5 Google Apps Features Guaranteed to Boost Productivity
From creating custom surveys to collaboratively whiteboarding, here are five Google Apps features that promise to save you time.
CIO — You're probably familiar with the basics of Google (GOOG) Apps—Gmail, Docs, Calendar and Spreadsheets. But built into these are a number of features designed to increase productivity and simplify workflow. From a meeting rescheduling tool in Google Calendar to Priority Inbox, there's a tool for nearly every need.
And while there are a number of Google Apps features you may use every day, there is a handful you may not know about: creating custom surveys, translation tools, using scripts for automation and more. Check out these five Google Apps features that can save you time and increase your productivity.
1. How to Create and Send a Custom Survey
Say you're planning an offsite meeting for your department. Instead of asking your staff for input on the agenda via a series of emails, then organizing and tallying all the responses, try a Google Docs feature called "Forms."
Forms is an easy way to quickly create a form or survey, email it to your colleagues and keep track of the answers in one spreadsheet that updates automatically, in real-time. These forms and surveys can be customized however you like, whether it's for data collection, product feedback or more.
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To create a form or survey from your Docs list, click Create new, then select Form. In the form template that opens, you can add any questions and options you'd like to include. Some of the response types you can choose from include text responses, multiple choice, check boxes and more.
When you're done with creating the form, click "E-mail this form." You'll receive an email with a summary of what the form included, as well as a link to follow that will let you to send it to more people later. To view the responses, select the form from your list of Google Docs. The responses will load in a new window
You can also create a form from a spreadsheet. To do so, follow the steps above while in Google Spreadsheets..
2. How to Turn Images With Text into a Google Doc
If you have a printed document that needs editing, the Google Docs List API offers Optical Character Recognition (OCR) that lets you convert high-res image files with typewritten or printed text into editable text.
