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Developers and Practitioners

Bring the power of your apps into Gmail with Add-ons

March 9, 2017
Thijs van As

Product Manager, Gmail

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Few things are as satisfying as completing a task. But at work, it’s not always so easy. The days are short and packed with to-dos, like following up on sales leads, logging support tickets or sending invoices. And while great apps exists to tackle these workstreams, most users have to flip between them and their inbox because email is still “central command” for task management.
To solve this problem for users, today we're introducing the developer preview of Gmail Add-ons, a new way for G Suite users to access your app's functionality directly from Gmail in just one tap, no matter the device.

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With Gmail Add-ons, developers can write an integration once and deploy it anywhere.

Save your users time

Add-ons provide a way to surface the functionality of your app or service when the context calls for it. They’re built on a powerful framework, which makes it easy for developers to trigger workflows based on email content. Say a Gmail user receives an email from a sales lead, and wants to add that contact to her CRM solution. With Gmail Add-ons, she can enter the contact’s required info and look up their account in that CRM system without leaving Gmail. No more tabbing, copying and pasting or sifting between mobile apps in order to get things done.


Write once, run anywhere 

With Gmail Add-ons, developers only build their integration once, and it runs natively in Gmail on web, Android and iOS right away. Users only install the Add-on once, too, and it shows up in Gmail across their devices. So instead of wasting time writing separate integrations for web and mobile, you can focus on bringing your app’s most powerful features right to your users when they need them most. Gmail Add-ons are built in Apps Script using a newly-designed "Card" system that lets you easily combine different UI components. Developers can create a snappy user experience that feels like it was natively built into Gmail. The result: integrations that are cross-platform from the get-go that save your team time.


 See what’s possible by signing up for the developer preview today 

Gmail users will be able to install Add-ons via the G Suite Marketplace later this year, but that hasn’t stopped us from working with select partners to develop some amazing integrations to show what Add-ons are capable of.

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No matter the task, Gmail users can easily find the right Add-on for the job. Here's how you could seamlessly use ProsperWorks and Intuit right from Gmail.

  • Intuit QuickBooks: The Intuit Add-on lets Gmail users and QuickBooks small business customers generate and send invoices and even confirm invoice status without ever leaving Gmail. 
  • ProsperWorks: The ProsperWorks Add-on makes it easy for Gmail users to check the contact info of people on email threads against the information stored in their CRM. 
  • Salesforce: The Salesforce Add-on allows Gmail users to look up existing contacts, add new ones, as well as associate email threads with one or more existing opportunities in Salesforce, right from the Gmail app. 

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The Salesforce Add-on makes it easy to capture background information from Gmail and tie it to a sales opportunity.

If you’re a developer, you can sign up for our Developer Preview today. We expect to start sending invitations for early developer access soon.

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