Don't waste time checking files, get notified!

You are working with a team and you are waiting for your team members to update the status of their tasks or 

you keep looking in the project files to see if they have been filled out. 

Now, especially if you are a project manager, you likely do this daily, or even multiple times a day.

Did you know that you can save all that time by getting notified by email when updates are made to your files?

💎 Watch the video to see how to set this up.

❓ Have you tried this? What do you think?

Need help with Google Workspace? Schedule a Discovery Session:

https://www.kloudgem.com/contact-us 

KloudGem tips: 

https://www.kloudgem.com/follow-resources/newsletter 

Infinite version history in Google files

Has it ever happened to you that a file got changed (either by you or someone else) and now you wish you could go back to the version from a week ago?

You can do that in Google files. Today, we dive into the wonderful world of detailed version history in Google files.

💎 Watch the video to see how you can find what was changed in a Google file, and/or revert to an earlier version.

❓ Have you tried this? 🔎

Need help with Google Workspace? Schedule a Discovery Session:

https://www.kloudgem.com/contact-us 

KloudGem tips: 

https://www.kloudgem.com/follow-resources/newsletter 

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:

https://www.kloudgem.com/contact-us 

KloudGem tips: 

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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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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  

KloudGem tips: 

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Thanks, Google! Non-printing characters finally in Google Docs

Image source: https://www.iconfinder.com/icons/3671875/decoration_text_icon 

Today, we'll be talking about a somewhat recent feature in Google Docs, one that I have been hoping for for literally years: the option to see non-printing characters.

💎 Watch the video to see how you can turn on visibility for non-printing characters in Google Docs.

❓ Have you tried this?

Need help with Google Workspace? Contact me for a free first consult: 

https://www.kloudgem.com/get-in-touch/contact  

KloudGem tips: 

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Know what's going on in your Google files

When there is an important document I want to keep tabs on, I like to use the Notifications feature in Google files, because notifications keep me up-to-date on changes on the given Google file. 

For a long time, this feature was only available in Google Sheets.

Finally, it has been introduced in Docs and to some extent in Slides as well.

💎 Watch the video to see how you can turn on change notifications.

❓ Have you tried this?

Need help with Google Workspace? Contact me for a free first consult: 

https://www.kloudgem.com/get-in-touch/contact  

KloudGem tips: 

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A rogue line in a Google Doc

Have you ever found yourself trying to eke out space on a page for just one more line to keep it from going over to the next page in Google Docs?  Yeah, me too. 

In this video, we'll tackle those pesky rogue lines that just want to go over to the next page in an online Doc.

💎 Watch the video to see how you can reformat your Google Doc so you don't have to wrestle with a single line trying to jump over to the next page.

❓ Have you tried this?

Need help with Google Workspace? Contact me for a free first consult: 

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KloudGem tips: 

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Productivity: Leave Yourself a Comment

Keeping track of your to-do list and action items can be tricky. Even if you write down what you need to do, you often actually have to go into your files, and figure out where you left off or what changes you were going to make and exactly where.

Tips for end-users and small businesses:

💎 Leaving a Comment for yourself in a Google file can actually help you achieve a number of things all in one:

• Setting an action item.

• Keeping track of action items/to-do list: action items can be searched for in Google Drive easily from the Search options.

• You will know exactly where and what needs to be done, down to the letter.

• You can even add reference materials to your Comments so you have everything in a single place.

💎💎 If you @ or + mention yourself, you can get an email that can then be sent to your Google Tasks list and even allocated on your Google Calendar on a specific day. And this way, you have a workflow!

So don't be shy about leaving Comments and conversing with yourself in Google files.

Tips for mid-size companies and large enterprises:

💎 Commenting can come in handy even in larger organizations the same way as above. 

💎 This is  a powerful tool to get work done collectively, as a team -- ideal for teams who are remote and/or distributed geographically and have to work across time zones.

❓ Do you use the Comment functionality?

Need help with Google Workspace? Contact me for a free first consult: 

https://www.kloudgem.com/get-in-touch/contact  

KloudGem tips: 

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Productivity: Take Note!

There are lots of note-taking tools out there. You don't even have to venture out of Google Workspace to find several that might work for you. But the tricky part is not where to take notes, but how to organize them in a way that will make it easy to find what you are looking for later on -- quickly. Hello, Productivity!

While I enjoy some of the features of Google Keep (Google's ad-hoc note-taking tool), like OCR or optical character recognition to grab the text out of images for easier note taking, I miss the organized layout of Google Drive.

Tips for end-users and small businesses:

So, having experimented with Google Keep for a while, I have decided to keep it (pun intended) for shopping lists, but have settled back on Google Drive, and primarily Docs as my note taking tool:

💎 I recommend creating a dedicated "Notes" folder in which to keep notes files per topic or client. My default file type is Docs.

💎 You can get the same OCR as you get in Keep if you upload a file into Drive and right click to open it with Docs.

💎 You can change the color of your "Notes" folder so it will stand out. 

💎 You can add extra symbols in the folder name so it gets sorted to the top.

💎 You can come up with a naming convention for your files; you can even create subfolders.

💎 You can sort them in a variety of ways.

💎 You can add action items for yourself from Comments that you can then find from a Drive search.

💎 You can even dictate your notes!

💎 You can surface the notes using shortcuts into other folders.

💎 And best of all, you can look at your notes files in List view or in Grid view with a click.

💎 Searchability is excellent in Drive, and the results are easy to view!

💎 And alluding to our previous post: "If it has a URL, it can be linked!" -- You can drop links into a Google Doc for anything you need to reference.

Tips for mid-size companies and large enterprises:

💎 Introduce your users to different ways of note taking so everyone can find one that works best for them. When it comes to note taking, people's preferences vary quite a bit.

❓ Do you prefer Drive or Keep for note taking? Let me know in a Comment.

Need help with Google Workspace? Contact me for a free first consult: 

https://www.kloudgem.com/get-in-touch/contact  

KloudGem tips: 

https://www.kloudgem.com/follow-resources/newsletter 

A Long-Awaited Feature Finally Arrived in Docs!

Google Docs has for a while now seemed to be the stepchild of the Google file editing tools: all the other tools got many bells and whistles to make them comparable with their older Microsoft counterparts: Google Slides received easy-to-use cross-linking features; Google Sheets gained more and more formulas, connectors, and a very powerful version of the Explore feature which makes data wrangling and visualization easier. Google Forms evolved. Even Google Drawings got some all grown-up accessories.

But not Google Docs. Docs has long been a trusty, yet simple word processing tool that never got super cool features. Until now.

Recently Google Docs has started adding features. One of the features that has been really sought after by Google Workspace (and Gmail.com) users I work with is the ability to have a mixed page orientation (portrait and landscape pages mixed) in a single doc.

In case you can't tell :), seeing this feature roll out has made my day! So I wanted to make sure you know about it, too.

I know many a person who said that they wanted to love Docs for its simplicity, but they needed Word for creating files with mixed orientation pages. Now those users can do that in Docs.

Tips for end-users and small businesses:

Now that this mixed page orientation feature is live in Google Docs, let's see how to apply it:

1. In a Google Doc, select the text, table, or image where you want to change the orientation of the page.

2. Right-click (on a PC) or 2-finger click (on a Mac) and

3. Choose Change page to landscape/portrait from the menu that pops up.

OR

1. In a Google Doc, select the text, table, or image where you want to change the orientation of the page.

2. Go to the File menu,

3. Select Page setup and change the orientation of the page. 

💎 (Using this method, you can also change margins for part of a document.) 

Tips for mid-size companies and large enterprises:

As this feature can be very useful in simplifying processes and will reduce the need to create multiple files with different page styles, you will want to make sure that your users are trained on how to use the mixed page orientation feature.

Need a Google Workspace expert for your organization's digital transformation and change management? Contact me for a free first consult: https://www.kloudgem.com/get-in-touch/contact  

Do you know someone who could use these KloudGem tips? Feel free to send them this link: https://www.kloudgem.com/follow-resources/newsletter

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