Preview of Google Sites templates.

Google Sites has recently opened the templates gallery and creating professional looking web sites has become so much easier. You can view some of the templates on this page, however, there are many more templates.

To see other available templates you have to login to your Google Sites account, click on create site, Browse the gallery for more, select a template and click on Preview Template link.

I am putting links to some templates below:
Professional Site Template
Internal Profile Template
Contractor site template
NGO site template
Neighbourhood site template
Project work site
Document Library and sharing
Team work site template
Training

Autosorting Task List using Google Spreadsheet.

One Google Docs user had asked a question on the Forum regarding auto-sorting a Task List when there is change in status of a Task. I thought that as a user I may also face this problem sometimes.

I created a Spreadsheet with List of Tasks in Column A and the Status of the Task in Column B. Initially I sorted the Data by Column B but when I changed the status of any Task it was not getting sorted automatically.

Then I read the description of SORT command and wrote the following command in cell C2:
=SORT(A2:B21, 2, TRUE)

This created a sorted list in Column C and D. Now If I change the status of any Task in Column B the sorted list got changed automatically.

I have shared this Template on Google Templates Gallery and you can use it too.
 

Long Survey questionnaires on Google Forms.

Google released a new feature to add page break to create multiple pages on Forms. Now in a long survey questionnaire the respondent could be sent to a particular page depending upon Yes/No or other options in multiple choice question.

Earlier when we created long survey questionnaires it was made only on single page and the respondent was getting nervous looking at it. Moreover, logic branching was not possible depending upon the answers. With this feature one can show limited number of questions on first page and depending upon the answer to a question (which may be placed anywhere on the page) the respondent is sent to a page which is relevant to his/her response. On next page also same type of question may be asked.

Although the respondent is not completing all the pages it is possible to write mandatory questions on any and all pages because the questions are mandatory only for the respondent for whom the page opens depending upon his previous response.

Suppose the respondent has made the earlier choice by mistake and realises this on subsequent page he/she can press the back button to go to the previous pages and change the response.

You can read about this on Google Docs Blog. The instructions to use the new feature  are here.

How I changed the Form while it was getting responses.

We made a Consumer Survey which was getting responses since Sep 4. Meanwhile, there was a workshop in which there were suggestions to alter the sequence of options in some questions and the sequence of questions itself. There were 19 questions.

I did it as follows.

I opened the Form for editing and disconnected from net to prevent auto-saves.

I made all the changes.

I came online and saved the form. Before clicking on save I unchecked "Accepting responses" and checked it again after saving.

How to embed Forms on Google Sites.

When you create a Spreadsheet Form you get a long URL like https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX..

It is better to embed the URL on your blog or site or Google Site. Embeding on Google Sites is very easy. You just create a page on Google Site and insert the Spreadsheet Form.

While inserting you need to give the required height and width of the form which you can get by clicking Form/Embed_form_in_a_webpage on spreadsheet. e.g.:
iframe src="https://spreadsheets.google.com/embeddedform?key=XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX" width="760" height="3744" frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0">Loading.../iframe

Just take the width and height from the embed link and put it while inserting on Google Sites.

If you want to embed on any other site or blog you need the whole link with iframe command.

Configuring Pidgin to connect to Google Talk for my domain.

Being Linux user I have been using Pidgin for Google Talk on my gmail account. After becoming the Administrator of my domain and putting up Google Talk Badge on public Google sites I was using the service through gmail account @my_domain.

Today I discovered how to set up Pidgin for my domain and there is no need to login to gmail account @my_domain to chat with the visitors to the sites.

This is how I did it:

Basic Tab
Username: admin (this is my username@my_domain)
Domain: my_domain.com
Local alias: Web Administrator

 Advanced Tab
Connect server: talk.google.com

Now whenever, the visitor at my domain site clicks on "Chat with Web Administrator" badge I get a message on Pidgin "Accept chat invitation?" and after clicking on Accept the Conversation window opens.

If the visitor to this site clicks on "Chat with Kamalakar Agashe" badge on right side bar I get same message on Pidgin but when I see my userid in the conversation window I understand that this is a visitor to my blog and not the site @my_domain

Putting long Questionnaire on Google Sites using Spreadsheet Forms.

In the project we are handling on our Intranet there are long Questionnaires (about 50 questions) to be put up on Google Sites for MSMEs (Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises). We tried to design the questions with possible answers included but answers to many questions was descriptive. The Questionnaires were prepared in Google Spreadsheet Forms and embeded on public Google Site on our domain.

When we tested the Questionnaires it was found that the respondents may need lot of assistance. Accordingly the site was designed as follows:

Home Page with Description regarding the Questionnaire and click-able links to the embeded Questionaires and support pages.
Pages with Questionnaires on Spreadsheet Forms embeded
Page with detailed Instructions for filling up the Questionnaires (Main Support Page)
Chat page with Google Talk Badge of Support Person.
Contact Us page with brief Support Spreadsheet Form
Downloads page with PDFs of Instructions and Questionnaires.
Sidebar with the links to pages in proper order.

For me this is going to be a very exciting project.