Google v Office 365

[MatthewL]

I have always been a big Exchange user so used to features you get there but does Google do everything the same?

 

Distribution Lists, sharing mailboxes, adding extra contacts into the GAL, separate GALS to name some of the features.

[JHatz]

With Google for Education or Business you can create distro lists, share mailboxes by assigning delegates, add shared contacts etc. I switched jobs going from private sector that when I started had no email - we started with Exchange 5.5 I believe and when I left we were on Exchange 2003. I went to a public school district that was using FirstClass - talk about painful (for me - they were used to it) - I made it my first priority to get them onto GAFE. Never regretted it. Would never go back to Exchange.

There are also some useful command line tools like GAM that I enjoy using.

[craigw]

Looking at the same thing at present...

One thing we do a LOT of is to have staff manage multiple "public or generic" inboxes in exchange whereby the office staff for example will have 3 mailboxes in Outlook - their personal one, CCA's and maybe Sports.

In outlook they can have all three of these open in the same screen and keep an eye on them.

 

Can this be done in GMAIL - or will users have to log in and out of mailboxes / switch accounts to monitor them? I have seen this article (Manage Multiple Email Accounts From one Gmail Account) but am concerned that it talks about forwarding mail to your primary account and then using labels to manage....seems a bit convoluted.

 

Lastly - even if you do the above - can you have more than 1 person managing these generic accounts? Eg - we have 3 office staff with access to the sports mail box that would all need access.

 

I realise sometimes processes can't stay the same if we change technologies - but just trying to work out what is possible.

Cheers

Wally

[Lippy]

This can be done in Gmail I believe, but the easiest way is to use Outlook to access the Gmail accounts through Imap, then switching between accounts is easy

 

Looking at the same thing at present...

One thing we do a LOT of is to have staff manage multiple "public or generic" inboxes in exchange whereby the office staff for example will have 3 mailboxes in Outlook - their personal one, CCA's and maybe Sports.

In outlook they can have all three of these open in the same screen and keep an eye on them.

 

Can this be done in GMAIL - or will users have to log in and out of mailboxes / switch accounts to monitor them? I have seen this article (Manage Multiple Email Accounts From one Gmail Account) but am concerned that it talks about forwarding mail to your primary account and then using labels to manage....seems a bit convoluted.

 

Lastly - even if you do the above - can you have more than 1 person managing these generic accounts? Eg - we have 3 office staff with access to the sports mail box that would all need access.

 

I realise sometimes processes can't stay the same if we change technologies - but just trying to work out what is possible.

Cheers

Wally

[fiza]

@MatthewL We are looking at the same thing!!

 

From our tests this can be done in GMail. You create the mailboxes as users ie [email protected]

Then you login as that user and share your mailbox to the people that need access with the appropriate permissions.

Next time the office staff login to Gmail they need to click on icon for their username (top right) and they will see the other mailboxes listed as delegated. They just swap from one to the other.

 

Users don't need to know the password for the delegated account as they have permission to login to that mailbox.

Edited November 24, 2014 by fiza

[edutech4schools]

Can this be done in GMAIL - or will users have to log in and out of mailboxes / switch accounts to monitor them? I have seen this article (Manage Multiple Email Accounts From one Gmail Account) but am concerned that it talks about forwarding mail to your primary account and then using labels to manage....seems a bit convoluted.

 

An alternative is to add multiple accounts to chrome, you then get each account listed in the top left of chrome and clicking that will open a new browser that is logged on to that account.

 

I look after lots of primary schools that use GAFE and I use this method to manage each of the schools

Edited November 24, 2014 by edutech4schools

[MatthewL]

Thanks for the replies so far. It's just something I am looking into for part of an organisation I am part of. Office 365 is what I feel comfortable with but I suspect Google will be cheaper. Need to have a play me thinks.

[ColinP]

office 365 is free no?