Google Apps Small Business Customer Success: Boshak

Boshak is a a unique tourist destination one and a half hours drive from Perth, Western Australia. Boshack has been featured on Getaway, and is a popular destination for travellers wanting to experience the Australian outback, see a working wheat/sheep farm, eat bush tucker, see native Australian wildlife and learn about the Aboriginal dreamtime.

Boshak has recently switched to Google Apps for their email, documents, calendering needs and are very happy with the experience. Following are excerpts from their experience published in http://om4.com.au a leading online marketing portal for business.

Link: http://om4.com.au/moving-email-google-apps/

Challenge

• Multiple email ids - difficult to manage
• Wanted to collrobate while working on mails, documents
• Maintain corporate identity
• Wanted an easy to use solution as users were not very conversant in using technology

Solution

• Switched to Google Apps Standard Edition
  
• Low cost to switch - Free Google Apps / Low cost service provider
• Extensive user support by vendor to overcome any initial hiccups
  

Business benefits

• Access from anywhere
  
• Spam controlled
• Consolidations - time saver
• Collarobation on documents

"We moved to Google Docs about 6 months ago and this is also an amazing program as we run our business from 4 different locations with 3 different people needing to access emails and spreadsheets. We now have one log in each for all of this with our email included."

Deryck Brockhurst is the Managing Director of Boshak,

• Easy to us

"The way to go for simplicity, accessibility and especially if you need to share docs emails"

Deryck Brockhurst is the Managing Director of Boshak,

Note: These excerpts are from http://om4.com.au/moving-email-google-apps/ and all rights are with om4.com.au

Google Apps Hacks

Yesterday we have introduced you to the book Google Apps Hacks! Here is summary again for those who missed and also at the end web address of a site offering download link.

Can Google applications really become an alternative to the venerable Microsoft Office suite? Conventional wisdom may say no, but practical wisdom says otherwise. Right now, 100,000 small businesses are currently running trials of Google office applications. So are large corporations such as General Electric and Proctor & Gamble. Google Apps Hacks gets you in on the action with several ingenious ways to push Google's web, mobile, and desktop apps to the limit.

The scores of clever hacks and workarounds in this book help you get more than the obvious out of a whole host of Google's web-based applications for word processing, spreadsheets, PowerPoint-style presentations, email, calendar, and more by giving you ways to exploit the suite's unique network functionality.

The following site gives link to a downloaded version:

http://knowfree.net/2008/05/04/google-apps-hacks.kf

Clever ways to use Google Apps - New book Google Apps Hacks

TITLE : Google Apps Hacks
AUTHOR : Philipp Lenssen
PUBLISHER : Make Books
ISBN : 059651588X
PUB DATE : 2008-04-16

Can Google applications really become an alternative to the venerable Microsoft Office suite? Conventional wisdom may say no, but practical wisdom says otherwise. Right now, 100,000 small businesses are currently running trials of Google office applications. So are large corporations such as General Electric and Proctor & Gamble. Google Apps Hacks gets you in on the action with several ingenious ways to push Google's web, mobile, and desktop apps to the limit.

The scores of clever hacks and workarounds in this book help you get more than the obvious out of a whole host of Google’s web-based applications for word processing, spreadsheets, PowerPoint-style presentations, email, calendar, and more by giving you ways to exploit the suite’s unique network functionality. You get plenty of ways to tinker with:

• Google Documents — Share and edit documents with others in real time, view them on the run with Google Docs mobile service, and use Google Notebook for web research
• Google Spreadsheets — Add real-time data to spreadsheets, and generate charts and tables you can embed in web pages
• Google Presentations — View them on a mobile phone and save them as video
• Gmail — Send email to and from a mobile phone, adjust Gmail’s layout with a style sheet, and a lot more
• iGoogle — Create your own gadgets, program a screenscraper, add Flash games, and more
• Google Calendar — Add web content events, public calendars, and your Outlook Calendar to this application
• Google Reader, Google Maps, Google Earth, and Google SketchUp: the new 3D modeling software tool
• Picasa, YouTube, and Google Video — discover new ways to customize and use these media management apps

In addition, Google Apps Hacks outlines ways you can create a simple web site with nothing but Google tools, including Page Creator, Blogger, Google Analytics, and content from other Google apps. This amazing collection just might convince you that Microsoft Office is not the last word in business applications. The price is certainly right.

Add two-factor authentication to Google Apps for your Domain using open source software

Sometime back while surfing net I came across this posting giving step by step instructions to Add two-factor authentication to Google Apps for your Domain using open source software. The two factor authentication is important as most of us travel these days and increasingly use public Wifi networks - exposing ourselves to middle of work attack.

Google has provided paid options for two factor authentication. To ead my earlier post on this topic - click here

Now you can use open source software Gheimdall and two-factor authentication from WiKID. The step by step instructions are provided at howtoforge website - click here to go to howtoforge

Using Panorama Pivot Table for Google spreadsheets

Panorama Pivot Table for Google Spreadsheets in Google Apps (a Gadget provided by Panorama) is an interactive table that automatically extracts, organizes, and summarizes your data.

You can use this report to analyze the data, make comparisons, detect patterns and relationships, and discover trends. In just a few steps any users can find answers such as the best selling region, and best selling product or analyze results of an academic research. Interact with the data and look at it in various ways in a simple drag and drop environment.

Check an online tutorial on how to use Panorama Pivot in your Google Apps Spreadsheet

http://www.panorama.com/google/pivot-table/tutorial/

Let us know how useful this feature is for you? Leave your comments

Newest Gmail features now available for Google Apps users

Official Gmail Blog: Newest Gmail features now available for Google Apps users

The latest features are first launched in Gmail followed by in Google Apps mail. Some of latest Gmail features available now to the Google Apps users. Now you can:

(1) Chat in a group from within mail in Google Apps: To start a group chat, click "Group chat" from the "Options" menu when chatting. Enter the names of the people you want to add, and, bingo, you're in your very own chat room. All the familiar features such as chat archiving and taking the chat off the record still work as well.

(2) Improvements in contact Manager: I am not yet happy with the improvements - we need more in this contact manager.

(3) colored message labels: Really a cute feature and more user friendly, try using it more and your will love it.

(4) Keyboard shortcuts improved: Click on this link for latest shortcuts:

http://google.com/support/a/users/bin/answer.py?answer=6594

(5) Book mark email: All emails now have dedicated URLs, so just by adding a browser bookmark while viewing a message, you can return to it whenever you want, just like a regular web page--although you will still have to log in to Gmail if you've signed out.

FAQs when evaluating Google Apps for your enterprise - Part 2

I keep getting many inquiries from prospective clients who are evaluating Google Apps to migrate from their existing mail systems. Here are some more common questions clients ask when evaluating Google Apps and my answers to them.


What about managed public folders that have an email address? We have a number of folders with email addresses like "info@" and "support@" that only specified staff can access. We also like to set up rules on those public folders so some emails are forwarded to staff.

There are email lists where in mail are forwarded to one or many users. No such option as Public folders.

For public folders there can be a workaround. Create separate ids for each public folders. Also create an email list adding users who have to access this public folder (again for each public folder). Then create a filter in email id and assign a tag (name of that public folder) and forward the mail to mailing list. This way mail will be delivered to all users with the tag of public folder. Alternatively the content of mail can be shared though Google docs.



Resource scheduling for rooms and equipment. How to do that?

Resource feature is available in Premier version.

However in Standard version you have a workaround to achieve same (Google may not like it). Each resource is created as a secondary calendar and scheduled in auto accept mode.

www.google.com/.../answer.py

What about delegated access. Can I "send as" as a specified email address (like "info@...")? Can I delegate control of my inbox to a secretary?

You can add multiple accounts in your id and use "send as". I am not sure of delegate feature available as yet - however it will not be a long time when this is implemented.


Can I get access easily to a ex-employee's inbox?

Passwords are set and reset by admin user and hence ex employee mail box can be accessed.



What about email restore? If somebody accidentally deletes old emails can I restore them? Can I restore an old employee's inbox from a year ago?

Google keeps the trash for three months only. So for standard version users that is the time available to recover (if you have not emptied your trash)

Postini - Policy Management and Recovery is an additional service with Google Apps Premier Edition (GAPE) which will help you in doing exactly same.

FAQs when evaluating Google Apps for your enterprise

I keep getting many inquiries from prospective clients who are evaluating Google Apps to migrate from their existing mail systems. Here are some of the common questions clients ask when evaluating Google Apps and my answers to them.

1) EMAIL: Is there an email client or is it web mail only? If there is no client (or we can't use one) then how I will read / respond to email without being connected.
Google's email has POP and IMAP access and you can use it with following mail clients:

Mail Clients for POP

* Outlook Express
* Outlook 2002 / Outlook 2003
* Entourage
* Entourage
* Eudora
* Eudora for Macs
* Netscape Mail
* Apple Mail
* Mozilla
* Thunderbird

(http://www.google.com/support/a/careerfc.com/bin/answer.py?answer=12103&topic=10233)

Same way you can set IMAP mail clients for most used clients


2) CALENDAR: Can I view my co-workers' availability when scheduling a meeting (like using scheduling assistant)?

You can view coworker's calendar if they share it with you. They have option to share with other persons.


3) EMAIL: Are there rules and out of office assistant type features with Gmail?

You can set Vacation responder (sends an automated reply to incoming messages. If a contact sends you several messages, this automated reply is sent at most once every 4 days).

4) GOOGLE APPS DEPLOYMENT: How does using Gmail this affect permissions and setting up of new accounts? Do we lose integration with ActiveDirectory?

Google provides APIs (for Premier Edition) which can help you in doing this:

http://code.google.com/apis/apps/

5) DOCS / SITES: There are a lot of powerful collaboration tools available within Exchange that many companies don't take advantage of like Public folders, sharepoint integration etc. Similar features in Google Apps?

You can use following services of Google Apps for collaboration:

* Docs (Users can upload, create, edit and share documents online, They can share with one or more users.)
* Sites (Interactive and collaborative sites which can be used within your company or shared outside. User can create, edit and share with others and can even give others permissions to edit)

6) GOOGLE APPS DEPLOYMENT: How to factor in the support cost of getting everyone ramped up on a new mail system.

Enterprise need to do a thorough cost benefit analysis before plunging on something which affects almost every one in enterprise. Extensive planning, risk mitigation (may be for some time run on both Google and Your Mail server) and thorough execution are required. May be one can start with a pilot on a subset of users and if satisfied can go with complete migration.

7) CALENDAR: How will we do meeting room scheduling?

Each resource like Meeting Room, Projector etc is created as a secondary calendar with auto accept. While scheduling the resource calendar can be checked for availability and if available they are invited.