We recently announced the general availability of Connected Sheets, which brings you the power and scale of a BigQuery data warehouse in the familiar context of Google Sheets. With Connected Sheets, you can analyze billions of rows and petabytes of data in Sheets without specialized knowledge of computer languages like SQL. This makes it easy for anyone, not just data analysts, to apply pivot tables, charts, and formulas to massive datasets and unlock insights.

Our customers use Connected Sheets to enable data-driven decision-making across their organizations. We’ve heard many stories about how Connected Sheets has enabled them to achieve operational efficiencies and new ways of unlocking the power of their data; we’d like to share a few here.

Operate with agility

Now more than ever, it’s critical for organizations to react with flexibility and agility to new realities. Connected Sheets helps organizations harness and collaborate on massive amounts of data, making it easier to understand and quickly respond to today’s dynamic landscape. 

The United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS) helps the UN and its partners deliver peace and security, humanitarian, and development solutions. As COVID-19 emerged, UNOPS used Connected Sheets to help coordinate a swift global response. Says Tushar Dighe, Chief Information Officer at UNOPS, “When the COVID-19 pandemic started, we needed to quickly assess the status of our operational capacity in order to assist governments with the response. We used a Connected Sheet with data from our BigQuery data warehouse combined with manual status inputs on the same Sheet, where colleagues in more than 80 countries were able to collaboratively provide inputs. The results in the form of pivots and charts were instantly available live. It took less than three hours to design and implement the solution, and we had status information from more than 80 countries within the first 24 hours.”

Improve business and financial reporting

Reports and dashboards displaying business metrics, like revenue figures or operational KPIs, play a critical role in organizations. These reports help sales teams track performance, enable finance teams to make projections, and provide business leaders with a picture of their organization’s health. Especially now, as businesses adapt their planning to reflect the new normal and employees remain dispersed, it’s doubly important that teams can quickly access and collaborate on business and financial dashboards, from wherever they are. But building and maintaining these reports can be time consuming and error-prone, and requests for changes or new views result in manual work for data analysts. All of this just extends the time to insight and action. 

Connected Sheets helps automate report creation, while maintaining a single source of truth for data in BigQuery. The live connection between BigQuery and Sheets also means that data stays fresh, minimizing the risk that people make decisions based on outdated information and avoiding the data integrity risks of manual data pulls. 

Says Alexander Danilowicz, a Software Engineer at data connectivity company LiveRamp, “Our Finance team uses Connected Sheets to automate reports that are shared with other stakeholders to run the business. This enables our business partners to analyze and create pivot tables on massive datasets, which is not possible in a traditional spreadsheet.”

“Now that it’s all integrated, there’s no human error involved. Changes can be made at the click of a button, resulting in 10 hours saved per month,” he adds.

Track product adoption

It’s important for teams across the business to understand customer adoption of products and services, whether it’s the product team tracking usage of a newly released feature or the support team trying to anticipate incoming service requests. Similarly,  IT teams need to analyze adoption of an organization’s internal applications and systems, so they know what tools employees are using and how they are being used. But product adoption datasets are often too large for traditional spreadsheets to handle, and new data is continuously being added. 

Connected Sheets can provide teams access to large, powerful, and up-to-date usage datasets, in the familiar Sheets interface. PwC, a global professional services organization, uses Connected Sheets as part of its efforts to make technology and data more accessible across its workforce. One way PwC uses Connected Sheets is to monitor and analyze internal adoption of tools like G Suite. 

Says Peter Van Nieuwerburgh, Global Change Manager at PwC, “If you look at our own adoption dashboarding, it’s more than three terabytes of data—good luck putting that in any spreadsheet. With Connected Sheets, we’re not really pulling the data into the spreadsheet, rather it lives in the database where it belongs. The ability to go and so easily analyze and visualize the data is really powerful.”

We hope Connected Sheets helps to scale data-driven decision making at your organization, by making powerful data easily accessible across your sales, finance, product, and IT teams.

Today, we’re announcing that we’re working with AT&T to establish Messages by Google as the default messaging application for all AT&T customers in the United States using Android phones. The collaboration aims to help accelerate the industry toward global Rich Communication Services (RCS) coverage and interoperability to offer a consistent, secure, and enhanced messaging experience for all Android users around the world.

“Many AT&T customers have enjoyed the advantages of RCS for years when texting with friends and family,” said David Christopher, executive vice president and general manager – AT&T Mobility. “We look forward to working closely with Google to extend these benefits to even more of our customers as they enjoy richer conversations with others around the world.”

Working together, AT&T and Google will continue the momentum to upgrade SMS with enhanced messaging features offered in Messages, which includes the support of chat features based on the open RCS standard. With Messages as the default messaging application, all AT&T customers using Android devices will get enhanced features so they can:

• Share full-resolution pictures from a recent event or vacation 
• Send a higher-quality video of that soccer goal and the celebration that followed
• Know when someone is replying to a text
• Send and receive messages over Wi-Fi or data
• Participate in group chats where it’s easy to add someone else to the conversation, or let someone leave, without starting a brand new thread

In addition to these features, we’re also rolling out end-to-end encryption for one-on-one RCS conversations between people using Messages and people who have chat features enabled.

For years, we’ve been working with the mobile industry and device makers to bring enhanced and secure messaging to everyone on Android. Today’s announcement—that AT&T customers using Android devices will soon be able to enjoy these features by default—is a major step forward.

Snap inc., the developer of the Snapchat platform, has become a global leader in the social media industry. Snap runs its business on Google Cloud, and relies on Premium Support to optimize its cloud business imperatives. Snap sought new ways to extract business value from their cloud data, so turned to their assigned Google Technical Account Management team to develop a means to strengthen and expand cloud skills to meet their goal.  The Technical Account Managers (TAMs) serve as an extension of the Snap Engineering Program Management team to deliver deep expertise of Google Cloud and guide Snap in their cloud journey including mapping the essential cloud skills for Snap to achieve broader business strategy.  Since Snap employees had varying levels of cloud expertise, it meant that their TAM team needed to design a tailored learning program to optimally meet Snap’s needs.

The TAM team engaged with Google Cloud Customer Experience (CCE) team which included cloud support, learning, consulting, customer success and customer insight and advocacy services. The Google team leveraged a Skill Training Survey for the Snap team to identify, extract and map existing skills to the level of targeted cloud skills that would enable them to design a learning curriculum to boost employee productivity, enable efficient scaling and strengthen the mitigation of technical issues while optimizing their environment for issue prevention. In addition, Google Cloud offered instructor-led virtual training focused on Looker, Kubernetes and others topics of interest and a tailored Snap Global Training Program was launched in the last quarter of 2022.

By including training for Looker, it expanded Snap employees’ ability to reach data-driven decisions. Snap also took advantage of the Google Cloud Skills Boost licenses delivering access to a learning platform with over 700 courses and learning labs,  included with Premium Support. 

Next, the TAMs and CCE teams were tasked to raise internal awareness of the global Snap training program, so they developed a comprehensive marketing and communications plan to drive promotion over a twelve week period to prospective trainees through newsletters, email groups, Slack channels, Engineering meetings, and an internal site dedicated to Snap training resources. 

“Partnering with Google to provide Snap engineers with learning opportunities aligns with Snap’s values of Kind, Smart and Creative.  Investing in growing our team member’s skills helps them personally advance and helps our business achieve our goals.”—Michele Vaughan, Snap Engineering Program Manager

The Google-led Snap Global Training Program includes hands-on, instructor-led training, in-person gamified Cloud Hero Learning Events, and access to on-demand Google Cloud Skills Boost labs. Over 100 trainees at Snap initially participated in the instructor-led training, and more than 500 employees completed the on-demand labs. This training program has enabled Snap employees to develop and strengthen skills in the targeted cloud areas including data visualization, AI and ML, and Kubernetes. In addition, the program ignited a Looker Advisory Professional Services initiative to advise Snap with best practices and improvements for the usage of Looker. These skills enable Snap to extract increased value for their cloud data and guide the future of their business for sustaining a competitive advantage in a dynamic marketplace. 

To learn more about how Google Cloud Customer Experience can support your organization’s business transformation journey with cloud support, learning, consulting, customer success, and customer insight and advocacy services, visit:

•  Premium Support to empower business innovation with expert-led technical guidance and cloud support
•  Google Cloud Training & Certification to expand and diversify your team’s cloud education

With growing demand for Google Cloud, customers are increasingly expecting more reliable advisory and implementation skills from Google Cloud Systems Integrator (SI) Partners. Our model for professional services remains differentiated, with a heavy co-dependence on our SI Partner ecosystem to drive success for our customers. Therefore, enabling and nurturing strong delivery capabilities in our Partners is a responsibility we take seriously. The Google Cloud Global Services Delivery and Global Partner Ecosystem & Channels team jointly made significant investments earlier this year to underscore our commitment in this area. That’s why we’ve created the expanded Partner Delivery Excellence portfolio, a rich set of resources to help Google Cloud Partners deliver high-quality Google Cloud projects. Whether you’re a Partner just getting started with Google Cloud or have prior experience, we have the resources you need to succeed and we’ll meet you where you are in this journey.

Here are some of the key offerings in the Partner Delivery Excellence portfolio:

Stage: Building delivery skills | Pre-engagement

• Delivery Readiness Index (DRI): a framework that enables SI Partners to receive customized, individual level delivery enablement recommendations based on each consultant’s delivery readiness, assessed across training, certifications, delivery skills validation and prior delivery experience. 
• Delivery Navigator (coming soon): A delivery management platform consisting of delivery methods, work management tools, and dashboards that enables Google PSO and Partners to drive a high-quality, globally consistent project experience. You’ll hear more about this in an upcoming blog post.

Stage: Develop delivery expertise | Preparing for a delivery project

• Delivery Runbooks: Workload-level detailed delivery guides which include reference architectures, detailed migration steps, validation guidelines, common troubleshooting tips and more.
• Delivery Bootcamps: In-person or hybrid mode multi-day sessions conducted by experienced Google Cloud Consultants and customizable to the specifics of a Google Cloud project for a customer.
• Use case learning: Self-paced learning in the form of bite-sized lectures to build foundational delivery skills at the workload level, with quiz based assessment to validate knowledge gained.
• Delivery labs: Hands-on labs, hosted on our Qwiklabs platform, that complement use-case learning to build and test core delivery skills through a series of practical delivery scenario challenges.

Stage: Leverage Google delivery SMEs | During active project delivery

• Onboarding accelerator: Enables Partners with advisory services to onboard customers on Google Cloud foundations and migrate the first workload quickly and efficiently, by imparting knowledge and best practices from the Technical Onboarding Center. Supported workloads span Infrastructure & Application modernization, Analytics & AI and Databases.
• Delivery Helpdesk: In-the-moment implementation support for Partners during a live Google Cloud project through a standard case management process. Google Global Services Delivery teams well versed in the technology area will advise and help Partners resolve the issue at hand.
• Delivery Assurance Services: Project-level safeguarding services that are delivered in the context of an active Partner-led customer project. 

Stage: Leverage Google delivery expertise independent of projects | Build, scale and optimize Google Cloud practices

• Tooling advisory: Assessment of Partner tools with detailed recommendations to enhance tools architecture for better scale, security, ease of use and, where applicable, pointers to Google Cloud open-source tools and best practices.
• Resident Experts: We are selectively introducing this offering of specialists from Google Cloud Consulting teams embedded with Partners for a fixed period of time and with defined scope and deliverables. Partners can leverage these experts to build core delivery capabilities in new areas like generative AI,  sharpen existing Google Cloud capabilities in adjacent solution areas like Data & Analytics or have access to expertise to define a comprehensive automation strategy for Google Cloud migration practices.

We are confident that the Partner Delivery Excellence portfolio brings forth much of what’s needed for our Partners to not only deliver high-quality services but also profitably grow their Google Cloud services business quickly and efficiently.

To learn more about the portfolio or to share your feedback or suggestions, please contact your Google Cloud Partner representative. 

If you are attending Partner Summit during Google NEXT in August, we look forward to seeing you in the breakout series where we have a dedicated session on this topic.

Thank you for reading. And thank you for your partnership!

In previous blog posts, we’ve discussed the benefits that organizations can reap by measuring and then optimizing their overall ESG impact. In this post, we’ll look at the endgame: sustainable transformation into an organization that continually adapts to maximize its resilience while reducing risk. Where will my customers be with the evolving global community landscape? How can I design communities and products with sustainability in mind? Are my assets exposed to physical climate risk — drought, flood, wildfire? Adaptation and resilience are the board and legislative focus areas that the ambition loops created by Google Cloud Ready – Sustainability seek to accelerate. 

This is especially important due to the scrutiny of governments and financial institutions as they evaluate the viability of physical asset investments. These organizations want assurances that their investments will not be under undue environmental risk. Similarly, companies embarking on net-zero transitions can realize interest expense savings by providing the measurable, accountable assurances their financiers demand.

Leveraging analytics for climate and business resilience

We’ve said it before, but it bears repeating: The Google Cloud Ready – Sustainability program challenges the notion that sustainability is just a nice-to-have or merely good PR. Rather, we designed the program to help organizations adapt to a net-zero future with solutions that reduce risk, support growth, provide competitive advantages, and positively impact the bottom line. The following partners provide data and analytics that offer deep insights into the environment, natural resources, and social trends that point the way toward sustainable, profitable growth. 

Atlas AI has built a geospatial artificial intelligence platform that helps every organization anticipate changing societal conditions — where people live, where wealth and poverty are concentrated, how the physical makeup of communities is evolving, and more — to determine where to invest today to prepare for the world of tomorrow. Atlas AI customers, which range from the World Bank and global NGOs to multinational corporations, use the platform to accelerate growth, future-proof supply chains, target resources to vulnerable populations, and build greater resilience to climate change.  

Climate Engine’s SpatiaFi solution, powered by Google Cloud, helps financial services organizations connect economic assets to the world of Earth observation data supporting regulatory reporting, climate risk reduction, and new innovative sustainable finance offerings. Combining billions of planetary observations with peer-reviewed scientific methods, SpatiaFi is connecting Earth science to operational systems offering new levels of accuracy, transparency, scalability, and trust in climate and sustainability data in the context of financial decision-making.

Kumi Analytics‘ KACSAT solution was approved by OxCarbon as a methodology for the calculation and verification of voluntary carbon offsets in support of nature-based solutions. KACSAT leverages multiple satellite platforms and Google Earth Engine‘s state-of-the-art processing tools to enable science-based carbon assessment aligned to the Oxford Offsetting Principles of environmental integrity, additionality, permanence, and achieving net-zero emissions. Environmental organizations, financial institutions, and corporations can now offset their carbon footprints through the reforestation and conservation of millions of hectares of forests — something that was previously limited due to the cost and time of validating high-quality forest projects.

Tensorflight revolutionizes property underwriting with AI. Its cutting-edge tool provides underwriters and insurers with access to rich and highly accurate datasets for commercial and residential properties, enabling them to create superior insurance products. As pioneers of the first property-inspection platform based on convolutional neural networks, Tensorflight’s advanced technology connects seamlessly via API and utilizes ground-level imagery, satellite, and aerial data. This unique approach enables the company to generate precise replacement costs and conduct more comprehensive risk assessments. By automating property inspections and enhancing underwriting accuracy, Tensorflight empowers insurance providers to plan for the future with pragmatic decision-making. With Tensorflight, the future of property underwriting is transformed, offering unparalleled insights, efficiency, and sustainability.

Are you ready for sustainability transformation?

Transforming into a net-zero organization means much more than building resilience to climate change, as important as that is. It also means finding the customers of the future, achieving ongoing energy savings, more sustainable resource usage, and improved transparency to regulatory institutions and consumers. Google Cloud Ready – Sustainability partners offer certified solutions that can help organizations get there.

Look for Google Cloud Ready – Sustainability validated solutions on the Google Cloud Partner Directory Listing, Google Cloud Ready Sustainability Partner Advantage page, and — if applicable — via the Google Cloud Marketplace. We hope to help customers better understand how these technologies can help them meet their ESG goals, find the right solutions for their particular challenges, and implement solutions faster. 

Learn more about the Google Cloud Ready – Sustainability validation initiative and explore all our partners in sustainability transformation.