Moving to google apps

[Sheridan]

Our SMT have decided to move everything to a vle based on google apps & gmail (email, website, intranet, students workspaces - the lot!)

 

Has anyone gone through this process? I can see the advantages, but having provided email and storage solutions for decades I'm a little wary of all of our eggs in one basket, and that once committed to this vle it would be difficult to move to another, or bring it back in house again if required. Its also devolving the responsibility from our team to the vle support/google which will be interesting to see how it works out!

 

I had originally proposed Office 365 (with hybrid email) and a sharepoint based intranet, accessilble externally but the google monster won out in the end! Perhaps we will all be assimilated into google one day, who knows!

[jallsop]

I haven't been through this process, but am preparing in the next 24 months to do the exact opposite, as the group withdraws from the cloud due to data insecurity and storage outside DPA compliant countries. Would be asking the questions as to how come they're so sure this is safe within EU DPA?

[maark]

We have been using it here for a couple of years with no real problems.

Have found google support to be very good - they will reply very quickly to support calls and you can phone the support techs in Ireland. They have online tools you can upload logs to to troubleshoot things yourself as well.

We use active directory sync - not got password sync going yet though.

Staff can still use outlook if they want using google apps sync tool.

Collaboration tools are very good though we don't use them as much as we should.

For a VLE would take a bit of setting up - this company looks quite interesting realsmart: your learning portfolio though pricey will set it all up and incorporate it into a vle.

[tmcd35]

The only complaint I have is with the Google Active Directory Sync program. It works, after a fashion. My main gripe is that it's a manual process. Sooner have a timed service. Maybe there's some command line options/settings I've not explored?

 

Also, got the password sync going, but it also seems - iffy. Not sure all password changes are being correctly communicated with google. This is a fully automated service though, which is good, and the vast majority of passwords appear to be applying without issue. Did have to upate our AD password rules to match Googles password policies though.

[Sheridan]

My concerns aren't really relevant - once SMT has seen a) shiny new VLE and b) cost saving of free email then its almost impossible to counter that. Well, here anyway!

 

Having said that, I can see the advantages of all this, but I have reservations about cutting exchange out of our organisation.

@jallsop - what DP concerns did you have to make you want to withdraw? I thought the whole google education thing was neatly tied up for UK data laws? Personally I'd rather we provided our own cloud systems but that costs money and google doesn't.

Edited February 7, 2014 by Sheridan

[caffrey]

You can do a GADS sync with task scheduler, but I prefer manual as I get a bit of squeaky bum when I hit sync I always verify before hand just to be sure.

Password sync is easy just need to make sure its on all DCs.

We mainly use GAPPS for mail, but drive is being used a lot and none of it is really being used properly (You need to get out of the Microsoft mentality when using it)

There's a few niggles which bug me with it, not being able to expand users in mailing lists - something I get constantly asked about and if a folder is shared with a group a new user in that group doesn't automatically get those files (as per windows)

I think that can be resolved by using google groups properly, but it's something I've not had the time to look at.

Admin staff are also still insisting on using outlook to do mail merges which is a pet hate of mine, and accounts use some ancient software that refuses to cooperate with Gmail.

Overall it was a good move, our exchange server was getting flakier and flakier

Drive is great for the staff and pupils (no more usb sticks!)

[pcstru]

The only complaint I have is with the Google Active Directory Sync program. It works, after a fashion. My main gripe is that it's a manual process. Sooner have a timed service. Maybe there's some command line options/settings I've not explored?

We run it as a scheduled task - basically via a batch file and point it toward the XML config file :

 

C:\Progra~1\Google~1\sync-cmd -a -o -c c:\GoogleApps\ADSync.xml

 

We have it configured to run overnight and it emails the results of the run on completion. You can vary the level of detail in the log.

[Sheridan]

One concern that has cropped up is how you prevent students from storing 'inappropriate' content in their google drive. Not just dodgy hacked games but photos of other students etc? Obviously now we can control the file types stored and instantly access a students workspace to address any issues.

[pcstru]

Has anyone gone through this process?

 

In some part! We are currently sticking with internal exchange based mail but rolling out google apps for students and teachers. Currently the message is that it is aimed at servicing the curriculum.

 

Google support is quite good. The control panel is IMO a bit clunky. Chromebooks work quite well with it. Password sync works although something has broken ours at the moment.

 

Backup is proving to be a bit of an issue. The market is not very mature and suppliers are US based with very limited UK support and re-sale. If someone tells you that Google will save you a bundle of cash, ask to see their figures. Seems to me people are just making stuff up and the claim has no basis in reality.

 

I'm very reluctant to put all our eggs in that particular basket, but as a means of delivering curriculum and enabling collaboration and communication, I think it could be quite good.

[pcstru]

One concern that has cropped up is how you prevent students from storing 'inappropriate' content in their google drive. Not just dodgy hacked games but photos of other students etc? Obviously now we can control the file types stored and instantly access a students workspace to address any issues.

You could change their password and log in. Or you could take over their files to an account set up for the purpose and then delegate them back.

There is a product hapara which offers supervision features.

[fiza]

We are looking at Google too. We would move staff and student mail over to gmail. Students would use google drive but staff would still use onsite file servers for the sensitive stuff. From what I understand you can get google Drive for you desktop https://tools.google.com/dlpage/drive. Not sure if this works using network drives. If it did then you could sync what the users put in the cloud to your local storage for backups. Not sure if that is the way to go but I would be wary of putting all student work in the cloud without having some way to back it up.

[Sheridan]

This is where is worries me - SMT can only see the 'free' and 'collaboration' advantages. I can see other issues and I don't want to start messing around with third party stuff as well. I'm happy that our exchange server has had 99.999% over the last 5 years and I bet gmail will provide that too, but its going to be quite a culture shock!

 

And we can't use AD synch'ing as we are using google apps/mail through a vle so we have to use their user import tools.

[edutech4schools]

Not sure if this works using network drives.

 

The school down the road have all the Gdrives in the users home drives on the server, although I have never got this working at my schools but not spent much time trying.

[GeekyPete]

I've only ever seen it on an RM school. RM Set up the Federated Single Sign on. That said If you get the premium version of RM Unify they'll set it all up for you and even give you a simple UI with App style tiles for your google stuff, Google Drive, Gmail, Docs etc, cloud based so the same interface from home too. At around £900 it could be seen as a bit pricey but could save you a lot of leg work and give you Single Sign on for other things too if they are registered with RM Unify. You don't need to be an "RM" school or have anything else they offer. But I'd wager a penny to a pound they'd try. Just keep them away from the SMT.

 

There was a thread about it a while back.

[fiza]

I've only ever seen it on an RM school. RM Set up the Federated Single Sign on. That said If you get the premium version of RM Unify they'll set it all up for you and even give you a simple UI with App style tiles for your google stuff, Google Drive, Gmail, Docs etc, cloud based so the same interface from home too. At around £900 it could be seen as a bit pricey but could save you a lot of leg work and give you Single Sign on for other things too if they are registered with RM Unify. You don't need to be an "RM" school or have anything else they offer. But I'd wager a penny to a pound they'd try. Just keep them away from the SMT.

 

There was a thread about it a while back.

 

This is similar to what I saw at BETT from Realsmart realsmart: your learning portfolio but it was expensive.

[Dos_Box]

Moving to Cloud Services forum.

[GeekyPete]

This is similar to what I saw at BETT from Realsmart realsmart: your learning portfolio but it was expensive.

 

Thanks for that, I've not seen that one before. You wern't joking. My Primary schools would cost £2500 against RM's version at £400? Has the earth just tilted on it's axis? There must be some thing I'm missing.

[fiza]

Thanks for that, I've not seen that one before. You wern't joking. My Primary schools would cost £2500 against RM's version at £400? Has the earth just tilted on it's axis? There must be some thing I'm missing.

 

I had a demo at BETT and it all looked good. Peaked my interest until he told me the price.

Magellan might be another option.https://cse-magellan.co.uk/Magellan/Main/Shell

[Jonah]

It's used here, but primarily Google Docs and Sites (we still use on-premises Exchange). From what I gather the docs part is used quite heavily and it seems to work well. We have the AD sync and password sync working, as well as single sign on to Google using ADFS, which is something the staff appreciated hugely!

 

We also have a trolley of Chromebooks so it obviously works well with them.

[caffrey]

This is one of my issues with GAPPS too, the safeguarding - GAPPS is free but if you need to see what a pupil has been doing you have to go third party (or change their password) considering its for education, Google dropped a ball on this imho.

 

I agree about the interface too, the new one is a mess luckily you don't really need to go into it very often!

[robjduk]

+vote for google here. Simple to setup and easier to manage than 365's SharePoint. Also the use of Chromebooks is the best thing to happen in education in along time.

[Sheridan]

Have any of the migraters (is that a word?!) ported all of their exchange mailboxes over? We have 200gb of exchange database to carry over if possible.

[caffrey]

Ported all the staff mailboxes over, not the student ones - which I clear out in the summer anyway. It takes a while to migrate and I'd personally do it in batches. It works quite well with plenty of logs if things go wrong, if a mailbox doesn't transfer properly you can just redo it and it won't do duplicates.

[NotSoFast]

Has anyone migrated from one Google Apps domain to another? In our case from the LA domain to our own. There's lots about moving from Exchange, but I haven't seen anything about this scenario.

[rdk]

There's a few niggles which bug me with it, not being able to expand users in mailing lists - something I get constantly asked about and if a folder is shared with a group a new user in that group doesn't automatically get those files (as per windows)

 

I agree this is a bit of a niggle.

 

We are a fully Google Apps for Education school, having used docs/drive for the last few years then moved to gmail last year (~1050 users). We have lots of subject based websites to deliver curriculum, and documents & presentations (esp) used by teachers, embedded in the subject websites. Have a look here for an example: Chemistry-RK

 

One other bigg-ish niggle is organising ownership of resources: individual teachers vs some sort of faculty account vs some sort of curriculum account. This is turning out to be a bigger issue than I first thought. Also if students and teachers are on the same domain, be prepared for documents/email etc shared with students to come from "Julie Brown" rather than "Ms Brown".