Changes to “all-following” behavior in Google Calendar

By Gregory Yakushev, Software Engineer

Today we are introducing new behavior for “all-following” changes to recurring events. Previously, we cut a recurring event at the point an “all-following” change was made and created a new recurring event starting at that point. Now, in most cases we keep the recurring event intact, while still applying the relevant changes to all following instances.

This means that users can now perform operations on the entire recurring series even after an “all-following” change has been made. They can modify, reply to, delete, or apply additional “all-following” changes. Also, in many cases, changes to specific instances of a recurring event will still be preserved after an “all-following” change.

To preserve backward compatibility, API clients will still see a separate recurring event after each “all-following” change. A separate post will announce API support for making these “all-following” changes and accessing whole recurring events with multiple “all-following” changes in them.

For example: suppose I have a recurring event “Daily Meeting” for my team. Paul knows that he will be on vacation, so he declined a few instances next month. I know that we will get new intern in a month, so I invite him starting next month to “all following” instances. Also I want to move it to a different room starting next week, so I change location and apply to “all following” instances.

After all these operations Paul's responses are still preserved: I see that he will not attend a few meetings next month. I also see that on instances two months ahead both of my “all-following” changes are reflected correctly: the room is changed and intern is invited. And all attendees still see all “Daily Meeting” instances as one recurrence: they can accept, decline or remove all of them with one click.


Grisha Yakushev ensures Calendar servers keep your data consistent and safe. He enjoys travelling the world, preferably by hitchhiking.

Posted by Scott Knaster, Editor

Civic Information API: now connecting US users with their representatives

By Jonathan Tomer, Software Engineer

Cross-posted from the Google Politics & Elections Blog

Many applications track and map governmental data, but few help their users identify the relevant local public officials. Too often local problems are divorced from the government institutions designed to help. Today, we're launching new functionality in the Google Civic Information API that lets developers connect constituents to their federal, state, county and municipal elected officials—right down to the city council district.

The Civic Information API has already helped developers create apps for US elections that incorporate polling place and ballot information, from helping those affected by Superstorm Sandy find updated polling locations over SMS to learning more about local races through social networks. We want to support these developers in their work beyond elections, including everyday civic engagement.

In addition to elected representatives, the API also returns your political jurisdictions using Open Civic Data Identifiers. We worked with the Sunlight Foundation and other civic technology groups to create this new open standard to make it easier for developers to combine the Civic Information API with their datasets. For example, once you look up districts and representatives in the Civic Information API, you can match the districts up to historical election results published by Open Elections.

Developers can head over to the documentation to get started; be sure to check out the "Map Your Reps" sample application from Bow & Arrow to get a sense of what the API can do. You can also see the API in action today through new features from some of our partners, for example:

• Change.org has implemented a new Decision Makers feature which allows users to direct a petition to their elected representative and lists that petition publicly on the representative's profile page. As a result, the leader has better insight into the issues being discussed in their district, and a new channel to respond to constituents.
  
  
• PopVox helps users share their opinions on bills with their Congressional Representatives in a meaningful format. PopVox uses the API to connect the user to the correct Congressional District. Because PopVox verifies that users are real constituents, the opinions shared with elected officials have more impact on the political process.
  
  

Over time, we will expand beyond US elected representatives and elections to other data types and places. We can’t grow without your help. As you use the API, please visit our Developer Forum to share your experiences and tell us how we can help you build the next generation of civic apps and services.

This release is an investment in making the world’s civic data universally accessible and useful. We’ll continue to work with civic developers who are tackling real-world challenges. Together, we can build new tools to improve civic life for everyone.


Jonathan Klabunde Tomer is a software engineer in Google's Washington, DC office. He enjoys bicycling, good food, good wine, and open data.

Posted by Scott Knaster, Editor

A new look for managing your APIs

By Akshay Kannan, Product Manager, Google Cloud Platform

Back in 2010, we launched the Google APIs Console, enabling you to manage multiple Google APIs from a single, centralized console.

Today, we are introducing the Google Cloud Console, our next evolution of the APIs Console. The new Google Cloud Console makes managing the over 60 Google APIs housed within easier than ever. It brings an entirely new visual design and integrates tightly with our Cloud Platform services, enabling you to manage an end-to-end application deployment. For the past few weeks, we've given you the ability to opt in to the new experience, and starting soon we'll be making it the default (with the ability to go back to the old experience if you prefer).

You'll notice an entirely new visual design, a hierarchical navigation, and even a friendly new URL structure.

We’ve also simplified the process of getting API credentials. Now, you can register an app on the platform you are building on, then see all the possible credential types for your application, making it easier to quickly grab the credentials you need.

If you haven't already, give the new Cloud Console a shot. We'd love to hear your thoughts and feedback in the comments section below.

Akshay Kannan is a Product Manager on the Google Cloud Console team. His focus is on providing an integrated, beautiful developer experience for all Google Developers.

Posted by Scott Knaster, Editor

New AdSense data in the Analytics Core Reporting API

By Nick Mihailovksi, Product Manager, Google Analytics API Team

Cross-posted from the Google Analytics Blog

Google AdSense is a free, simple way for website publishers to earn money by displaying targeted Google ads on their websites. Today, we’ve added the ability to access AdSense data from the Google Analytics Core Reporting API. The AdSense and Analytics integration allows publishers to gain richer data and insights, leading to better optimized ad space and a higher return on investment.

In the past, accessing AdSense data using the Analytics Core Reporting API has been a top feature request. We’ve now added 8 new AdSense metrics to the Analytics Core Reporting API, enabling publishers to streamline their analysis.

Answering Business Questions
You can now answer the following business questions using these API queries:

Which pages on your site contribute most to your AdSense revenue?

dimensions=ga:pagePath

&metrics=ga:adsenseCTR,ga:adsenseRevenue,ga:adsenseECPM &sort=-ga:adsenseRevenue

Test in query explorer

Which pages generate a high number of pageviews but aren't monetizing as well as other pages?

dimensions=ga:pagePath

&metrics=ga:pageviews,ga:adsenseCTR

&sort=-ga:pageviews

Test in query explorer

Which traffic sources contribute to your revenue?

dimensions=ga:sourceMedium

&metrics=ga:adsenseCTR,ga:adsenseRevenue,ga:adsenseECPM

&sort=-ga:adsenseRevenue

Test in query explorer

Reporting Automation

By accessing this data through the API, you can now automate reporting and spend more time doing analysis. You can also use the API to integrate data from multiple sites into a single dashboard, build corporate dashboards to share across the team, and use the API to integrate data into CRM tools that display AdSense Ads.

Getting Started

To learn more about the new AdSense data, take a look at our Google Analytics Dimensions and Metrics Explorer. You can also test the API with your data by building queries in the Google Analytics Query Explorer.

Busy? In that case, now’s a great time to try these Analytics API productivity tools:

• Magic Script: A Google Spreadsheets script to automate importing Analytics data into Spreadsheets, allowing for easy data manipulation. No coding required!
• Google Analytics superProxy: An App Engine application that reduces all the complexity of authorization.

We hope this new data will be useful, and we're looking forward to seeing what new reports developers build.

Nick Mihailovski oversees the Google Analytics APIs. In his spare time, he likes to travel around the world.

Posted by Scott Knaster, Editor

New Analytics APIs for large companies

By Nick Mihailovski, Product Manager, Google Analytics

Many large companies have unique needs, with dozens of websites and many users. In the past, configuring Google Analytics for these companies was time-consuming and required too many clicks.

We're thrilled to announce a new set of APIs that will make it even easier for large companies to manage multiple websites. These APIs will streamline the Google Analytics setup process, allowing IT teams to programmatically manage and configure Google Analytics, so teams can focus their efforts on analysis and gaining insights.

Account Setup and Configuration APIs

To simplify account setup, we’ve added new APIs to manage Properties, Profiles, and Goals. This reduces the time it takes to build new account structures, and allows you to enable new features across all your existing accounts.

Note: These APIs are currently available in closed beta. Please sign up here to request access.

User Permissions APIs

To reduce the overhead in managing user access, we’ve also added APIs to manage user permissions across all your accounts. With these APIs, you can quickly list which users have access to your accounts. You can also now write programs to sync Google Analytics users with corporate directory services such as LDAP.

The User Permissions APIs are public and can be used today.

Getting Started

To get started, you can find all the API resources on our Google Analytics APIs for Large Companies page. This launch brings new opportunities to developers, IT Teams, and Google Analytics users. Let us know what you think!

Nick Mihailovski oversees the Google Analytics APIs. In his spare time, he likes to travel around the world.

Posted by Scott Knaster, Editor

Google+ iOS SDK 1.4.0: in-app share box and ID token support

By Ranjith Jayaram, Product Manager, Google+ iOS Platform

Cross-posted with the Google+ Developers Blog

Today we are announcing version 1.4.0 of the Google+ iOS SDK. The new version includes two of the most highly requested features from the developer community:

1. In-app share box. Now your users can share with their Google+ circles, directly from your iOS app! In addition, the native in-app share box supports image and video attachments. If you've already implemented browser-based sharing, you can switch to the native in-app share box with a single line change:

              Just update this:

     [[GPPShare sharedInstance] shareDialog]

              to this:

     [[GPPShare sharedInstance] nativeShareDialog]

                             
The native iOS in-app share box                                            
   

2.  ID token support. ID tokens allow you to securely verify the identity of users of your iOS                     clients to your application servers.

To download or to learn more about the Google+ iOS SDK, visit our Google+ Developers site.


Ranjith Jayaram is a Product Manager on the Google+ Platform team. While he's not working, he enjoys reading and occasionally writing fiction.

Posted by +Scott Knaster, Editor

Google APIs Console picks up the Picker API

By Kuntal Loya, Software Engineer

With the Google Picker API, you can provide users of your application with a simple interface to select photos, maps, videos, documents and other content from Google using a few lines of JavaScript.

Starting today, the Picker API is available via the APIs Console. For those of you who are already using the API, this change makes it easier to manage and view traffic and authentication data alongside any other Google APIs that you may be using with your application.

To get started, register your project on the APIs Console. If you’re already using the Picker API, you’ll need to include the developer key you obtained during registration with the JavaScript used to create the picker.

<script type="text/javascript">

      // The API developer key obtained from the Google APIs Console.
      var developerKey = 'ABC123 ... ';

      // Use the API Loader script to load google.picker.
      function loadPicker() {
        gapi.load('picker', {'callback': createPicker});
      }

      // Create and render a Picker object for searching images.
      function createPicker() {
        var picker = new google.picker.PickerBuilder().
            addView(google.picker.ViewId.IMAGE_SEARCH).
            setDeveloperKey(developerKey).
            setCallback(pickerCallback).
            build();
        picker.setVisible(true);
      }
    </script>
    <script type="text/javascript" 
      src="https://apis.google.com/js/api.js?onload=loadPicker">
    </script>

See the Developer’s Guide for more details.


Kuntal Loya has been making the Google Picker smarter while enjoying Bangalore’s weather and the food at the Google Café. Meanwhile, she’s nearing the end of Mahasamar, Narendra Kohli’s 8-volume re-telling of the Mahabharata.

Posted by Scott Knaster, Editor