Tag Archives: Google Apps

Google Drive, Gmail, Google Docs, Google Contacts.

Google Apps last Friday

October 13, 2015Kerika, TechnologyGoogle AppsKerika

It looks like we were on the bleeding edge of Google’s problems last Friday (Oct 9): fairly early in the day, Pacific Time, we started seeing authentication failures from Google related to our Kerika+Google users.

The exceptions shown in the Kerika server logs were clearly pointing to problems on Google’s end:

What was a little frustrating for us — and our beloved users — was that Google itself didn’t seem to be acknowledging any problems until fairly late in the day:

By this time — almost noon, Pacific Time — dozens of Kerika users had been affected. We tried to let folks know via Twitter that there was a problem, and continued to monitor the situation through the day:

.@Google‘s authentication service for login to @Kerika is throwing a bunch of errors right now, affecting a range of our users. Apologies.

— Kerika (@kerika) October 9, 2015

A range of users who use their #googleapps IDs to login to Kerika are being affected by mysterious, unacknowledged problems on Google’s end.

— Kerika (@kerika) October 9, 2015

Looks like the @Google authentication failures have trailed off; hopefully our Kerika+Google users can login now without trouble.

— Kerika (@kerika) October 9, 2015

Google eventually acknowledged the problem as it became clear that it was widespread.

By mid-afternoon, the issue was largely cleared up, at least as far as Kerika was concerned, although it is possible that other apps, which also use Google for authentication or Google Drive for storage, were affected for much longer.

Once again, our apologies for everyone who was affected.

Google Authentication Errors

October 9, 2015TechnologyGoogle AppsKerika

We are currently seeing a bunch of errors from Google with respect to their authentication service — which lets you login to your Kerika+Google account using your Google ID, and they seem to be affecting a wide range of users.

Here’s a sample of what we are seeing:

This error normally shows up when a user is logging in with a Google for Work ID, e.g. Google Apps for Business or Google Apps for Education.

What’s surprising today is that we have seen at least 1 user with a regular Gmail address have this same problem, which is theoretically impossible.

Right now there’s not much we can do but wait this out. The problem seems to be small enough that Google is not even reporting it on their Google Apps Status Dashboard. 🙁

When you add an existing Google or Box file, we copy it into your Kerika folders

September 25, 2015Technology, UsabilityBox, Google AppsKerika

If you use the “file picker” that’s built into Kerika to add an existing Google Drive or Box file to a card, canvas or board — for a Task Board, Scrum Board or Whiteboard — you will see a message that says the file is being copied.

This is the file picker:

Clicking on the File Picker button brings up the File Picker dialog:

And this is the “copying…” message that’s shown.

So, what’s happening?

Well, Kerika stores all your Kerika-related files in a set of special folders within your Google Drive or Box account, if you are using Kerika+Google or Kerika+Box, and these are organized neatly into folders corresponding to each of your boards.

Here’s what the folders in your Box account look like (you can learn more by reading about how Kerika integrates with Box):

It’s a similar structure if you are using Kerika with Google:

Keeping all the Kerika files together in a set of related folders makes things cleaner for you: when you look at your Google Drive or Box Account, you know exactly what’s being used by Kerika, and what’s other stuff.

And this is why we make a copy of your existing Google Drive or Box file when you use the File Picker: it enables us to put a copy into your Kerika-specific folders, where it is easier to share with the rest of your project team.

Adding a Google Map to your Kerika canvas

September 2, 2015Agile & Scrum, Kanban & Lean, TechnologyGoogle Apps, Kanban, Scrum, Task Board, Usability, WhiteboardKerika

Did you know that you can embed a Google Map in your Kerika Whiteboards? It’s easy: just copy the Google Map’s URL:

And paste it into the dialog box that appears when you click on the “Add Web Content” button on your canvas toolbar:

Kerika automatically figures out the URL refers to a Google Map, and shows you an embedded map on your canvas:

You can do the same thing with card attachments, for your Task Boards and Scrum Boards: Kerika shows a small thumbnail of the map in the list of attachments on your card:

Using the Trash in Kerika

August 7, 2015Agile & Scrum, Kanban & Lean, Team Collaboration, Technology, UsabilityBox, Document Management, Google Apps, Kanban, Kerika, Scrum, Task Board, Teams, Trash, Usability, Whiteboard, WorkflowKerika

A new tutorial video that shows you how the Trash works in Kerika (like a Recycle Bin): you can retrieve any card, canvas or even entire projects or templates that got deleted by mistake!

How Project Settings Work in Kerika (A Preview of Coming Attractions)

July 29, 2015Agile & Scrum, Kanban & Lean, Team Collaboration, Technology, UsabilityBox, Document Management, Google Apps, Kanban, Microsoft, Scrum, Task Board, Teams, Usability, WorkflowKerika

Here’s a teaser video of the new Kerika user interface, which we are getting close to releasing…

Among other things, we will consolidate and improve a bunch of project management features under a new “Project Settings” button.

Check it out:

A nice Box hack that’s going away?

July 16, 2015TechnologyBox, Google Apps, WhiteboardKerika

For a while now, our Kerika+Box users have had a very nifty feature that allowed them to create a new Box Note from within Kerika itself, and have that note automatically attached to the Task Board or Scrum Board card that they were working on.

(Which meant, naturally, that this new Box Note was also automatically shared with everyone on that particular board’s project team!)

And since this was a very handy integration with Box, we added it to our Whiteboards and canvases as well:

We added this because Google Docs had equivalent functionality: Google enabled us to create a new Google Doc from within a Kerika+Google board and have that new Google Doc attached to the card the user was working on.

The trouble was, Box’s Content API didn’t really have an official way of doing this, so we came up with a workaround that worked fine for the longest time — so long, in fact, that we forgot that it was even ever implemented as a workaround…

Unfortunately, that broke a few days ago. Box did an update to their platform that stopped our workaround from working any more, which means that, at least for now, we will have to stop offering this feature for our Kerika+Box users.

Hopefully we will be able to get Box to give us official support for this feature, so Kerika+Box remains at least as good as Kerika+Google 🙂

Getting titles of Google Docs you attach to cards and chat

May 26, 2015UsabilityGoogle Apps, UsabilityKerika

When you reference a URL in a Task Board or Scrum Board’s cards or chat, Kerika fetches the title for that page and shows that instead of the URL.

This makes the URL references a lot easier for people to understand, because a “naked URL” would be difficult to comprehend.

But this wasn’t working great for Google Docs URLs: we were showing the same generic title from Google each time. Here’s an example of the problem:

Simply showing the URL reference in it’s “naked” form as https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ps9gl-Yopg6IsyKN_6nmnZCkUZChAwPahDKONvno6AQ/edit would make it pretty incomprehensible, but showing the generic Google Docs page title wasn’t a huge improvement either because the page title is the same for all Google Docs URLs:

What we need to do is get the actual Google Doc title, which would make for a useful reference because it would be (presumably) unique and meaningful in the context.

How to rate Kerika on the Google Apps Marketplace

April 17, 2015KerikaGoogle AppsKerika

Rating Kerika (and other apps) on the Google Apps Marketplace used to be a lot simpler than it is now.

Google changed a bunch of things in the Google Apps Marketplace that now restricts rating of apps to Google Admins.

If you are the Google Admin for your organization, we would love to get your review and rating of Kerika on the Google Apps Marketplace!

Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to rate Kerika (and any other app) on the Google Apps Marketplace:

1. Start off on the Google Admin Screen

Go to admin.google.com, and then click on the “Google Apps Marketplace” link on the right:

Click here to get to the Apps Marketplace

2. Search for Kerika

The Google Apps Admin for your organization (hopefully, you — if you are reading this blog post!) will need to install Kerika from the Google Apps Marketplace.

Check out our previous blog post for complete step-by-step instructions on how to do that.

3. Rating Kerika

If Kerika is already installed as an approved (authorized) app for your Google Apps domain, you will see a “Rate It” button:

4. You need to have a Google+ Profile

As with rating Kerika on the Chrome Web Store, you need to be signed into your Google+ profile in order to rate Kerika (or any other app from the Google Apps Marketplace):

Make sure you have a Google+ Profile

Assuming you are signed into Google, here’s how you can rate and review Kerika:

Click on the stars to rate Kerika, but what would be even better is a short review — even a couple of sentences would be great!

How to rate Kerika on the Chrome Web Store

April 16, 2015KerikaGoogle Apps, KerikaKerika

We would love to get your feedback on the Kerika app; one way, of course, would be to contact us directly at support@kerika.com, and an even better way would be if you could post a review of Kerika on the Chrome Web Store.

Here’s a step-by-step guide to posting a review of an app on the Chrome Web Store. (Of course, it’s going to be useful only if you use the Chrome browser, not if you use Internet Explorer, Safari or Firefox.)

1. Go to the Chrome Web Store

Go directly to https://chrome.google.com/webstore/category/apps, or click on this button at the bottom of your Chrome browser:

2. Search for Kerika

3. Add Kerika to your Chrome Browser’s Apps

You will be asked for permission first:

And now you have Kerika installed among your Chrome Web Browser Apps!

4. This doesn’t necessarily create a new Kerika account

If you already have a Kerika account, clicking on the Kerika logo in your set of Google Apps will simply log you into your existing account.

(All you did with these three steps above is add Kerika to your list of Chrome Apps.)

5. Now you can rate and review Kerika

Go back to the Chrome Web Store and look for Kerika again.

This time, you will see a “Rate It” button appear:

6. You need a Google+ Profile to rate Apps

When you click on the”Rate It” button, you will be asked to sign into your Google+ account:

7. And now tell us how we are doing 🙂

Click on one of the stars to rate Kerika, but what would be even better is if you could provide a review — even a couple of sentences would be great!

Get more done, with Kerika

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