One of the most important and useful applications many of us encounter every day are various productivity tools offered by Google, aimed at either the individual or to organizations (businesses, educational institutions, non-profits). The nomenclature around Google products is complicated.
In terms of the commercial offering from Google, I'm referring specifically to G Suite:
G Suite (formerly Google Apps for Work and Google Apps for Your Domain) is a brand of cloud computing, productivity and collaboration tools, software and products developed by Google, launched on August 28, 2006. G Suite comprises Gmail, Hangouts, Calendar, and Google+ for communication; Drive for storage; Docs, Sheets, Slides, Forms, and Sites for collaboration; and, depending on the plan, an Admin panel and Vault for managing users and the services. It also includes the digital interactive whiteboard Jamboard.
Many of the constituent products of G Suite are also available to individuals at various pricing levels (including a free tier). For example, I've been using the free tier version of Google Docs, Sheets, Calendar, and GMail.
A lot of people use Google Drive:
As of March 2017, Google Drive has 800Â million active users, and as of September 2015, it has over one million organizational paying users. As of May 2017, there are over two trillion files stored on the service.
Just as I am planning how to help clients with Evernote automation, I've been learning how to automate G Suite, and when I get proficient at doing so, will be looking for clients wanting help to automate their use of Google services.
In the next days, I will write more about various aspects of the G Suite and the types of problems I hope to solve:
- the API of G Suite products, including Google Apps Script and its REST interface
- how to use G Suite products as part of one's own personal information management: calendars, contacts, collaborative editing of documents
- specific cases of programming the API in political organizing and small business collaboration
- what clients can do with G Suite with any programming at all -- for example, with GMail filters
- BigQuery and Sheets integration