Can you remember a time when you didn’t receive a few dozen notifications per day? Apps today send all kinds of alerts to our devices, some helpful and some not. It’s not difficult to customize how your devices send you notifications, especially if you use a Mac desktop computer or laptop.

Managing alerts within Notification Center

You can see everything from previews of new emails to reminders about upcoming meetings by clicking the three horizontally stacked lines in the upper right-hand corner of your Mac’s screen.

Selecting the Notifications tab will display all kinds of alerts that you can delete by clicking the X icon in the upper right-hand corner of the box. Alternatively, you can click the X to the right of Today if you want to clear all your notifications for that day.

How to customize what is shown in your Notification Center

If you would like to change which apps can display notifications on your computer:

1. Open the System Preferences app.
2. Select the Notifications icon.
3. Click on the app that you want to modify.
4. Choose which alert style you want that app to use and check or uncheck the boxes below it to configure things like whether or not the notification plays a sound or shows up on the lock screen.

At the bottom of the screen, you also have the option for notifications to be sorted by one of these three options: Recents, Recents by App, or Manually by App.

How to configure Do Not Disturb settings

From the Notifications settings in your System Preferences app, scroll to the top of the list and select Do Not Disturb. This will display options for automatically enabling Do Not Disturb at certain times of day, when the computer is hooked up to a projector, or during calls.

If you want to turn on Do Not Disturb at-will, just open your Notification Center, scroll to the top of the Notifications tab, and click the Do Not Disturb toggle.

Getting your Mac’s alerts to a manageable level shouldn’t be too difficult. But notification overload may be a symptom of a much larger problem. Give us a call today if your Apple devices are creating more problems than they’re solving.

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These days, cloud services such as Google Drive are gaining prominence as more teams rely on them to accomplish business goals with increased cost savings and productivity. But for some reason, Google Drive's PDF-handling features have gone underappreciated, despite PDFs being a mainstay in workstations and offices for quite some time now. It’s time you knew about those features.

Save PDFs to Google Drive

Google Chrome’s PDF viewer can do much more than just read your PDFs. Like other web browsers, Chrome lets you save web pages as PDFs by right-clicking on the web page, selecting Print... from the menu, and selecting Save as PDF from the Destination drop-down menu.

However, if you’re logged into Chrome, you can save PDF files into your Google Drive. To do this, go back to the Print window, click the Destination drop-down, and select Save to Google Drive. This will save you some time from having to go to your Google Drive and manually uploading the file from your local disk.

Convert docs into PDFs

If you have a Google Doc that needs to be sent out as a PDF, you can do that without using any third-party applications. On your doc, go to File > Download as > PDF Document (.pdf).

Google Drive scan and search

On Android devices, you can access a Google Drive app feature that is normally unavailable on iOS devices. Google Drive on Android gives you the option to scan a document with your phone’s built-in camera and convert it into a PDF. Once scanned and saved to your drive, the contents of the document are searchable by using Google Drive’s search tool. Unfortunately, handwritten documents cannot be detected. Only typewritten text is searchable within Google Drive. This feature is great for scanning and recording receipts, certificates, and signed official forms. To create scanned PDF documents in Google Drive you have to:

• Access the Google Drive app on your Android phone.
• Select the plus (+) button on the screen to create a new project.
• Choose Scan. This will open your phone’s camera application.
• Take a picture of your document. From here, you can choose to rescan the page or create another PDF file.
• If you’re happy with the scanned document, tap the checkmark button to save it to Google Drive.

Electronically interact with PDFs

While PDFs are compatible across a wide range of platforms, they don’t give you the option to edit. Luckily, third-party services like Kami or HelloSign allow you to electronically interact with a PDF document. Kami is a Google Drive extension that enables you to draw, highlight, strikethrough, underline, and add text and comments to a PDF. On the other hand, HelloSign gives you the ability to add check marks and signatures to your PDFs. Consider these add-ons if your business needs to edit PDFs.

Merge PDFs

If you want to combine several PDF documents together, we recommend using PDF Mergy. This is another Chrome add-on that allows you to simply right-click on any selected PDF files within Google Drive and open it by clicking Open with > PDF Mergy. Your selected PDF files will be immediately imported to this third-party application.

You can also rearrange the order of the PDF documents as well as add more files from your drive. Select Merge, if you’re satisfied with the changes, then you can either save the new PDF to your local disk or back in your Google Drive.

Google Drive has become a strong cloud-based tool that not only lets you export PDFs but helps you interact with them in various ways with native functions and third-party applications. The next time you have to manage a lot of PDFs, have a go with these underused and underappreciated time-saving features. Want to know more about helpful Google Drive features? Contact us today.

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Small business marketing has often been a difficult endeavor for small business owners. Marketing involves a great deal of time and effort, and can require a significant financial investment. Previously, only large corporations could afford marketing automation, but that’s no longer the case. Read the five most profitable benefits of this new IT innovation here.

Instant responses to email requests
If a customer or prospect sends your business an email via your website or a “Contact Us” form, any delay in response could ultimately cost you a client. But if you have a marketing automation plan in place, you can customize automatic email responses to respond to these leads as soon as an email is received. This either provides potential customers with the information they requested or informs them that you will be responding in greater detail soon.

Stop leaving voicemails and start closing deals
There’s a reason most people prefer to communicate via email: Keeping in touch over the phone can be tough if both parties are always busy. An automated system solves this by logging when you’ve contacted leads and automatically emailing them about follow-up times. The call, email, and its response are all logged in your CRM and calendar without a single minute wasted on inputting mundane information.

Inbound lead assignment
When you have phone calls, emails, and meetings piling up, it’s hard to keep track of which customer goes where and who is working with them. With marketing automation software and tracking, customer service representatives are automatically assigned to inbound leads based on specialties and demographics so they can begin working on building profitable rapport right away.

Give and you shall receive
Potential clients and leads get dozens, sometimes hundreds, of business emails every day. You need something to set your business apart from the rest. By offering valuable content such as how-to guides and total cost of ownership tools in exchange for contact information, you can provide prospects with content they actually want.

All it takes is a web form and some creative writing that ultimately leads visitors back to your products and/or services. Your automation software delivers content to anyone who provides contact information, and it downloads metrics that can be tracked and analyzed by your solution.

Never type another phone number again
Networking events mean new contacts and new leads. They used to mean having to keep track of thick stacks of business cards, but cutting-edge marketing tools now make it possible to take a picture of contact information and automatically store it as part of a cloud-based database. Call-ins, scanned business cards, and received emails all get organized into a single digital Rolodex with recommendations on whom to contact and when it is best to do so — without one minute of tedious data entry.

Every business owner knows that automating mindless tasks is a worthwhile investment. But not everyone knows just what sort of tools are available to help you cut down on wasted work. Our team specializes in using technology to add value to your business, and we believe that if you’re not utilizing any of the solutions above, that’s the best place to start. Get in touch with us today to make your marketing technology work for you.

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Using the cloud is so common these days that most small- to mid-sized businesses (SMBs) have at least one cloud service supporting their operations. An increasingly popular cloud-based service is enterprise resource planning (ERP). But what is it? And what are the advantages of using a cloud-based ERP? Here’s a quick and informative overview.

Define: Cloud-based ERP

ERP is management software, usually offered as a bundle of applications, that aims to help businesses automate the collection, storage, management, and interpretation of data from various sources like accounting, inventory, marketing, service delivery, etc. With ERP, business owners and managers can get an integrated real-time view of business processes, resources, and commitments.

Cloud-based ERP solutions are simply a suite of ERP apps delivered to users over the Internet, usually accessed via a browser. The software usually does not need to be installed on computers and is offered on a per-user, per-month, flat-rate fee.

Companies using a cloud-based integrated ERP solution have experienced the following five benefits:

1. Increased ERP performance

One issue with in-house ERP solutions is that they require proper set up and maintenance to function at their most efficient. If all that is done poorly, then performance suffers.

With cloud-based solutions, the provider takes care of hosting the solution. You know that experts are the ones maintaining the system, so you’re assured that your ERP should perform at its peak performance.

2. Decreased operating costs

An in-house ERP solution requires the purchase of the software, its related licenses, and the hardware to support it. Plus you need to hire staff to install and maintain it. All that will drive up the overall IT budget, something most SMBs cannot immediately afford.

But with a cloud-based ERP, you normally only have to pay a flat-rate monthly fee, so the total cost of implementation will likely be far lower. Many providers can also manage the solution for you. This will even out your operating costs, and if implemented correctly, will result in an overall decrease in expenses.

3. Enhanced access to information

Companies that don't have any ERP will likely struggle to find the information they need, when they need it. ERPs can help consolidate the relevant information in a more effective manner than, say, spreadsheets.

And since cloud-based ERP solutions are accessible via the Internet, you now have access to your information from anywhere with an Internet connection.

4. Increased security

ERP systems process critical business information, so you will want to keep your data secure from outside sources and unauthorized users within your organization.

To keep your data safe from unauthorized outside sources, cloud-based ERP solutions offer enhanced security measures that protect your data when it is at rest and when it moves from your systems to the host servers.

And for internal data security, users will need an assigned account to access your ERP systems. This gives you control over who is given an account or not. Furthermore, you can also limit who can access your system via central admin panels.

5. Continued support

Cloud-based ERP solutions offer 24/7 support. ERP solutions providers can fix problems faster than if you leave them to your employees.

Providers also make sure that solutions are kept updated. Hackers have been known to attack businesses that use outdated versions of popular ERP programs.

If you want to learn more about cloud-based ERP solutions, contact us. We’ll be glad to assist you.

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