Google Apps / Office 365

[richbrowncardiff]

Hi Everyone, Sorry in advance i'm sure this has been asked many many times !

What is your preference ? Google apps or Live @ Edu (Office 365)

Can google the version sync with AD ?

Anything to watch out for ? Do you have a policy in place to cover your school for cloud based email services ?

Do you SLT use this or is their confidential stuff sent using their official .gov accounts ?

Many thanks as always!

[CyberNerd]

Google apps can do much more than Office 356 can do, including AD sync and instant MSOffice uploads.
To get a real advantage from Office 365 you need to link it with Sharepoint and make sure all the kids are using Office 365 (the A3 plan).

I posted here about why we chose Google Apps:
Embedding Office 365 into existing VLE

[SYNACK]

You don't need A3 if the users have Office and that is just for the simultaneous edits. A2 free is fine.

[mavhc]

Office 365 does AD sync. Google apps has the marketplace for integration with many other websites which is cool. I've set up both. Office 365, unsurprisingly, would prefer you kept using Office, Google Docs works better if you go entirely web based. Neither of them seem to make it that easy to check students emails/documents to see if they're misusing the service.

[CyberNerd]

Neither of them seem to make it that easy to check students emails/documents to see if they're misusing the service.

for email we use the regular content filters then can export users email boxes directly by:

gam audit export request username includedeleted

or just apply an audit monitor.

The content filters are described here: Objectionable content setting - Google Apps Help

To get access to documents is done through the web interface is described here:
Transfer ownership of Google Docs - Google Apps Help