November Newsletter: What exactly is Inbox
November 26, 2014
Manhattan Tech Support
| What exactly is Inbox |
When first launched, Gmail was heralded as one of the most advanced email systems available. Since then, it has become an integral part of many businesses who have adopted Google Apps. Because email has become so important and popular, our inboxes can get flooded and it can often be difficult to find useful and important information. To help make email management far easier, Google has released a new app called Inbox.
What is Inbox?Inbox is an Android, iOS and Web service that helps us get things done and work with our email messages in a new way. Your emails still go to your Gmail account; just think of this as an app or service that helps you reduce overall inbox clutter while being able to quickly access the info you need. It achieves this by: Bundling useful messages togetherWith Inbox, all similar messages are brought together into one category or bundle. Think of the categories feature introduced for Gmail last year, but on a grander scale. If for example, you travel a lot for work, travel related emails like flights, hotel bookings, and messages related to meetings will be grouped together. The great thing about this is that you can teach Inbox to group emails in a way that suits you. This allows more control over categories and message bundles while making it easier to find related messages. For example, if you use your work account to pay bills and to receive receipts for online payments, you can manually filter these together and Inbox will ‘bundle’ these together in the future. Highlighting important informationInbox highlights important information in emails, including Flight information, event information, and even documents attached to messages. This not only makes it easier to see the most relevant information, but it can also even help reveal information you may have missed. Beyond this, Inbox also displays real-time information from the Web. For example, if you have a flight and it is going to be delayed, this information will be shown in the email as a highlighted update. Adding remindersWith Inbox, you can automatically create reminders that notify you at a set time of a task you need to complete. This is an interesting feature because it really centralizes our to-do list into a place where we are already looking at important messages and information. There is also a sub-feature of the reminders built into Inbox called Assist. This feature provides you with relevant information for your reminders. For example, if you set a reminder to meet a client for lunch at a restaurant, you will see the restaurant’s name and number displayed in the reminder. Google has noted that this will work for flights as well – so, if you receive an email with flight information and booking numbers, you will get a link via Inbox to check-in directly. How do I get Inbox?For now, you can download the Inbox app for iOS and Android, but in order to use it, you will need an invite. If a friend or colleague has one, they can invite other users to join, or you can email [email protected] and request an invite. Google sends these out on a fairly regular basis, so you should receive one in the near future. If you are looking to learn more about Inbox, contact us today to see how we can help. |
| 3 Main IT areas to invest in |
| echnology is constantly evolving, so much so that it feels like there is a near constant stream of systems and devices being released on a daily basis. This fast-paced development has forced companies and their IT teams to move rapidly with the times. As such, IT as a whole has been basically divided into three main areas, which companies should be investing in. |
| Facebook outlaws Like-gating |
| Facebook, like many other Internet-based operations, has a habit of constantly implementing changes to their platform. Back in August of this year, the company implemented a number of changes to their Graph algorithm, including the way businesses can use the Like feature. On November 5, 2014, these changes came into effect and you should be aware of the new rules regarding how Facebook Pages can leverage Likes. In short: forcing people to Like your Page to gain access to content – a practice called Like-gating – is no longer tolerated. |
| Small business gamification |
| For many businesses it is important that there is steady and productive interaction with clients and that they can capture important data from these interactions. While there are many ways to achieve both these objectives, there is one way that is gaining traction with many companies, especially those who want to capture better data: gamification. |
| Will your business get by on OWA? |
| For businesses looking to integrate Office 365, there are a number of plans available. Some offer full versions of Office 2013, while others include just Office Web Apps (OWA) – browser-based versions of Office. Because of the different plans available, it can be slightly confusing to figure out which one to go with. Here are five questions to help you decide. |
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