New Google Forms

It has been a while since I posted...even though I promised more but hopefully you follow me on Google+ as I've been posting more quick tips there.  I've been spending a lot of time with the new Google Forms recently and I thought it was about time to blog about it.

There are many changes with Google Forms but the big change is that Forms is now its own editor.  It has the ability to talk to Google Sheets, but should now be considered a single editor.  Therefore, now when someone submits your Form the responses are actually stored in Forms itself and not necessarily a spreadsheet.  Google gives you this option with the response destination feature.  You can either keep the responses stored in the Form (which allows only a summary view) or link them to a new or existing spreadsheet to see each individual response.  There is a nice button and wizard in the form editor to help with this.

The biggest questions on the forums right now tend to revolve around the difference between an editor/owner/collaborator and respondents (Google's term for people who fill out the form).  I recommend keeping your Form always with sharing settings of Private.  This setting affects the editor/owner/collaborator.  By keeping the sharing settings at Private, you can easily collaborate with others on the content of the Form just as if it were a Google Doc or Sheet (also in real time).  Only those who have explicit access to edit the form will be allowed to edit the form.  Respondents can access the form to fill it out using the Send form feature.  You will find this blue button in the upper right of the editor or at the very bottom.  When you click here you find a few options for sending your form to respondents.  The easiest method is the URL that is generated that goes to the life form.  You can paste this link on a website, on your Google+ page, a Facebook page, in an email, etc.  When people click on it they will be taken to your Form to fill out as a respondent (There might be a bug right now with some users having to be signed into a Google account, but I have yet to find this consistent behavior or able to reproduce...there might be some user error here).  

There are lots of cool little features but my favorite is the ability to copy a list of multiple choice answers from a spreadsheet and paste it into the form editor in one quit click.  Make sure to use Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V when doing and make sure your cursor is in the first box for the multiple choice question.

Other big topics include the fact that the number of themes are limited and there is currently no feature for adding pictures on a form but hang in there!

Enjoy the new Forms and if you have any questions or feedback make sure to head over to the Google Docs Help Forum.

Update on March Madness Pool Templates (How I fixed it)

It seems that the =googletournament() function will most likely not be updated in time.  For those still wishing to use Google Docs for your own bracket or Pool, however, you still have an option.  I've updated the templates I created to still work.  Instead of getting your information from Googleland you will be getting it from me.  As long as you don't change any grey background fields on the spreadsheets, your brackets will update with the winners automatically, assuming I am near a computer at the completion of a game (I probably will be as I'm a huge basketball fan).

Since this blog is about Google Docs, I thought I might quickly step into that I did on the backend of these templates to make it work.

I decided that my method would be to create a master spreadsheet that I update.  My template then uses =importrange() to pull various ranges from the master spreadsheet.  As long as you have viewing rights to a spreadsheet, you can pull data from it using importrange(). So this should work.

I divided the Full Bracket tab for both the Single and Group Template into 3 sections; the left side of the bracket, the right side of the bracket and the middle.  This way I only had to write 3 importrange() functions. I decided against using one.  Now, the Full Bracket tab is pulling in the data from my master spreadsheet in three sections.  As soon as I update the master sheet, anybody who references my master sheet (anybody using my templates) will see their data update within a few minutes.  The blank bracket templates simply reference the Full Bracket so that we don't end up with a million importrange() function (you can only actually have up to 50).

If anything, the spreadsheets might actually be quicker because 3 importrange() functions should be lighter than a billion =googletournament() functions.

Thanks for being patient.  Hopefully next year Google will be able to fix the function so that it works (I'll make sure of it this time).

Cheers and good luck with your brackets!

Happy Holidays and the coming weeks

Wow. I realized I posted ONCE in November. Not good.  Anyways, a lot has been going on with Docs and I hope to post more soon!  The past couple of weeks have been pretty crazy but I plan on doing a few more analysis posts about the forum itself, the future of Google Docs and try to apply some of what has been going on to a few models about change.  It would be really great to help users learn how to be the most resilient Google product users!  I do think some of this learning is going on by newer users but I hope a few of my insights will help others see their use of Google Docs from a new light.

However, I probably won't publish these posts for a few weeks (and hopefully from my new Chromebook!).  For now, enjoy this image I made using G+. Happy Holidays!!

The New Presentations Editor / Prelude to "The Google Way"

Just as a preface...I am slightly annoyed as I write this post...

The new Presentations editor has been available as an opt-in feature for the past few weeks now.  A lot of users have been posting about their experience so far but I wanted to make a few quick comments about what I've seen on the forums recently.

I am very surprised by the amount of negativity I've seen recently.  The new look for the Docs List has been out for 3 months, the new looks for all parts of the Docs Suite have been available for a while depending on which part of the suite you are using, and Google's global UI change is also being slowly applied across Google products.  For Docs, the newest roll out is the new Presentation editor.  One thing I don't users fully realize is that this is currently an opt-in feature.  This means that you don't have to use it and you have the option of using the old Presentations editor.  This is the Google way of doing things.  I have a post about my understanding of the Google way and whether or not I subscribe to it coming soon.  But for now, I want to make this point:

The new Presentation's editor is not in its final form and there is no reason to get worked up over a feature that isn't working correctly.  You are not being forced into using it hence the reason for the opt-in feature.  This is Google's way of a final testing for a new product.  They fully expect things not to work correctly and hope that users bring these issues to the forefront by way of the forums.  This is simply a preview of what the new editor is going to be like once the old version is no longer supported.  I think we can all agree that the new editor is a step up from the old editor.

My thinking about the new Presentations editor also applies to the newer Docs List.  This has significantly improved since the new Docs List was presented in early August.  While I have no idea how long it will take before the classic view is no longer supported, it is important to note that it has been three months.  Serious Docs users should be trying to get used to the new look because soon this will be the only look for the Docs List.

Google is in the business of pushing out innovative features that might not be completely bug free.  If they sat around trying to make everything perfect then the innovation would be curbed.

As a user of many Google products on a daily basis, I provide the following advice.  Get to know the product you are using as well as you can.  Be open to the idea that things will change and that Google does A LOT of user experience research to find out where they should take the products.  When something new comes to a product you use, try to embrace it because most likely what you are seeing is the future of the product.  Also, it will be to your advantage to provide feedback via the links you can find in the product or on the Help Forums.  I'm not sure about the other forums but I know the Docs TCs do their best to be on top of the forums, on top of issues that users are saying, and also provide our own feedback to the Guides. At least in Docs, the Guides truly respect our opinions and trust us to represent the users.

I don't mean to be negative but I feel that the mood of the Docs forum has been inappropriately negative lately.  It is much easier to help someone who comes to the forums who is willing to be helped as opposed to someone who comes to the forums to just complain.

Disclaimer:  The views represented here are my own are not necessarily those of Google.

Reflecting on the TC Summit

This past week I was fortunate enough to go to Mountain View, CA for the Global Top Contributors Summit at the Googleplex.  The experience was truly amazing.  I got to meet Teresa C, the Google Docs, Sites and Apps Script Community Manager.  As a TC I am in daily contact with her about Google Docs so it was finally nice to meet her in person.  I also met many other wonderful Google employees.  We got to discuss the products with project managers, engineers and other support team members.  It was truly amazing how interested they were in what we had to say.  There were many situations where we would ask questions or have ideas and they would immediately contact someone to find an answer if they didn't know.  Google is extremely interested in what the users want and this made me extremely excited.  I really wish I could express how amped I am about Google, their mission and their products after going to the TC Summit.  I think they really understand people and how to make products that are always innovative.  I think this will make me be an even better TC.

To all who are reading this I hope you continue to stay with Google products.  I saw things that were truly amazing which proved how innovative Google actually is.

I was also impressed how Google treats their employees.  We all always hear about the things that go on at Google but the perks themselves are not really what impressed me.  Google treats their employees the way they do because they understand how to have productive employees.  If their employees are not being 100% productive then they believe they shouldn't be at work.  When this is the case, Google has provided activities that will help employees get to that 100% productive point.  Many people would think that the Googlers would take advantage of this but they do not.  Googlers are the type of people who know when its time to work and when its time to play.  I truly believe this why Google is so successful.  They pick the right people, put them in the right places, and provide them an environment to be productive, innovative and to explore the craziest ideas. Bureaucracy simply doesn't exist.

Before the TC Summit I was rather annoyed by the amount of complaints I saw from users and put part of the blame on Google.  I thought "Why would Google release a product with all of these bugs?!"  This led to my adoptions of "fixes before features."  But now I get it.  I know exactly why Google releases things knowing full well that it isn't perfect.  So I will be getting rid of the "fixes before features" tag in my signature soon.  However, I think my understand of innovation deserves its own post after a few more days of reflection.

So in the words of Yogi, let us keep Googling!

Cheers!