How would you improve Google forms?

Since launching Google Docs forms last year, we’ve enjoyed seeing people use them for everything from wedding guest lists and party invites to surveys and scorekeeping for Oscar parties. We’re hard at work improving this feature, and we want to know more about what you think.

We recently added a new section specifically for forms to our Product Ideas for Google Docs page. Head over and tell us what you think we should do to make forms better, and see what others have to say as well. If you come across other ideas you like, vote them up.

Don’t forget, we’re still looking for feedback about documents, spreadsheets, and presentations too. We’ve already implemented six of your ideas, including shared folders, a web clipboard for better cutting and pasting between applications, and an increase in file size limits for uploads to your Docs List.

We look forward to hearing what you have to say, and stay tuned for more updates on implemented ideas.

Posted by: Ethan Ambabo, Product Ideas Lead

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Update on planning your wedding with Google Docs

Last month, we launched a series of Google Docs templates that make it easier to plan your wedding. To infuse these templates with helpful tips, we teamed up with Style Me Pretty.

Over the past month, over 25,000 templates have been used by wedding couples and the number keeps growing. To celebrate our collaboration, Style Me Pretty held a month long sweepstakes with the winner receiving a free consultation with celebrity event planner Michelle Rago and a $500 gift certificate to Wedding Paper Divas. On Tuesday, they announced the randomly selected winner, Janel, who submitted this as her biggest challenge planning a wedding:

"My wedding challenge is finding a balance between what we can fit in our budget, and what I obsess over in wedding magazines! I keep reminding myself that this day should reflect my fiance and I, and not pretty wedding magazines."

To learn more about planning your wedding with Google Docs, check out docs.google.com/wedding.

Posted by: Peter Harbison, Product Marketing Manager

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Template highlight: 2010 College Basketball Tournament Bracket

The first round of the 2010 NCAA Division I men's college basketball tournament is starting and in celebration, the Google Docs team has brought back the College Basketball Tournament bracket template for 2010. This template is powered by the GoogleTournament function which John Danaher created last year in his 20% time.

Since you can add collaborators to your spreadsheet, it's easy to engage in some friendly rivalry right within the spreadsheet. Like last year, the template includes 10 blank brackets that each of your friends can fill out. No need to print out and fill-in blank paper brackets. There's one sheet that shows whose picks are the best. You can even customize the point values for each game if you want using points sheet.

Other Google teams are getting into the basketball spirit. From an iGoogle gadget, to live scores, to a Google Earth plugin, there is something for every basketball fan at google.com/collegebasketball2010.

Posted by: Peter Harbison, Product Marketing Manager

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​Apps Script Gallery for Google spreadsheets

​Every week, the Google Apps gang here in New York organizes a movie night. It’s always a lot of fun, but organizing it is chaotic! Naturally, we use a spreadsheet to keep a list of movies we’d like to see (that’s the easy part!), and then on Tuesday evening there’s a storm of email as we try to pick a winner.

Always fans of logic and the democratic process, the team wrote a script — to first collate a list of movie showtimes, then invite everyone to vote. The script automates the process, eliminating the drudgery and leaving us more time to canvas and cajole support for our favorite films.

Google Apps Script has been available to businesses, schools and other organizations using Google Apps since January, and today we’re excited to bring it to all Google spreadsheets, along with a new Apps Script Gallery that let’s everyone — not just those who are JavaScript-savvy — reap the benefits of Apps Script. You can see just how easy it is to make use of a script in the video below:
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To kick things off in the gallery, we put together some wacky demos showing what’s possible with a script: you’ll find games of hangman and sudoku, some fractal art and a very practical unit conversion script.
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You can find these scripts, and more, in the Apps Script gallery by going to Insert and then selecting Script... in any Google spreadsheet.



For more details on the Movie Night script, and to get started writing your own scripts, be sure to check out today’s Google Apps Script announcement on the Google Apps Developer Blog.

Posted by: Evin Levey, Product Manager, Google Apps

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Hosting a viewing party for the OSCARS®

Last year, I planned an OSCARS® viewing party with my friends. To add some friendly competition and figure out who was coming, I collected people's predictions for the winners and their RSVP information with a Google form ahead of time. I found the process really easy, so this year I created a Google form for the 2010 OSCARS® and made it a template that anyone can use to plan their own viewing parties:


If you're getting together with friends for OSCAR NIGHT® tomorrow, check out this template in the Google Docs Template Gallery. Happy viewing!

Posted by: Natalie Schwartz, Google Creative Lab

“OSCAR®,” “OSCARS®,” “ACADEMY AWARD®,” “ACADEMY AWARDS®,” “OSCAR NIGHT®,” “A.M.P.A.S.®” and the “Oscar” design mark are trademarks of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science.

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Google Docs welcomes DocVerse

(Cross-posted from the Google Enterprise Blog)

The future of productivity applications is in the cloud. We've always believed the web is the best platform for creating and sharing information, and Google Docs has already helped millions of people become more productive. But we recognize that many people are still accustomed to desktop software. So as we continue to improve Google Docs and Google Sites as rich collaboration tools, we’re also making it easier for people to transition to the cloud, and interoperate with desktop applications like Microsoft Office.
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For example, we recently made it possible to use Google Docs to store and share any type of file that you have on your computer, not just the ones you create online. Today we’re excited to announce another step towards seamless interoperability: we have acquired DocVerse.

DocVerse is a small, nimble team of talented developers who share our vision, and they’ve enabled true collaboration right within Microsoft Office. With DocVerse, people can begin to experience some of the benefits of web-based collaboration using the traditional Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint desktop applications.

A huge "welcome" to the DocVerse team and their customers! Current DocVerse users can keep using the product as usual, though we’ve suspended new sign-ups until we’re ready to share what's next. Stay tuned!

Posted by: Jonathan Rochelle, Group Product Manager

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​Working on a more collaborative writing process with Apps Edu

Cross posted on the Google Enterprise Blog

​While feedback and revision are crucial steps to successful writing, it’s not always easy to do in practice. Keeping track of revisions, deciphering edits, and arranging reviews can keep us from repeating this editing cycle more often.

The collaborative nature of Google Apps can help evolve the writing process with easy sharing and anytime, anywhere collaboration. Add in built-in reference tools, autosave and revision history, and ready-made templates, and Google Docs – part of the Google Apps suite – becomes a powerful platform for writing.

We’ve developed our first Google Apps Topic Review to highlight some of these features and stories from teachers in the classroom, and we shared and revised this paper using the same principles of collaboration.

If you’re attending this year’s ASCD conference (held from March 6-8 in San Antonio, Texas) we’ll be featuring presentations from Google Certified Teachers, Google Apps Education Edition customers, and Google Apps Education team members about other ways Google Apps can help in the classroom. View our teaching theater schedule and stop by to visit us in Booth #626.

For more information about how to start using Google Apps Education Edition at your school, visit www.google.com/a/edu.

Posted by: ​​Dana Nguyen, Google Apps Education team

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