Posted by Saurabh Gupta, Product Manager

(Cross-posted on the Google Drive Blog)

You use Google Docs and Sheets to get all sorts of stuff done—whether you're staying up late to finish that final paper or just getting started on a new project at the office. But to help take some of that work off your shoulders, today we're launching add-ons—new tools created by developer partners that give you even more features in your documents and spreadsheets.
To browse through add-ons for Docs and Sheets, select Get add-ons in the Add-ons menu of any open document or spreadsheet. (Add-ons for spreadsheets are only available in the new Google Sheets).

Once you install an add-on it will become available across all of your documents or spreadsheets and you can start using it right away.

Here are just a few examples of how add-ons can help you do more with Docs and Sheets:

Get approvals from Docs and Sheets 
Need to gather approvals or feedback? Letter Feed Workflows routes your document to the right people and adds a simple “Approve” button right inside your document or spreadsheet. You’ll be notified as soon as it’s approved, and can publish the final version with a single click.

Print address labels and name tags 
With Avery Label Merge you can seamlessly import addresses or names from Sheets into Docs for printing. Just pick the type of Avery labels you’ll be printing and your document will be formatted to match the layout of your label pack.

Create a bibliography without leaving Docs 
Citing sources is about to get much easier for the millions of students who use Google Docs to write papers. The EasyBib Bibliography Creator helps you cite books, journals, and websites in MLA, APA, and Chicago style by entering in titles, journal article names, and websites right inside your document.

Send customized emails 
With Merge by Mailchimp you can send customized emails from Google Docs. Use merge tags to pull info from a spreadsheet into your document. Once your data is merged, hit send and your personalized emails will be delivered.

These are just some of the many add-ons that are available for you to use right now in the Docs or Sheets add-on stores, with lots more on the way.

Posted by Saurabh Gupta, Google Developer Relations

Google Apps Script lets you automate and extend Google Apps. Using Apps Script, businesses can build efficient solutions to meet their requirements such as:

• Content Approval Workflow
• Vacation calendar management system
• Helpdesk Workflow
• Time Booking system

Join us on August 18th, 2011 for the Google Apps Script Hackathon. If your organization uses Google Apps and you want to explore how you can use Google Apps Script to create custom functions or automate repetitive tasks, then this hackathon is a perfect opportunity to learn. Google engineers will be available to answer your questions and help you learn Apps Script throughout the day’s agenda. We’ll provide food, refreshments, and experts to help you learn to use Apps Script and write your own scripts. Just bring your laptop, ideas, and enthusiasm to complete the mix. We hope to see you there!

What: Apps Script Hackathon
Date: Thursday, August 18th, 2011
Time: 2pm to 7pm EST
Where: 76 9th Avenue, New York, NY
Register: Space is limited, register here.

For those who cannot attend in person, we invite you to try out a number of self-paced tutorials on the Apps Script documentation site.

Posted by John Gale, Solution Developer, Appogee

Editors note: Guest author John Gale is a developer at Appogee, a Google focused systems integrator in the UK. John helps Appogee customers make the most of the Google platform and is the author of Appogee Bookmarks for Android.

Google Sites offers an incredible way to author and distribute content, and we use it extensively both for ourselves and our clients. Therefore it was not surprising that our customers started requesting a content approval workflow in Google Sites. Now with Google Apps Script, we have been able to develop Appogee Content Approval for Google Sites.

The Solution
Appogee Content Approval for Google Sites (ACA) can be set up for any existing Google Site without having to make any changes to the site. ACA works as follows:

1. The ACA spreadsheet generates a Content Submission Form and any content submitted is routed to a selected approver.
2. The approver receives an email notification, which they can authorize or reject.
3. Once authorized, the ACA spreadsheet writes the new content into the target Site using Apps Script’s Sites services. The new content is then visible to anyone with view permissions in the target site.

Approver receives an email containing the submitted content

The content submission URL can be shared to any group or published directly on the target Google Site, which represents the end goal on the workflow diagram below. Content may only be submitted by users that are logged into your domain and content can only be published with Approver sanction.

ACA Workflow Diagram

Google Apps Script made it easy

We used a number of Apps Script services to develop this application. Apps Script was an easy choice as it builds on pooled knowledge from the Google Web Toolkit (GWT) and uses Javascript syntax. Using Apps Script’s UI Services, we were able build up a working user interface quickly. Google has since introduced a new experimental feature to complement the UI Services, which provides a drag and drop GUI for building screens. We expect this feature to reduce development time required for building future apps, as well as offering a wide range of widgets and controls to improve the user experience. We used a standard Google spreadsheet as a kind of a data store in ACA. It’s worth mentioning that Apps Script’s documentation site has a plethora of tutorials covering everything from simple spreadsheet macros to full help desk applications.

One of Google Apps Scripts’ core features is the ability to seamlessly integrate different services together, in our case this was Google Sites and Spreadsheets, but many other services are accessible, such as Mail and Contacts. It was always the aim to make ACA a powerful tool without unnecessary complexity and thanks to Google Apps Script, we have successfully delivered content approval workflow to Google Sites. ACA represents our third off-the-shelf product to be listed in the Google Apps Marketplace.