Introduction
In this blog, we will learn about the Google Workspace Add-on: Create a workflow for Your Team. You can integrate some additional customized applications into your Google Workspace account. They are known as Google Workspace add-ons. These add-ons are usable with the core applications of Google Workspace, and you don’t need any complex setup or steps to use them.
Quick installation of Add-on
- Open a document, slide, or sheet from your computer.
- Click Get Add-ons from the right side.
- Click on the add-on and find out the description of it.
- Then, click Install > Continue.
- Then read the ‘Request access’ message to allow the add-on in your Google Workspace account. Then click Allow.
6. Finally, click Done.
Uninstalling the Add-on
- Open the add-on from the right side of your document, slide, or sheet.
- Now click on the add-on which you want to uninstall.
- Next, click More > Manage add-ons.
- Besides the add-on, you will find the option for uninstalling. So, you need to click Options > Uninstall.
Also, you can uninstall it from Extensions > Add-ons > Manage add-ons.
Google provides two types of development platforms to create add-ons. They are App Script and App Sheet. Let’s know about these platforms –
About App Script
App Script is a platform that helps you to develop applications and add-ons for your business operations. Also, you can integrate these apps with Google Workspace. You just need to write your script on the code editor of the App Script platform. You don’t need any additional setup for your app development on this platform. Furthermore, you can access built-in libraries for writing scripts for Google Workspace apps such as Gmail, Drive, Docs, Calendar, etc.
Features of App Script
- App Script allows you to create new custom menus. These menus are bound by each function of your App Script code, and these functions are called onOpen() functions. You can add custom menus, sidebars, and dialogs on Docs Form, and Sheets. Also, you can bind the scripts with pre-built UI elements such as - prompts, dialog boxes, alerts, and sidebars. For example, using this platform, you can open an alert through the Ui.alert() function on the Docs, Slides, Sheets, etc.
- It allows the creation of macros and custom functions for Google Sheets.
- You can easily interact with other Google services like Gmail, Maps, Drive, and Calendar.
- It has the feature for publishing web apps on Google Sites, either embedded or stand-alone.
About App Sheet
App Sheet is another development platform that you can use without any coding knowledge. You can build web and mobile apps through this platform. It allows you to create apps using data sources like - Excel, Google Sheets, Salesforce, and others. Otherwise, you can use the built-in AppSheet database as your data source. As an admin, you can manage your team, monitor, and perform security controls through App Sheet Enterprise. The users can create apps with integrations and share them with the users (both internal and external users).
App Sheet Automation
AppSheet automation permits you to automate your common business and document-based workflows. You can create automated tasks for sending emails, notifications, SMS, web-books calling, scripts calling, creating, and saving files. The components of AppSheet automation are – Bot, Process, Event, Task, Document processing, and Action.
- Bot defines your automation for running.
- Process describes the steps for the automation when the bot is triggered. The required steps are - running a task or data action, waiting for a condition, calling a process, creating a branch for a condition, and returning values.
- An event identifies changes and scheduling for data or interaction through a Chat app.
- The Tasks define the steps for a task, like sending an SMS.
- Document processing helps you to extract data from PDF and image files. Also, you can collect files and metadata from a Google Drive folder through these components.
Most significantly, you can reuse all these components for creating automation workflows through App Sheet.
Control App Sheet usage for your users
- Sign in to Admin Console.
- Then go to Menu > Apps > Google Workspace > AppSheet.
- To control a service for every user within your OU, you can either click On for everyone or Off for everyone.
- If you want to control the service for you, then you can select the OU first. After that, you have to choose On or Off. You can set your Service status as Inherited or Override based on your need.
Benefits of Google Workspace Add-ons
- Add-ons help you to easily complete your Google Workspace operations within time.
- They automate your time-consuming tasks and include functionalities and integrations for your Google Workspace applications. This will improve your productivity.
- You can perform background tasks with your add-ons' hosting service.
- You can create and manage deployment through Google Workspace Add-ons API.
Empower your automation workflows with Foresight
Foresight is a cloud-based productivity and automation tool. It helps to manage your business workflows efficiently. To work with this platform, you don't need to write any code. Simply, you have to use the triggers and actions from the UI of Foresight to complete your rule creation. The excellent scalability of this tool helps you to easily meet your business requirements.
You can choose different use cases of Foresight to streamline your business. Some of its popular use cases are - Automated Welcome Email to Google Workspace New Users, How to Export Google Workspace Licenses, etc.
Conclusion
Add-ons are beneficial for your Google Workspace workflows. They help you to wrap up the manual recurring tasks within time. You can integrate them with your Google Workspace or create them through the customized platforms of Google. Also, learn about the automation techniques of Foresight. With this Google Cloud partner, you can manage your manual tasks easily.
To explore its automation rules, try a 14-day free trial.
