Scheduled Release track features update 9/11/12

Calendar: Users with an active Google+ profile can add a Google+ Hangout to calendar events. Invited guests can join the hangout by clicking on “Join hangout” on the event details page. These hangouts will respect any restrictions in the administrator control panel.



The following features are intended for release to these domains on September 18th:

Spreadsheets: Users now have the ability to collaborate more efficiently with discussions in Google Spreadsheets. This updates brings features like the ability to +mention users to add them to the discussion.



Release track:

Scheduled



Editions included:

Google Apps, Google Apps for Business, Government and Education



For more information:

http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2012/08/bringing-google-to-work.html

http://support.google.com/calendar/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=2690797

http://googledocs.blogspot.com/2012/09/google-spreadsheets-now-with-discussions.html



whatsnew.googleapps.com


Get these product update alerts by email


Subscribe to the RSS feed of these updates

Need help? Now you can get it right inside the DFA UI

We've made it easier to get right from DFA to the help you need. In fact, you don't even have to leave DFA at all: now you can access a help pane from within the DFA UI. Use it to find and read articles, as well as contact the support team with questions or comments.

To open in-product help, click the Help link in the upper right of the DFA interface. This brings up a search bar you can use to find popular Help Center articles.

If you need more help, try the full Help Center by clicking Explore Help in the lower right of the product help page. Or click Contact Support to send questions to the support team.

In-product help even offers tools to accompany your question or comment with a screenshot of your page. You can highlight areas of the screenshot that are especially relevant to your issue.

Plus, your question or comment will automatically include the URL you’re on, along with key trafficking details and information about your browser type. You can review all this data before you send your message by just clicking on the Included system information link.

Help content may be a route, but we know the product is your destination. That's why we developed in-product help with this in mind: the quickest way back to DFA is never leaving in the first place. So try it out and let us know what you think.

Posted by Jeremy Axelrod, Technical Writer, DFA

Retiring support for v201108, v201111, and v201201 of the DFP API

Today, we are announcing the deprecation of versions v201108, v201111, and v201201 of the DFP API. In roughly 3 months, on Dec 10th, these versions will be turned off. Turning off older versions allows us to make sure that everyone can benefit from the improvements in more recent releases and to focus on releasing new features.

Although we are not announcing the deprecation of any other versions at this time, we would still like to give our developers using v201203, v201204, and v201206 notice that those versions will most likely be deprecated next. Upgrading to v201208 now will reduce any future development time needed for an upgrade later.

As mentioned in previous deprecation announcements, we will always give at least 3 months notice before turning off a version. Our release notes page also contains changelogs for each version, which will help you migrate to a newer version. If you aren’t using one of our client libraries, now would be a great time to start as well. If you have any feedback or comments about this deprecation, or the API in general, please feel free to leave them on our forum.

 - Adam Rogal, DFP API Team

Google Drive: Updates for iOS and Android

[Cross posted from the Google Official Blog]



Every day, more and more people are choosing to live online and get things done in the cloud the cloud. Helping to make this experience as seamless as possible, Google Drive is one place where you can create, share and keep all your stuff. Drive is available on the web, as well as Mac, Windows and Android and iOS.



Updates for iOS

Starting today, if you’re using the Drive app on your iOS device you can also edit Google documents, just as you can with the Android app. From your iPhone or iPad, you can create a new document, edit an existing one or format text. And, just like on your computer, you’ll be able to see other people’s edits instantly as they’re made.

You’ll also notice other new improvements to the iOS Drive app. For example, you can now view Google presentations on your iPhone or iPad, including speaker notes, full-screen mode and the ability to swipe between slides. You can also create new folders, move files into folders and upload stuff (like photos and videos) from your device directly in the Drive app.



Updates for Android 

We’re also updating the Drive app for Android phones and tablets today. You can now add comments, reply to existing comments and view tables in your Google documents. And you’ll have the same new abilities to view presentations and organize your stuff as your friends with iPhones do.



More to come... 

Looking ahead, we have plenty more planned for the Drive mobile apps—including native editing and real-time collaboration for Google spreadsheets. Stay tuned.







Get Drive in the App Store for your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch and visit the Play Store to get the latest on your Android phone or tablet. To learn more about Google Drive, visit drive.google.com/start. 




Posted by Anil Sabharwal, Senior Product Manager

Lessons from Legends

Creativity is a fundamental part of any business' success, and it's often helpful to go right to the source for tips. Earlier this year, we partnered with The One Club to develop a series that would bring the energy and ideas of creative icons to today's industry. Our goal was to explore the creative consistencies, anomalies, joys, and pains over the past century.



Last week, we hosted icons Mark Tutssel of Leo Burnett and Bob Scarpelli of DDB at Google Chicago. The theme was "Focus," featuring a candid conversation between the two creatives, ranging from influential work, Chicago's mojo, and the future of advertising. Both men discussed the work that makes them proud, creativity's power to solve problems, and the importance of emphasizing the humanity in everything that we do. Creatives from several Chicago agencies, including Leo Burnett, DDB, BBDO Energy, Euro RSCG, and SapientNitro, joined the conversation, and learned about the stories behind campaigns such as Budweiser's Wassup and Troy Library's Book Burning Party.



Our first Lessons from Legends event was held in June, with Lee Clow of TBWA\Chiat\Day kicking off the program. Just as Lee couldn't help but emphasize the importance of Los Angeles in his creative story, Chicago played an active role inspiring both Mark and Bob. We'll soon move the program to another city, and are eager to learn how the next locale inspires another group of creative talent.

Posted by Carley Ribet, Agency Coordinator

Upcoming extended AdWords API/Scripts, Ad Exchange, and DFP API Downtime

Update: Ad Exchange will be affected by the downtime as well. Please see below for details.



As previously mentioned, we have an upcoming AdWords, Ad Exchange, and DFP service outage. This will occur on Saturday, September 22 -- AdWords, Ad Exchange, and DFP systems will be unavailable from approximately 10:00 am to 8:00 pm Pacific Time (17:00 Saturday to 03:00 Sunday GMT) due to system maintenance.



AdWords

During this time, your campaigns will continue to run as usual (with the settings you established as of 10am PST), but you won’t be able to make SOAP API calls or download reports. Requests to the AdWords API will fail with an HTTP 50x error during the maintenance window. Please also keep in mind that any automated rules scheduled during this time will not run and AdWords scripts will not execute during this period. We encourage you to verify your campaign settings prior to the outage.



Ad Exchange

During this time, your ad serving will continue to run per changes made prior to downtime period, but you will not be able to make API calls to Ad Exchange Buyer SOAP API. On Ad Exchange Buyer REST API, only the Direct Deals related API calls will be affected. For the Ad Exchange Real-Time Bidding Protocol, you will not be able to make changes to pre-targeting settings, everything else should continue to run as usual.



DFP

As mentioned above, ad serving will continue to run per changes made prior to the downtime period. If you use the audience feature in your network, any API call to the AudienceSegmentService service will fail with a SegmentError.UNEXPECTED_ERROR error. Also, if you target any audience segments in your line items, any calls to LineItemService, ForecastService, or LineItemCreativeAssociationService that involve those line items will fail.



We apologize for any inconvenience, and appreciate your patience as our engineers work to keep AdWords, Ad Exchange, and DFP running smoothly.



 - Kevin Winter, Ads Developer Relations Team

Better bids, better ads, more downloads: New app promotion tools for advertisers

With more than one million apps currently in the Google Play and iTunes Stores, we know that those of you advertising apps are looking for ways to drive valuable installs at scale while helping your apps stand out from the crowd. We recently launched several app promotion features designed to help those of you who have created an app promotion campaign in AdWords, or are considering creating an app promotion campaign, maximize your return on investment.



CPA Bidding with Conversion Optimizer

You are constantly looking for ways to easily optimize your campaigns and attract the right customers at the right cost. Google’s Conversion Optimizer helps increase conversions across our search and display networks while decreasing cost per acquisition. Conversion Optimizer analyzes historical conversion data and adjusts bids on an ongoing basis to help you maximize your ROI. We're now extending the power of this automated bidding feature to app advertisers to help you drive efficient app installs at scale.

With Conversion Optimizer, instead of a traditional CPC bid, you can set a target cost per acquisition (CPA), based on your average cost per download. Conversion Optimizer will use historical conversion data and other signals to place CPC bids automatically, in order to hit the target CPA with as much volume as possible. While results vary per campaign, strong early results from our beta campaigns show a 20%+ decrease in cost per install with the addition of Conversion Optimizer. It’s important to note that Target CPA bidding does not guarantee a particular cost per install. The tool is now available to all advertisers that have created app promotion campaigns, and we’re excited to help you move beyond manual bid management to free, automated optimization.



Ad Formats

For advertisers looking to promote your apps to app users, capturing the attention of potential users and driving them to download your app is key. Many advertisers use our text ads to drive people to an Android or iOS app, and we've now optimized text ads for Android or iOS apps to include more information about what users are getting, what they have to pay for it, and how others feel about the app.

The ad rotates to display all the information when a user clicks on the ad.
The user has to click on Download to go to the app download page.

With AdWords, app advertisements are automatically updated with the latest information like reviews and ratings. You simply create a text ad that points to your app download page, and AdWords supplies the graphics and formatting. We’ve found that when app advertisers provide users with this kind of important information about their apps, many have seen their cost per conversion decrease by about 25%.



If you’d like to learn more about Google’s app promotion features and see a live demonstration of how to implement and optimize these tools in your AdWords account, tune into our webinar on September 12th at 10am PST. Register today by visiting this link: http://goo.gl/B49ma.



Posted by Chrix Finne, Product Manager, Mobile Ads