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Tech Tip: Most Often Missed Gmail Labs

By Steve Chang, Google Apps Certified Deployment Engineer




Customization has always been in my blood from cars, sportbikes, and even PCs. It is a way to personalize something that you own to something that you enjoy. Sometimes when you are given something that is a very useful system like Google Apps for Business, you just want to personalize and squeeze out more performance. That is where you find Google Labs.



As you may know, Google engineers are encouraged to take 20 percent of their time to work on something company-related that interests them personally and that they are passionate about. Although Google Labs has stopped producing new products, many are still available for your Google Mail enjoyment. Here are my top 3 picks of Google Mail Labs currently available to customize your Google Mail accounts, so here we go.

#3: Canned Responses
Within communication in any industry, there has always been a time where you typed the same email over and over again making both the process and the material monotonous. At least with the Canned Responses lab, you reduce some of your time in tedium by building templates you can efficiently revise. This will allow you to build your emails quickly without the need of re-typing or copy/pasting repeatedly. Another great feature of this Lab is that you can create a filter that will use a Canned Response to auto-reply to emails with specific search criteria. Who wouldn’t want that?

#2: Insert Images
For a long time you could not add images in-line with text within an outgoing email and could only attach the file or photo to the email to download first before viewing. Enabling the insert images lab will add a little picture icon across the top of the Compose section that will allow you to embed images into your email. You can insert and attach from your PC or from an URL on a website. Now you can paste those funny Memes to your fellow co-workers quickly and make them readily viewable.

#1: Signature Tweaks
When you first compose your email after creating a Signature in your Email Settings, your signature shows up at the bottom of the email. When you reply to an email, though, your quoted text shows up above the Signature that you thoughtfully made. The recipient will need to scroll down to the bottom of the email in order to find your contact information or to just marvel at your creation. Signature Tweaks under Gmail Labs places the Signature above the Quoted text so that it will always show up to your recipients just below the new email or email response.

There are quite a few more Gmail Labs available in the list presented to you under your Email Settings > Labs tab in your Google Mail account. So what are you waiting for? Go on and enable some Gmail Labs for yourself.

Greenleaf Hospitality Group chooses Google Apps

Greenleaf Hospitality Group, recently named among the 50 Most Engaged Workplaces in the U.S., is a hospitality management company that oversees two hotels, five ice arenas, seven restaurants, two retail shops, a spa, and is currently 800+ employees strong. Their locations and employees are spread out across an entire state, and employees can often be found on the road between locations. Getting them data when they need it is crucial to operations. Recently, Greenleaf was looking at opportunities that would allow them to move away from their aging and undersized IT system, including Exchange.

Michael Cross
Dir. of Technology Services

“We were looking at changing our entire infrastructure, and email was at the top of the list,” explains Michael Cross, Director of Technology Services. “We had explored staying with Exchange, as well as moving to a cloud solution like Office365 or Google Apps.”



Greenleaf was looking at finding better tools for their employees who were always on the go, to help them stay on top of projects and reports at their many locations.

“I was already familiar with the many benefits of Google Apps, and I already knew of Newmind as a Google Apps partner,” Michael continued. “In the end it really boiled down to cost being the most significant factor in our decision. Google Apps was 30% less than the cost of Office365, and only half the cost of using a self-managed Exchange server. When we calculated the ROI, we discovered Apps would pay for itself in only 18 months.”

Greenleaf Hospitality Group decided to make the switchover with a well-planned “rip and replace” strategy. “Only a dozen or so users had been given a preview of the new tools,” Michael said. “But everything went as smoothly as we could have imagined it to go. The Exchange server caused complete data migration to take longer than we would have liked,  but the entire cutover took four hours at the most.”

“Having Newmind Group manage our deployment was a critical success factor,” Michael goes on to say, “Doing it ourselves would have been possible, but there were a lot of ‘gotcha’ moments that would have delayed our efforts. Having Newmind Group involved helped us plan and get those roadblocks out of the way. Newmind’s assistance with training was also essential. They enabled a seamless, smooth process.”

The biggest benefit Greenleaf has seen since their move to Google Apps has been that now all of the employees can access their email from any device, anywhere. “As an IT guy, I really appreciate the freedom I can now give my colleagues to use what they like. The Android people are happy, the iPhone people are happy. Plus, my IT staff are happy now that we no longer have to support old devices that were losing their value and functionality.” Michael explains.

Prior to the switch, Greenleaf employees were locked into using antiquated devices as their only option for handhelds. They were difficult to work on and incapable of performing the functions employees yearned for, but the company was locked in. They had zero choices if they wanted to be able to access their email. If an off-site employee didn’t have a company-issued device they were forced to trudge through a complex vpn connection. One employee recounted a time when, in the legacy system, they were out of the office and needed to check their email. “After an hour of unsuccessfully trying to connect to the Exchange mail server with the vpn, I simply gave up,” the employee said. “When I returned to work the next day I discovered that there had been a crisis in my absence. Because of my inability to access my email, what could have taken seconds to clear up (with Google Apps) instead took days to rectify.”

By harnessing the power of the cloud, Google Apps has enabled Greenleaf Hospitality Group staff members to access their email, calendar, and documents from any device anywhere in the world.
In terms of delving deep into all of their new tools, Greenleaf’s training intentionally only covered the basics, leaving employees with the freedom to explore everything else on their own. “Now we’re starting to see widespread adoption. Chat was the big one to become adopted first, and now we’re starting to see people using forms. A lot of users are not computer savvy, but the fact that they are finding these tools on their own and are using them is amazing,” Michael says. “We’re lucky to have users that are used to and willing to accept change.”

“In hindsight, I can honestly say that every aspect of switching to Google Apps with Newmind went really well. The biggest success factor for me is that on the switchover day our CEO was on vacation and was able to get his email. He was on a boat, in Alaska, in the middle of nowhere, and he was able to get his email and reply to it,” Michael laughs. “In fact, as an organization we decided we should use this project as a tool to measure all future projects on how smooth and painless they should be.”