deploy Chromeboxes at NRS offices. See what other organizations that have gone Google have to say. 

When my partner and I acquired NRS, a property management service company based in Chicago and Orlando, we knew we wanted a simple and cost-effective IT environment. In the past, I experienced the pain and expense of running physical servers and time-consuming networks. I also had to deal with crashes and viruses. I wanted to have more time to add value to the business instead of dealing with day-to-day IT hassles. 

We decided to turn our IT infrastructure over to experts. We accelerated our move into the cloud with Google, and partnered with Newmind Group, a managed IT and cloud services provider, to help with our transition. We were especially excited about our new customer kiosks, based on Chromeboxes running Managed Public Sessions, that we’ve installed in each of our offices. We’ve set up several Google devices in each office that allow potential renters to peruse properties complete with floor plans, HD photos, videos and 3D panoramas we create using Google Photo Sphere. If renters want to tour a property in person, the system is linked to our Google Calendars, so they can schedule a viewing on the spot with an agent.

Renters can also start the application process, submit a maintenance request or pay their rent using our kiosks. We manage over 1,000 bank transactions each month, so security is very important to us. We’ve enabled Managed Public Sessions mode via the Chrome Management Console, which allows us to whitelist and blacklist sites and automatically wipes all of a users data at the end of their session.

Internally, with Chrome for Business and Google Apps, we have virtually everything we need to maintain company productivity, from managing billing using Google Sheets to holding virtual company meetings via Google Hangouts on a weekly basis.

At NRS, one person is now able to accomplish the work of what previously required multiple IT personnel, and we are able to offer both our property owners and renters better service at more competitive prices. We plan to use our Chromeboxes, Chromebooks, and Nexus devices to maximize productivity for our staff as we continue our progress toward a 100% cloud-based company.

Freeing Quickoffice for everyone

Posted by Alan Warren, Engineering VP, Google Drive  (Cross-posted on the Google Drive blog.)  Quickoffice has been a part of the Google family for over a year now and we’ve been focused on making it easier for you to get work done in Drive -- no matter what type of document you need to work with. Converting old files to Google Docs, Sheets and Slides is still the easiest way to share and work together, and we’re working every day to make the files you convert look better. But sometimes the people you work with haven’t gone Google yet, so we made the Quickoffice mobile apps free for Google Apps for Business customers. And today we’re making Quickoffice available for free to everyone: students, businesses, nonprofits, governments, consumers and anyone with a Google Account. You can get the free Quickoffice app on Google Play and in the App Store. Simply sign in with your Google Account to start editing Microsoft Office Excel, Word and PowerPoint files on your iPhone, iPad, Android phone or tablet. Quickoffice is integrated with Google Drive so you can safely and easily store and access your files across devices. Users who currently have Quickoffice for Google Apps for Business can update their app to the new version and will notice a new icon. You’ll also see a number of new features including the ability to create .ZIP folders and view charts in Excel and PowerPoint files. Plus, the new app works across devices so you don’t have to worry about installing separate versions anymore when you go from using your phone to editing on your tablet. While we’re on the topic of free stuff, if you sign in to your Google Account from the new Quickoffice app for Android or iOS bySeptember 26, 2013, an extra 10GB of Google Drive storage will be added to your account for two years (look for it in the next few weeks.) Note: Previous versions of Quickoffice have been removed from Google Play and the App Store. Learn more about how this affects customers currently using Quickoffice Pro and Quickoffice Pro HD. Users who have the Quickoffice for Google Apps for Business app will receive an update notification to upgrade to this new version. More information

CAN Telematics and Google Maps enhance compliance and keep mobile workers safe

Posted by Duncan Ford, CTO at CAN Telematics Editor's note: Our guest blogger today is Duncan Ford, CTO at CAN Telematics in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. CAN Telematics provides Mobile Resource Management solutions to a range of industries—notably, the oil and gas industry concentrated in western Canada. See what other organizations that have gone Google have to say and learn more about how Google Maps for Business can help businesses in the transportation industry.  Oil and gas companies face an unusual set of challenges in their everyday operations as a result of having a lot of equipment, assets and people spread throughout a large territory. These companies need to track the location and status of all their drill rigs, pipelines, trucks, crews and other assets. Our company, CAN Telematics, helps oil and gas companies address these challenges with solutions that track their assets, operating status, maintenance history, financial information and more. For example, one device monitors a well pump or a generator to sense the presence of certain gases or poll for other engine data. Another, mounted in a truck, logs location, speed, acceleration and braking habits. A third provides an “SOS” button for remote workers. Some devices incorporate accelerometers to detect falls or lack of movement. The data is collected by GPS-equipped monitoring and sensing devices, then stored in the cloud. Our solution is based on Google Maps and retrieves data from Google Maps Engine, offering a familiar interface for our users as well as huge scalability. We also save our customers time and money by making information more accessible, and immediately meaningful. This video about Trakopolis shows how the sensing devices and maps work together to help companies track their assets and related data. The benefits to companies are significant, starting with cost savings. They can add their privately built roads to the public roads in Google Maps, so it’s easier for them to determine which truck is closest to a facility that needs assistance. The maps also enable more efficient routing, saving time and fuel. These companies can also earn rebates on fuel taxes by easily determining the portion of their trucks’ travel that occurs on private roads -- with a fraction of the tedious, error-prone, manual record-keeping effort formerly required.  Driver’s history plotted on Can Telematics’  Trakopolis map interface. Dispatchers can enable Geofencing capabilities to  receive alerts when certain assets enter or leave an area. Even more savings can come from tracking average speeds and driving habits: once monitoring begins, truck drivers tend to slow down and drive more carefully, so there’s a big safety benefit along with fuel and vehicle maintenance savings. Our overall goal is an easier, more efficient and cost-effective way for far-flung companies to keep track of their extremely valuable assets. As we deploy our solutions to other continents and other industries, Google Maps is the natural choice for delivering critical information to the people who need it.

Stream your data into BigQuery in real-time Posted: 18 Sep 2013 09:31 AM PDT Posted by Ju-kay Kwek, BigQuery Product Manager Today, we live in a world where businesses are generating large amounts of real-time data from web applications that serve millions of users, online sales transactions, or customer activity created by an explosion of connected devices. Being able to react quickly to changes in the data being generated is critical to remain competitive. At the same time, businesses are gathering, storing and analyzing data -- sometimes 100s of gigabytes per day -- using legacy systems that struggle to keep up. We built Google BigQuery to enable businesses to tackle this problem without having to invest in costly and complex infrastructure. And today this gets even easier with two key new features:  Real-time data streaming: you can now stream events row-by-row into BigQuery via a simple new API call. This enables you to store data as it comes in, rather than building and maintaining systems just to cache and upload in batches. The best part? The new data is available for querying instantaneously. Streaming ingestion is free for an introductory period untilJanuary 1st, 2014. After that it will be billed at a flat rate of 1 cent per 10,000 rows inserted. The existing batch-based ingestion will continue to be free. Query portions of a table: you can now query a specific subset of a table using a simple new @<t> that we call a “table decorator” in your SQL statements. Though restricted to data inserted within the last 24 hours, this capability provides significant benefits beyond just cost efficiency -- for example, in conjunction with real-time data streaming, you can now use table decorators to monitor the last 30 minutes of user activity after a new change is pushed to your application. In addition to these features, we’ve also expanded BigQuery’s window functions to include SUM and COUNT -- statistical capabilities that many customers have asked for -- as well as regular analytic functions for calculating Correlation and Standard Deviation. And to make the entire querying experience smoother, the BigQuery user interface has also received numerous productivity-enhancing updates. These include an expanding information panel when clicking on a query, as well as action buttons at the bottom of the query box to make it easier to edit, run, save, and show results. You can get details about these new capabilities and examples from our Developer Blog and in our updated product documentation.  Whether it’s for capturing streams of application event logging or real-time user behavior analysis, we can’t wait to hear how you’re using BigQuery’s new features. And we hope you’ll share with our community via the #BigQuery tag on Google+. More information about Google Apps Indonesia visit our site SADA Systems Asia

Speedway Motors Builds a Better Storefront with Google Search Appliance

Posted by Meghdutt Brahmachari, Product Marketing Manager, Google Enterprise  No wonder the customers of Speedway Motors love the retailer so much. The world’s largest manufacturer of specialty hot-rodding and racing products is using Google Search Appliance (GSA) to help car-racing fanatics quickly find and buy the hard-to-find parts they need from among thousands of items. Fast, relevant search creates loyal customers, including a handful who have been getting their parts from Speedway Motors for more than 30 years. In our upcoming Hangout On Air with Speedway Motors - taking place Thursday, September 19th at 10 a.m. PT - you can hear Chris Chance, Speedway’s Director of IT, chat with Joe Davidoff, North American Sales Manager for Google Commerce Search. Also, Dwayne Remekie, Practice Director for enterprise solutions consultant GroupBy, will show a demo of GroupBy's product that uses Google’s relevance model to provide a best-in-class merchandising tool that integrates with GSA. Chris and Joe will talk about the role that Google Search Appliance plays in the Speedway customer service story, and Chris will also share his insights on these questions: How has better search helped Speedway increase conversions by 45%, and boost search revenue by 116%? Why is search relevance so important to customers? What search features help customers quickly find the products they need? If you missed our previous Hangout On Air with Ocado, the world’s largest online grocer, you can catch up on the details. RSVP for the Speedway Motors Hangout On Air, and take part in the Q&A by posting your questions on Google+ or Twitter using the the hashtag #GoneGoogle. More information visit SADA Systems Asia

Helping communities reclaim the land with Google Maps for Business

Posted by Guy Willoughby, Executive Director, the HALO Trust  (Cross-posted on the Official Google Blog) Editor’s Note: Today’s guest blogger is Guy Willoughby, Executive Director of the HALO Trust, a UK-based nonprofit dedicated to landmine clearance in post-conflict areas. Hear how HALO is using Google Maps for Business to fight the war against mines, clearing more than 1.4 million landmines worldwide. When conflicts end, making communities safe and livable often means removing dangerous remnants of war. “Getting mines out of the ground, for good,” as we say at the HALO Trust, has been our mission over the last 25 years. We work in more than a dozen countries and regions across the globe, clearing landmines and other explosives, many of which have been buried underground. While we’ve been in operation for almost three decades, there is still more to be done. In Kosovo, where people are reclaiming their homeland after the conflict in 1999, we’re working in close cooperation with the government and local population to collect and share information about where mines are located. It’s a true community effort—farmers tell us where they’ve seen signs of mines and where accidents have occurred. It’s our job at the HALO Trust to take this data and make it usable, accessible, and visually compelling, so clearance becomes more efficient and happens faster. One of our biggest challenges is keeping our field teams safe. We need easy-to-use tools that can help us find, map and clear hazardous areas without putting our operations at risk. Over the years, we’ve continuously improved our mine clearance techniques, including the deployment of Google Earth Pro. Google Earth Pro makes it easier for the HALO team to do the dangerous and detailed work of finding and mapping at-risk areas. Because it’s based on the same technology as Google Maps and Earth, it’s easy for our teams to use and create maps without IT or GIS expertise. It’s a tool that is familiar to our employees and something they use in their daily lives, so we can start mapping right away. The information we gather, including GPS references to landmines in the field, is imported into Earth Pro so that we can plot mine locations. We also use the incredibly detailed satellite imagery in Google Earth to identify and map hazardous areas. These high-resolution maps serve many people: from families who live near mines, to crews who clear them, and donors and other organizations that support us. When donors view the vivid interactive maps of our project areas—with mines so close to schools, farms, and houses—they understand why the HALO Trust’s work is so critical. Learn more about HALO's work in Kosovo. Accurate maps from Google Earth Pro mean safer working conditions for our local teams, and faster progress toward our goals. In Kosovo alone, we’ve removed thousands of landmines, cluster munitions and other explosives. And with the help of Google’s mapping tools and our donors, we’ll be able to declare the country mine-free. For more information about Google Apps Indonesia visit SADA Systems Asia

A fresh mix of Intel-based Chromebooks — something for everyone

Posted by Caesar Sengupta, Product Management Director, Chromebooks 

(Cross-posted on the Google Chrome Blog)

Chromebooks were designed to make computers faster, simpler, safer and much more affordable for everyone. Over the past year, with the launch of Chromebooks by a number of our partners for as low as $199, they have become the go-to laptop for many people. We’re pleased to see consumers, schools and businesses react positively to Chromebooks. Research firm NPD says Chromebooks represent 20-25% of the $300-or-less computer segment. In education, more than 5,000 schools have deployed Chromebooks for their students, representing more than 20% of school districts in the US.

Together with our hardware partners, we’ve been working on expanding the Chromebook family. Intel, who has been with us on this journey from day one, unveiled a new lineup of Chromebooks today based on the Haswell microarchitecture at the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco. Intel’s latest processors sip less power to improve battery life by more than 2X over previous generations, while offering increased performance. This means these new Chromebooks last almost all day so you can focus on getting things done.

Over the coming months, you’ll see Chromebooks from multiple device manufacturers. These include newly designed Chromebooks from Acer and HP, as well as new entrants ASUS and Toshiba.

Across the new lineup, the devices offer superb battery life and a variety of new designs—from a light and portable Acer Chromebook, to the large display on the HP Chromebook14, which comes in various colors; from the versatility and portability of the Toshiba Chromebook, to the ASUS Chromebox, suitable anywhere you need a computer. With today’s announcement, now six of the top laptop manufacturers are offering Chromebooks.

It’s been amazing to see the broadening of the Chromebook spectrum and we look forward to continued advances in both the hardware and software. Now more than ever, a new Chromebook truly offers something for everyone.

For more information please visit our website at SADA Systems Asia

Four new ways to customize your Google Forms

Posted by Elynn Lee, Software Engineer, Google Forms

(Cross-posted on the Google Drive blog.)

From classroom pop quizzes to RSVPs for your team offsite, you can use Google Forms in tons of different ways -- which is why it's important to be able to customize each form to fit your needs. Starting today, you’ll be able to take advantage of four new features to create your perfect form: progress bars, data validation, embedded YouTube videos, and custom messages.

Guide respondents through your survey with a progress bar
Sometimes it’s helpful to give respondents a sense of how much of a survey still needs to be completed, and now you can by turning on a progress bar in your form.

To turn it on, just check the progress bar box in the Form Settings tab.

Get results the way you want them with data validation
Let’s say you’re using Forms to collect sign ups for an email newsletter. With data validation, you can now ensure that the email addresses are formatted correctly, and consequently avoid those unpleasant bounce-back messages.

To get started, create a new Text question in Forms, then click on the Data validation tab. Click the checkbox and select “Text,” then “Email address,” and voila, the survey taker will see an error message if they don’t enter an email address.

You can also set up data validation for maximum character count, numbers, zip codes, and more.

Embed YouTube videos
You can now embed a YouTube video right inside a form -- perfect if you want to get feedback or ask questions about a video.

This works really well for quizzes in class, especially if paired with data validation and the progress bar. Embed a video and then use data validation to give hints when students enter incorrect answers, and add a progress bar so they know how far along they are in the quiz.

Add a custom message to closed forms
Sometimes when a form is closed, you still want to make information available for respondents who weren’t able to complete it in time.

After you’ve switched your form to “Not accepting responses,” you can now add your own message and instructions for follow up.

Fidelity Bank Ghana Saves Time, Reduces Meetings and Improves Security With Google Apps

Posted by Suresh K L, Chief Information Officer at Fidelity Bank Ghana Limited 

Editor's note: Today’s guest blogger is Suresh K L, Chief Information Officer at Fidelity Bank Ghana Limited, a Ghanaian bank serving 450,000 customers across 45 branches. See what other organizations that have gone Google have to say.

Established in 2006, Fidelity Bank Ghana is the sixth largest commercial bank in Ghana—employing 1,200 people and serving 450,000 customers across the country. As the banking industry in west Africa continues to evolve, we’re seeing growth due to our aim to provide customers with a faster, simpler banking solution so they can focus on building their businesses and living their lives. We decided to move to Google Apps in March of 2013 because of the guaranteed uptime, high security, low operating costs, and the opportunity for better collaboration among our employees.

Our legacy email system would be down for countless hours—wasting time, decreasing performance, and compromising security. As a result of the unresolvable server outages before switching, employees started using their personal email addresses for official communication, which was against company policy. Our old system operated at 30 to 40 percent more downtime than Google Apps and I personally was losing about six hours a week from downtime.

Since Google Apps is cloud-based and updates automatically, we’re now saving 30 percent in operating costs per year versus our previous environment. The legacy email system required frequent costly upgrades and hardware maintenance. And, like many banks, the security of our account holders’ information is very important to us so we were impressed by the SAS 70 security certification for Google Apps Vault and we were comfortable with making the switch.

Employee collaboration from any device, regardless of location, was a big driver in our move to Google Apps. Many of our employees don’t have desk phones, so Hangouts—with the instant chat feature—have really helped the team stay connected. I’ve seen employees with 12 different chats open at once! Hangouts have reduced the number of meetings we have, allowing different stakeholders to collaborate without having a formal meeting. Before moving to Google Apps, we had major issues trying to access our email during trips abroad. We returned home with hundreds of emails and spent days just reading through them. With Google Apps accessible from anywhere, we can check our email inbox from virtually any device, boosting productivity and time savings.

Google Drive is helping our employees be more productive, and the transition was seamless. Since each user has 30GB of space, there’s plenty of room to have all of our documents and we can access our Docs, Sheets, and Slides from anywhere. We use Drive as our intranet—uploading everything from HR policies to compliance documents. We’re also creating microsites to serve as collaborative hubs for individual departments. For example, we have Google Sheets shared across branches and teams to manage our sales activity, our private and executive banking sales activity, our future business pipeline reports and collating weekly operational reports. Company-wide, we can attribute about 15 percent of time savings directly to Google Apps, but some individuals are saving even more time. Our head of ATM card management is now saving two days per week using Google Forms. Previously, she received 44 separate email attachments each week from various branches that she had to manually input into a master document. Now, those updates are collected using an automated Google Form that auto-populates the master Google Sheet.

Overall, I love seeing all the innovative ways in which employees are proactively using Google Apps to be more efficient and productive. We continue to explore new opportunities to leverage Google Apps to make employee collaboration and productivity better.

For more information about Google Apps, visit SADA Systems Asia Website