It's Learning E-mail - migrating to GMail

[nsherin]

Afternoon all,

 

I've been asked to look into the feasibility of migrating our current e-mail service from the current 'It's Learning' platform, which is based on GMail to a full-blown GMail solution. The reason for this consideration, is that we are finding It's Learning's implementation to be seriously half-baked and lacking in functionality, such as no access to Google Docs or the vastly superior and easier to use Google Calendar.

 

Ideally, we'd like to take our entire school domain name 'priory.portsmouth.sch.uk' and repoint it to Google's offering. However, I have a few queries which I'd appreciate it if those in the know could assist with.

 

These are:

 

- Do Google offer web hosting or will we need to find a separate web host for our school website

 

- How easy is it to request DNS?MX etc. record changes for a .sch.uk domain?

 

- Is there an easy migration path for e-mail from the It's Learning GMail implementation to a 'vanilla' GMail platform - i.e. transferring of messages etc.?

 

- Are the management tools in a 'vanilla' GMail environment feature-rich - i.e. can you place users into groups and is there a function for importing user accounts from say a CSV file?

 

I think that's all for the minute, but I may be back if anything else springs to mind!

 

Any advice would be very much appreciated!

 

Thanks,

Neil

Edited September 25, 2010 by nsherin

[CyberNerd]

- Do Google offer web hosting or will we need to find a separate web host for our school website

 

Google sites is a CMS, every user in your organisation gets their own webpage to do what they want - turn it into an eportfolio etc. you can run a public website on it no probs, but it won't take custom HTML.

 

- How easy is it to request DNS?MX etc. record changes for a .sch.uk domain?

speak you your ISP, if worst comes to the worst just get an .org.uk domain. sch.uk is largely pointless imo, it just makes your domain/email addresses complicated.

 

- Is there an easy migration path for e-mail from the It's Learning GMail implementation to a 'vanilla' GMail platform - i.e. transferring of messages etc.?

 

you could migrate imap accounts using the imap migration tool

IMAP mail migration - Google Apps Help

 

- Are the management tools in a 'vanilla' GMail environment feature-rich - i.e. can you place users into groups and is there a function for importing user accounts from say a CSV file?

 

There are stacks of management tools! We just import out Active Directory overnight, it imports all the users/group memberships etc. there are loads of other ways fo doing it csv etc.

[FN-GM]

You should all it google apps really. Gmail and google apps are simply not the same

[CyberNerd]

Cloud Campus Website

 

give em a call

 

Talk to our experts about Google Apps for your organisation by calling 0845 225 5004 or emailing us at [email protected].

[nsherin]

Thanks for the advise thus far - some very useful pointers/information.

 

Cybernerd, the Google IMAP migration tool looks interesting, but I don't think it is going to work for us, as It's Learning uses GMail as their platform and not any of the supported platforms mentioned on the page that your link refers to.

 

The link to Cloud Campus is helpful too - as we are talking possibly 150 or so staff accounts only (pupils are currently at Live@Edu), the costs would not be horrendous if they could move mailboxes from NetMedia.

 

Any more ideas on mailbox migration would be very much appreciated. Thanks!

[CyberNerd]

can't you just turn on imap on the gmail accounts to migrate to google apps?

[sebbywebby]

- How easy is it to request DNS?MX etc. record changes for a .sch.uk domain?

 

-

Neil

 

Hi Neil,

 

I have looked up your MX Records and they already point to Google Apps's servers, therefore google apps should find them automatically when you register.

 

S