Waffle Bytes

I was asked to create a script that would send an approval email once a request was approved - for 2 separate groups, and to be used for 2 different reasons!  The example below is being used for building access approval (RE: the work-at-home requirements due to COVID-19).  The other way this was used was for approval of spending requests.  These utilize an additional column that is marked (in these cases) with a Yes that will trigger the email, then if an email is sent it makes that notation in the final column.  Note - the script will break (stop running) if someone submits a non-working email from a form, so I recommend having the form auto-collect the email. Here are the directions for using the script -  Creating and Sending the Email 1. Create the spreadsheet  You can either do this with a New Spreadsheet, adding the data fields you want  OR Create a form with the data you are collecting and have it create the companion spreadsheet Important :...

 After seeing a couple teachers laboriously type in the email of each student from a Google Classroom, it occurred to me I should show how you can easily email all - or even just some - of students in a Classroom.   First, click on the People tab at the top. If selecting all students, click on the top checkbox -   If selecting a subset of students, check the boxes next to the students you want to select -  Once you have the boxes check, click on Actions and select Email- A new email will open up in a new tab.  Notice that all the students are in the BCC field so they are not aware of who you did (or didn't) email which helps keep you FERPA compliant -  Compose your subject and email message, then send! Thank you for joining us for this episode of Technology Tidbits, brought to you by Melinda Waffle (Calhoun Intermediate School District), and CJ Walker and Du Bui (Jackson County Intermediate School District) - members of REMC - RITS

Once you have an understanding of labels , using them makes more sense.  Here is how to assign & delete them as you want. To add a label to an email, either when looking at your email list OR inside the email itself, you can click on the label icon at the top of the window - When you click on it, you will see (1) a list of your existing emails.  You will also see (2) where you can create a new label on the spot - Because these are labels (NOT folders), you can assign as many as you would like.  Once you have selected all the labels you wish to assign the email, click on Apply - The email will now appear with the label next to the subject line - If you do not want the email to stay in your Inbox, you can select the "folder" icon next to the label icon.  This will allow you to assign one or more labels to the email, AND at the same time remove the Inbox label so it no longer shows up in your Inbox -  The list of labels should look fami...

There are 2 ways to have people you email (or that email you) added to your email contacts list.  If you wish for contacts to automatically be added,  you can go into your Google Mail settings and under General, find this option down the page just above the Signature area - If you prefer to add them manually, when in an email of someone you wish to add to your contacts, click on the More menu (stacked 3 dots) on the right side of the email -  Select to Add the person to Contacts list - the 5th item down the menu - That's it!  Going forward that person's email will show up as part of an auto-fill when typing their name.

(Reposting) There are many time I get an email that I want to make into an event on my calendar - both to make sure I block out the time, and to move the information out of an email in my inbox into the event. There is a feature called "Create event" that let's you do this - it is available in the More options when you are viewing the message. Once you select create event, Google opens up a new window, loads your calendar, and creates an event with the message subject as the name of the event, and the body of the message as the description within the event: You are then able to edit the date/time and other information as needed to finish creating the event. One caveat...it adds everyone that was part of the message to the Guest list (see above in red box), so unless you want it to be a group event you will need to click the x next to everyone's name but yours.

If you use the tasks list to help keep track of what you need to do, making a task from an email is an easy "task" to do.  Here is how to add an email to your task list. When in the email, you can either -go to the More Menu (3 stacked dots) at the top above the email and select Add to Tasks OR -use the keyboard shortcut of Shift + t Either method will automatically create a task. This will open up your task list on the right side of you screen: When you mouse over the task it created, you will see an pencil that can be clicked on to edit the task: When editing, you can edit/see all the following: The title of the task Details you want to add to the task Which task list it is part of Date/time of task (will add to calendar) Subtasks Direct link to the email used to create the task - so you can reference it

There are many ways to mark emails as read or unread.  (Q: What is the difference between read or unread emails?  Unread emails are bolded so they stand out.)  You can use any of these methods to change the state of any email. If you have the "Hover" turned on in your settings, when you hover over an email that is in the main window some icons appear to the right side.  The third icon will change the state of the email - closed envelope to change to unread: Or open envelope to change to read: At any time, if you check next to one or more emails (if mass changing them) you can go to the top More menu (3 stacked dots) and change from the current state to unread or read: When inside a message you can click on the More menu (3 stacked dots) found on the upper right side of the email underneath the print icon to change it between read and unread: Finally, you can use the following keyboard shortcuts:

One of the hardest concepts when transitioning people to Google Mail from a software-based email application is the idea that all mail is "in" one location.  In thinking of email in a traditional sense (like snail mail), we think of sorting it "to" locations.  It is in the inbox, in the trash, in a folder, etc. When using Google Mail in the web, all your mail is in one location (I think of it as being a junk room full of my email).  Instead of organizing the emails "into" folders, we actually are tagging emails to make them easier to find (think of it as putting stickie notes on them).  This gives us great flexibility as emails can have multiple stickie notes on them - and I do not have to remember "where" I put them!  An example - an email in my inbox has a tag of "unread" (which makes it bold) and Inbox (so it appears when I click on Inbox). This brings us to labels - these are the tags we want to create and assign to our emails. ...

If you need to either print your email, or save it as a PDF, there are several ways to accomplish this. When viewing the email, you can either click on the printer icon in the upper right:  Or you can click on the More menu (3 stacked dots) and select Print there: Or you can use the shortcut: Using any of those methods, it will open a print preview window: You can: Change which printer is selected Select which pages to print Select the number of copies Change the layout (portrait vs landscape) Display more settings When you click on the Destination (which printer), you have options to save the email as a PDF or to Google Drive as well: Under the More settings, you can adjust other settings, including scaling the document and turning on/off headers & footers: Once done, clicking print will print the document with your preferred settings (or save it to PDF or Google Drive).

...otherwise known as finding what you want when you want it. (Updated at 8:58 am EST - less than 20 minutes after it was posted!  There is a change with the suggestions made during searching now that should show up for you soon if they don't yet. The addition is in a rust red color below. ) The number 1 biggest frustration expressed to me with Google Mail is finding an email.  There is a solution for this - the advanced search available that is hidden behind the little down arrow at the right end of the search bar: If you click on that, you get this pop-up window - Put the information you know in the appropriate places (in my example, I'm looking for an email from my husband, received during the 2015-2016 school year about evaluations but I don't know what the subject line was) - THEN run your search, and you should see better results (in my example, here is the email I was looking for) - The following field are what you can search: From: the em...