Google Apps for Education for authentication only

[CyberDrac]

We have been asked to use App Inventor for a controlled assessment task which requires logging in with a Google account, we have a few concerns that I'm hoping EduGeek members who are existing Google Apps for Education users might be able to offer insight into.

 

Is it possible to create school accounts which don't have an associated GMail account or take over our existing Domain?

Is it possible to allow access to only those accounts from inside the Academy building and refuse logins for other Google accounts?

Is it possible to restrict access by the school Google accounts by time, or easily turn them on and off at will easily, or restrict them from logging in at home (controlled assessment rules)?

[fiza]

@CyberDrac

 

You can create school accounts and switch GMail off from the admin console. When we were in our trial phase we used our existing domain name for Google and it didn't have any adverse effects. We then purchased a new domain just for GAFE.

 

I haven't found a way to restrict logins to only our Google domain from within the school. You can do it when using Chromebooks but not desktop computers.

I haven't found an easy way to switch account access on and off en-masse although you can suspend users.

Edited December 19, 2014 by fiza

[CyberDrac]

So the accounts could be [email protected], without having to use @gmail.com and without affecting the operation of the [email protected] e-Mail address on our Exchange server?

[fiza]

So the accounts could be [email protected], without having to use @gmail.com and without affecting the operation of the [email protected] e-Mail address on our Exchange server?

 

Yes I believe so as you wont be changing your MX records to point to GMail.

[IrritableTech]

So the accounts could be [email protected], without having to use @gmail.com and without affecting the operation of the [email protected] e-Mail address on our Exchange server?

@fiza is correct you can do that. This approach probably works best if you are synchronizing your though. Otherwise users may get confused with the same username being used in two places with potentially different passwords.

[CyberDrac]

My understanding is that there is a Google password sync application as well as the Google Active Directory synchronisation?

[IrritableTech]

My understanding is that there is a Google password sync application as well as the Google Active Directory synchronisation?

 

Yep - but the password sync only sends changed passwords if I remember correctly - so you'd need to force a change on your AD passwords to get it to work.

[CyberDrac]

Useful tip, thanks for that

[CyberDrac]

I tried to contact Google through their contact form, however it requires a 'State' but doesn't list any States if you select United Kingdom as your country and so won't send it off!

[fiza]

I tried to contact Google through their contact form, however it requires a 'State' but doesn't list any States if you select United Kingdom as your country and so won't send it off!

 

What is it that you want to ask? Or is that you want to set up GAFE?

 

https://www.google.co.uk/work/apps/education/

[CyberDrac]

Just fancied a chat with a Google person who understands their product line so that I could be sure that we were approaching it from the right angle, in retrospect I suspect that I'm probably getting equally good advice here. Rather scared of taking the plunge and just needed the reassurance rather than anything else, it doesn't help that it looks like someone has already tried signing up the domain for another Google service and we'll have to jump through hoops to use our existing domain.