Google Apps Marketplace Customer Success Stories

Zoho Projects and Raw Engineering

2011-06-23T08:20:00.000-07:00

Learn how Raw Engineering used Zoho Projects to get the entire team on the same page through a convenient web-based application.

Customer
Raw engineering specializes in web and mobile application development, serving its clients with offices in San Francisco and in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India. The 35-person company is on a mission to solve the toughest web architecture and integration challenges. To that end, raw engineering has built its core development expertise in .NET, Java, PHP, Ruby on Rails, Mobile and related Web 2.0 and rich Internet application technologies. The company has built its reputation with highly qualified engineers, competitive rates and technical integrity.

Challenge
Raw engineering requires a collaborative project management solution for its application development projects. Up to 30 users working on 10 projects must be able to track bugs and quality assurance, among other tasks. In addition to a rich feature set, raw engineering developers want an application that is easy to use and integrates with third-party applications.

“We tried a lot of different applications before Zoho Projects. Applications like Unfuddle, Assembla and Basecamp were just harder to use and didn’t have all the features Zoho offered,” said Nishant Patel, CEO and founder of raw engineering. “Zoho Projects is the right fit. And the integration with Gmail – which lets us create bug entries directly from Gmail – was a big feature that sold the team. That integration helps keep the whole team organized and in sync.”

Solution
While raw engineering developers immediately recognized the value of the bug tracking, tasks, milestones, support, chat, and other Zoho Project features, the project wiki turned out to be an unexpected bonus. Company developers use the project wiki to maintain an internal knowledge base and to share documentation with clients. Questions and answers from the raw engineering user forums are also brought back into the wiki.

“Other products are good in specific areas, but they didn’t integrate as well with third-party apps like Gmail,” said Patel. “And they weren’t providing us with an end-to-end solution. From an admin perspective, it created a nightmare that had us managing three or four different web apps. Zoho Projects brought it all together for us in onesolution that’s really simple, fast, and responsive – easy to use and easy to administer.”

As a web application development shop, raw engineering almost exclusively uses web-based products and has used Zoho applications prior to Zoho Projects. Starting about five years ago, raw engineering users began adopting Zoho online applications, starting with productivity applications such as Zoho Writer, Zoho Sheet, and Zoho Show.

Results
“We’ve been following Zoho for a long time,” said Patel. “The world of cloud computing is something that we’re following very closely as something that raw engineering specializes in for our clients. So using Zoho Projects, an online tool, to help improve our company and improve our project management overall is a huge validation of Zoho and the online philosophy. As a team, we’re all using the same tool, and we’re all on the same page and on top of our projects.”

Manymoon and Caravan Interactive

2011-06-23T08:14:00.000-07:00

Learn how Caravan Interative, a mobile and web development company, uses Manymoon to reduce their project management overhead 15%

Customer
Caravan Interative was founded in 2009 by a group of like-minded entrepreneurs and industry-tested professionals and has rapidly grown into a multimedia, web, and mobile application development powerhouse. Caravan’s mission is to help their clients design and implement advanced applications using the latest web and mobile frameworks.

Vendor
Manymoon is the #1 social productivity application in the Google Apps Marketplace and is trusted by over 50,000 businesses. Manymoon makes it simple to share tasks, documents, events, and links with coworkers, customers, and partners. By seamlessly integrating with Google Apps, Manymoon helps organize and track projects so that anyone can efficiently collaborate and reduce email clutter. Manymoon is headquartered in San Francisco, California, and is proud to help thousands of businesses simplify their work life.

Challenge
Given Caravan’s ever-changing client base, project profiles, and development teams, Caravan traditionally developed unique project management plans on a per-project basis. That worked in the short term but quickly became exhaustive and mired in redundancy.

Solution
The two biggest factors for deciding to use Manymoon were its integration with Google Apps and its flexibility. With Manymoon, Caravan extended their existing cloud-based infrastructure (Google Apps, DropBox, and Salesforce.com) with a project management framework that’s flexible enough for small projects all the way up to large, multi-timezone projects in a consistent process model.
“The way we were organized [before using Manymoon] was like juggling chainsaws. Manymoon’s app just made it more efficient for us… it’s really the management app we needed in a cloud-based business environment.”
– Frank McDermott, Principle Owner/Senior Strategist, Caravan Interactive

Results
Manymoon lets Caravan choose a light-weight approach for simple projects and an encompassing, multi-phased approach for more complex projects without having to use different software. Caravan reported that being able to tie into their calendar, email and document management systems easily saves them 10-15% of their management overhead on projects where they would otherwise have duplication of efforts. With integrated time tracking and resource management, Caravan can easily find the daily status of team members without extraneous meetings.

In short, Manymoon makes it easier to plan, execute and track projects and lets Caravan focus on getting the job done with their clients.

“[Manymoon]’s pretty slick… When I have to layout a whole project or just a sprint for a development team, Manymoon makes it so much easier to plan, delegate and track work… It’s infinitely better than the 4 browser tabs for CRM, bug-tracking, docs, and timesheets that I used to need.”
– Adam Shackelford, Principle Owner/CTO, Caravan Interactive

For more information, watch this video from Manymoon or check out Manymoon from the Google Apps Marketplace

Anderson Sales Advantage & Zoho CRM

2011-06-23T08:07:00.000-07:00

Learn how Anderson Sales Advantage used ZohoCRM to easily manage clients and save hundreds annually.

Customer
Anderson Sales Advantage is a sales coaching and training company serving sole entrepreneurs, independents and small business owners that do not have dedicated sales teams. Based in Columbus, Ohio, the three-person company helps its clients develop the sales processes and systems that they need to be able to be successful.

Vendor
Zoho CRM empowers organizations with a complete customer relationship lifecycle management software for managing organization-wide Sales, Marketing,Customer Support & Service and Inventory Management in a single business system. Zoho CRM for Google Apps makes it easier for businesses to collaborate, communicate and share information, all in a single, centralized place. If the business is using Google apps, Google Mail can be synchronized and other information can be accessed from within Zoho CRM.

Challenge
When it comes to CRM systems, Anderson Sales Advantage is both a user and an advocate. Company owner Teddy Anderson has used CRM software for years, including Salesforce.com. Most of his clients, however, have no CRM experience. These clients weren’t just new to CRM software, they were also new to CRM as a fundamental business process to support pre- and post-sales activities.

“I needed a CRM system that would be easy to set up and easy to train my clients to use, so it had to be easy for them to understand,” said Anderson. “Zoho CRM hits all those points, and the price is great for an independent or a solo entrepreneur. I had been using Salesforce previously, and I found that Zoho CRM is very comparable. And the price is a lot better. The icing on the cake being the integration between Google Apps & Zoho CRM”

Solution
As both a user and promoter, Anderson appreciates the flexibility of Zoho CRM. The companies and individuals that turn to Anderson Sales Advantage all have different terminologies and ways to track their customers and prospects. The customization features of Zoho CRM make it easy for Anderson to fine tune the service to meet the unique demands of each of his clients.

“With Zoho CRM, my clients can invite me in and let me log in to their CRM accounts to help manage them and train them on how to use the CRM,” said Anderson.

Other features that Anderson Sales Advantage uses internally or sets up for his clients include leads, contacts, accounts, potentials and campaigns. Anderson also uses many of the reports and dashboards.

Result
Among other places, Zoho CRM has had a huge impact on the bottom line for Anderson Sales Advantage. “Zoho CRM is free for three users, so I haven’t had to spend money on the product,” said Anderson. “That’s saving me at least $500 per year compared to when I was using Salesforce. I’ve worked with ACT. I’ve tried some others, too, and there’s nothing out there that would make me switch from Zoho.”

Mavenlink and Moxie Marketing

2011-03-23T19:45:00.000-07:00

Learn how Moxie Marketing turned itself into a virtual agency, managing all work, communications, and business transactions through a web-based project management system.

Customer:
Moxie Marketing, located in Austin, TX, helps small businesses and service professionals realize their business dreams with simple, affordable, and effective marketing consulting and creative services. Placing an emphasis on strategy before tactics, they are powered by the Duct Tape Marketing System™, the world’s most practical small business marketing system. A certified Duct Tape Marketing consultant works one-on-one and in groups with small business owners to develop a systematic approach to marketing their business. Moxie Marketing equips them with tools, tactics and creative materials, including branding and advertising.

Vendor:
Mavenlink is the online workplace for today’s work force. Its Software as a Service platform is the single destination where organizations and service providers can collaborate seamlessly, conduct business productively, and build trusted networks. With integrations to Google Docs, Google Calendar, and Google Contacts, Google Apps users are able to leverage the benefits of this project management suite and extend their Google environment to meet more of their business needs.

Challenge:
Moxie Marketing employs two full-time employees, but manages a trusted network of marketing professionals, including graphic designers, copywriters, SEO and SEM professionals. Although this model allows the agency to reduce overhead and pass the savings on to clients, it creates logical hazards. They tested multiple project collaboration tools, but found the solutions too complicated and cumbersome. In addition, they were using multiple products to manage time tracking, expense tracking, and invoicing. As a Google Apps user, they also wanted to make sure whatever tool they used easily integrated with Google Apps, allowing for ease of use and a single sign-on.

Solution:
With Mavenlink, Moxie Marketing has turned itself into a virtual agency, building lasting customer relationships and establishing a network of providers that can be trusted to deliver great work. Moxie Marketing manages all work, communications, and business transactions through Mavenlink.

They invite clients and trusted subcontractors into Mavenlink project workspaces. With Google Apps integration, there was no need for contact uploads as everything was seamless.
They are able to track time and expenses for each project easily within the Mavenlink platform. All project due dates are automatically uploaded into the Google Calendar, reducing the need for multiple steps.
Invoicing now is simple. With one click, they can issue a professional dynamic invoice and tie the costs to project work, including line item breakdowns.

Results:
Since switching to Mavenlink, Moxie Marketing has increased efficiency and productivity in a powerful system that integrates seamlessly into its Google Apps environment. Rather than tracking through or losing email strings, all activity’s captured in one space. Clients have become more accountable and responsive to action items, and satisfaction has continued to rise. One of their clients recently commented, “When I first got what appeared to be an invitation to yet another ‘collaboration tool’, I wanted no part of it. Now that I’m in this system, I really like it.”

“Mavenlink has become an essential part of how we run our business."
- Rick L'Amie, President of Moxie Marketing

Smartsheet and Inventure Management

2011-03-23T17:05:00.000-07:00

Learn how Inventure Management uses Smartsheet and Google Apps for online project management and to fast-track development of foreign subsidiaries and sales channels for clients who want to break into the Brazilian oil and maritime sectors.

Customer
Inventure Management helps clients get to the Brazilian market faster and more efficiently by establishing, building and managing their subsidiaries in Brazil.

The Brazilian oil and maritime sectors are booming, and the government is increasing its pressure on international companies to establish a physical presence in Brazil. A lot of companies are setting up a subsidiaries in Brazil, and they quickly realize that the Brazilian business and legal environments are incredibly complex, with language and cultural barriers that further complicate the market entry.

“We [Inventure Management] are the leading company for the establishment and development of foreign ventures in the Brazilian oil and maritime sectors,” says Janis Majors, Project Manager at Inventure Management. “The bureaucracy is stifling, and foreign expats without the necessary knowledge of legislation and procedures routinely get stuck, spending the bulk of their expensive time on administrative issues instead of core business. It takes a dedicated team of professionals to get a Brazilian subsidiary to market in an operationally efficient manner. We are able to establish and develop subsidiaries a lot faster than most other companies, also because our clients have instant online access to operational and sales data through Google Apps and Smartsheet.”

Challenge
Establishing a subsidiary involves procedures, multiple parties, and lots of documentation. To ensure things are accurately executed in a timely manner, coordination and central access to status, files, and next steps is vital.

“Opening Brazilian subsidiaries is a long and arduous process which requires an in-depth knowledge of the specific protocols, procedures and players within the Brazilian market,” says Majors. “This is a new business model and we are growing fast so we need the tools to efficiently communicate and serve our clients. Our client portfolio is currently growing faster than our organization and we need tools that can ramp with us as we keep up with the business.”

Inventure also needed a CRM system that was easy to use both with internal staff and external partners and clients. “I was thrilled to discover that we had an alternative to Salesforce.com,” says Majors. “They are the 800 pound gorilla in the CRM market, but the learning curve is so steep, it takes a lot of time to learn and it’s very tough to change it once you have it set up. Smartsheet is flexible and requires no training for my clients. If you know how to use a spreadsheet, you know how to use Smartsheet.”

Solution
Inventure uses the full Google Apps Premier edition as well as Smartsheet for online project management and CRM. Specifically, Inventure uses Smartsheet to provide clients with an extranet where they can see all specifics of the day to day operations. Clients can review changes to the sales pipeline, meeting notes and make updates on daily tasks. The company’s intranet is built around Smartsheet embedded in Google Sites.

The Inventure Intranet: Smartsheet embedded in Google Sites

“We found Google Sites extremely easy to customize,” says Majors. “And with Smartsheet’s ability to embed directly into Google Sites, we have an impeccable online toolkit for client services, CRM and internal knowledge sharing.”

Inventure uses Smartsheet and Google Sites to manage:

Project Management - client-specific workspaces where the entire project team can participate
Document management - documents are housed within Smartsheet and accessible via Google Sites
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) - track client information, meetings, notes and offers
Task Management - daily action lists reduces the need for teleconferences Event Planning - tradeshow planning with set notifications and alerts Meeting Room Booking - customized, coordinated calendar with Google Sites

“What I like best about Google Apps and Smartsheet is that I don’t have to create an I.T. project to design new web tools,” says Majors. "Google Sites makes the site creation quick, easy and painless and with the ability to embed Smartsheet, I can easily offer clients access to everything they need.”

Results
Inventure is in the business of client service. With Google Apps and Smartsheet, Inventure is able to offer the best online tools to clients both in Brazil and abroad. As Inventure’s job is to streamline the development of subsidiaries, having a cohesive online toolkit to offer operational planning, project management and CRM has a direct impact on new business and client satisfaction.

“We tested more than 20 different tools for project management in the Google Apps Marketplace,” says Majors. “The combination of Smartsheet and Google Apps feels easy and cohesive. Once I started using the two together, I realized the flexibility of the combined tools would directly impact our ability to succeed on behalf of our clients.”

Sada Systems and Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks

2011-02-07T13:11:00.000-08:00

Learn how SADA helped state wildlife and parks department comply with cloud email storage regulations to fully utilize Google Apps

Customer
The Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks (KDWP) oversees 26 state parks and a variety of wildlife areas, nature centers, and state fishing lakes. The agency employs roughly 420 employees in six divisions: Executive Services, Administrative Services, Information Services, Fisheries and Wildlife, Law Enforcement, and Parks. The department supports multiple offices and remote employees such as natural resource officers, field biologists, various biological technicians and more who utilize mobile devices quite frequently.

Partner
SADA Systems, Inc. is a privately held information technology consulting, outsourcing, and development firm founded in 2000. SADA started as a Google partner for its search technology, and is proud to be one of the world's first 10 Google Apps partner, having participated in the Google Apps official launch campaign in February of 2007. SADA is highly experienced in Google Apps migration, implementation and deployment for the enterprise, education, non profit and government sector.

Challenge
KDWP had already been running a Google Apps test program for a few months and appreciated the collaboration and communication capabilities. The initial 45 test users were especially pleased with the availability of the cloud tool suite. Being able to access files from any web browser and the additional calendaring and global directory functionalities played a big part in the department’s ultimate decision to go Google. While preparing to migrate all of its email users to Google Apps, the department ran into a slight hiccup--due to government regulations, KDWP is required to maintain its email storage strictly on U.S. premises. Gmail is stored in hyper secure databases all over the world so the goal was to find a way to limit the organization’s email storage to only route to U.S. data centers.

Solution
SADA Systems was engaged to assist the department with its unique migration requirements. After identifying the organization’s specific needs and comprehensively evaluating government regulations for email storage, SADA developed a viable workaround that ensured complete compliance with aforementioned security policies.

SADA migrated data from existing Google Apps and legacy email accounts to a secure SADA test domain.
Google deleted all data & mailboxes.
Google set up the KDWP accounts with special restrictions so emails would be stored in the U.S. only.
Afterwards, SADA enabled user provisioning and completed the Google Apps email migration.

But what happened to emails sent to users during the migration when Gmail was essentially turned off? SADA modified Google Message Security, powered by Postini, to quarantine and hold all messages sent to Kansas State Wildlife during the migration period. Once the email migration was complete, SADA released all quarantined emails. Because the timestamp was retained, users were able to see each message in the order they were received.

Result
While the migration was mostly handled by the IT department itself, Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks Network Administrator, Dan Gasswint, was relieved to have SADA knowledge and expertise with the Google Apps suite at hand. “SADA was really helpful; they answered all of my questions and were pretty well available every time we encountered an issue. We are happy to have had them address problems during the migration and deployment process.”

KDWP was able to complete the migration and put Google Apps into production for over 400 employees after 2 months. While employees are still learning about the collaboration opportunities available with Google Apps, the department’s interest in going to the cloud is helping drive staff adoption and satisfaction.

BuzzMath and Back Bay Continuation High School

2011-01-25T10:08:00.000-08:00

Discover how Dennis Ashendorf captured his students’ interest and improved their mathematics knowledge through Google Apps and BuzzMath by providing quick access to thousands of high-quality math problems with immediate detailed feedback.

CUSTOMER
Back Bay Continuation High School serves students that fail multiple courses, principally Algebra 1, in the highly regarded Newport-Mesa School District in California. The majority of Back Bay’s math students are low-SES, Hispanic boys and girls. Keeping all at-risk students involved with academics is the everyday goal.

VENDOR
BuzzMath was developed by Scolab Inc., an international team of programmers, designers, educators, and students, working closely together to create high-quality educational math applications. BuzzMath for Google Apps (www.BuzzMath.com/GoogleApps), their latest addition, is aimed at middle school teachers looking for the best way to engage their students in math practice with ease of access through Google Apps sign-on.

CHALLENGE
Dennis Ashendorf, credit recovery math teacher, was seeking software for individualized instruction with continuous formative assessment for competency-based (mastery) learning that also engaged his students. His instruction had to acknowledge students’ deficient English skills as well as partial memorization of tricks and shortcuts that had become a detriment to his students’ conceptual understanding. Mr. Ashendorf realized no program would satisfy every student, but the one with the widest coverage, the highest percent of satisfied, on-task users could give students the best chance of learning while passing a course.

SOLUTION
After eight years and approximately twenty different online software programs, BuzzMath emerged as the course most students prefer to use. In Mr. Ashendorf’s classroom, after an initial assessment, students have the flexibility to choose one out of six software programs. Students often try several before a good fit is found. Yet after trying BuzzMath, students did not switch. It apparently has the right combination of animation and graphics and accessible math language - not too much and not too little. It’s far from being an automated worksheet. For example, its focus on mastering the richness of the number line fits recent research on building depth of understanding in integers and fractions prior to focusing on other areas.

BuzzMath and Google Apps allow the students to work from any computer lab under any operating system, without the need for creating personal server accounts for all students. This saves five to ten minutes at the start of every class. Plus students have access to all their Google Apps and services from home.

One of the appeals of BuzzMath is that students only see scores of success. Stars are awarded, but never removed. Mistakes are corrected by the learners as they retry problems. These features make the system positive and fair. There is no incentive to enter wrong answers. Students can select a topic of choice and work until they master each question. Again, BuzzMath offers a beneficial mixture of student choice and linear sequences for learning.

RESULTS
Low achieving English Learners at Back Bay Continuation High School have thrived and stayed on task more with BuzzMath than with any other product in Mr. Ashendorf’s experience. The students’ main issues in math were English skills and lack of foundational math skills. Most BuzzMath exercises are word problems one to three lines long and written in a clear, but not condescending style. Perseverance is rewarded with access to challenging missions and math puzzles. When asked what he likes about BuzzMath, Mr. Ashendorf says, simply, “Students get it.”

Invoicera and MarkupBox

2011-01-15T18:12:00.000-08:00

Learn how MarkupBox addressed the invoicing challenges of an international client base by switching to Invoicera and streamlining their financing.

CUSTOMER
MarkupBox is a San Francisco, California specialized PSD to HTML conversion firm which provides front-end solutions to various website developers. The procedure which they follow is to first receive the documents in any format and then converting them into cross browser compatible, pixel perfect and W3C validated codes.

MarkupBox was started with a sole objective to provide distinguished coding services to its clients. The idea was to make their coding so effective that their clients’ websites should be supported by all browsers on the internet and can perform at a greater speed.

VENDOR
Invoicera is online billing software designed specifically to make online invoicing a straightforward process. With the focus on the user, Invoicera has successfully managed itself as a value-oriented invoicing service provider. Invoicera provides quick and easy invoicing applications to those entrepreneurs who run their business through Google Apps.

CHALLENGES
MarkupBox deals with clients that are based around the globe and has the challenge of invoicing them in their respective language and currencies. With a growing amount of delays in payments due to these challenges, MarkupBox needed a new payment gateway to streamline invoicing. They also experienced scaling issues due to their staggering growth rate and sought automatic invoicing technologies. Due to the increasing number of clients, payments started getting deferred and MarkupBox had no way to track them or charge those clients with a late fees. They soon realized that this consumed too much time and decided to shift to other online billing services. The search was on for an invoicing system that would minimizee manual workloads.

SOLUTION
To deal with the challenges of immense growth, MarkupBox turned to Invoicera, with the most fundamental advantage of its integrations with Google Apps. These integrations made Invoicera accessible through Google’s universal navigation bar without requiring a separate login. Invoicera enabled MarkupBox to track its invoices and allow certain ones to recur automatically. Invoicera also provided 16 of the industry’s leading payment gateways, which helped to bill clients in a reliable way. The support of 11 languages was also critical for the global base of clients.
The faster invoicing enabled by invoicer allowed MarkupBox to get paid quicker and shift focus to upcoming challenges to the business. With Invoicera’s integration with Basecamp project management software, MarkupBox was also able to import and track projects to evaluate timeliness

RESULT
MarkupBox is now a valuable customer for Invoicera. MarkupBox said of Invoicera, “We have never seen such splendid invoicing by anyone till now; Invoicera has not only served our billing needs but also provided us with the most efficient techniques to save our time and money as well.” The combination of Invoicera with Google Apps further helped MarkupBox’s employees take full advantage of its features.

Social Wok and Marlowe Law Office

2010-12-06T18:51:00.000-08:00

Learn how Marlowe Law Office streamlined their client management and improved their office collaboration through Google Apps and SocialWok to increase billable hours, decrease inefficiencies, and manage real-time crises.

Vendor
Socialwok is a project management and team collaboration service for businesses on Google Apps to share ideas, files and Google Docs within their organizations in their own secure and private workspaces.

Customer
Marlowe Law Office is a personal bankruptcy law firm based Tipp City Ohio that helps people find debt relief through bankruptcy protection. Most of its staff (three interns, a paralegal and three lawyers) are working remotely and connected using laptops, smart phones, Google Apps, Google Voice, Twitter and Socialwok. This allows the firm to handle matters as far away as Kentucky and Indiana. Marlowe Law Office is set up in “the cloud” and Socialwok is a critical component of that go cloud strategy.

Challenges
Before Socialwok, lawyers in Marlowe Law Office would have to constantly email or call their clients in order to keep their clients up to date on cases. A lot of time was spent consolidating information from various places to maintain client files and updating clients’ contact information. Marlowe Law Office was using labor intensive and data-entry oriented solutions like Basecamp and Google Sites to collaborate with its clients. Often, clients had real adoption problems with these programs because they found the programs to be too troublesome or user-unfriendly.

Solution
Stephen Marlowe, the lead attorney, uses Socialwok as a “Facebook” like case-management tool that is tightly integrated with Google Apps to share and archive information regarding his clients. His law office uses Google Apps Mail and Google Docs for all its email messaging and document management needs. The first step in Marlowe Law Office’s client intake process is to create a Socialwok feed. Socialwok has become the law firm’s front-end dashboard for Google Apps. Socialwok is a very user-friendly, intuitive way to collaborate, share emails and manage Google Documents.

Stephen’s staff has been able to collaborate and archive all emails, documents, calendar events, notes to case files, voicemails, client contacts and questions into Socialwok’s private client feeds. Marlowe Law Office is able to automatically create an interactive timeline that serves as a perfect record of the law firm’s relationship with its clients. Clients can also access and collaborate with attorneys of the firm on their cases using these private feeds.

Results
Marlowe Law Office has increased billable hours and eliminated phone-tag with clients because lawyers are able to share Socialwok feeds with their clients.
With Socialwok, lawyers are able to create email filters in Gmail that allow them to forward emails from their clients into specific Socialwok feeds. Lawyers are able to scan paper copies of legal documents related to a client directly into a private feed that the client can access. Lawyers can now view all the information related to a client by searching for his last name, or by hashtags. Socialwok lists all messages, emails, files and meeting notes related to the client in chronological order.

Here is a true story from Stephen:
“Recently, we stopped a foreclosure that had proceeded in error. The client shot us a frantic email, which was forwarded immediately to the client's Socialwok feed. We intervened to stop the sale of the family’s home in minutes--not hours or days--to the client’s benefit. There were no voicemails waiting to be addressed, no emails stacked awaiting attention. Socialwok made us nimble. Socialwok has saved the law firm an immense amount of frustration and time, allowing us to take on more clients. If you’re in business and you use Google Apps and don’t use SocialWok, you’re a fool.”

Original Story with Marlowe Law Office is available on the SocialWok Blog

Sada Systems and Z Gallerie

2010-12-03T18:05:00.000-08:00

Learn how Sada Systems helped a major retailer, Z Gallerie, deploy Google Apps and train them to use them effectively and efficiently.

Customer
Z Gallerie is a Southern California-based home furnishing, home accessories and framed art retailer with 55 stores in 19 states. The company was started as a poster shop by 3 siblings in 1979 and has grown into a national furnishings store with over 1,000 employees.

Partner
SADA Systems, Inc is a privately held information technology consulting, outsourcing, and development firm founded in 2000. SADA started as a Google partner for its search technology, and is proud to be one of the world's first 10 Google Apps partners, having participated in the Google Apps official launch campaign in February of 2007. SADA is highly experienced in Google Apps migration, implementation and deployment for the enterprise, education, non profit and government sector.

Challenge
Z Gallerie was looking to upgrade their entire store network’s email and productivity applications and bring them to the cloud, but had concerns about security since the only computers located on premise were also cash registers. Because Google Apps would be deployed in all 55 stores across 19 states, there was a need to minimize software installation and maintenance efforts as well as train employees to get them up to speed on Google Apps. In addition to assisting with migration and deployment, Z Gallerie engaged SADA Systems to help train its administrators and end-users on the Google Apps suite.

Solution
SADA coordinated on-site and remote Google Docs and Gmail training for 150 users. Utilizing a classroom setting, Sada was able to helpe Z Gallerie employees them hit the ground running on day one with Google Apps. SADA helped ensure a high adoption rate by:

Adapting curriculum and training style to a retail store setting making sure employees were able to see the value in working with Google Apps
Creating customized training material for employees to follow along with during training and to review outside of the training sessions

Results
As a result of Z Gallerie’s collaboration with SADA, the stores were deployed on schedule with no productivity down time due to effective change management. Z Gallerie Vice President of IT Howard Kolodny notes that the company has “been pleasantly surprised by how easy the adoption process was. Many of our employees were already Google users at home and so already know how to use the new applications. The employees particularly appreciate how many paper based processes can now be moved online improving efficiency and communication at each store.”

The stores are now preparing for Black Friday and the busy Holiday shopping season. With Google Apps deployed, the company anticipates seeing a big boost in productivity as tasks such as supply orders, stockroom reports and other manual tasks are now streamlined in the cloud.

Socialwok and Grassroot Soccer

2010-11-19T11:25:00.000-08:00

Learn how Grassroot Soccer used Socialwok to increase productivity, win more grants, and further expand internationally to more effectively fight aids.

Customer
Grassroot Soccer is a non-profit organization with the mission of using the power of soccer to fight against HIV and AIDS. Grassroot Soccer aims to provide youth worldwide with the knowledge, life-skills and support to live HIV-free. Grassroot Soccer has also established itself as a premier provider of technical assistance to other "Sport for Development" organizations across the world.

Vendor
Socialwok is a project management and team collaboration service for businesses on Google Apps to share ideas, files and Google Docs within their organizations in their own secure and private workspaces.

Challenges
Thanks to the Salesforce foundation, Grassroot Soccer has developed an online Salesforce-based system to keep track of the scale and effectiveness of our HIV-education and prevention programmes. Grassroot Soccer works with local partner organizations on the ground to deploy this tracking system. The deployment process involves a lot of configuration and coding to customize the tracking system to the partner organization's local needs.

While working with a partner organization from Lesotho, Grassroot Soccer’s Curriculum & Training Development Coordinator Taylor Downs encountered the problem of partner requests being constantly overlooked and lost amongst many emails. Grassroot Soccer’s entire organization is using Google Apps for email and document management. Hence, they wanted a project management and team collaboration solution that could address the collaboration problem.

Solution
Since adopting Socialwok, team members working on the same project in partner organizations can post all updates related to the system specifications or requests to the project feed. Taylor Down simply needs to "check the wok" everytime when he needs to build more pieces of the partner organization’s system. In 3-4 minutes, he is completely up-to-speed with all the partner organization’s system requests without having to worry about overlooking anything.

Socialwok has enabled Grassroot Soccer to effectively collaborate with all the partner organizations involved. With Socialwok, Taylor Down can keep track of several projects and the associated Google Docs and Google Calendar events simultaneously by getting all the status updates at once in a Socialwok feed, instead of sorting through hundreds of emails.

Results
The productivity gains Socialwok helped Grassroot Soccer develop, allows them to more aggressively expand their program outreach in Africa. After using Socialwok to effectively and collaboratively design an M&E system for a partner organization in Lesotho, Grassroot Soccer has now landed grants to build similar systems for 3 other developmental organizations that are hoping to solve the HIV & AIDS problem in Southern Africa. By coupling the power of Google Apps with more effective and timely communications, Socialwok is now, in some way, preventing new HIV infections!

“Socialwok has reduced the turnaround time it takes to onboard a partner organization to our Grassroot soccer based HIV/AIDs prevention program. Helping us win 3 more grants and save more lives!,” says Taylor Down, Curriculum & Training Development Coordinator of Grassroot Soccer

For more information, please read this related blog post

Zoho Invoice and a freelance web programmer

2010-11-04T15:11:00.000-07:00

Learn how Nick Texidor, a freelance web programmer, found a better way to run his cumbersome invoicing process through Zoho Invoice.

Customer

Nick Texidor is a freelance web programmer with 25 years of programming experience to his credit. He has worked on Joomla and Joomla extensions for clients across various geographical locations like US, UK and Australia. His business model is to host, build and maintain websites for clients. He accounts his success to his passion for programming and his ability to understand and materialize the client's requirements into virtuality.

Nick and a friend started off a company called Webbods in 1997. In 2005 they split the company into two areas, design and development. The idea being that they could continue to work on existing clients, at the same time they could also outsource to other design companies and offer them development skills that they often didn't have in-house. In due course Nick decided to fly solo to greater things and moved on to freelancing. He's been in this space ever since and for good!

Vendor

Zoho Invoice is an invoicing software from Zoho's range of business applications. It is built to be a simple, intuitive and quick invoicing application for users who run their business online through business productivity avenues like Google Apps. With Zoho Invoice, users can keep track of their invoices, estimates, payments received and expenses. The integration with Google Apps, enables users of a Zoho Invoice account to pull in their users and contacts from their Google Apps domain into Zoho Invoice. This seamless integration makes it so much easier for users to keep an updated list of customers and to set user roles.

Challenge

Initially Nick thrived on invoices created using Adobe products. He realized that it was time consuming and that tracking the invoices seemed really tough. So to make things simpler he moved on to using the Australian tax office's e-Record system which also generates invoices. Soon Nick realized that this did not actually fill the void for a solid invoicing application to take care of his invoicing. The reason being, the e-record system was a desktop application and restricted the invoicing to just one work station. Also, it did not have the option to send out recurring invoices. So the ability to invoice on the go was a deal-breaker. Then he went on to evaluate various other invoicing applications until he found Zoho Invoice.

Solution

Invoicing became a pain area for Nick as time went by and his customer base expanded. Keeping track of invoices became impossible. He remembered using another Zoho service and he looked back to see if Zoho offers any invoicing solution. That's when he identified Zoho Invoice. The fact that Zoho Invoice is integrated with Google Apps, was the real winner for him. He's been using Google's services for a number of years. Zoho Invoice on Google Apps meant that he would be able to access his invoicing data from Google's universal navigation in a click. He soon moved all his data into Zoho Invoice and became a Zoho Invoice user in no time.

With Zoho Invoice Nick is able to satiate one of his primary requirements in an invoicing software, the ability to send recurring invoices to his customers. This makes his invoicing process much simpler considering that he offers hosting websites as a service to his customers. It was a relief to him to be able to set his recurring invoices and not be worried about it or to manually keep track of them. He received an email when its due to be sent and all he had to do is to approve it. With Zoho Invoice his clients were able to pay him online through payment gateways like PayPal which meant faster payments and no more waiting for those checks from across the globe.

Another thing he loves is the ease and speed at which you can create an invoice and navigate to Zoho Invoice. The ability to be able to move his contacts from his Google account into Zoho Invoice meant that he wouldn't need to download his contacts and import them into Zoho invoice. Toggling with multiple usernames and passwords isn't something any of us fancy and neither does Nick.

Result

The move to Zoho Invoice has streamlined Nick's invoicing. From someone who restricted his invoicing to a desktop to someone who has been invoicing on the go, Nick has come a long way with Zoho Invoice. His invoices reach the customer on time, his payment receipts are online and he knows how well his business is doing from the reports he generates from Zoho Invoice. Nick says "What I like the most about Zoho Invoice is that I don't have to worry about my invoicing. I can just sign in and create an invoice in few minutes."

The Zoho Invoice and Google Apps combination has worked great for Nick. He's signed into Gmail around the clock to keep in touch with his customers, so accessing Zoho Invoice is as easy as clicking through to Zoho Invoice from Google's universal navigation bar. Every time he adds a new contacts to his Google Contacts he gets the customer imported into Zoho Invoice seamlessly. He says that saves him from a lot of invoicing hazards. With Zoho Invoice from Google Apps Nick has been able to save a lot of time.

He has been able to invest all the additional hours he gains from using Zoho Invoice with his adorable little daughter and to come up with brilliant business ideas.https://www.google.com/enterprise/marketplace/viewListing?productListingId=2533+1006680150598067344#utm_campaign=successstory&utm_source=en-na-us-csblog&utm_medium=blog

Gist Gadget and eXp Realty

2010-11-03T16:26:00.000-07:00

Learn how an innovative national real estate brokerage firm eXp Realty uses Google Apps and the Gist Gadget to enrich client interactions with photos, contact details, news and social media updates for their contacts right inside Gmail.

Customer
eXp Realty is a National real estate brokerage with an innovative business environment for collaborating, supporting agents with their listings and transactions, and an ecosystem for social interaction in and outside of the organization. Serving 12 states, eXp Realty was built from the ground up to offer full-service Real Estate services in a virtual green environment. Taking advantage of the latest tools for social media, 3D office immersion, and Google Apps and email, eXp Reality uses a cloud-based infrastructure to reduce costs and improve efficiency. Google Apps is at the heart of eXp Realty communications. The use Google Apps to manage and share documents, manage 10's of thousands of emails a month, Google Chat for Instant Messaging with Voip functions as well as Google Voice to manage and route more traditional phone calls.

"The Real Estate industry has been and continues to be in a perfect storm and as a result everything is changing,” said Glenn Sanford, CEO of eXP Realty. “To be competitive and offer the kind of service buyers and sellers expect, we're doing everything we can to reduce costs without compromising on service. Many of these initiatives have resulted in other benefits including a considerable reduction of our carbon footprint."

Challenge
A typical real estate agent may have 300 to 1000 contacts in their database. Customers come from many different channels (phone/email/social media/personal sphere, among others), and it's hard to stay current on the inbound and outbound contacts with the tools that a typical agent has available to them. Additionally offices working to maintain their brand and continuity must continually review the social streams of its agent base.

Solution
One of the ways eXp Realty is addressing these challenges is by using the cloud capabilities of the Gist Gadget within the Gmail facilities of Google Apps.

The Gist Gadget gives eXp Realty's staff a full view of the contacts in their professional network by creating a rich business profile for each contact that includes the most news, status updates, and work details. This gadget works along with the existing workflow within Google Apps to show the latest news and information from social media sources like Twitter and Facebook for prospects, past customers, and employees. Instead of having to spend time researching customers, eXp Realty agents learn more about that person's highly individual needs, and build a better experience for one of the most important and emotional decisions a consumer makes: buying a house.

Results
Using Gist with Google Apps provides the entire eXP Realty team with the ability to stay up to date and have a "warm hello" each time there is a communication by quickly reviewing latest email threads via Gmail and Google Apps which at the heart of much of the communication between the Agent and the customer as well as between the agent and other team members. With Gist and Google Apps, eXp Realty agents are better prepared than the competition and as a result believe that they are able to give better service. The focus is on the relationship with the customer. Gist helps eXp Realty agents get one step closer to the buyer or seller, right from the first email received.

"We were able to activate Gist as a Gadget within Google Apps easily and saw immediate value for our Real Estate business," says Glenn Sanford, CEO of eXp Realty.

Timeraiser and Smartsheet

2010-10-14T15:27:00.000-07:00

Learn how philanthropy coordination firm Timeraiser uses Smartsheet and Google Apps for operational and strategic planning, reporting and online project management.

Customer
Timeraiser is a non-profit organization based in Toronto, Canada. Timeraiser’s mission is to engage the next generation philanthropist, encouraging them connect to the causes they care about by donating volunteer hours in exchange for original works of art. Timeraiser is unique as they aim to match young professionals to non-profits for a longer term engagement with a tangible incentive, thus creating a lifelong connection and partnership. Timeraiser has 5 full-time staff members that engage with a large network of corporate partners, artists, volunteers and philanthropists. Getting and keeping everyone on the ‘same page’ is an on-going challenge.

Challenge
Timeraiser needed to find easy to use online solutions to support their distributed team. Their motto? Create information once, distribute it widely and make it accessible anywhere. Single sign-on was an absolute necessity, as well as tools which required very little in terms of training.

“Trying to convince people to login to another tool is nearly impossible,” says Anil Patel, co-founder, Timeraiser. “We have tried nearly every collaboration tool out there, however people don’t want to use micro-blogging to follow threads on projects -- they want to use e-ma il because it is familiar and easy. But we could not continue to collaborate the old way: sending spreadsheets around via e-mail is a version control nightmare.”

“We rely heavily on our external partners, many of whom are volunteers or other like-minded nonprofits,” says Patel. “We have to be very thoughtful on which tools are going to do the best job of keeping everyone on the same page and that means selecting tools people will actually use. And because people are becoming more mobile, receiving information and updates on their BlackBerrys, iPhone or Android devices versus a desktop application are really important considerations.”

Solution
To ensure information is readily accessible, Timeraiser embeds Smartsheet into Google Sites. To solve the problem of adoption and engagement, Timeraiser deployed SmartSheet in a three point strategy. First, Timeraiser embeds Smartsheet into Google Sites and other partner websites using the HTML publishing code. Second, they include links to the Smartsheet in various e-mail campaigns (powered by Salesforce.com) so partners and volunteers can work via e-mail and take advantage of other Google Apps Market place partners such as Box.net’s file sharing services. This eliminates the inefficiencies of multiple versions and provides one version of the truth. Thirdly, Timeraiser envisioned how to use SmartSheet as a foundational piece of technology to enable its governance, including strategic plan reporting.

Says Patel, “SmartSheet allows us to articulate a clear strategic plan and develop an agile business plan that actually simplifies a variety of best practices including Risk Management, HR Management, Budgeting, ITC, Marketing, Reporting, etc as we scale our operations.”

Timeraiser also uses Google Apps and Smartsheet for:

* Real time updates to the competitive landscape: different staff members and colleagues can add insights and the changes cascade across the organization.
* Online Project management: attach files, tasks, discussions and share with external partners. See an example of a Timeraiser online project management sheet.
* Task management: website planning, daily action reports, shared task lists
* Governance tracking: good governance reporting and tracking for funding partners
* Reporting: web statistics and partner metrics tracked and accessible.

Results
With Google Apps, Smartsheet and the host of other cloud-based applications in the Timeraiser portfolio, Timeraiser is able to collaborate with people inside and outside the company. They have eliminated the inefficiencies caused by multiple versions of documents and are now able to get real-time updates and feedback from partners and volunteers in half the time.

Says Patel, “With Smartsheet and Google Apps, we can work the way our partners want to, but we still get the information in a timely and up-to-date way.”

Manymoon and Gregg Lab

2010-10-14T15:13:00.000-07:00

Learn how Gregg Lab, a research laboratory, solved a common problem of lab disorganization and project management needs with Manymoon, a project management tool.

Customer
The Gregg Lab is an academic research laboratory focused in the areas of neurobiology and genomics currently in the process of getting established at the University of Utah, under the leadership of Dr. Christopher Gregg. The research program is highly interdisciplinary and brings together expertise in mouse and human neurobiology and behavior, bioinformatics and software development, genomics, and mouse genetics. Currently, the lab is focused on understanding the basis of mental health disorders, such as anorexia and bulimia nervosa, as well as metabolic syndrome related disorders, like obesity and diabetes.

Vendor
Manymoon is a leading project collaboration application built specifically for customers who utilize secure online tools. Manymoon makes it simple to organize tasks, documents, events, and links with coworkers, customers, and partners. By seamlessly integrating with Google Apps, Manymoon helps organize and track projects so that anyone can efficiently collaborate and reduce email clutter. Manymoon is headquartered in San Francisco, California, and is proud to help thousands of businesses simplify their worklife.

Challenge
Dr. Gregg had to manage the transition from being a postdoctoral fellow to a lead scientist managing a lab and research program, managing the projects and productivity of 8-10 people and a budget of over $1 million. He wanted to spend more of his time on research and less time thinking about lab management. Major equipment purchases and reagent purchases had to be monitored and managed. In addition, all of the custom code, wet lab protocols, reagent lists, price lists, primer and genetic construct designs, and many other resources had to be organized to provide a knowledge resource for the new lab. Goals and milestones needed to be worked out and clarified for new staff and trainees. Further, new data, ideas and discoveries need to be shared, tracked, and discussed. Funding opportunities must also be tracked and new grants and manuscripts must be shared and revised by collaborators. The complexity can be overwhelming and academic labs are often inefficient due to the workload and the constant race to publish first. The Gregg Lab needed a better and more streamlined workflow to gain an edge and to build a more creative and productive work environment.

Solution
After testing numerous online social networking solutions and project management approaches, the Gregg Lab has established a simple and highly effective workflow using Google Apps and Manymoon. The lab has established a Manymoon site in which all projects are set up and lab members join as Team members. Ordering and reagent needs for each project are managed with Google Docs spreadsheets, so anyone can easily place an order or find previously ordered supplies, and monthly expenses for projects can be easily tracked. Code is posted and archived easily. Recipes and protocols are also archived and modified on the site. Ideas, data and discussions are posted to the appropriate Projects in Manymoon. Further, everything is tagged so it can be easily searched and any lab member can quickly and easily find the information they need. Links to genomic and bioinformatics resources for each project are also posted. Google Calendars and the milestones and task assignment tabs create a simple workflow to keep individual projects on target and make it easier to manage multiple projects and multiple people. Finally, Manymoon makes it very easy to bring distant or local collaborators in on a project and to discuss data. Importantly, the price of Manymoon is low enough that it is a great solution even for an early stage academic lab. The Gregg Lab continues to find and develop ways to optimize this workflow to maximize creativity, innovation and synergy in the lab.

Results
While the Gregg Lab just starting, it is already clear that Manymoon provides a highly effective framework to organize information and focus the multitude of tasks required to set up and run a lab. The feedback from students and postdocs has been extremely positive; that Manymoon is an easy and seamless way to collaborate. So easy in fact that the team have already all begun archiving information (programs, protocols, recipes, etc.) and organizing projects through Manymoon. Further, additional colleagues from other organizations have begun to link together through Manymoon creating a network of innovators that continues to grow. The Gregg Lab is currently in an early and exciting phase and believes that Manymoon will help them create a highly productive and uniquely creative work environment that will uncover new discoveries, therapies and industries--spending less time on admin and more time on research.

“Manymoon has been instrumental in the success of our lab. Our team is working more creatively and productively, helping us uncover new discoveries more rapidly, and we’re collaborating with other researchers in a way we never thought possible”. Dr. Christopher Gregg, Lead Scientist, The Gregg Lab

Crucial Point LLC and the Gist Gadget for Google Apps

2010-08-12T17:43:00.000-07:00

Learn how technology consulting firm Crucial Point LLC uses the Gist Gadget for Google Apps to gain a deeper understanding of what is important to their clients and partners by getting contact details and the latest news about them right inside Gmail.

Customer
Crucial Point LLC is a national security technology due diligence, consulting, research and services firm formed in 2007 with a vision to leverage the greatest technologies available to enhance our agility and ability to contribute to client missions. As a new company with a laser-like focus on customers the company was founded with a 100% cloud-based infrastructure. Google Apps forms the core of this infrastructure, with other critical capabilities provided by a wide range of other online partners, including extensive use of social media. These and many other cloud based capabilities help, but the most critical capability this consultancy must operate on is trust. Crucial Point must establish trust-based relationships with every potential client.

"Our methods include doing our research before any potential engagement," says Crucial Point founder and CTO Bob Gourley. "Before working with government agencies we read the testimony agency heads give to congress. Before working with companies we read what CEOs and their senior leadership teams are blogging about. Before taking anyone's time with a meeting we seek to understand what they want us to know about them. This investment of our time is a sign of respect for our clients and their missions and pays off in establishing trust."

Challenge
The pace of business today continues to accelerate. Global video, voice and data connectivity have resulted in a 24 hour work cycle where meetings are scheduled on very short notice and collaboration interactions like e-mail, white board sessions and chats are always underway. This makes it even harder to stay abreast of what potential clients and partners would like you to know about them. Crucial Point decided to address this challenge head-on, by leveraging additional capabilities from the cloud, specifically, the Gist Gadget integrated into Google Apps available from the Google Apps Marketplace.

Solution
With Gist integrated into the Google Apps interface, Crucial Point email users are presented with a small gadget at the bottom of each email which can be expanded to present the very latest, dynamically generated content produced from the individuals on the email. This gadget brings together, all in one place, the content from Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, blogs and even press reporting. Instead of having to visit all those places separately, Crucial Point staff can see this important information instantly, at the point of decision. This saves time while giving a deeper understanding of what is important to our clients and mission partners.

Results
The information Gist provides gives us the edge we need when trying to secure new business and further strengthens the trust-based relationships we have with existing clients. We are better prepared to engage with our clients at all times because we're not spending valuable time searching for information about them. Any Crucial Point employee can access the cloud, securely, from anywhere, tapping the knowledge our partners and clients are sharing, thanks to Gist.

"In consulting, agility is important, but trust is the true coin of the realm, and Gist is one of the many capabilities that enable us to strengthen our understanding of client missions, which is a critically important component of trust," concludes Bob Gourley, CTO of Crucial Point.

Vanderbilt University and NextPlane Federation Server

2010-07-29T12:38:00.000-07:00

Learn how Vanderbilt University, which currently uses two different unified communication platforms, Google Apps for its students and Microsoft Office Communications Server (OCS) for faculty, uses NextPlane Federation Server to enable students and faculty to share presence, IM, participate in multi-party chat and make voice calls across systems.

NextPlane provides enterprise-class federation solutions for unified communication (UC) platforms, enabling organizations to run multiple UC platforms such as Google Apps and Google Talk, as well as Microsoft OCS, IBM Sametime, Cisco Jabber XCP, Jive OpenFire, and AOL.

Here Farzin Shahidi, CEO of NextPlane, talks about helping organizations share the same domain name across two or more federated UC platforms.

We see a lot of organizations running Google Apps while also using Microsoft OCS in a different part of their organization. These situations can be tricky if the organization wants to federate both platforms as well as use the same domain name for all facets and members of their organization.

One example of such an organization is Vanderbilt University, which runs Google Apps for its students and Microsoft OCS for faculty. Vanderbilt’s dual UC platform environment created a situation in which it couldn’t maintain a single domain name for all members of the Vanderbilt community. In light of this challenge, Vanderbilt turned to NextPlane.

Organizations use NextPlane Federation Server or the NextPlane Federation Cloud service to federate multiple disparate UC platforms so their end users can work together as if they were served by the same UC, sharing presence, IM, participating in multi-party chat and making voice calls.

Prior to installing NextPlane, if professor@vanderbilt.edu on Microsoft OCS wrote to student@vanderbilt.edu on Google Apps (or vice versa), the message would never make it to its destination because the outbound server would never route the message beyond its local domain.

Vanderbilt used NextPlane to federate the two systems without causing a domain locality problem. Unlike federation gateways, the NextPlane Federation Server enables the two UC platforms to differentiate between local traffic and federated traffic even if they use the same domain name.

Now that they use NextPlane the faculty on OCS and the students on Google Apps can communicate directly and use the same @vanderbilt.edu domain name.

For more information, find NextPlane in the Google Apps Marketplace.

Qameha and Kwaga Context for Google Apps

2010-07-14T16:27:00.000-07:00

Learn how recruiting solutions provider Qameha uses Kwaga Context for Google Apps to automatically stay on top of important questions and action items from clients right from within Gmail.

Customer

Qameha is a smart new way to manage human capital inside any organization. Qameha is a SaaS/Cloud solution that provides everything needed to recruit new candidates, manage internal evaluations, and promote employees based on coupling an employee’s motivations with organizational challenges. Qameha was founded in September 2009 and they’re helping hundreds of recruiters manage thousands of recruits each year across Europe.

Vendor

Kwaga is a leader in semantic analysis for email with hundreds of companies making email smarter for their employees. Kwaga Context for Google Apps allows users to continue working in their normal Gmail environment with additional insight into all previous conversations and the advantage of smart reminders. Kwaga was founded in December 2008 and is a privately held company based in Paris and backed by SeedCamp and Kima Ventures.

Challenges

Over the past year, Qameha’s head of business development and co-founder Cedric Hauguel has

been looking for a bridge between his CRM Salesforce.com and his organizational Gmail via

Google Apps.

Hauguel often uses social networks like Viadeo to identify prospects and determine if they’ve any friends in common, before initiating the ﬁrst email contact from within Salesforce.com. He then receives email replies from prospects inside Gmail and continues conversations from within Gmail. After weeks of exchanges with a prospect there might be hundreds of separate emails requiring different types of actions. It’s a signiﬁcant challenge remembering both what’s been discussed previously and if there’re any questions that remain open and unanswered.

Solution

Qameha chose Kwaga to bridge the gap between Google Apps as their “getting things done”

productivity tool and Salesforce.com. Hauguel enabled Kwaga in seconds from the Google Apps

Marketplace and sees the full conversation history with any one of many sales prospects or existing clients. Kwaga helps Hauguel and his team ensure that important questions from prospects are never forgotten.

The solution works in three steps:

1. Once a Google Apps Domain Manager enables Kwaga Context and individual users inside

the domain have “signed-in,” Kwaga machines analyze the content of incoming email texts

to detect which ones contain requests for actions,

2. Let’s say “Jenny” logs then into her Gmail and opens a new email from “Bob” she will see a

list of all the conversations they’ve had in the past at the bottom of the email, as well as an

indication of any important conversations that have been forgotten by either “Jenny” or by

“Bob”,

3. When “Jenny” replies to any forgotten important email the service automatically detects this

and no longer displays the thread as requiring her attention.

Results

Using Kwaga Context has enabled Qameha to view of all of the conversations they’re having with prospects and determine quickly which ones require immediate attention - all inside Gmail.

“Kwaga’s detection is powerful and it’s comforting that we’ll know if we’ve missed any important points before we meet with our clients,” says Cedric Hauguel, co-founder & in-charge of Business Development at Qameha.

hCentive and Atlassian JIRA Studio

2010-06-24T11:16:00.000-07:00

hCentive has created an innovative health insurance policy comparison engine, and the combination of Google Apps and JIRA Studio has been a critical tool for distributed teams in the US and India to work together and quickly build and iterate their application.

Customer
hCentive is in the business of simplifying the complex world of health insurance. Using their health insurance exchange, individuals, families and small businesses can search, compare and buy suitable health insurance online from leading health insurance providers.

Vendor
Atlassian builds software development tools for teams that want to build and deliver great software fast. JIRA Studio is a hosted software development team that supports every member of the team through every stage of the software development process. It includes source control, issue tracking, agile planning, continuous integration, code review, and wiki features integrated with Google Apps for single sign-on, document sharing, chat, email, and events.

Challenge
With development teams based in India and the United States, and an aggressive go-to market schedule, hCentive needed tools for communicating and collaborating on software development that were instantly available and hassle-free. Maintaining visibility into the work being done by remote team members was recognized as a critical challenge for any distributed team, especially during fast-paced software development projects. As a start-up company, managing costs was also essential, especially avoiding large capital expenditures during its early stages.

Solution
From the start, hCentive has relied on Google Apps and JIRA Studio for communication, collaboration and software development. All the tools needed were provisioned and configured in minutes. With minimal administrative overhead, hCentive has been able to focus on building great software and growing their business.

Single sign-on to JIRA Studio using a Google Apps account has been critical as new developers are continually added to the team and quickly ramped up.

The ability to create software requirements in Google Docs, collaborate in real-time with customers to further define them, and then attach the document to an issue for planning and tracking has been critical. The combination of real-time collaborative editing in Google Docs and asynchronous threaded discussions in JIRA Studio's wiki has allowed the team to overcome timezone differences and work together efficiently.

JIRA Studio's Activity Bar, which provides one click access to issues, builds, code reviews, email, events, documents and chat is a favorite feature of the development team since it saves valuable time of switching between applications for common daily tasks.

JIRA Studio's OpenSocial gadgets, based on an open industry-wide standard, provide visibility into development progress and status, both in JIRA Studio and Gmail.

Results
Using JIRA Studio and Google Apps, hCentive was able to launch their application within months of founding, and has rapidly iterated to incorporate customer feedback. Communication and collaboration challenges faced by other global software start-ups have been non-issues, allowing them to focus on continuing to win new customers and expand their innovative health care exchange to new markets.

Flowr and Intera

2010-06-09T11:09:00.000-07:00

Flowr is a real-time social collaboration network for the enterprise. It makes it really easy to post ideas, share links, comment and upload files. The interface follows current trends in social networking so employees already know how to use it.

Intera specializes in producing business applications on the web. Their two flag-ship products are Intrix Project and Intrix CRM, targeted at the evolving SMB space in Eastern and Central Europe.

Challenge

Intera has seen rapid growth in the past few years, growing the team from 5 to over 30 employees. As the team grew it became harder to effectively communicate and connect ideas. The team also grew in a number of different roles through expanding marketing and sales departments. This meant that different parts of the company were not talking to each other, losing important insights in the process.

This led the company’s CEO, Peter Ladič, to start looking at different collaboration tools that would help bring diversified experts inside the company together. He looked at different e-mail and enterprise intranet systems but they were inefficient and required a lot of work to enter information.

Solution

Flowr for Google Apps helped Intera open internal communication to everyone in the company. Since Intera already standardized its IT infrastructure on Google Apps, choosing Flowr for Google Apps as their social-collaboration tool meant that they completed integration in a matter of minutes. Employees use their existing accounts to login into their company’s Flowr network.

Flowr enables everyone in the company to post status updates, share links, and create polls and to-do lists. Besides information, users can also upload files to make it easier to review and collaborate on them. Files are then uploaded to Google Docs and they can also attach Google documents to their Flowr messages. Important company-related events that are posted to Flowr are also automatically synchronized with Google Calendar and various mobile devices.

Results

The marketing department has moved development of new ideas and coordination into groups inside Flow, creating better understanding of their processes.

Developers share links and ideas with everyone making it easier to discuss product improvements as they happen instead of waiting for meetings. Resulting discussions and ideation is then used during product planning meetings, making the processes faster and better researched as there is constant input from all parts of the company.

“Integrating Flowr for Google Apps into our company improved our internal communications and helped us identify experts on different subjects. We love how it just works with our existing Google Apps, and how we don’t have any additional infrastructure overhead because of it,” says Peter Ladič, CEO of Intera.

For more information, visit http://theflowr.com/googleapps

The Flavor Group and Manymoon

2010-06-03T15:18:00.000-07:00

Since implementing Manymoon, The Flavor Group has seen their business grow by 30% as they are now able to assume more complex events, and take on more from new and existing clients.

Customer

The Flavor Group is a full service creative agency with demonstrated success in executing experiential marketing programs that drive buzz, action and loyalty. Global brands like Red Bull and Toyota count on The Flavor Group to deliver world-class multi-market product launches, event production and execution.

Vendor

Manymoon is a leading project collaboration application built specifically for customers who utilize secure online tools such as Google Apps. Manymoon makes it simple to organize tasks, documents, events, and links with coworkers, customers, and partners. By seamlessly integrating with Google Apps, Manymoon helps organize and track projects so that anyone can efficiently collaborate and reduce email clutter. Manymoon is headquartered in San Francisco, California, and is proud to help thousands of businesses simplify their worklife.

Challenge

Without a shared project collaboration tool, The Flavor Group’s Project Managers were not able to see global timelines and milestones for events. As a result, deadlines would overlap and communication between teams was breaking down. The Flavor Group was also suffering from a loss of organizational history, as a wide variety of creative people were brought into projects for limited periods of time, taking that information with them when they left. Lastly, a real sense of cynicism towards Project Management systems had set into Flavor Group’s culture due to the failed implementation of three prior systems.

Solution

Manymoon’s full integration with Gmail, Google Calendar and Docs enabled it to be widely adopted within Flavor Group. Everyone instantly could use the system because they were already heavily reliant on Gmail and Google Apps. Manymoon’s simple and uncluttered interface also allowed the team to get up to speed rapidly with minimum instruction.

Results

Since implementing Manymoon, The Flavor Group has seen their business grow by 30% as they are now able to assume more complex events, and take on more from new and existing clients. Plus, they’ve increased their clients’ confidence in their work, as they are able to offer more detailed and timely status updates on events, and work around even tighter deadlines.

Internal processes have also dramatically improved, with weekly team meetings and updates being driven by Manymoon. The Flavor Group now has a universal view of all ongoing events, reducing miscommunications and missed deadlines, along with the ability to archive information from past contributors. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, The Flavor Team employees have embraced Manymoon. Manymoon has helped them save time and frustration—meaning less time planning and more time partying.

TriCipher and Bennington-Rutland Supervisory Union

2010-05-24T13:18:00.000-07:00

TriCipher, Inc. provides identity and access management technologies in the cloud. TriCipher's myOneLogin is the only identity services platform that gives each user a future-proof identity and never-compromised credentials federated to thousands of applications.

The Bennington-Rutland Supervisory Union provides central leadership and support for nine different school districts within the state of Vermont. Teachers, staff, board members, parents, community members and administrators work together to utilize resources equitably and effectively, to foster high performance and success for all students.

Challenge

The Bennington-Rutland Supervisory Union (BRSU) in Vermont is embracing cloud computing. Students and staff alike use Google Apps for Education, and staff use other Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) applications for the educational market, including content management systems with wikis and blogs.

In his role as superintendent of the Bennington-Rutland Supervisory Union (BRSU), Daniel French has championed Google Apps and SaaS within the member school districts. According to French, "Once you start using Google Apps, it really opens the doors to using other software-as-a-service applications, which are a great fit for educational districts."

As the district increased its reliance on cloud-based applications, it needed to secure and simplify access to those applications for teachers and staff. Says French, "We worried about controlling access when storing sensitive student information in online applications. I wanted to add better access security through strong authentication."

Solution

French found TriCipher's myOneLogin Secure Single Sign-On on the Google Apps Marketplace. myOneLogin provides a single, secure login for all web-based applications, using federation to offer tight integration with Google Apps.

Using myOneLogin, BRSU can set up a single sign-on portal providing secure access to Google Apps and other applications, including Vana Workforce, Zoho, iObservation, MyLearningPlan, BrainHoney, and SchoolFusion.

Access to the portal is protected with TriCipher's patented split-key authentication, which deflects phishing and password attacks.

BRSU uses roles-based access controls within the myOneLogin service to create and deploy distinct sets of web applications for different roles within the school district teachers and staff.

Results

After evaluating the 30-day free trial, BRSU deployed myOneLogin Secure Single Sign-On for staff throughout its school districts, as part of a broader roll-out of several new SaaS applications through the district.

Using myOneLogin delivers benefits on two fronts for the BRSU:

The union can easily deploy web applications to a distributed staff throughout several school districts by simply adding applications to defined roles in myOneLogin. The new applications then appear on the myOneLogin portal for users filling that role.
TriCipher's patented strong authentication alleviates concerns about password-only access to accounts containing sensitive student information.

Anthrotect and Smartsheet

2010-05-12T17:01:00.000-07:00

Smartsheet and Google Apps ensure that the most current information is shared between community leaders, technical consultants, and the project development team with different levels of access according to the participant’s role.

Customer
Anthrotect is a private environmental services partnership based in Bogota, Colombia. The group provides tools and resources to enable community-based ecosystem monitoring in order to conserve tropical ecosystems and prevent climate change. Deforestation accounts for as much as 20% of global carbon emissions in addition to its detrimental impacts on biodiversity and rural communities. New approaches to keeping forests standing can thus help prevent climate change while at the same time benefiting local communities and wildlife.

Vendor
Smartsheet provides an online collaboration tool used by thousands of organizations to manage projects, shared task lists, sales pipelines, marketing events and other types of work. More information on Smartsheet's online project management and other solutions are available at www.smartsheet.com.

Challenge
To effectively plan, fund and execute numerous projects simultaneously, Anthrotect staff, community leaders and other project stakeholders must be able to access, revise, and share project information from multiple locations (including remote tropical locations) in a secure and reliable manner. Stakeholders have a wide range of technical expertise, so ease of use is a requirement for any software solution.

Solution
Anthrotect currently has a staff of 6 using Google Apps to manage email, calendar, and contacts. Google Apps serves as a convenient and cost-effective repository for project documents as well as large files, such as satellite images and community maps. Smartsheet extends the ability to store and share files by enabling the team to post comments, share files and information, and track multiple versions in the context of projects. Smartsheet and Google Apps ensure that the most current information is shared between community leaders, technical consultants, and the project development team with different levels of access according to the participant’s role.

Result
Through Google Apps and Smartsheet, community leaders can now immediately access the latest project documents and status, dramatically reducing the number of phone and email requests. Sharing privileges enable different levels of access between Anthrotect, community leaders, and external investors and consultants. Smartsheet Project Management for Google Apps allows project stakeholders to more easily track progress toward objectives, make comments, and receive regular updates whenever information is added or revised. Project participants and communities now spend less time in the office communicating routine information, leaving more time for conservation activities in the field.

For more information, watch the video below or visit www.anthrotect.com.

Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) and Memeo Connect

2010-05-12T16:55:00.000-07:00

Customer

Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) migrated to Google Apps in early 2009, and had immediate success offering complete cloud-based office services for their 80 employees: Gmail and Google Calendar were quickly adopted by everyone in the organization. At RMI, office mobility and working remotely is the standard. By default, their users are issued with laptops for accessing content and documents from home and on the road.

Challenge

Christopher Berry, Director of IT at RMI, was pleased with Google Apps’ abilities around sharing of folders and uploading of any file, but realized he needed help to use these great features effectively. “While still in the adoption phase of their rollout, many of our users were creating documents offline and uploading them to Google Docs,” said Berry, but this process quickly became onerous for employees. RMI needed a solution that would help them better sync offline documents, and they needed something that would work with their mixed OS environment, with mostly Mac laptops but also Windows in the mix.

Solution

While searching the Google Apps Marketplace, Christopher discovered Memeo and their new offering, Memeo Connect for Google Apps. It was free to try so he downloaded the software for evaluation and eventually rolled it out company wide.

Results

Chris’s Mac and Windows users can now drag and drop entire folders and get them up to the Google cloud. When using Memeo Connect, local editing of the latest version of documents is now as easy as double clicking. RMI’s users are now assured changes to their local files are automatically uploaded to the Google cloud for immediate storage and web-based collaboration. As for licensing compliance, because each user logs in to Memeo Connect using their own Google Apps account, compliance and security is not an issue. Memeo’s solution fit RMI’s environment to a T.

SADA Systems and World Wildlife Fund

2010-05-03T13:34:00.000-07:00

SADA Systems, Inc. helps WWF automate provisioning of Google Apps accounts and user provisioning, saving time and allowing WWF IT to focus more on value-adding business initiatives.

World Wildlife Fund (WWF)

For more than 45 years, WWF has been protecting the future of nature. The world’s leading conservation organization, WWF works in 100 countries and is supported by 1.2 million members in the United States and close to 5 million globally. WWF's unique way of working combines global reach with a foundation in science, involves action at every level from local to global, and ensures the delivery of innovative solutions that meet the needs of both people and nature.

SADA Systems, Inc.

SADA Systems, Inc. (SADA) is a privately held information technology consulting, outsourcing, and development firm founded in 2000. SADA started as a Google partner for its search technology, and is proud to be one of the world's first 10 Google partners for Apps, having participated in the Google Apps official launch campaign in February of 2007 demonstrating a track record and competency in the implementation and customization of Google Apps and providing related consulting services. SADA Systems, Inc. has also assumed a major leadership role in the Cloud Computing space, and has built a significant part of its business around the implementation of cloud-based solutions all around the world.

The Challenge

WWF's Global ICT Team had unique requirements to overcome the challenges they were facing with respect to their existing Identity Management system. The goal was to help WWF by making it easier to provision individual users and and synchronize them with minimal overhead effort.

The Solution

SADA's User Provisioning Sync Tool allows for advanced customization to meet the needs of specific requirements in place by our clients such as WWF. In this scenario we were able to meet the needs of WWF by:

Supporting OpenLDAP.
Utilizing specific LDAP attributes when assigning a Google Apps username allowing customization based on the meta data that is stored in LDAP and in turn store user data which allows WWF to to come to specific determinations and conclusions.
After account is provisioned, automatically configure Gmail forwarding to an email address stored in an LDAP attribute, thus greatly improving end-user experience by eliminating the need for users to do configuration on their own.
During account provisioning, assign a predefined user password allowing the administrators to better utilize their time elsewhere.

Results

As a result of WWF's and SADA's collaboration, WWF's ICT team no longer has to manually provision accounts. Tangentially this has freed up their IT staffs time and decreased their overhead costs allowing their staff to take on more worthwhile, progressive and value adding business initiatives.