Google Apps, or GApps for short, is a free service from Google providingindependently customizable versions of several Google products undera custom domain name. It features several web applications with similarfunctionality to traditional office suites and includes Google docs, calendar, andsites. BASIS provides toolsets that allow developers to incorporate this powerful cloudfunctionality directly into their BBj® application, expanding the capability and value oftheir applications.
What GApps Provides
GApps allows for the sharing of information by using cloud technology for access andstorage and provides security, a web browser-based user interface, APIs, and everchangingimproved functionality. Users who create or upload documents to Googlecan easily share them with any user across the Internet. As they create or upload thedocuments or “docs,” cloud technology saves it around the world for redundancy, fastuser access, simultaneous collaboration, and revision control. Gone are the days ofemailing a document or saving it on a shared drive to distribute to others. Sharing afile is as easy as supplying the email addresses of the desired collaborators. Googlethen sends an email notification to the users with a link to the Google doc.
Users can edit shared Google docs in a web browser, just like in most any otherword processor. Therefore, just like BASIS products, GApps is cross-platform andnot tied to a particular operating system, nor does it require any additional software.If multiple people have the doc open, anyone who is viewing the document can seeall the changes as well as their own, as they occur. In fact, collaborators can evenchat among themselves inside the doc. Google provides various security options fordefining users, groups, and domains as owners, editors, or simply viewers of the doc.
What the BASIS GApps Utility Provides
Google Apps are accessible in a BBj application since the Google API provides supportfor the Java language and BBj supports embedded Java code. The Google Java APIis very powerful but has a steep learning curve. To simplify GApps integration, BASISprovides the GApps Utility that provides programmatic access and dialogs for GoogleApps services including docs, calendar, and sites.
Docs
The Google Docs methods are quite extensive and allow for uploading,downloading, removing, and setting doc permissions. Dialogs for opening,saving, and selecting a folder for docs behave similarly to the standardopen file dialogs that have been in the BASIS language for years (seeFigures 1 and 2). These dialogs run in GUI and BUI, are fully localized, and willprompt the end user to log in to GApps, if necessary. UserProperties, discussed indetail in Need Cookies? Get User Properties at links.basis.com/11cookies, saves validuser credentials to avoid presenting a login dialog on subsequent accesses.
Calendar
The GApps Utility provides access to the Google Calendar Web Service and allows the addition of more functionality as the need arises.
See this in action in a fully functionalcalendar demo application that interactswith the Google time managementWeb Service as shown in Figure 3.This Google Calendar demo is a BUIapplication that retrieves a Googlecalendar from a gmail account anddisplays the calendar in a BBjHtmlViewcontrol. BUI is the mode of choice forthis application since web browsershave the latest HTML, CSS, andJavaScript necessary to display thecalendar. Since Java’s HTML viewercontrol has limited HTML, CSS, andJavaScript capabilities, the calendarcannot display in SysGUI. Run thedemo and see how easy it is to addyour own calendar events with a customname, date and time, and description.Additional options include guestinvitations, event permissions, repeatcriteria, attachments, and reminders.
SitesThe GApps Utility providesaccess to Google Siteswhich allows web pagecreation, maintenance,and sharing. The “BUI-GSites” programdemonstrates how to modify a webpage programmatically. First providea Domain, Site Name, and Page Title.After successful authentication, thisdemo retrieves the web page andthen displays it using a BBjHtmlViewcontrol. Now dynamically modify theweb page by replacing string literalsor by specifying the new content forthe desired DIV. Figure 4 shows thisdemo modifying the BASIS intranetGoogle site.
GApps at Work
As an example, see how BASIS puts GApps to work in two differentapplications.
BASIS modifies their intranet webpage on a weekly basis in batchmode to change the PIN numbersfor the conference phone system.
BASIS also uses the GAppsutility for their Barista®-basedAddonSoftware® accountingsystem. The GApps Utility savesall necessary documents, includingBarista- and Jasper-generatedreports, to the cloud in accordancewith the BASIS Business Continuityand Disaster Recovery program.
Summary
BASIS is not the only company using GApps. The impressive threemillion businesses that use Google Apps include such well knowncompanies as Berkeley Lab, BASF, Capgemini, Delta Hotels, USGeneral Services Administration, Salesforce.com, KLM, KonicaMinolta, Motorola Mobile Devices Division, and National Geographic,to name a few.
BASIS’ GApps Utility building block will smooth the way for you andyour clients to leverage the cloud today. What are you waiting for?
http://documentation.basis.com/advantage/v15-2011/11gapps.pdf