Sharing Your Agenda/Minutes with Google Docs

Sending out agendas, updating them before the meeting and then sending out follow-up minutes can be time consuming, especially if there's an error that needs to be corrected and you have to send it out again. However, by creating your agenda with Google Docs and sharing it with your group, they will have a link to the most up-to-date information that can quickly be updated. Best part - no downloading or emailing necessary!

Setup

1. Create a folder where all your agenda/minutes documents will be stored. Be sure to include your committee/department's name (eg: Web Services Meeting Agendas/Minutes).
    
2. Share the folder with your committee members. As only you will be responsible for updating the content, the others only need the ability to provide comments. Information on how to setup sharing can be found at http://goo.gl/sk03rp.
    
3. Create a document that will act as your template, including sharing (you can see an example at: http://goo.gl/7M6OkQ). As you create a new meeting's agenda, you can either create a copy of your template or duplicate/edit your previous meeting's agenda.

The Process

As long as you agenda documents are stored in the proper folder,  the committee members will have access at any time to see the agenda.

Here is the process for each meeting:

1. Create your document for the meeting and update the agenda.
    
2. Send out the agenda for feedback (you can use the Email collaborators command under the File menu).
    
3. Committee members can leave comments (http://goo.gl/AljfqM) or suggest edit changes (http://goo.gl/2yOEy7).
    
4. Before the meeting, go through and add/approve any changes to the agenda.
    
5. During the meeting, make notes in the same document.
    
6. After the meeting, clean up the notes and make any changes.
    
7. Send our a message (see Step 2) letting everyone know the minutes are complete.

Screen Captures with Skitch

I create a lot of documentation and tutorials with Google Docs (it's the best way to replace PDFs). Of course, adding screenshots is always an important part of any good documentation. For that, my application of choice is Skitch.

Skitch (http://evernote.com/skitch/) is a free service/application provided by Evernote. It's easy to use, allows you to store your files within your Evernote account, provides easy sharing and has some great mark-up tools. What makes Skitch a winner for me is the ease with which I can drag my marked up screen shot to a Google Doc. I just click on the icon at the bottom and drag it onto my document. Quick and easy!

Here it is in action:

Get New Spreadsheet Functionality from Your Old Google Sheet Data

In the old version of Google Sheets, if you filtered your data, it would change the view for everyone who was accessing the document. Confusing and frustrating, as your content kept switching on you!

One of the advantages of using the new version of Google Sheets is Filter Views. This tool allows you to

• filter your information by field content
• create pre-set views that you can share with others.

Best part of all, it would not affect the view of others!

Video credit: +Google Gooru (http://googlegooru.com)

Using new sheets with your old data

If you have already existing data in the old version of Google Sheets, you don't have to re-create your spreadsheets in the new version (I'm running some Google Apps Scripts that only work in the old version). If all I want to do is manipulate the date for different reports, I can use the ImportRange function to bring the existing data from the old sheets into the new sheets:

=IMPORTRANGE("spreadsheet_key", "range_string")

I just enter the spreadsheet ID number from the old sheet's URL, as well as the sheet name and range of data I want to bring in.

=IMPORTRANGE("1R0nUpLMVmOkygrdo0Hdz", "StudentQueries!A1:J10000")

The content from the old sheet now appears in my new sheet. As this is a form that is constantly being added to, I made sure the row number is quite large. With the document open the data may take some time to refresh if the original sheet is being used for a form. Just refresh to get the most up to date information.

How do you use ImportRange?

Video credit to +Google Gooru

Import Data from a Web Site Into Your Spreadsheet and Filter the Results

Quite often people will paste data from a site into their spreadsheet (think of game standings, lottery numbers, etc). The importHTML function in Google Sheets can automatically get the latest data from a page and insert it into your spreadsheet, where you can treat it as if it was text you pasted in

Once your content is in your spreadsheet, you can treat it as if it was text you pasted in. You can use it in formulas, sort it, and filter it.

Built in Optical Character Recognition (OCR) in Google Docs

Ever had to retype a page of text? It's a long process that nobody really likes to do — except Google!

Optical Character Recognition (OCR) lets you convert images/PDFs with text into text documents. All you need to do is scan, upload and Google will convert your document.

So let's look at the steps:

1. Scan your document. You can use a regular scanner, photocopier/scanner or numerous apps for your mobile device to scan your document.
2. Upload the file. Currently, to take advantage of OCR, you must do this through your desktop browser.
3. Ensure Convert text from PDF is selected in the settings:
   
   
4. Start the upload

Once conversion is completed, Google will create a document for you that contains an image of each page followed by the text it converted for that page. This provides an easy way to check Google's work and make any corrections. You can see 2 samples here.

For more information see: About Optical Character Recognition in Google Drive.

Multiple Individuals Working on the Same File at the Same Time

As a document stored in Google Drive (i.e. the cloud), you never have to download or email a file — you just connect to it through your browser and start working. However, working with Google Apps is more than just cloud storage — it's about collaboration on a whole new level.

Collaborators can access the same document at the same time. You see other people's changes happen on your screen while you're making your own. In fact, you can have up to 50 people making changes on the document at the same time! For students, this means group work can be easily accomplished anywhere there's an internet connection - on a desktop or mobile device.

Faculty and administration can also take advantage of the collaboration features of Google Apps. With individuals working different hours and different locations (both on and off campus) the ability to work on a single document instead of trying to remember where the most recent version is stored, is invaluable.



What ways can you think of to take advantage of this exciting feature?

Originally published on Tips for Google Apps.

Replacing PDFs with Google Documents

For years, PDFs were the preferred vehicle for creating documents that looked exactly the way you laid them out. Different browsers were notorious for reformatting text and layouts - you never knew exactly how things were going to be displayed. But PDFs bring their own challenges - it's a separate file you have to download, sometimes you need a different piece of software to view it, and it doesn't reformat itself for mobile devices.

As an alternative, take a look at Google Docs, the word processing app that's part of Google Drive. The power of these web based apps can allow you to create some beautiful looking documents with some great advantages:

• they're web pages so no need to download a separate file
• text will re-warp to fit your device (images may not always fit the window size0
• you can easily update them
• you can collaboratively work on keeping them up to date
• you'll never lose the original document

Once you have your document looking the way you want, just go under the Share settings and make sure all users (or only those you want) can view the page!

Discover more about the share settings!