Update (August 2014): Try the Yet Another Mail Merge add-on for Google Sheets.

Editor’s Note: This blog post is co-authored by James, Steve and Romain who are Google Apps Script top contributors. -- Ryan Boyd

The Google Apps Script team is on a roll and has implemented a ton of new features in the last few months. Some of us “Top Contributors” thought it will be a useful exercise to revisit the Mail Merge use case and discuss various ways in which we can do Mail Merge using Apps Script. Below are several techniques that tap into the power of Google Apps Script by utilizing Gmail, Documents and Sites to give your mailings some zing. Mail Merge is easy and here is how it can be done.

1. Simple Mail Merge using a Spreadsheet

The Simple Mail Merge tutorial shows an easy way to collect information from people in a Spreadsheet using Google Forms then generate and distribute personalized emails. In this tutorial we learn about using “keys,” like ${"First Name"}, in a template text document that is replaced by values from the spreadsheet. This Mail Merge uses HTML saved in the “template” cell of the spreadsheet as the content source.

2. Mail Merge using Gmail and Spreadsheet Services

The Gmail Service is now available in Google Apps Script, allowing you to create your template in Gmail where it is saved as a draft. This gives us the advantage of making Mail Merge more friendly to the typical user who may not know or care much about learning to write HTML for their template. The mail merge script will replace the draft and template keys with names and other information from the spreadsheet and automatically send the email.

To use this mail merge, create a new spreadsheet, and click on Tools > Script Gallery. Search for “Yet another Mail Merge” and you will be able to locate the script. Then, click Install. You’ll get two authorization dialogs, click OK through them. Add your contact list to the spreadsheet, with a header for each column. Then compose a new mail in Gmail. Follow this syntax for the “keys” in your template: $%column header% (see above). Click Save now to save your draft. Go back to your spreadsheet and click on the menu Mail Merge. A dialog pops up. Select your draft to start sending your emails.

You can add CCs, include attachments and format your text just as you would any email. People enjoy “Inserting” images in the body of their emails, so we made sure to keep this feature in our updated mail merge. To automate this process we will use a new advanced parameter of the method sendEmail, inlineImages. When the script runs it looks in the email template for images and make sure they appear as inline images and not as attachments. Now your emails will look just as you intended and the whole process of mail merge got a whole lot simpler.

3. Mail Merge using Document Forms

The next Mail Merge will use a template that is written in a Google Document and sent as an attachment. Monthly reports, vacation requests and other business forms can use this technique. Even very complex documents like a newsletter or brochure can utilize the automation of Google Apps Script to add the personal touch of having your patron’s name appear as a salutation.

Like in the Mail Merge for Gmail, the Google Docs template will use “keys” as placeholders for names, addresses or any other information that needs to be merged. Google Apps Script can add dynamic elements as well. For example you may want to include a current stock quote using the Financial Service, a chart from the Charts Service, or a meeting agenda automatically fetched for you by the Calendar Service.

As the code sample below demonstrates, the Google Apps Script gets the document template, copies it in a new temporary document, opens the temp document, replaces the key placeholders with the form values, converts it to PDF format, composes the email, sends the email with the attached PDF and deletes the temp document.

Here is a code snippet example to get you started. To use this mail merge, create a new spreadsheet, and click on Tools > Script Gallery. Search for “Employee of the Week Award” and you will be able to locate the script.

// Global variables 
docTemplate = “enter document ID here”;
docName = “enter document name here”;

function sendDocument() {
// Full name and email address values come from the spreadsheet form
   var full_name = from-spreadsheet-form
   var email_address = from-spreadsheet-form
// Get document template, copy it as a new temp doc, and save the Doc’s id
   var copyId   = DocsList.getFileById(docTemplate)
                  .makeCopy(docName+ for +full_name)
                  .getId();
   var copyDoc  = DocumentApp.openById(copyId);
   var copyBody = copyDoc.getActiveSection();
// Replace place holder keys,  
   copyBody.replaceText(keyFullName, full_name);
   var todaysDate =  Utilities.formatDate(new Date(), "GMT", "MM/dd/yyyy"); 
   copyBody.replaceText(keyTodaysDate, todaysDate);
// Save and close the temporary document
   copyDoc.saveAndClose();
// Convert temporary document to PDF by using the getAs blob conversion
   var pdf = DocsList.getFileById(copyId).getAs("application/pdf"); 
// Attach PDF and send the email
   MailApp.sendEmail(email_address, subject, body, {htmlBody: body, attachments: pdf}); 
// Delete temp file
   DocsList.getFileById(copyId).setTrashed(true);
}

4. Mail Merge using Sites and Spreadsheet Services

For the last example let’s assume you have a great Google Site where you create new letters for your followers. However, you have had some feedback suggest that while many users don’t mind visiting your site, some would prefer to have the newsletter emailed to them. Normally this would require copying and pasting into an email or doc. Why not simply automate this with Google Apps Script?

The body section of a site, the part you edit, can be captured as HTML by the Sites Service and placed in the body of an email. Because the return value is HTML, the pictures and text formatting come through in the email.

Here is a simple example for you to try out:

function emailSiteBody() {  
 var site = SitesApp.getPageByUrl(YourPageURL);
 var body = site.getHtmlContent();
  
 MailApp.sendEmail(you@example.com, Site Template, no html :( , {htmlBody: body}); 
}

It really is that simple. Add a for loop with email values from a spreadsheet and this project is done.

Happy merging!

Updated 10/28: fixed instructions for accessing the complete script source for solution 3.

James Ferreira   profile Author, Scripter, and developer of free apps for non-profits and schools, James has written software to help more than half a million people by extending Google Apps.

Steve Webster   profile Google Sites and Scripts expert from Dito specializing in training and application development. When not busy finding solutions to enhance customer capability in Google Apps, Steve shares examples of his work in the Google Apps Developer Blog.

Romain Vialard   profile | YouTube Google Apps Change Management consultant at Revevol, Romain writes scripts to automate everyday tasks, add functionality and facilitate rapid adoption of cutting edge web infrastructures.

Crowd sourcing has been growing substantially in popularity. More and more businesses and individuals are interested in gathering data from the general public for real-time data analysis and visualization. The concept is being adopted in several fields, including journalism, public health and safety, and business development. During this election year, for example, a journalist might be interested in learning what candidate his or her readers support, and the reasons why they support this candidate.

Google Forms, Fusion Tables, and Apps Script make both data collection and analysis super simple! Using Google Forms, a journalist can quickly create an HTML form for readers to submit their opinions and feedback. Fusion Tables make data analysis easy with several cool data visualization options. Apps Script acts as the glue between Google Forms and Fusion Tables, enabling the Form to send data directly to Fusion Tables.

Let’s take a look at how our journalist friend would use all these tools to collect her reader’s candidate preferences.

Google Forms

Google Forms provides a simple UI tool to develop forms perfect for collecting data from readers. Here’s an example of a simple form the journalist can create to get information from her readers:

Once the form has been created, it can be embedded directly into the journalist’s website or blog using the embeddable HTML code provided by Google Forms.

Google Fusion Tables

Google Fusion Tables makes data analysis simple with its visualization capabilities. Using Fusion Tables, the journalist can create maps and charts of the collected data with just a few clicks of the mouse!

Using some fake data as an example, here’s a pie chart that can be created using Fusion Tables to show the the results of the survey:

With Fusion Tables, it’s also easy to filter data and create a pie chart visualization showing why people like Mitt Romney:

These visualizations can also be embedded in the journalist’s website or blog, as Fusion Tables provides embeddable HTML code for all its visualizations. Now, any time someone visits the webpage with the embedded visualization, they will see the current poll result!

Apps Script

Finally, Apps Script acts as the glue between the Google Form and the Fusion Table, since there is currently no direct way to send Google Form submissions to a Fusion Table. During a hack event last year, I took some time to write an Apps Script script that submits the form data to Fusion Tables. The script uses the onFormSubmit Apps Script functionality as described in this blog post. The Fusion Tables code is based on the code described in this blog post.

To learn how to set up your own Google Form to collect data and save that data in a Fusion Table, please see these instructions.

Kathryn Hurley profile Kathryn is a Developer Programs Engineer for Fusion Tables at Google. In this role, she helps spread the word about Fusion Tables by presenting at conferences and developer events. Kathryn received an MS in Web Science from the University of San Francisco. Prior work experience includes database management, web production, and research in mobile and peer-to-peer computing.

On Tuesday we launched the Google Apps Marketplace at Campfire One and were joined by over 50 developers who built some great applications which are now available to the 2 million businesses and 25 million users that use Google Apps. Were just getting started and cant wait to see what other amazing apps are out there.

If you already have a great web app or even just an idea for one and would like to learn more about integration with Google Apps, join us for a webinar next Wednesday. Well review the Marketplace and Google Apps APIs and answer technical and policy questions from attendees.

Integrate with Google Apps and the Google Apps Marketplace
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
9:00 a.m. PDT

This webinar will include a question and answer session. Post and vote for questions ahead of time and register for the webinar here. We hope youll join us for this informative online event.

UPDATE @ 5:30pm PST: Weve corrected the registration link.

Domain administrators can create new users for their domain using the control panel web UI and the Google Apps Provisioning API. Once the new users are created, editing their contact information (such as their addresses, phone numbers, etc) can be done using the Google Apps Profiles API. These profiles are shown to everybody in the organization when searching for users in GMail’s Contacts Manager and GMail’s autocomplete feature.



Some users want enhanced privacy but unsharing a user’s contact information could only be done using the control panel web UI.





We just introduced a new element in the Google Apps Profiles API that lets domain administrators set this option programmatically. This new field is called gContact:status and is available under a User Profile entry:

<gcontact:status indexed="true"/>

Changing the indexed attribute value to false unshares the user contact’s information when “contact sharing” is enabled on the domain.



For more information about the Google Apps Profiles API and code samples for supported languages using our client libraries, please refer to the developer’s guide. To learn how you can use 2-legged OAuth and batch requests to programmatically unshare users contact’s information with our client libraries, please have a look at this article.

Alain Vongsouvanh profile | events Alain is a Developer Programs Engineer for Google Apps with a focus on Google Calendar and Google Contacts. Before Google, he graduated with his Masters in Computer Science from EPITA, France.

Want to weigh in on this topic? Discuss on Buzz

Editor’s Note: Guest author Niels Buekers is a Google Apps consultant at Capgemini Belgium. — Arun Nagarajan

During a recent Google Apps migration project, we received several requests to create custom groups of contacts so that users could more easily email frequent collaborators. Before switching to Google Apps, users created their own private distribution lists — but this approach led to overlapping groups that quickly fell out of sync.

The problem was a perfect case for Google Apps Script. We built a great solution that gives users as much power as possible with just a quick administrator review.

The situation before: either manually adding each contact or using a private contacts group.

Solution overview

To start the process, a user adds a specific label to a Gmail message. A script that runs on a timed trigger then generates a request to create a group for all the addresses in the message. The script writes this data to a spreadsheet that tracks group names and administrator approval.

/**
 * Retrieves all group_request threads and creates a request.
 */
function processInbox() {
  // Get threads that have the group_request label.
  var groupRequestLabel = GmailApp.getUserLabelByName(group_request);
  var threads = groupRequestLabel.getThreads(0, 10);
  
  // For each thread, retrieve all recipients and create a group request.
  for (var i = 0; i < threads.length; i++) {
    var firstMessage = threads[i].getMessages()[0];
    var sender = firstMessage.getFrom();
    var recipients = [];
    
    // Add sender.
    recipients.push(parseAddresses(sender));
    
    // Add recipients.
    if (threads[i].getMessages()[0].getTo()) {
      var toRecipients = parseAddresses(firstMessage.getTo());
      recipients.push(toRecipients);
    }
    
    // Add CCs.
    if (threads[i].getMessages()[0].getCc()){
      var ccRecipients = parseAddresses(firstMessage.getCc());
      recipients.push(ccRecipients);
    }

    // Write all recipients to a cell in the spreadsheet
    // and send emails to ask for group name and approval.
    createGroupRequestForRecipients(recipients,
        Session.getActiveUser().getEmail());
    
    // Remove label from this thread now that it has been processed.
    threads[i].removeLabel(groupRequestLabel);
  }
};

Handling the request

Once the request has been processed and written to the spreadsheet, the script sends the user an email that asks her to suggest a name for the group in an Apps Script web app. A second email asks the administrator to visit the web app to approve or decline the request. The results are again stored in the spreadsheet.

The spreadsheet contains a second script, which is triggered for each modification. Once the script confirms that the request has been approved, it uses the Apps Script Domain Service to create the new group.

/**
 * Creates a new group in the Google Apps cPanel with the provided name
 * and members.
 */
function createGroupWithAddresses(addresses,groupName){
  var group = GroupsManager.createGroup(groupName, groupName, groupName,
    GroupsManager.PermissionLevel.DOMAIN);
  var splitAddresses = addresses.split(,);
  for (var i = 0; i < splitAddresses.length; i++) {
    Logger.log(Adding  + splitAddresses[i]);
    group.addMember(splitAddresses[i]);
  }
};

The result after successfully running the script.

This solution provides a simple way for users to request new Google groups, without all the overhead of manually creating an admin-managed distribution list.

Niels Buekers   profile | Twitter Niels is a Google Apps consultant at Capgemini Belgium, with interest in both the technical track and change management. He recently visited Google’s London office to participate in a Google Apps Script hackathon, which resulted in the above solution. Niels is a strong believer in cloud solutions and loves to spread the word about Google Apps.

We recently added a new feature to Apps Script: the ability to interact with your Google Docs List. With this new integration, scripts can create, rename, or move files and folders in your Google Docs. In addition, scripts can now create, modify, and clear plain-text files and search through your documents for a specified query string.

For instance, take a company whose website is hosted on Google Sites. They have a Specials page where they want to list seasonal sales depending on upcoming holidays. They store the details about the seasonal sales in plain-text files that are saved in their Google Docs List. By using the Google Docs List and and Sites services within Apps Script along with time-based triggers to run the script once per day, they can keep their Specials page updated automatically. Here’s a code snippet that demonstrates how to update the Specials page:

//The Mother’s Day sale runs from May 1 - May 7, 2011
var MOTHERS_DAY_START = new Date("May 1, 2011");
var MOTHERS_DAY_END = new Date("May 7, 2011");
//The Valentine’s Day sale runs from Feb 6 - Feb 13, 2011
var VALENTINES_DAY_START = new Date("February 6, 2011");
var VALENTINES_DAY_END = new Date("February 13, 2011");

function updateSpecials() {
  var today = new Date();
  var site = SitesApp.getSite("example.com", "giftshop");
  // Get all the web pages in the Site
  var pages = site.getWebPages();
  // Loop through the web pages to find the specials page
  for (var i = 0; i < pages.length; i++) {
    if (pages[i].getPageName() == "specials") {
      var page = pages[i]; 
    }  
  }
  // Set up the default wording for the specials page
  var pageText = "There are no specials at this time.";

  // If today’s date is within the Mother’s Day sale range
  if (today >= MOTHERS_DAY_START && today <= MOTHERS_DAY_END) {
    // Find the sale text that’s stored in the file mom.txt
    pageText = DocsList.find("mom.txt")[0].getContentAsString();
  }
  // If today’s date is within the Valentine’s Day sale range
  else if (today >= VALENTINES_START && today <= VALENTINES_END ) {
    // Find the sale text that’s stored in the file valentines.txt
    var pageText = DocsList.find("valentines.txt")[0].getContentAsString()   
  }
  // Set the content of the specials page
  page.setContent(pageText);  
}​

If this script is then set up to run using a trigger that calls it at the same time each day, then the Specials page will be kept automatically up-to-date.

To help you learn more, weve created a tutorial that demonstrates how to search and display information about files, create files, and read content from files.

Note that certain features of the DocsList service, such as creating files, are only available to Google Apps accounts. For complete information on interacting with your Google Docs List using Apps Script, see the DocsList Service documentation.

We look forward to seeing how you use this integration. If youd like to learn more about Apps Script and meet the Apps Script team in person, join us at the upcoming Apps Script hackathon in New York City on June 24.

Posted by Jan Kleinert, Google Developer Relations

Online PowerPoint and document sharing website SlideShare today released a new feature of importing your Google presentations and documents into SlideShare account. You just need to click on the “Import from Google Docs” link on the upload page, enter your Google username and password, select the file and click “Import to SlideShare”. See more details at SlideShare blog.

Before you proceed flashing / hard resetting your phone / tablet make sure to back up your important files if possible. Because we care about your data.

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In this tutorial I will gonna teach you how to hard reset your Karbonn A1. This can fix the following issues that you are experiencing in your phone:

Before you proceed flashing / hard resetting your phone / tablet make sure to back up your important files if possible. Because we care about your data.

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In this tutorial I will gonna teach you how to hard reset your Cherry Mobile Titan. This is not the Titan TV version, but you can also try this method. This can fix the following issues that you are experiencing in your phone"