AI-assisted video creation in minutes with Google Vids

Google is making available a new tool in Google Workspace.

Google Vids is becoming part of the Google Workspace Business ecosystem, starting from the Business Standard edition. (More on Google Vids availability here and  here.)

With this tool, you can create videos just from a prompt and some AI magic.

💎 Watch the video to see Google Vids in action.

❓ What would you use this tool for?

Need help with Google Workspace? Schedule a Discovery Session:

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Tabs in Docs? 🤯

We are all pretty much used to seeing tabs in Google Sheets: they help us segment, visualize, and cross-link data, right?

But what if I told you that you can similarly segment a Google Doc with tabs?

While previously, Google Docs files felt like long endless documents even if you had a clickable Table of Contents, now they gained a 3rd dimension through Tabs. 

💎 Watch the video to see how you can add a 3rd dimension to your Docs with Tabs.

❓ Have you tried this?

Need help with Google Workspace? Schedule a Discovery Session:

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KloudGem picks up where the job of your IT Help Desk ends

KloudGem picks up where the job of your IT Help Desk ends: 

💎 we consult with your users or teams to smooth out or reimagine their workflows within the Google Workspace ecosystem,

AND 

💎 as necessary also work with them and your IT Team to provide custom-tailored training and company-specific guidance, 

so that your IT Team and your company can reap the intended cost- and productivity benefits of working in Google Workspace.

Mistake 6: IT KPIs - 6 Costly Mistakes When Rolling Out Google Workspace — and How to Avoid Them

When it comes to measuring your IT Help Desk's effectiveness, we believe that we need to look at it 2 ways:

🛠️ Fixing issues

⚙️ Thinking through workflows

Traditionally, metrics only look at the first.

For the former, the more traditional metrics work well: how fast was the person able to solve a technical issue, how many times a user had to contact the Help Desk.

For the latter, a simple fix-it-quickly approach is not going to work: there, you need your consultant to be able to put themselves in the user's shoes, really understand what they are trying to accomplish, and be their problem-solving ally. This requires a very different type of skill set. It requires an operations expert. And it cannot be measured with the traditional Help Desk KPIs.

Mistake 5: MICROSOFT AND GOOGLE TOOLS - 6 Costly Mistakes When Rolling Out Google Workspace — and How to Avoid Them

Working in Google files speeds up collaborations, but IT departments need to be keenly aware of any Microsoft office/file usage needs across your organization. Why? Because unbeknownst to you, there could be segments in the organization who need them for reasons outside of their or your control, perhaps because of file format requirements from outside agencies, working with outside partners, legacy files, etc. 

When this needs arises, it is advisable to deeply understand the why and the constraints. If it's just a preference, then sure, you can encourage Google tool use, but beyond that, if there is a specific non-negotiable need (as mentioned above), they might be experiencing file corruption issues when they use Google Drive's native compatibility feature that translates Microsoft files into the Google format. If this will inevitably cause dissatisfaction with the IT tools and IT's support, as well as #ITcost for your company in storage. Because, likely, people will start uploading and downloading Microsoft files, perhaps even emailing them instead of sharing, creating multiples of the same, resulting in increased storage costs and slowdown in productivity due to version control. And when the dissatisfied voices get louder about Google tools, it's hard to mitigate the damage.

So why not provide solutions instead? Consultations can ensure that those who need it, have Microsoft Office, and can use it in conjunction with Google Drive: raise awareness about how to store files in Google Drive, and share best practices for when to use Google Drive via Chrome vs. Google Drive for Desktop for natively editing Microsoft files.

Be or provide consultative guidance to your users so they can comply with IT's requirements and still get their work done.

Mistake 4: STORAGE - 6 Costly Mistakes When Rolling Out Google Workspace — and How to Avoid Them

One of the reasons you moved your company to GoogleWorkspace is to save on storage: by teams accessing the same file, instead of keeping various versions, everyone wins: smoother and faster collaboration for your users and cost savings for the company. However, expecting your users to define and establish document management best practices for themselves and their teams will undermine your digital transformation efforts. 

Without guidance, users will interact with Google files the way they used to with offline files, and this will only lead to duplication of content and version control issues -- as well as significantly increased storage costs on the IT side (both in Gmail and in Google Drive). Added to this, there are bound to be file ownership and access issues when people leave the company or move between teams. 

Without a shared strategy, there will be confusion about where to look for files. And user confusion always ends up in increased IT tickets.

How can you avoid it? Seek cross-functional alignment on document management strategy, with input from IT, Legal, Operations, and User teams. Then communicate the strategy to your user teams, and train your users on the guidance, strategy, and best practices. Get help from an expert who can tailor the content. 

Provide opportunities for your users and their teams to have access to workflow consultations with a Google Workspace expert. Your people will thank you for it, and you can avoid unwelcome cost increase.

A consultative addition to IT Support

I haven't yet come across an organization where the employees love their IT Departments. 💻

But this post is not about criticizing IT; the issue is that expectations are misaligned: 

Your IT Department is prepared to help with any technical issue around the hardware or software that they support.

On the other hand, users don't always come with technical issues. Sometimes their issues are more about day-to-day operations, processes, workflows, or best practices for working together as a team.

Specifically, you might hear that they need help with: 

🗃️ File management: optimal organizing of own vs. team files, or reducing file versioning issues in Google Drive 

📧 Email management: reducing email overload in Gmail with some sorting automation 

🤝 Team effectiveness: working and communicating effectively within their team using the Google tools.

And it is not IT's job to remedy this.

However, your IT Department can absolutely help solve the problem: KloudGem can work with users on problems that are not strictly IT Support in the Google Workspace world; we add a consultative approach. We can round out and add value for your users' experience with IT Support.

What other non-IT questions do you get from your users who work in Google Workspace?

Floating audience in Google Meet

From now on, it's going to be so much easier to see your meeting participants at the same time as looking at another tab or sharing your screen in Google Meet.

Finally! The Google Meet feature I've been eagerly waiting for is here!

It always confused my clients when they couldn't see me while they switched to another tab or were sharing their screens. 

Well, technically, you could make it happen, but you had to take an extra step to open what's called Picture-in-picture. And it took time away from our topic to get that floating camera feeds set up just right.

But no more Picture-in-picture acrobatics! Now, you can effortlessly keep others in-view while you move to another tab as you present. 

💎 Watch the video to see how the Automatic picture-in-picture works.

Need help with Google Workspace? Schedule a Discovery Session:

https://www.kloudgem.com/contact-us 

KloudGem tips: 

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Mistake 3: FEEDBACK - 6 Costly Mistakes When Rolling Out Google Workspace — and How to Avoid Them

We all know that user feedback is important, but it should not be a 1x or 2x a year survey. As an IT Team, you want to make sure that you have set up channels through which you can be in continuous communication with your users about the tools that are deployed to your company – and not just for Google tools. I see that in many places, IT is perceived to be this department that imposes rules about how to work and what to work with. I believe that it is in IT's power to change that view. IT needs to be and can be a trusted partner in facilitating work for all employees. Unaddressed dissatisfaction with the tools and/or IT may undermine all your technical efforts of your Google Workspace rollout. When the grumbling starts about people not being able to use the tools effectively, it is not just their problem, it is your problem as IT. If the tools are perceived to be ineffective for day-to-day work, it can be costly, not only because the company as a whole is not as productive as it could be, but you could be forced to migrate back to your old systems despite you as IT Team knowing full well that Google Workspace is better for collaboration and productivity.

So what can you do? Open up channels to listen to concerns, not just in the form of a written feedback survey, but also allow for users to reach out in person to someone. And really listen. Once you get the feedback, record it, aggregate it, and assess it: you will likely find that an issue is either one that consultations and training or some easy tweaks can fix, or you'll need to partner with the users and look for software solutions for them or build them. Aggregating the information coming from your users, and aggregating and assessing the data coming in through different channels will be a key element. And don't forget to circle back to users so they know you heard them and are working with them.

Mistake 2: IT SUPPORT - 6 Costly Mistakes When Rolling Out Google Workspace — and How to Avoid Them

Depending on your IT Help Desk to optimize operations and workflows for the employees typically doesn't work. It's not their job; neither are they usually trained for it. Their job is to make sure that tech issues are fixed. Expecting them to consult with users on their or their teams' day-to-day workflows is setting the up for failure and will lead to dissatisfaction with IT and the tools they deployed.

While it is not your IT Help Desk's job to come up with team and individual processes and workflows, optimize them, or translate your legacy system's workflows into the #GoogleWorkspace world, you can still facilitate them: allow the users to have access to consultations with an expert.

Can't find certain emails in your Gmail inbox?

Today's post and video were inspired by my clients. Talking to them, I realized that being aware of how Gmail works under the hood is key to taming your inbox. So we will talk about lost emails and what's under the hood in Gmail. What I am about to share applies to both the paid and the free version of Gmail or Google Workspace accounts.

Time and time again I have heard from clients that some emails seem to have disappeared from their Gmails. 99% of the time, we can find them.

💎 Watch the video to see how we go about locating lost emails.

Need help with Google Workspace? Schedule a Discovery Session:

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Mistake 1: TRAINING - 6 Costly Mistakes When Rolling Out Google Workspace — and How to Avoid Them

Part of software rollout is of course training, but generic, cookie-cutter training for your users just doesn't cut it. Not only will your employees not remember what they learned, but they won't be able to use the tools well for their specific business needs, because effective learning takes place when there is a need where the learning can be immediately applied. 

Your users need to only know about tools and features of tools that are enabled for your organization (avoid overwhelm). At the same time, they also need to know about policies that are not necessarily visible to them, yet can affect their work or are expectations that they need to conform to. One example of such an area is external sharing: most people want to do what's best for their organization, so communicating safe information sharing best practices and related behavioral expectations can make your users allies of your IT Security Team.

 

6 Costly Mistakes When Rolling Out Google Workspace — and How to Avoid Them

With this post we are starting a series of posts about expensive mistakes that companies can make when rolling out Google Workspace, and we'll share ways you can avoid the pitfalls.

These are the areas we'll address:

🤸🏻 Training

💻 IT Support

📢 Feedback

🗃️ Storage

🔗 Microsoft and Google Tools

✅ IT KPIs

 

Cost savings on eSignature software

One of the most important pieces of technology a business needs is an electronic signature software for contracts. And this functionality is now part of Google Workspace!

Sending contracts for electronic signature has become the norm, and I want to show how this can now be done directly in Google Workspace.

💎 Watch the video.

And the best part: you can reuse your template Doc over and over and over. 

For more information about which Google Workspace editions have this electronic signature capability, and to read Google's terms, visit the resources below: 

https://workspace.google.com/resources/esignature/ 

https://support.google.com/docs/answer/12315692?hl=en  

(You or your system admin will need to enable the eSignature feature.)

👉 Try it! It's fast and simple.

Need help with Google Workspace? Schedule a Discovery Session:

https://www.kloudgem.com/contact-us 

KloudGem tips: 

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KloudGem Intro

Has your company migrated to Google Workspace? Are your people still struggling with it, and flooding your IT Help Desk with tickets? KloudGem can pick up where the job of your Help Desk ends: 

💎 we consult with users to reimagine their workflows within the Google Workspace ecosystem,

and 

💎 as necessary also work with them and your IT Team to provide custom-tailored training and company-specific guidance, so that your IT Team and your company can reap the intended cost- and productivity benefits of working in Google Workspace.

🎥 Watch the KloudGem Intro Video

Need help with Google Workspace?

https://www.kloudgem.com/contact-us 

KloudGem tips: 

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Embed your video camera feed and record in Google Slides

When you do presentations, if you use a deck, you might distribute the deck for reference, but how can you ensure that people will actually remember what you said about the slides?

➡️ Enter: video feed recordings in Google Slides.

In today's video, I talk about how to embed a video feed into Google Slides so people can see you in-context, and how to record it as a video.

💎 Watch the video to see how you can take your Google Slides to the next level.

Try it! Your audience will be asking how you did this! 😲

Need help with Google Workspace? Schedule a Discovery Session:

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Turning the tables

I don't know about you… but I can very easily spend a half an hour or more with just fussing over how to format a spreadsheet so it's easy to look at:

I tweak the color scheme, the contrast, then again I mull over the meanings for the colors in dropdowns (green for good-to-go, red for no-go, should it be yellow or orange for the in-between color…  and I think about similar "incredibly productive" activities.) The truth is: I actually enjoy the formatting process… but wow, is it time-consuming!

Well, Google just came out with a new feature that lets you achieve professional-looking tables, with impeccable color schemes with just a few clicks.

So now I can have my visually appealing tables but won't have to spend as much time on formatting them.

I'll show you how:

💎 Watch the video here.

❓ Have you tried these colorful tables?

Need help with Google Workspace? Contact us for a free Discovery Session: 

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KloudGem tips: 

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Don't reinvent the wheel! Use Docs email templates.

Have you ever needed to standardize email templates across your team? 

Did you know that Google Docs has a Building block that lets you do just that?

With this Building block you can save so much time! And no one in your team has to reinvent the wheel again.

💎 Watch the video here.

💡 Now take it to the next level with a library of shared email templates to save time and create a cohesive style.

❓ Have you been using Smart chips and Building blocks in the Google Editors?

Need help with Google Workspace? Contact us for a free Discovery Session: 

https://www.kloudgem.com/contact-us  

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