Tech Tuesday – July 23: Assigning Tasks in Google Docs and Required Apps for Google on iPhones

TechTuesday

A weekly tip email from your neighborhood Instructional Technology and eHR team.

Tip #1 – Continuing from last week, let’s see how some automation in Google Docs can increase efficiency in delegating tasks. Last week, we learned how to use Google to generate a Doc from a Calendar event and automatically format it for taking notes. At the bottom of the template, you will find an “Action items” section. Here you can note anything that needs attention. But the fun doesn’t stop there! You’ll notice a little circle-check icon to the left of the checkboxes. Clicking that icon prompts for you to input an assignee. Enter that person’s email and an optional due date and click “Assign as a task.”

This will populate the task in that assignee’s Google Tasks. Now, for this to be the most helpful, that user would need to use Google Tasks. Still, even if they don’t, it is still good practice to track tasks and who it is assigned to. If the user checks this as complete in either the Google Doc or Google Tasks, it will mark as complete in the other. It even has a link to the Google Doc in the Google Tasks!

Tip #2 – In the US, 59% of smartphone users are using iPhones. 41% use android. For those 59% here at VCU, there are some changes officially coming September 2024. Our central Google team has probably already contacted you about alot of this. To summarize, the native iOS apps will no longer sync with VCU data. If you would like to keep syncing VCU Gmail, Calendar, or Drive on your IOS device, it will require downloading a security profile and installing/using those specific Google Apps. Our wonderful VCU Collaboration Services Team has made this documentation to walk you through this process.

Categories Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Chrome, Google Docs, Google Drive, Google Task, VCU Technology Services