Google Student Blog: Using Google Apps to make the most of group work

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Using Google Apps to make the most of group work

January 5, 2010

Taylor Bell is a Google Campus Ambassador at Boise State University and a pro at utilizing Google tools to make group projects a breeze. He's here to share some things he's learned along the way.
Ah, the dreaded group project... Luckily, I've found during my tenure at college that this oft-feared mainstay of the college experience can be easily managed with Gmail and the rest of the Google Apps suite. To help you out, I wanted to share my plan of attack for making a group process go smoothly.

First, create a new contact group. Click on "Contacts" on the left sidebar, then click the "New Group" button.

You will be prompted to name your new contact group, so I'd go with the name of the class or project you're going to be working on. Add your teammates by using the "Add Contact" button, and they will be listed under the group you created.

Now that your contact group has been created, you can compose a message, and type the first few letters of your group name to automatically populate the alias in the "To" field.

Now that your contact group is created, the next step is to create a filter for emails from these group members. Copy the list of address from the "To" field to your clipboard, then click the "Create a filter" link near the Gmail search box.

In the "From" field on the new filter creation, paste the addresses of the members of your group between two curly brackets ( { } ):

Click the Next Step button, which will prompt you for the action to perform for the filter you just created. Apply a new label, and name it the same as your contact group.

Now that your filter and labels have been created, you'll be able to quickly find your emails from your group members by clicking the Small Group label on the left side of the screen under the Gmail logo.

If you want to stop now, that's cool, but you can do so much more! The next step I take is to use the Multiple Inboxes feature in Gmail Labs (Click on Settings-->Labs). Other Labs you may want to enable are Google Docs previews in mail, Superstars, Quote Selected Text, Forgotten attachment detector (though you won't need this with Docs!), Send & Archive, Undo send, Search autocomplete, and the Google Docs and Calendar gadgets.

After applying your changes, go back to your Settings and click the newly arrived Multiple Inboxes option. Here is a screenshot of my preferred settings:

Now whenever you receive mail from any member of your group, it will be automatically assigned a label, and Gmail will show (in this case) the last 9 conversations with your group members, directly in line underneath your regular inbox.

With the email addresses of your classmates still on your clipboard, head over to Google Calendar by clicking the link to Calendar above the Gmail logo.

To create a new calendar, click the "Create" link in the "My Calendars" box on the left Nav Bar. The fields to create a calendar are self explanatory – you probably don't need to make your group's calendar public. In the "Share with specific people" heading, paste your contacts into the provided box. After everyone shows up, give them all access to make changes to events, and (if desired) to manage sharing.

Click the Create Calendar button on the bottom of the screen, and your group's events will now show on your Calendar! The first step I take is to copy any important dates from the syllabus to the calendar, and then add any meetings as they are decided on by the group. From here, you can edit the event details to send you a reminder email before the event, or even an SMS message if your phone number is registered with your account. For more info on Google Calendar, see the help page.

Now that your group's Calendar is set up, it's time for the last piece of the puzzle. Click Documents above the Google Calendar logo to head over to Docs. Create a new Folder by clicking the Create New dropbox.

When the new folder page loads, you can rename "New Folder" to "Small Group" by hovering your mouse over the folder name. Click on "Share this folder" and, once again, paste in your group's email addresses, and give them permission to edit.

Once you've sent the invitation, you are free from USB sticks! Everyone will be able to share documents by uploading them into the Small Group folder. If you enabled the Calendar and Docs gadgets in Gmail, you will be able to see your upcoming events and recently changed Docs.

Hopefully this guide will help you to get the most out of group work!

Labels: Tips and Tricks

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