Originally posted to the Google Apps Developer blog

Posted by Edward Jones, Software Engineer, Google Apps Script and Wesley Chun, Developer Advocate, Google Apps

Have you ever wanted a server API that modifies cells in a Google Sheet, to execute a Google Apps Script app from outside of Google Apps, or a way to use Apps Script as an API platform? Today, we’re excited to announce you can do all that and more with the Google Apps Script Execution API.

The Execution API allows developers to execute scripts from any client (browser, server, mobile, or any device). You provide the authorization, and the Execution API will run your script. If you’re new to Apps Script, it’s simply JavaScript code hosted in the cloud that can access authorized Google Apps data using the same technology that powers add-ons. The Execution API extends the ability to execute Apps Script code and unlocks the power of Docs, Sheets, Forms, and other supported services for developers.

One of our launch partners, Pear Deck, used the new API to create an interactive presentation tool that connects students to teachers by converting slide decks into interactive experiences. Their app calls the Execution API to automatically generate a Google Doc customized for each student, so everyone gets a personalized set of notes from the presentation. Without the use of Apps Script, their app would be limited to using PDFs and other static file types. Check out the video below to see how it works.

Bruce McPherson, a Google Developer Expert (GDE) for Google Apps, says: “The Execution API is a great tool for enabling what I call ‘incremental transition’ from Microsoft Office (and VBA) to Apps (and Apps Script). A mature Office workflow may involve a number of processes currently orchestrated by VBA, with data in various formats and locations. It can be a challenge to move an entire workload in one step, especially an automated process with many moving parts. This new capability enables the migration of data and process in manageable chunks.” You can find some of Bruce’s sample migration code using the Execution API here.

The Google Apps Script Execution API is live and ready for you to use today. To get started, check out the developer documentation and quickstarts. We invite you to show us what you build with the Execution API!

By Dan Lazin, Google Apps Team

Cross-posted from the Google Apps Developer blog

We've just announced Google Docs and Sheets add-ons — new tools created by developers like you that give Google users even more features in their documents and spreadsheets. Joining the launch are more than 50 add-ons that partners have built using Apps Script. Now, we're opening up the platform in a developer-preview phase. If you have a cool idea for Docs and Sheets users, we'd love to publish your code in the add-on store and get it in front of millions of users.

To browse through add-ons for Docs and Sheets, select Get add-ons in the Add-ons menu of any document or spreadsheet. (Add-ons for spreadsheets are only available in the new Google Sheets).

Under the hood

Docs and Sheets add-ons are powered by Google Apps Script, a server-side JavaScript platform that requires zero setup. Even though add-ons are in developer preview right now, the tools and APIs are available to everyone. The only restriction is on final publication to the store.

Once you have a great working prototype in Docs or Sheets, please apply to publish. Scripts that are distributed as add-ons gain a host of benefits:

• Better discovery: Apps Script has long been popular among programmers and other power users, but difficult for non-technical users to find and install. Add-ons let you distribute your code through a polished storefront—as well as direct links and even Google search results.
• Sharing: When two people collaborate on a document and one of them uses an add-on, it appears in the Add-ons menu for both to see. Similarly, once you get an add-on from the store, it appears in the menu in every document you create or open, although your collaborators will only see it in documents where you use it. For more info on this sharing model, see the guide to the add-on authorization lifecycle.
• Automatic updates: When you republish an add-on, the update pushes out automatically to all your users. There's no more hounding people to switch to the latest version.
• Share functionality without sharing code: Unlike regular Apps Script projects, add-ons don't expose your source code for all to see. That's reassuring both to less-technical users and to the keepers of your codebase's secrets.
• Enterprise features: If your company has its own Google Apps domain, you can publish add-ons restricted just to your employees. This private distribution channel is a great way for organizations that run on Google Apps to solve their own unique problems.

Beautiful, professional appearance

Thanks to hard work from our developer partners, the add-ons in the store look and feel just like native features of Google Docs and Sheets. We're providing a couple of new resources to help all developers achieve the same visual quality: a CSS package that applies standard Google styling to typography, buttons, and other form elements, and a UI style guide that provides great guidance on designing a Googley user experience.

A replacement for the script gallery

Add-ons are available in the new version of Google Sheets as a replacement for the older version's script gallery. If you have a popular script in the old gallery, now's a great time to upgrade it to newer technology.

We can't wait to see the new uses you'll dream up for add-ons, and we're looking forward to your feedback on Google+ and questions on Stack Overflow. Better yet, if you're free at noon Eastern time this Friday, join us live on YouTube for a special add-on-centric episode of Apps Unscripted.

Dan is a technical writer on the Developer Relations team for Google Apps Script. Before joining Google, he worked as video-game designer and newspaper reporter. He has bicycled through 17 countries.

Posted by Louis Gray, Googler

by Mike Procopio, Software Engineer, on behalf of the Google Drive SDK team

In April, we announced the first version of the Google Drive SDK along with a range of Drive apps. Built using the SDK, these apps bring life to the files people store in Google Drive. Today at Google I/O, we're announcing the next version of the Google Drive SDK with a number of updates including an expanded API, a simplified developer experience and mobile app support.

The new Drive API exposes all standard file operations as well as methods to list and search files, convert between formats, copy files, manage revisions, and share files with users. The API is based on open standards, including a RESTful service architecture, JSON data exchange format, and OAuth2 for authorization. And with a simplified design and drop-in client libraries available in eight languages, using the API has never been easier.

Users want to access their files in Drive from anywhere. Today, we're announcing full mobile support for Android and iOS apps using the Drive SDK. Mobile apps can securely use the Drive API to read and write files directly to Google Drive. Users can also "Open with" on mobile devices to view or edit content from their phone or tablet just like they do on the web. (Installation of apps via the Chrome Web Store is no longer required.)

We also introduced several new features for Drive apps for the web. Google Drive makes it easy to share files, and we’re bringing sharing to your apps with the familiar Drive sharing box. With just a few lines of JavaScript added to your app, users can share their files with the new embeddable sharing component. Also, users can now open Google document formats in any app that supports one of the many export formats available. For example, an app that faxes PDFs can now fax a Google document, spreadsheet, or presentation directly.

Finally, there are a handful of great new Drive apps that will soon join the many apps already available today. These new apps range from mobile photo editors for cropping photos on your phone to a web-based IDE for slingin' code in the cloud.

Want to make your application work with Google Drive? Full documentation on the Google Drive SDK is available at developers.google.com/drive, or if you're itching to start building, head to our Getting Started guide. Our team is on Stack Overflow to answer any questions you have when integrating your app with Google Drive.


Mike Procopio is a Software Engineer for Google Drive, focusing on all things Drive apps. He gets to leverage his passion for the developer and user experience by working on the next-generation APIs that help unleash Google Drive. Before joining Google in 2010, he was a machine learning researcher, and enjoys engaging in illuminating statistical discussions at every opportunity.

Posted by Scott Knaster, Editor

By Mike Procopio, Software Engineer

Today, we're announcing Google Drive—a place where people can create, share, collaborate and keep all of their stuff. Drive is a natural step in the evolution of Google Docs. Drive is built to work seamlessly with other Google applications like Google+, Docs and Gmail, and your app can too. Joining the launch today are 18 web apps that have integrated with Drive using the Google Drive SDK.


Integrating your application with Google Drive makes it available to millions of users. Drive apps are distributed from the Chrome Web Store, and can be used with any modern browser. Plus, your app can take advantage of Google's sharing, storage, and identity management features.



Create and collaborate

Google Drive allows for more than storage. Google Docs is built right into Drive, and your app can join the party. For example, Lucidchart is an online visual diagramming tool integrated with Google Drive. You can start a new Lucidchart or share your diagrams with friends or coworkers straight from Drive, just like a Google document or spreadsheet.

Store everything safely and access it everywhere

With Google Drive you can store all of your files and access them from anywhere. For example, MindMeister, an app for creating mind maps online, also lets you open files from popular desktop mind mapping applications. By integrating with Google Drive, MindMeister users can open their mind maps stored in Drive from any modern browser.

Search everything

Your app can also take advantage of Drive's storage, indexing, and document viewers. For example, HelloFax is a web application that lets you sign and fax documents from your browser. HelloFax users can now store all their inbound and outbound faxes in Google Drive, making them easy to find later. Plus, with automatic OCR, users can even search and find text in faxed images. Your application can store files of any type up to 10 GB in size or create file-like shortcuts to your application's data.

Want your application to work with Google Drive? Full documentation on the Google Drive SDK is available at developers.google.com/drive, or if you're itching to start building, head to our Getting Started guide. Our team will be on Stack Overflow to answer any questions you have when integrating your app with Google Drive. You can also bring your questions to our Hangout this Thursday at 10:30 AM PDT / 17:30 UTC.

Look for more posts about working with the Drive SDK on the Google Apps Developer Blog in the coming weeks.


Mike Procopio is a Software Engineer for Google Drive, focusing on all things Drive apps. He gets to leverage his passion for the developer and user experience by working on the next-generation APIs that help unleash Google Drive. Before joining Google in 2010, he was a machine learning researcher, and enjoys engaging in illuminating statistical discussions at every opportunity.

Posted by Scott Knaster, Editor

By Scott Knaster, Google Code Blog Editor

This is the last Fridaygram of 2011, and like most everybody else, we’re in a reflective mood. It’s also the 208th post on Google Code Blog this year, which means we’ve averaged more than one post every two days, so that’s plenty of stuff for you to read. What did we write about?

At Google, we love to launch. Many of our posts were about new APIs and client libraries. We also posted a bunch of times about HTML5 and Chrome and about making the web faster. And we posted about Android, Google+, and Google Apps developer news.

Many of our 2011 posts were about the steady progress of App Engine, Cloud Storage, and other cloud topics for developers. We also published several times about commerce and in-app payments.

2011 was a stellar year for Google I/O and other developer events around the world. Some of our most popular posts provided announcements, details, and recaps of these events. And we welcomed a couple dozen guest posts during Google I/O from developers with cool stories to tell.

The two most popular Code Blog posts of the year were both launches: the Dart preview in October, and the Swiffy launch in June.

Last, and surely least, I posted 26 Fridaygrams in an attempt to amuse and enlighten you. Thank you for reading those, and thanks for dropping by and reading all the posts we’ve thrown your way this year. See you in 2012!

And finally, please enjoy one more Easter egg.

By Marc Cohen, Developer Relations

This holiday season, the Google Prediction API Team is bringing you four presents and, thanks to the joys of cloud computing, no reindeer are required for delivery. Here’s what you’ve already received:

• Faster on-ramp: We’ve made it easier to get started by enabling you to create an empty model (by sending a trainedmodels.insert request with no storageDataLocation specified) and add training data using the trainedmodels.update method. This change allows you to submit your model contents without needing to stage the data in Google Cloud Storage.
• Improved updates: The algorithms used to implement model updates (adding additional data to existing models) have been modified to work faster than ever.
• More classification algorithms: We’ve increased the number of classification algorithms used to build predictive models, resulting in across-the-board improvements in accuracy.
• Integration with Google Apps Script: Prediction services are now available as part of Google Apps Script, which means you can integrate prediction services with Google Docs, Google Maps, Gmail, and other great Google products.

All of the above enhancements are supported by the current Prediction API version 1.4 so you can enjoy these features using the existing client libraries.

Happy Holidays from the Google Prediction API Team. We’re looking forward to bringing you more exciting features in 2012!


Marc Cohen is a member of Google’s Developer Relations Team in Seattle. When not teaching Python programming and listening to indie rock music, he enjoys using the Google Prediction API to peer into the future.

Posted by Scott Knaster, Editor

By Silvano Luciani, Developer Programs Engineer, AdSense API Team

Starting today, the AdSense Management API is available as part of AdSense Services in Google Apps Script. This means that you’ll be able to automate your AdSense reporting across Google products using a JavaScript cloud scripting language to do things like:

• Create AdSense performance reports for your AdSense accounts in a Google spreadsheet.
• Create a chart based on your AdSense reporting data and display it in a Google spreadsheet.
• Embed your scripts in a Google Sites page, for instance to import a chart.
• Use triggers to schedule the execution of your scripts, for instance to periodically update the chart imported in the Google Sites page.

You can start using the service by checking out the reference documentation, which also contains some sample scripts, and by reading this tutorial, which implements the use cases mentioned above.


Based in London, Silvano Luciani joined Google in 2011 to make the AdSense API developers happier people. Before that, he has worked in Finland, Italy, Spain and the UK, writing web based configuration management tools for ISPs, social networks, web based training materials, e-commerce apps and more. He has recently discovered that he loves charts, and has finally started to play the drums in the London’s office music room. If you can call what he does "playing the drums".

Posted by Scott Knaster, Editor

Jacob

Gustavo

By Jacob Moshenko and Gustavo Moura, Software Engineers

In January of this year we launched BigQuery integration with Google Apps Script. What we didn’t mention was that we were building this on top of our Google APIs Discovery Service. Thanks to the ease and flexibility of writing clients based on this API, today we’re announcing integration with three more APIs, and revamping our BigQuery support.

As of now, we have also integrated the Tasks API, Prediction API, and URL Shortener API in addition to the BigQuery API. You can now include these APIs in your scripts, apps, and sites pages. As with other Apps Script services, we handle all of the server communications as well as authorization, which makes this a great way to build mashups and workflows using our APIs.

To get started, simply enable the APIs you’re interested in from the "Use Google API services" menu in the script editor.


Using this feature will prompt you to save your script. Once you have done so, the Google APIs Services dialog will appear and you can choose which APIs to use, which versions to use, and what name to use when referencing them from your scripts.


After you complete this step, the API methods will be automatically populated as you type using the standard Apps Script autocomplete mechanism. For detailed information about each API, visit our reference documentation. We have also created a tutorial with a simple, fun application to help you get started using scripts.

As we iron out this new technology and listen to your feedback we plan to aggressively integrate even more APIs. If you have any questions or experience any problems let us know on our support forum.

Jacob Moshenko is a Software Engineer working on the Google APIs developer experience. He believes that Google APIs should be easy to use, especially from Google platforms.

Gustavo Moura has been a Software Engineer at Google since 2007. He has been part of the Google Docs team since 2009. Prior to that, he worked on AdWords.

Posted by Scott Knaster, Editor

By Saurabh Gupta, Developer Relations

Cross-posted from the Google Enterprise Blog

Google Apps Script lets you automate and extend Google Apps. Using Apps Script, businesses can build efficient solutions to meet their requirements such as:

• Content Approval Workflow
• Vacation calendar management system
• Helpdesk Workflow
• Time Booking system

Join us on August 18th for the Google Apps Script Hackathon. If your organization uses Google Apps and you want to explore how you can use Google Apps Script to create custom functions or automate repetitive tasks, then this hackathon is a perfect opportunity to learn. Google engineers will be available to answer your questions and help you learn Apps Script throughout the day’s agenda. We’ll provide food, refreshments, and experts to help you learn to use Apps Script and write your own scripts. Just bring your laptop, ideas, and enthusiasm to complete the mix. We hope to see you there!

What: Apps Script Hackathon
Date: Thursday, August 18th, 2011
Time: 2pm to 7pm EST
Where: 76 9th Avenue, New York, NY
Register: Space is limited, register here.
Posted by Scott Knaster, Editor

Today we're introducing the Google Apps extensions console, a new tool to help IT departments and in-house applications developers integrate with Google Apps.

In-house developers can now access the same Google Apps extension points first introduced in the Google Apps Marketplace. Applications can create links in the navigation bar (alongside “Calendar” and “Documents”), share a single sign-on with Google accounts, and run inside Gmail using rich contextual gadgets.

The extensions console helps in-house developers create new projects, manage team permissions, retrieve OAuth credentials, and upload their application manifest. Once the app is ready to deploy, administrators can install the app to their domain control panel for wider release.

You can get started with the console documentation to learn more.

Andrew Wansley, Google Developer Team

One of the things we enjoy most at Google is working with talented developers around the world, whether Googlers at one of our many global offices or developers using our APIs to build great products. With today’s App Tuesday we’re excited to introduce some new apps to the Google Apps Marketplace with roots outside the United States.

Brightpearl joins us from the United Kingdom
SprinxCRM is from the Czech Republic
Producteev’s founders hail from France
Clio calls Canada home

With the addition of these apps, Google Apps customers now have easy access to apps from 25 countries outside the United States, including Australia, Germany, India, Russia, Singapore and more. While the initial version of the Google Apps Marketplace Billing API will only be available to US sellers, we want all developers to be able to integrate with Google Apps and sell their business-focused web apps on the Apps Marketplace. Because of this, we recently modified our revenue sharing exemption period to last until 3 months after the release of the Marketplace Billing APIs for a country where you are located. So, if you would like to build an app for the Google Apps Marketplace, Get Started now.

Don’t forget our first ever G-Days in Egypt and Jordan are coming up soon, as our our Google Developer Days and Dev Fests in São Paulo, Buenos Aries, Munich, Prague, and Moscow. If you’re attending those events, please stop by and introduce yourself to members of the Google Apps Marketplace team and tell us about the exciting apps you’re building!

By Steve Bazyl, Google Apps Marketplace Team

Cross-posted from the Google Enterprise Blog

Google Apps is designed to provide a secure and reliable platform for your data. Until today, Google Apps administrators had to sign requests for calls to Google Apps APIs using their username and password (this is called ClientLogin Authorization).

Yet sharing passwords across sites can pose security risks. Furthering our commitment to make the cloud more secure for our users, today we are pleased to announce support for OAuth authorization on Google Apps APIs.

There are several advantages to using OAuth instead of the username/password model:

• OAuth is more secure: OAuth tokens can be scoped and set to expire by a certain date, making them more secure than using the ClientLogin mechanism.
• OAuth is customizable: Using OAuth, you can create tokens that scripts may only use to access data of a particular scope when calling Google Apps APIs. For instance, a token set to call the Email Migration API would not be able to use your login credentials to access the Google Apps Provisioning API.
• OAuth is an open standard: OAuth is an open source standard, making it a familiar choice for developers to work with.

The Google Apps APIs that support the OAuth signing mechanism are:

1. Provisioning API
2. Email Migration API
3. Admin Settings API
4. Calendar Resource API
5. Email Settings API
6. Audit API

OAuth support for Google Apps APIs is another step towards making Google Apps the most secure, reliable cloud based computing environment for organizations. To learn more about OAuth support and other administrative capacities launched in Google Apps this quarter, join us for a live webinar on Wednesday, September 29th at 9am PT / 12pm EST / 5pm GMT.

Administrators for Google Apps Premier, Education, and Government Editions can use OAuth authorization for Google Apps APIs starting today.For more information about the OAuth standard, visit http://oauth.net.

By Ankur Jain, Google Apps Team

Google Apps Script is a JavaScript cloud scripting language that provides easy ways to automate tasks across Google products and third party services. If you want to learn more about Google Apps Script and meet the Apps Script team, here’s your chance! We will be holding an Apps Script hackathon in Mountain View, CA on Thursday, September 23 from 2pm - 8pm.

After we cover the basics of Apps Script, you can code along with us as we build a complete script, or you can bring your own ideas and get some help and guidance from the team. There will be food, power, and Apps Script experts available to help throughout the day. Just bring your laptop, ideas, enthusiasm, and basic knowledge of JavaScript. Check out out the details of the event and be sure to RSVP to let us know you’re coming!

By Jan Kleinert, Google Developer Programs

Gmail, Calendar, Docs, Sites and all Google Apps were designed as cloud-based services from day one.  Google’s web-centric approach allows any application to work seamlessly on any device with a browser, allowing users to work when, where, and how they want. No more need for constant upgrades, security patches and bug fixes required by client based software.

Given the first step to the cloud for many businesses and schools is Gmail, the Google Apps Marketplace aims to make it easier for organizations that have “gone Google” to take the next step and take fuller advantage of the cloud by running even more of their infrastructure on cloud-based apps, from hundreds of software companies.

These software companies agree the web-centric approach is the way to go, and are building their applications on web-based architectures and open standards like OpenID for Single Sign-On and OAuth for data access.  Marketplace developers build their applications using the technologies and hosting platform they prefer.  Want to build using Java?  Great.  Ruby or PHP?  Fine with us.  .NET?  Sure, the Marketplace supports that too.  These apps are then hosted on developers’ own servers, on Amazon EC2, on Google’s App Engine, or on any other cloud hosting service.  As developers, they don’t need to worry about proprietary tools, vendor lock-in, or proprietary cloud architecture lock-in, and as Google Apps customers, you’ll even find apps that compete with Google products such as SlideRocket presentations and Zoho CRM, giving you the maximum possible choice.

The key advantage of Marketplace apps, however, is their integration with Google Apps.  All installable Marketplace apps feature single sign-on with Google Apps, and most go beyond that to incorporate specific features that help you accomplish everyday tasks more easily in combination with Google’s applications.  Here is a tiny sampling of Marketplace apps that integrate with various Google Apps:

Gmail -- Manymoon is an online project management tool that make it easy to turn emails from team mates or customers directly into tasks in your projects.  Kwaga Context and Awayfind are two productivity apps that help you manage your conversations directly in your Gmail inbox, helping keep you more productive.

Spreadsheets -- Sliderocket let’s you connect media-rich presentations to live data in Google Spreadsheets, so your presentation always display the most up to date charts and graphs, and    Smartsheet let’s you extend Google Spreadsheets with Gantt tracking and customer management features to empower your sales teams.

Calendar -- Tungle.me and Timebridge are meeting management tools that make it easier to set up and conduct meetings with partners and customers who use different calendaring systems.

Sites -- RunMyProcess let’s you embed custom business process workflows into Google Sites, so each part of an organization can more easily access business process that effect their daily work.

Talk -- Atlassian integrates Jira Studio with Google Talk, so your software development team can stay up to date with the latest build status and team conversations from within Jira Studio, all in real time.

There are hundreds more business applications available on the Marketplace for every aspect of your business.  Find CRM apps, Admin tools, Document Management apps, Productivity apps, and many more.

Every week more cloud-based business applications are added. If you can’t find an app you want please post a suggestion.

By Don Doge, Google Apps Team

Today we’re releasing videos from the Tech Talks and Fireside Chats at I/O 2010. A look back on each track:

Tech Talks:

From new programming languages to venture capital to 5-minute lightning talks, the Tech Talks track at I/O was a veritable potpourri of geeky goodness.

You can find videos and slides for the Tech Talks on the linked session titles below:

• Go programming - The Go programming language was released as an open source project in late 2009. Rob Pike and Russ Cox discussed how programming in Go differs from other languages.


• Opening up Closure Library - Closure Library is the open-source JavaScript library behind some of Google's big web apps like Gmail and Google Docs. Nathan Naze talked about the library, its design, and how to integrate it in with your setup.


• Optimize every bit of your site serving & web pages with Page Speed - Richard Rabbat and Bryan McQuade talked about Page Speed, an open-source Firefox/Firebug Add-on which allows web developers to evaluate and improve the performance of their web pages.


• SEO site advice from the experts - Matt Cutts, Greg Grothaus, Tiffany Lane, and Vanessa Fox offered SEO feedback on a number of actual websites submitted by the audience.


• Beyond design: Creating positive user experiences - John Zeratsky and Matt Shobe shared their tips on how to keep users coming back to your applications through a positive user experience.


• How to lose friends and alienate people: The joys of engineering leadership - Brian Fitzpatrick and Ben Collins-Sussman regaled the audience with tips on how to lead vs. manage.


• Ignite Google I/O - Brady Forrest and Ignite returned to I/O with an awesome line-up of speakers - Ben Huh, Matt Harding, Clay Johnson, Bradley Vickers, Aaron Koblin, Michael Van Riper, Anne Veling, and James Young.


• Technology, innovation, computer science, & more: A VC panel - This year was the first time that we had investors/VCs speaking at I/O. Albert Wenger, Chris Dixon, Dave McClure, Paul Graham, Brad Feld, and Dick Costolo (moderator) debated hot tech topics including betting on start-ups with non-technical founders and open vs closed platforms.
  

The Tech Talk videos are also available in this YouTube playlist.


Fireside Chats:

In the 9 fireside chats at I/O this year, Google teams were eager to talk about the latest ongoings with their respective product areas, as well as spend most of the time on audience Q&A.

This year, we decided to record fireside chats because we know how popular they are not just with I/O attendees, but everyone interested in hearing from the engineers behind our products. You can find videos for the fireside chats below:

• Android Team


• Android Handset Manufacturers


• App Engine Team


• Google Chrome Team


• Enterprise Team


• Geo Team


• GWT Team


• Social Web Team


• Google Wave Team

These videos can also be found in this Fireside Chats YouTube playlist or the YouTube playlist for each session track. (ex. the two Android Fireside Chats are also in the Android playlist)

On Monday, we’ll be posting the last batch of I/O videos from the Geo, Google APIs, and Google Wave tracks. Stay tuned!

Posted by Christine Tsai, Google I/O Team

A couple weeks ago I was up in Seattle talking about the Google Apps Marketplace with local SaaS companies. I was happy to be joined by Smartsheet, Concur and Skytap and even more excited when they all talked about their success on the Marketplace.

We’ve invited Smartsheet to talk about their success on the Google Apps Developer Blog and their founder, Brent Frei, has written an excellent post which I hope you’ll all take the time to read. He talks about how they decided to launch on the Marketplace, their technical evaluation, development process and the results they’ve achieved.

Here’s a graph that tells much of the story-- it shows their new customer leads (excluding pay-per-click-ads):

At Campfire One this week we announced that we will soon open Gmail contextual gadgets as a new extension point for developers. These gadgets can smartly draw information from the web and let users perform relevant actions based on the content of an email message, all without leaving the Gmail inbox. For instance, contextual gadgets currently available in Gmail can detect links in emails to show previews of documents, videos, photos, and more, right inside the messages.

For businesses, Gmail contextual gadgets can boost employee productivity by complementing email in a context-specific and actionable way. Appirio, a cloud solution provider, provided a demonstration of the potential of Gmail contextual gadgets and other experimental features
with their new product PS Connect:



Soon we’ll be opening Gmail contextual gadgets as an extension for trusted testing by developers. If you have a good idea for this type of gadget today, please fill out this form. And for those of you who will be attending Google I/O in May, be sure to check out our session on building Gmail contextual gadgets.

By Dong Chen, Gmail Contextual Gadgets team

We recently launched the Google Apps Developer Blog for developers interested in building applications that leverage Google Apps. This blog will cover topics of interest to Google Apps developers building applications on top of Google Apps, integrating with them or utilizing the APIs.

Don Dodge will be the editor and a frequent contributor to this new blog. Don is a Developer Advocate at Google helping developers build new applications on Google platforms and technologies. Don has been a startup evangelist at Microsoft and is also a veteran of five start-ups including Forte Software, AltaVista, Napster, Bowstreet, and Groove Networks.

You can follow the team's updates on Twitter, too – follow @googleappsdev – and, while you're at it, stay tuned to updates from the Google enterprise team at @googleatwork.

By Mike Marchak, Google developer team

As just announced over on the Enterprise blog, Google Docs now allows users to upload any type of file! Over the next couple of weeks we’ll be rolling out the same feature in the Documents List Data API. For now, uploading arbitrary files via the API will be restricted to Google Apps Premier domains. For starters, each user gets 1GB of storage with a maximum size of 250 MB per file.

Combined with the shared folders feature of Google Docs, we think this new feature is a great way to build collaborative applications for exchanging files with coworkers and external parties. No more email attachments!

In addition to arbitrary file upload, we’re launching several top features requested by developers:

• Copy a document - Make a duplicate of a document in a single call


• Publishing documents - Programmatically publish a document to the world.


• Change the owner of a document - While ACLs and sharing have been in the API for quite some time, you can now change the ‘owner’ of a document.


• Resumable uploads - Offers the ability to pause/resume an upload. It’s ideal for large file sizes.

Look for resumable upload support in the Java, Python, and Objective-C client libraries in the near future. As always, if you have any questions, please visit us in our new developer forum.

Issues resolved in this release: 72, 1040, 1675, 1260, 1741, 1127

By ​Eric Bidelman, Google Docs Team

A couple days ago, Google welcomed Don Dodge to our Developer Relations team, where he joins us as a Developer Advocate working with developers, startups, and other Google Apps partners. We're expecting Don to be a fantastic addition to our team. He's already a prominent voice in the developer community, well-known and highly-regarded among entrepreneurs, technologists, and the media.

In the TechCrunch post first announcing Don's availability, Michael Arrington wrote how Don, "makes a big effort to give young startups the attention they deserve. This is a guy who gives a heck of a lot more to the community than he ever takes back." This dedication to the community of developers and the businesses they build is one of the things that excites us the most about having Don on our team. These businesses have been central to Google's success over the years, so we already know that Don's attitude will fit right in with our efforts. Don has deep experience working in startups from his days at companies like AltaVista, Napster, and Groove Networks, and has always continued to maintain the connection and passion for that community since leaving their ranks to join Microsoft, and now Google. We are eager for Don to share his personal experience and professional insights with developers and small businesses integrating with Google Apps, and be an advocate for developers and partners inside the company.

Don already wrote about his first day on the job at Google. Tomorrow you can hear him speak on the Enterprise Cloud Summit Panel in New York City. You can follow Don on his personal blog, email him at dondodge at google.com, or follow @dondodge on Twitter.

By Michael Winton, Google Developer Relations