Gmail-Calendar Migration Tip of the Day #21

Did you know you can customize which labels/folders you see on your left menu? If you are tired of scrolling on the left menu to click more and having to scroll more up and down to locate your SPAM or Trash or another Label, then this tip is for you!

Here's how you can personalize exactly what you see on the left menu bar.

1. Visit the Gear > Settings 
2. Click on the Labels Tab
3. Under Systems Labels, click Show for any Labels you want to appear at the top of the left menu OR click hide for any labels you don't want to appear at the left menu. (Anything you hide means you'll have to click More and scroll to find that label)
   

For experienced users, I would show any label you use frequently. It will save you time and energy as you navigate your email. If you don't use a particular label frequently, click hide. This will preserve your menu real estate for your most frequently used items.

For new users, show them all and try it out for a week or two and then decide which ones you want to keep and which ones you want to hide. Remember hiding doesn't delete anything, it just means you'll have to click more and scroll a bit to find that label.

If you are experiencing any technical issues with Gmail or Calendar, please complete a helpdesk ticket and remember all these tips are archived on the WUSD Tech Blog.

Gmail-Calendar Migration Tip of the Day #20

Since Gmail has been live for several weeks now, have you had the experience of clicking on an email link within Aeries, a website, or another program only to have Outlook open?

If this has happened to you, this means you need to update your default email application to Gmail.

Here's a help document that walks you through how to make your default email Gmail on Windows 10 machines. (Substitute WUSD Account anywhere you see FNU Account in this help document.)

Gmail-Calendar Migration Tip of the Day #19

Gmail does not offer a native real-time spell check.  It does offer the option to check your spelling by clicking on the meatballs at the bottom of your message and choosing Check Spelling.

Will you remember to do this for each email you send?!?!?

I recommend installing the Chrome Extension Grammarly instead. This is a freemium extension that provides real-time spelling and grammar check within Gmail and anything else within Chrome. Once you install and sign-up using Google, you will get an occasional email from them encouraging you to upgrade for a fee.  This is not necessary.  Enjoy the free features like spell check and when you see the red line choose the appropriate suggestion that shows you what you meant to type initially.

Gmail-Calendar Migration Tip of the Day #18

Did you know you can snooze an email, almost like an alarm clock? What's even better than an alarm clock is that you can customize the "snooze" period for each snoozed email. This is a great feature for those emails that require action sometime in the future, perhaps when you have additional information or closer to a deadline. When you snooze an email, it will disappear from your inbox and appear at the top of your inbox as unread at the date/time you set.

Give the snooze feature a try, using this email! Here's how.

1. At the top of this email, click the snooze button (it looks like an alarm clock).
2. Choose the date/time you'd like the message to appear at the top of your inbox. Note: that it will suggest some dates/times for you or you can customize by picking your own date/time at the bottom.
   
3. You're done! The email is now snoozed and will reappear at the top of your inbox at the time you selected. You can easily find any snoozed emails before they reappear in your inbox by clicking the Snoozed filter on the left menu bar
   

Please note: The Snooze feature only appears if you have conversation view enabled. If you disabled conversation view, you won't see the snooze feature.

If you are experiencing any technical difficulties with Gmail, please complete a helpdesk ticket.

Gmail-Calendar Migration Tip of the Day #17

Today's tip focuses on the appearance of emails within your inbox.  The default is conversation view.  This means that your emails will be grouped together as a thread.  As people reply to an email, those responses will be grouped together in your inbox with the most recent email response appearing at the bottom of the conversation thread.  If you are a fan of your email responses grouped together as a conversation, there is nothing to change.  

If you prefer to see your email in the order it is received, regardless of topic, and not grouped together as a conversation, you can turn conversation view off.  To turn off conversation view, visit the gear > settings and in the general tab, scroll down to conversation view > turn off and save changes. 

Bonus Tip for Conversation View Fans!

If you don't like how conversation view puts the most recent response at the bottom of the conversation you may want to install and try out the Gmail Reverse Conversation Chrome Extension.  This will reverse the order of emails within a conversation and put the most recent response on top.  Try it out and if you don't like it, you can always uninstall this extension by following the steps on this support page.

If you are experiencing any technical difficulties with Gmail, please submit a helpdesk ticket.

Gmail-Calendar Migration Tip of the Day #16

Your contacts (think Address Book) lives in the Waffle. As you continue to use Gmail, your contact list will expand as people are automatically added to your contacts as you email them. 

But also within Contacts, you can create your own groups by assigning labels to your contacts.  It's worth the time to create labels within contacts for people who you regularly email, send calendar invites, or share Google Drive files with.  Google released a major redesign of contacts last week so those familiar with contacts will notice a refreshed look.  Once desired contacts are labeled, these labels function similar to groups and are only accessible and visible to you.

Here are some steps to get started with contacts.

1. Visit contacts.google.com (Also accessible via the waffle and the Contacts icon)
2. Under Labels at the bottom of any existing labels choose + Create Label
3. Name your Label > Save
4. Go to your Contacts > Select the Contacts you wish to add to the Label > Manage Label > Choose Label > Apply
5. Now when you are in Gmail, Calendar, or Drive, you can type the Label Name and it will auto-populate with a list of names.

If there are people you wish to add to a label who are not yet in your Contacts, you can use the search feature to find them or locate them in the Directory.

Visit the GSuite Learning Center to learn more about Contacts.  Note: The redesign is referred to as the In Contacts preview within the GSuite Learning Center Materials.

Gmail-Calendar Migration Tip of the Day #15

Yesterday, you learned how to apply labels on your emails. Today, I'll show you how to create filters to automatically apply labels (and more!) to your emails for even greater organization and customization to meet your needs. Filters function like Rules in Outlook. If you had Rules established in Outlook, those will need to be recreated as filters in Gmail.

I like to think of filters as a 2-step process. First, you tell Gmail what to look for and then, you tell Gmail what to do once it's found what it's looking for.

Here's how to create a filter in Gmail. Practice filters using this email.

1. Open the desired email that you wish to filter. (I recommend this one for practice) 
2. Click the meatballs > Filter messages like these
3. Step 1: Tell Gmail What to Look For: Emails from me (moliver@wusd.k12.ca.us) AND Subject Tip of the Day > Create Filter. Note: If you don't add the subject, it will automatically filter ALL emails from me regardless of topic.
   
4. Step 2: Tell Gmail What to Do with Emails it Found: Mark Apply the label and Choose Tech Tips (if you created this label yesterday) and Mark Also apply to X matching Conversations (at the bottom). Failure to check this box at the bottom will only apply a filter to current and future emails and NOT historical emails.
5. Create Filter.
6. Now all my future Gmail/Calendar Tip of the Day emails can automatically be found using the TechTips Label.

There are lots of options when creating filters both in what to look for and what to do once Gmail finds it that will allow you to automatically manage incoming emails. Try them out and see how they function for your workflow. You can view/edit any existing filters by visiting the Gear > Settings > Filters Tab > Locate the Desired Filter > Edit.

Want more about filters? Take the guided tutorial on filters offered by GSuite Training.

Gmail-Calendar Migration Tip of the Day #14

Organize your Inbox with the help of labels!

Labels help with organization by grouping emails together, similar to folders. If you used Folders in Outlook to organize your email, those folders transferred over to Gmail as Labels.  Labels in Gmail function like folders with one big added benefit...you can attach multiple labels to a single Email!  If you didn't use Folders in Outlook, Labels in Gmail are an easy way to begin organizing your inbox by topic, sender, and/or project.

Here's how to attach a label to an email.  Feel Free to practice using one of the daily tip emails. 

1. Click on the label icon (looks like a tab flag)  at the top of the email
2. Choose Create New
   
    
3. Type desired Label Name.  For this email, I used Tech Tips.  Advanced Label Users: Note the option to Nest label.
   
   
   
   
    
4. Click Create
5. Note the new labels on your email. 
   
    
6. You can now locate any emails labeled Tech Tips by clicking on the TechTip label on your left menu.
   
    

You can also see this tip as a guided tutorial from GSuite Training. 

BONUS TIP:  You can color-code your labels by highlighting the label on the left menu, clicking the meatballs, and choosing your desired label color.

Tomorrow, I'll show you how to use automate the application of labels to your emails.

Gmail-Calendar Migration Tip of the Day #13

Did you know you can set Out of Office reminders in BOTH Gmail and Calendar?  

Here's how in Gmail

1. Go to mail.google.com
2. Click on Gear > Settings
3. Under the General Tab, scroll to the very bottom and locate Vacation Responder.
4. Type your desired Out of Office Message
5. Set Parameters: Date to turn on/off. Choose whether to send to people in Contacts and/or people in WUSD
6. Turn Vacation Responder On
7. Save Changes

Here's how in Calendar.

When you create an Out of Office Event in Calendar, it will automatically decline any invites you may receive for that time period. 

1. Go to calendar.google.com
2. Single Click on the day/time that you desire
3. Choose Out of Office 
   
4. Make any adjustments on the date/time as needed
5. Customize your decline message (if desired).  
6. Save

You can find a video tutorial of this tip on the WUSD Tech YouTube Channel Gmail Migration Playlist and archived under our Migration Tips on the WUSD Tech Blog.    

Gmail-Calendar Migration Tip of the Day #12

Now that you are accessing your email via the Chrome browser, you may have a number of tabs open throughout the day and it's easy for Gmail to get lost in a sea of tabs.  What's the solution?

Pin your Gmail Tab!

Here's how.

1. Using Chrome, visit mail.google.com
2. Hover over your Gmail Tab and Right Click (or 2 finger click on Chromebook)
3. Select Pin Tab

This action moves your Gmail tab all the way over to the left and makes it much smaller and very difficult to accidentally close.  If you want to unpin your tab, right-click on the tab and choose unpin.

BONUS TIP:

Make your pinned tab even better with an Unread Message Icon.      

The Unread Message Icon will give you a subscript number that will indicate how many unread messages you have.  It's an easy way to see if you have any unread messages without ever leaving your current tab.

You can enable the Unread Message Icon by visiting the Gear > Settings.  Click on the Advanced Tab, scroll down for  Unread Message Icon, Choose Enable and Save Changes at the bottom of the page.

Gmail-Calendar Migration Tip of the Day #11

When you compose a new email, a pop-up window appears in the corner of your screen.  Depending on the screen size of your device and your workflow, this pop-up may be too small for your liking.  You can expand the compose email window by clicking on the arrows in the corner.

This will both enlarge and center your compose screen.  If you prefer this size and view, you can make it your default size by completing the following steps.

1. Within mail.google.com, click +Compose (or C if you've enabled keyboard shortcuts)
2. Click the meatballs at the bottom of the screen 
3. Choose Default to full-screen 
4. Note: You'll need to close the compose window and start a new one to see this in action.

Now every new email you start will be full-screen instead of small and in the corner.

BONUS TIP: 

If you have keyboard shortcuts enabled, type D and this will start a new email in a new tab!!  Give it a try.  If this doesn't work, that means you don't have keyboard shortcuts enabled.  Check out the previous tip to learn more about keyboard shortcuts.

Gmail-Calendar Migration Tip of the Day #10

Looking for an email? Use the Power of Google Search right in your Inbox 

You can easily search your inbox by typing your search terms in the Search Box at the top of your inbox.

But the even greater search capabilities are revealed by clicking on the down arrow.

Here you can refine your results by sender, subject, words contained within the email and much, much more.

Search is not just for your email but also exists within Google Calendar. You'll find lots of search capabilities including location, participants, and much more!

Interested in learning more about search operators in Gmail? Visit the Gmail Search Operators Support Document for even more search terms.

Gmail-Calendar Migration Tip of the Day #9

Happy Friday Everyone!  

Have you noticed that Gmail sometimes offers to complete your words or sentences when writing an email?  That's the smart compose feature that provides you writing suggestions after typing only a few characters or short phrase.  If you like what you see, simply press the tab key and Gmail will complete the rest!  

If you do not like the smart compose feature, it can be turned off under settings.  Visit the Gear > Settings and Under the General Tab, locate Smart Compose > turn off writing suggestions and finally save changes.  If you make this change, you'll no longer see the writing suggestions.

You can find this tip archived under our Migration Tips on the WUSD Tech Blog. 

If you are experiencing any technical issues with Gmail, please complete a helpdesk ticket so it can be quickly routed to the correct member of our team and addressed.

Google-Calendar Migration Tip of the Day #8

Save Time with Keyboard Shortcuts!

It's the start of a new year and who wants to save time?  Keyboard Shortcuts to the Rescue!

Instead of using your mouse or touchpad and scrolling over to click +Compose button to start a new email, you can just type the letter c!

For this to work, you'll need to make sure you have keyboard shortcuts turned on in Gmail. Here's how:

1. Using Chrome, visit mail.google.com
2. Click the Gear icon > Settings
3. Under the General Tab, scroll down and find Keyboard shortcuts, Turn on 
4. Scroll to the bottom of the page and Save Changes

Now try it out!  Type c and you're ready to start composing a new email.

BONUS TIPS!

This keyboard shortcut also works within Google Calendar! Visit calendar.google.com, type the letter c and you'll be able to create a new event.

Want to learn even more keyboard shortcuts?  Hit Shift + ? and you'll see a pop-up window with ALL the Shortcuts. So many possibilities!

Gmail-Calendar Migration Tip of the Day #7

Want the Gmail Icon to Appear on your PC Taskbar, similar to how Outlook used to appear? 

There are several ways to do this.  Here's one of the easiest.

1. Using the Chrome Browser, open mail.google.com 
2. With Gmail open, visit the meatballs (3 vertical dots) in the top right corner
3. Choose More tools > Create Shortcut
   
4. Now locate the newly created Gmail Icon on your Desktop
5. Right Click on Gmail Desktop Shortcut and Select Pin to Taskbar.

You can find a video tutorial of this tip on the WUSD Tech YouTube Channel Gmail Migration Playlist and archived under our Migration Tips on the WUSD Tech Blog. 

If you are experiencing any technical issues with Gmail, please complete a helpdesk ticket so it can be quickly routed to the correct member of our team and addressed.

Gmail-Calendar Migration Tip of the Day #6

Happy Tuesday!  What a great day to welcome back all of our students in 2019. Today's tip is super quick!  Check your Gmail SPAM folder.

You will find that Gmail SPAM filters work better at filtering SPAM than our previous Outlook 2010 configuration.  I HIGHLY recommend checking your SPAM filter more frequently over the new few weeks to make sure there are no desired emails going to SPAM.  if you find a wanted email within SPAM, just select it Not Spam and next time it will be delivered to your inbox.  As time goes on, you can check your SPAM filters less frequently.  However, if you think you're missing an email, check your Spam folder first!  Please note: Today's tip is also available as a video tutorial on the WUSD Tech Gmail Migration Playlist.

Here's how to check your SPAM Folder.

1. Visit mail.google.com
2. Locate and click on your SPAM Filter/Folder.  Note: you may have to scroll down your Folder list and/or click more to locate your SPAM Folder.
3. If you see an email that you wish to be in your inbox, Click on it and Report Now SPAM.

If you are experiencing any technical issues with Gmail, please complete a helpdesk ticket so it can be quickly routed to the correct member of our team and addressed.

Gmail-Calendar Migration Tip of the Day #5

I'd like to take this opportunity to officially welcome all our district employees to Gmail! We truly believe that having one integrated system for email, calendar, and files will improve the efficiency and collaboration at all levels of our organization. Supporting only one system, instead of two separate systems for staff and students, will also save us money and help our team better support you!

Today's tip is for anyone already feeling nostalgic for the look of Outlook.  Here's how you can make your Gmail inbox look like Outlook by enabling preview pane.  Please note: This tip is also available as a video tutorial.

1. Visit mail.google.com 
2. Click on the Gear > Settings
3. Under the Advanced Tab > Find Preview Pane and Click Enable
4. Choose Save Changes at the bottom of the page.
5. Now you'll a new button at the top.  Select and choose Horizontal.
6. Now your Gmail inbox looks similar to Outlook.  If you decide you don't like this look, you can always change it back.

If you are experiencing any technical issues with your Gmail, please complete a helpdesk ticket so your inquiry can be quickly addressed by the appropriate member of our tech team.

You can find all of our Gmail Migration Video Tutorial Tips on the WUSD Tech YouTube Channel Gmail Migration Playlist and archived under our Migration Tips on the WUSD Tech Blog.  

Gmail-Calendar Migration Tip of the Day #4

Happy First Friday of the New Year!

In just 3 more days, Gmail will be live for all our WUSD staff.  Additional incremental migrations of data will begin starting later today and will continue through the weekend.  You will notice current data after 12/10/18 begin to populate your inbox in preparation for our final cutover to Gmail on Monday, January 7.  Please note that your district email address will not change.  The only change is that starting Monday, you will send and receive your email via the Gmail interface at mail.google.com rather than launching Outlook.

Today's Tip focuses on how trash is treated differently within Gmail vs. Outlook.

Gmail will automagically empty your trash on a rolling 30-day basis, unlike Outlook which required the user to manually empty the trash. As a result, e know some of our users utilized their Outlook Trash as file storage.  Any emails in your Outlook trash migrated over to Gmail trash and will be deleted after 30 days.  If there are any emails in your Gmail trash that you wish to retain, you will want to remove them from the trash.  Here's how. These steps are alternatively available as a Video Tutorial on the WUSD Tech YouTube Channel Gmail Migration Playlist.

1. Visit mail.google.com
2. Find your Trash in your list of folders.  You may have to scroll down and choose more to reveal your trash folder.
   
   
   
3. If there are emails you wish to retain and not be deleted, select those emails and you can move them back to your inbox.
   
   
   

Moving forward, Gmail has the option to archive email.  This removes the email from your inbox but does not delete it.  Any archived mail can be found under the All Mail Filter/Folder or via search.  To learn more about archived mail, visit the GSuite Learning Center.

Interested in additional training? We have training spots open Today, January 4 and on Monday, January 7.  Register today at bit.ly/fallintogoogle  

Gmail-Calendar Migration Tip of the Day #3

Google Calendar Clean-up

4 more Days until Gmail is live for all WUSD Staff. The migration of data from 11/1/18-12/10/18 has been completed and you will now notice more recent emails in your inbox.  Starting Friday evening, the incremental migration of data post 12/10/18 as part of our final preparations for Gmail to be live for all WUSD Staff on January 7, 2019.

Today's tip focuses on some New Year Clean-up and Organization within Google Calendar.  

Did you know that anytime you create or join a Google Classroom since 2016, a Google Calendar is automagically created?  Also, when we first went Google in 2015, Hapara automagically created calendars for every class.  As a result, you may have extra Google Calendars you no longer need and are cluttering your view.  Here's how you can clean up.  Note: These steps are also available as a video tutorial. 

1. Visit calendar.google.com 
2. At the top, you'll see a calendar with your name.  This is your default calendar.  Any events you create or are invited will populate this calendar.  
3. If you're new to using Google Calendar and see LOTS of extra calendars, you may wish to hide or remove any that are no longer relevant.  Hiding a calendar just removes it from your list of calendars and you can retrieve it and view it again in your settings.  Removing a calendar will permanently delete a calendar.  WUSD Staff since 2015 with students rostered to them will want to remove calendars with names that contain  A LOT of numbers.  These were calendars created via Hapara and the numbers represent course and section codes from Aeries.
4. TO HIDE A GOOGLE CALENDAR: Find the desired calendar on the list > Hover over the name > Click "Meatballs" (The 3 dots) > Choose Hide  (When you hide a calendar you can add it back to your list by visiting your calendar settings.)
5. TO REMOVE A GOOGLE CALENDAR: Find the desired calendar on the list > Hover over the name of calendar > Click the X > Choose Remove Calendar at the prompt.

You can find all our tips as video tutorials on the WUSD Tech YouTube Channel Gmail Migration Playlist and archived under our Migration Tips on the WUSD Tech Blog.  

Interested in additional training? We have training spots open for January 4 and 7.  Register today at bit.ly/fallintogoogle  

Gmail-Calendar Migration Tip of the Day #2

Starred Emails

Happy New Year WUSD Staff!

Starting today you'll begin noticing Outlook emails dated after 11/1/18 begin to appear in your Gmail inbox. Since there are still 5 days until Gmail goes live for all WUSD employees, today's tip focuses on clean-up and preparation of your Gmail inbox. Any emails in Outlook marked important with the red exclamation point, transfer into your Gmail inbox as Starred Emails.  Starred Emails function the same way as Starred Files or Folders within your Google Drive. It provides an easy way to find those emails you deem important, rather than scrolling or searching through your inbox.  It's a new year and you may want to start off anew with starred emails, here's how.

Note: The steps below are also available via video tutorial on the WUSD Tech YouTube Channel Gmail Migration Playlist.

1. Visit mail.google.com
2. Click on Starred Filter (On the left under Inbox)
3. If you have starred emails from a while back that you no longer deem important, you can select all the emails by clicking the checkbox at the top.  It will select all the starred emails on the page and may prompt you to select all the conversations.  
4. If you want to unstar these emails, click the meatballs at the top and choose remove star.  Note: Removing the star does not delete the email.  Those emails will just no longer appear under the starred filter.
5. Once Gmail goes live for All Staff on January 7, you can star important emails for easy access under the Starred Filter.

Want to learn more about starred emails as an organizational or productivity strategy?  Visit the Gmail Help page about Star emails in Gmail  

Interested in additional training? We have training spots open for January 4 and 7.  Register today at bit.ly/fallintogoogle