DEV Community: Serene Yu Okawa

Stop Watching, Start Building: Your Challenge Awaits at the Google Workspace Development Crash Course

Serene Yu Okawa — Wed, 24 Sep 2025 21:01:59 +0000

Are you ready to move beyond presentations and dive into building? At the Google Workspace Developer Summit, we believe the most impactful learning comes from doing. That’s why Day 1 of the summit is dedicated to the Google Workspace Development Crash Course — a unique, challenge-based experience where you and your team will build a real, end-to-end solution.

This isn’t a passive coding tutorial. We’ll provide a high-level goal, but the journey to achieve it is yours to explore. Working collaboratively in teams, you’ll be encouraged to think critically, search for solutions, and discover the best approaches with minimal instruction. This approach emphasizes active learning and best practices , fostering genuine skill development. While expert coaches will be on hand to offer guidance, the power of discovery will truly come from your own efforts.

Your Journey Through the Build

This immersive workshop will guide you through a series of practical, interconnected challenges, pushing your skills in new directions.

First , you’ll master the art of Google Sheets Automation and Google Calendar Integration. Using Apps Script, you’ll go beyond basic formulas to create custom functions and programmatically update data. You’ll then learn to automatically create calendar events, laying the groundwork for a more powerful application.

For example, you could build an automated project management tool : an Apps Script that reads project deadlines and team members from a Google Sheet and automatically populates a shared team calendar with project milestones.

Next , you’ll break out of the Google Workspace bubble. We’ll show you how to connect your project to the outside world by using UrlFetchApp to interact with external APIs, such as a weather service. You’ll then build a simple Google Workspace add-on with interactive elements, bringing all of this functionality directly into your users’ workflow.

For example, you could build a contextual sales dashboard add-on : an add-on for Google Sheets that, with a single button click, fetches real-time weather data for a client’s location from an external API and displays it alongside sales forecasts, providing richer context for business decisions.

The AI-Powered Grand Finale

The workshop’s biggest challenge awaits: integrating cutting-edge AI into your add-on. We’ll show you how to leverage AI directly within Apps Script, empowering you to create smarter, more intuitive solutions.

You’ll experiment with AI Studio to get quick, powerful prompt responses. For more advanced scenarios, we’ll explore using Vertex AI with a service account , giving you a taste of enterprise-grade AI integration.

Your final task: building a full add-on where a user can input a prompt and receive an AI-generated response, all within the add-on itself.

For example, you could build an AI summarization tool : an add-on that summarizes long email threads or documents stored in Google Drive with a single click, saving you hours of reading time.
Another option is an AI-powered meeting assistant : a tool that takes a few bullet points as input and uses AI to generate comprehensive, well-structured meeting notes or follow-up emails.

Finally , you’ll learn how to take your project to the next level by rewriting your add-on to use HTTP endpoints and deploying it to Cloud Functions. This final step will introduce you to the benefits of cloud databases and show you what it takes to build a truly scalable application.

Come with intermediate coding skills and an appetite for a challenge. This workshop is your chance to stop watching and start building the future of work.

Ready to start building?

Session content is subject to change.

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Beyond the Code: Unpacking Success Stories on Google Workspace

Serene Yu Okawa — Mon, 08 Sep 2025 13:35:55 +0000

The true measure of a platform’s power isn’t just its features—it’s the success stories built on top of it. At the Google Workspace Developer Summit, we’re not just talking about what’s possible; we’re showcasing how our partners and customers are already using our tools to solve real-world problems.

This post highlights two key sessions that go beyond the technical details and get to the heart of what matters: delivering business value.

From Signal to Success: Lucid Software’s Journey as an Early Google Chat Integration Partner

For Independent Software Vendors (ISVs), timing is everything. Being an early adopter and partner can provide a significant market advantage, but it also comes with unique challenges. This session will pull back the curtain on Lucid Software’s journey as an early Google Chat integration partner.

Lucid will share their firsthand experience and provide actionable takeaways for any developer or product manager looking to build innovative solutions. You’ll discover:

Identifying Market Opportunities: Learn how they leveraged crucial customer signals to drive their decision to invest in Chat integration from day one. This session is a masterclass in product strategy and identifying where to place your bets.
Partnering with Google: Gain insights into their history of partnering with the Google team on integrations, including how they navigated the evolving landscape and provided early feedback that helped shape the platform.
Prioritizing for Impact: Understand how they approached the critical balance of prioritizing impactful features against ambitious timelines, including the tough decisions they made along the way.
Delivering Value Quickly: Learn practical strategies for building on a new platform and delivering value quickly in a dynamic development environment.

Google Chat Space Migration: A Real-World Customer Success Story

Migrating a company’s collaboration tools is a monumental task, but it’s more than just a technical challenge. It’s a human one. This session will delve into a real-world case study of a building supplies retailer that underwent a significant Google Chat Space domain migration. We’ll focus on the integral role that change management played throughout the project.

This isn’t just a technical deep dive. You’ll learn:

The Human Element: Discover how a strategic approach to change, guiding the customer, and managing user impact was just as important as the technical execution. We’ll show you how to combine robust change management practices with the technical developer journey.
Creative Problem-Solving: See how the team creatively utilized a combination of Google Workspace APIs, Apps Script, and Google Drive’s permission structure to build fit-for-purpose solutions. You’ll get a real-world look at how data was extracted for insights using AppSheet and how the team navigated the intricacies of a complex chat space migration.
How Your Feedback Shapes the Future: We’ll cover the significant volume of data handled and provide valuable feedback on Google Workspace APIs. This fosters a dialogue on product improvement, allowing you to contribute to the platform’s evolution.
First-Hand Experience: A customer speaker will join us to share their direct experience with the change process, providing invaluable, firsthand insights.

These sessions are more than just presentations; they are a testament to the power of collaboration and a guide for how you can achieve your own success on the Google Workspace platform.

The Google Workspace Developer Summit is an in-person, dual-location event. From Signal to Success: Lucid Software’s Journey as an Early Google Chat Integration Partner will be presented in Sunnyvale, and Google Chat Space Migration: A Real-World Customer Success Story will be in Paris. Don’t miss out on these valuable insights that will help you build even more powerful and secure solutions. Sign up now for the Google Workspace Developer Summit to join this insightful session and more!

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Unlock Smarter Google Workspace Apps: Understanding Service Accounts for Seamless Integration

Serene Yu Okawa — Mon, 01 Sep 2025 20:18:20 +0000

If you’re building applications on the Google Workspace platform, you’ve likely encountered a pivotal question: when should your application use its own “identity” via a service account, and when should it rely on traditional user credentials like OAuth 2.0? It’s a critical decision that impacts how your app integrates, operates, and secures user data.

At Google, we’re always working to provide you with the most helpful tools for your development journey. Understanding service accounts is key to building robust and efficient Workspace solutions.

What’s a Service Account, Anyway?

Think of a service account as a special kind of non-human user – it’s an identity designed specifically for your application. Unlike human users, a service account allows your application to authenticate and access Google Cloud services and APIs directly, acting on its own behalf. This is especially useful for automated tasks or when your application needs to interact with services without a human user actively present.

Why This Matters for Your Google Workspace Apps

While Google Workspace is designed for collaboration between people, there are some scenarios where your application needs its own unique identity to get things done. Service accounts excel in situations where your application is the actor, rather than acting on behalf of a human user.

For example, service accounts are often the perfect fit for Google Chat apps (because a bot needs its own identity!), and for automating various administrative tasks within a Workspace organization. There are powerful mechanisms, like domain-wide delegation, that allow administrators to grant service accounts broad permissions for critical backend processes without individual user consent.

However, the world of service accounts has its nuances. Knowing when to use them versus standard user credentials, and understanding the specific limitations and best practices, is crucial for building secure and effective applications.

Dive Deeper at the Google Workspace Developer Summit!

Want to truly master service accounts and elevate your Google Workspace development?

In a dedicated session at the upcoming Google Workspace Developer Summit , we will cover:

When to use service accounts vs. user credentials: A clear decision tree to guide your choices.
Practical use cases: We’ll dive into how service accounts are perfectly suited for scenarios like building Chat apps, automating tasks with the Admin SDK,.
The power of domain-wide delegation: Learn how this unique mechanism enables administrative-level access for your applications.
Essential security best practices: Discover how to protect your applications and user data by implementing robust security measures for your service accounts, including proper key management and role assignments.

The topics we’ll cover are essential for any developer building on the Google Workspace platform. This session is your opportunity to gain a comprehensive understanding, ask questions, and refine your approach to authentication and authorization.

The Google Workspace Developer Summit is a dual-location event, and this session will be presented in both Sunnyvale and Paris. Don’t miss out on these valuable insights that will help you build even more powerful and secure solutions.

We’re excited to help you build the next generation of helpful Google Workspace applications.

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Shape the Future of Work: Join Us at the Google Workspace Developer Summit!

Serene Yu Okawa — Fri, 29 Aug 2025 18:50:15 +0000

We’re thrilled to announce the Google Workspace Developer Summit, an event designed to empower you with the knowledge and tools to create innovative solutions that transform how people work. This is an exclusive in-person event with no live-streaming available. This summit is your opportunity to dive deep into the Google Workspace platform, connect with experts, and collaborate with a community passionate about building.

This year, we are particularly focused on empowering two key audiences: in-house developers crafting tailored solutions for their organizations, and Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) enhancing their products. The insights and practical skills you’ll gain here are designed to drive your projects forward. Starting next week, we’ll be sharing a series of blog posts about some of the sessions we’ll be holding at the Summit, to give you a glimpse of what to expect.

We’ll be holding two summits, one in Sunnyvale, California, and the other in Paris, France. And for our developer community in the APAC region, we hear you! While global event planning involves many considerations, we’re continuously looking at ways to bring the summit back to more regions, including APAC, in the future.

What to Expect at the Summit

The Google Workspace Developer Summit is packed with sessions and hands-on experiences to help you build smarter, faster, and more effectively. Both events will kick off with a dedicated afternoon workshop on Day 1, followed by a full day of insightful sessions on Day 2. To round out your experience, we’ll have dedicated networking time at the end of Day 2, perfect for connecting with peers and experts.

Throughout the summit, you’ll have the chance to explore:

Advanced API Integrations: Discover how to leverage powerful APIs like the Meet API to supercharge collaboration within your applications, or understand the nuances of Service Accounts for secure and efficient background processes.
Practical, Hands-on Learning: Move beyond theory with dedicated workshop like the Google Workspace Development Crash Course, where you’ll tackle real-world challenges, build end-to-end solutions, and integrate cutting-edge AI directly into your add-ons. It’s an opportunity to stop watching and start building.
Expert Connections: Engage directly with Google engineers, product managers, and fellow developers. Share ideas, get your questions answered, and expand your network.

Choose Your Summit Experience

To make it easier for developers around the world to join, we’re hosting the Google Workspace Developer Summit in two convenient locations:

Google Workspace Developer Summit - Sunnyvale
- Date: October 8-9, 2025
- Location: Sunnyvale, CA
- Sign up for the Sunnyvale Summit!
Google Workspace Developer Summit - Paris
- Date: October 21-22, 2025
- Location: Paris, France
- Sign up for the Paris Summit!

Don’t miss this chance to deepen your expertise, discover new tools, and be part of the community building the future of work. We’re excited to see you there!

To get a sense of what’s in store at this year’s event, watch our latest introduction video: Google Workspace Developer Summit 2025.

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