More BYOD management features for Android devices

Posted by Heman Khanna, Software Engineer, Google Apps for Business 

More than ever, people are bringing their own mobile phones and tablets to work. This "bring your own device" (BYOD) trend appeals to companies that want their employees to be productive on the go, with devices they enjoy using. As an admin, your role in a BYOD environment is to make sure users keep their mobile devices secure.

Comprehensive mobile device management is included with Google Apps for Business, Government and Education. Organizations large and small can manage smartphones and tablets - including Android and iOS - right from the Google Apps Admin console, with no need for special hardware or software.

Today we’re adding new Android device management features based on top requests from our customers.

1. Selective wipe - Remove Google Apps account data without wiping a user’s entire device. 
2. SD card wipe - During a full device wipe, wipe SD cards in addition to the internal memory.
3. Device Policy app - Ensure that security policies are enforced across all devices by requiring the latest version of the Device Policy app. 
4. Wi-Fi configuration - Enter wi-fi settings in the Admin console once -- and they'll be automatically pushed out to all managed Android devices.

Android users can stay connected on the go with mobile apps like Gmail, Drive and Hangouts. Admins can manage their domain with the new mobile Admin app. And admins can let employees bring their own devices to work while keeping those devices secure and saving their employees time with Google Apps device management.

To learn more about these mobile device management features, visit our Help Center or start managing devices right away by visiting your Admin console at admin.google.com.

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

Sutton & East Surrey Water transforms its operations with Google Maps Coordinate

Posted by Jeremy Heath, Network Manager, Sutton and East Surrey Water 

Editor's note: They power our homes and supply clean water - utility companies fulfill our most basic needs. This week we're showcasing the Utilities Industry and the ways they’re relying on Google Maps for Business to improve operations and keep the lights on. Today’s guest blogger is Jeremy Heath from Sutton and East Surrey Water.

At Sutton and East Surrey Water (S&ESW), we supply water to almost 700,000 customers each year, stretching more than 2,000 miles. To manage such infrastructure for our day-to-day operations, quickly assigning and tracking jobs in the field is a top priority. Like many utility companies, we’ve relied heavily on paper-based work orders to manage customer service calls and repairs, a process that added extra work hours for our employees. Then we discovered Google Maps Coordinate.

Introducing Maps Coordinate to S&ESW’s meter fitting and repair teams allowed us to improve productivity and cut costs. Before every team would spend an hour at the end of the day filling out paperwork. Today, we can use the Google Maps Coordinate smartphone app to record data and build reports on a daily basis. Replacing our paper-based workflow with Maps Coordinate has resulted in a 17% increase in operational efficiency and an overall return on investment (ROI) of 500% based on time and cost savings.

Using the same technology as Google Maps, the Coordinate app provides our dispatchers and repair teams with a unified view of past and present job details. Our employees in the field can share their location, manage jobs and record data directly in the app. And because it incorporates the easy-to-use Google Maps interface and rich set of mobile features, we can provide our employees with a tool that is simple and familiar, minimizing training requirements.

Without the need for complex configurations, adopting Coordinate’s web and mobile app was simple and easy to do for our employees. Since we were able to run Maps Coordinate on our existing smartphone network and back-end technology, we deployed the mobile and web-based apps across S&ESW within weeks. This helped us to further reduce development time and costs.

Integrating Google Maps has changed the way we communicate and operate our business. Its allowed us to achieve an impressive ROI and save thousands of dollars in printing costs alone. Above all, we’re meeting demands for better quality service and providing the clean water that our customers depend on everyday.

Monroe Restoration has gone Google with help from TechKnowledgey, Inc.

Posted by Jeremy Davidson, CEO of Monroe Restoration 

Editor's note: In honor of National Small Business Week, we'll be sharing stories about small businesses that have gone Google. Today’s guest blogger is Jeremy Davidson, CEO ofMonroe Restoration, a disaster restoration company based in South Bend, Indiana. See what other organizations that have gone Google have to say.

When I first joined Monroe Restoration, the company couldn't afford to pay me, but I took the job anyway. I'd seen enough homes destroyed by tornadoes, floods and fires that I was willing to take a personal risk helping people get their lives back together after disaster. It didn’t take long to realize I wanted to run the company myself. I saved enough money to buy out the owner and took over as CEO in 2003. In the last ten years, Monroe has grown from a three-person operation to 27 employees across two locations. At that kind of scale, we can help a lot of people: when a tornado hits, we receive 150 to 200 calls in just a few hours, and on any given day, we’re managing between 50 and 100 projects.

Two years ago, we found ourselves in the face of a different kind of disaster: our Microsoft Small Business Server crashed, effectively stripping us of the tools we needed to help our customers. I turned to Boyd Smith, the founder of Google Apps Reseller TechKnowledgey Inc., for help. I’ve known Boyd for over a decade - we live in neighboring towns, we’re both training for our pilots licenses and he’d been our go-to IT guy for a few years. I told him we needed a new and reliable platform that would help streamline communication between branches and keep our field techs connected while they traveled on-site. He told me we needed Google Apps. We started migrating the entire company the next week.

TechKnowledgey didn’t just help us move to Apps - they’ve helped us become a better business. We buy a lot of materials from the road, so Boyd and his team built a custom purchase order system using Google Sites and Forms that lets our field techs request POs directly from their phones, wherever they are and whenever they need something. Our accounting team receives the requests and can approve them immediately, letting our employees buy the tools they need on the spot.

We’re always looking for new ways to grow the business and TechKnowledgey is continuing to show us how to use Apps to make it possible. When we opened our second office, I wanted our employees to feel a sense of camaraderie regardless of where they sat. Boyd and his team introduced us to and trained us on Google+ Hangouts. Now we can’t get enough of them. I’ll fire up a hangout to catch up with my General Manager or host an all-hands without even thinking about picking up a landline.

I know how to help someone whose roof has been torn off by a tornado or whose basement has been filled with water by a flash flood. I also know that Google Apps makes us better at saving and restoring these homes, and that TechKnowledgey helps us get more value from Apps than we could have on our own. And anything that makes it possible to get more people back on their feet after a disaster is a win for everyone.

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

Sweetgreen keeps things fresh with Google Apps

Posted by Nathaniel Ru, Co-Founder, Sweetgreen 

Editor's note: In honor of National Small Business Week, we'll be sharing stories about small businesses that have gone Google. Today’s guest blogger is Nathaniel Ru, Co-Founder ofSweetgreen, a retail food chain focused on making healthy eating easier. See what other organizations that have gone Google have to say.

Sweetgreen started as an idea I had with two of my friends, now my co-founders, while we were studying business at Georgetown University. We were frustrated by the lack of healthy eateries in Washington, D.C. and wanted to make eating healthy an affordable and easy option, especially on our undergrad budgets. We decided to make it happen ourselves, and launched our first Sweetgreen restaurant shortly after graduating in 2007.

We sell local and organic food, but we stand for a lifestyle: being healthy and environmentally conscious while creating great experiences around food. All of our Sweetgreen restaurants are designed with reclaimed materials, use biodegradable utensils, and compost waste. Our wooden tables and seats are made from pre-1980s bowling alleys, and our bowls, cutlery and cups are all 100% plant-based.

Google Apps allows us to be more than a traditional brick and mortar restaurant. We’re constantly evolving, changing and growing, and we realized early on that we needed our technology to be as flexible as the ingredients on our menu. We’re growing quickly - we’re opening two new markets this year - and we need technology that can grow with us.

We change our menu every month to highlight seasonal ingredients and keep things fresh. Our customers are generally curious about what they’re eating and what farm the ingredients come from, so we send talking points to the store managers. Google Sheets and Docs make this all happen for us. We have a running spreadsheet with the local ingredients and plan out each month in advance. The spreadsheet is then turned into a newsletter, and the great thing about Google is throughout that process every group has a chance to jump in and contribute. Once it’s completed, we send the newsletter out to our stores.

We also use Google Drive, which allows us to collaborate between departments. Marketing, Finance and HR can all look at one document at the same time, add their thoughts, and keep track of the changes each person makes along the way with revision history. It makes transparent communication easy, especially when we’re moving really fast (which is always).

Five years after the first seed was planted for this idea, we have more than 400 employees and 17 restaurants in four cities. At Sweetgreen, we believe in creating experiences that go beyond the transaction, and Google Apps has helped make that possible.

To learn more about Google Apps, visit our SADA Systems Asia website

18 New Languages for Drive, Docs, Sheets, and Slides

Posted by Ian Hill, Project Manager, Google Localization 

(Cross-posted on the Google Drive Blog.)

Google Drive lets you store and access your files anywhere -- on the web, your computer, your phone, or on the go. Whether you’re presenting slides in a boardroom in São Paulo or negotiating a Japanese contract in Tokyo, Google Drive speaks your language: 65 of them, to be exact, with the addition of 18 new ones today:

Afrikaans, Amharic, Basque, Chinese (Hong Kong), Estonian, French (Canada), Galician, Icelandic, Khmer, Lao, Malaysian, Nepali, Persian, Sinhalese, Spanish (Latin America), Swahili, Urdu, Zulu

You can switch back and forth as often as you like, and many of these languages are also supported by Drive’s spellchecker.

Love to collaborate? No matter which Drive app you’re using -- Docs, Sheets, Slides, Forms -- you can work in real time in any language you choose while your fellow collaborators use another language.

To try Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides in another language, you can switch by:

1. Clicking the gear icon in the upper right, then select Settings. 
2.  Under General, select a language from the drop-down menu in the Language section. 
3. Click Save. You’re done!

To change the language for Google Drive for mobile, go to your device’s language settings. If you don’t yet have Drive for mobile, you can visit the Google Play or Apple App Store to get the Google Drive app.

To learn more, visit SADA Systems Asia Website and find out more about Google Apps