Google Apps Schools

[dave.81]

I've read all the posts on here about Google apps but still have some questions for those schools that are using Google Apps.

 

How much of the desktop office programs have been replaced by using Google Docs? Have you moved away from having local installs of MS Office at all?

Are there any schools that use Google Sites as their main college website? Is there a way to search for sites made using google sites?

How have you delt with email archiving?

How long did you take to make the swap?

Do you regret the move?

[FN-GM]

We didnt use the docs side of it, just the e-mails and calendar.

Personally i think it was as good as exchange. It did all we want.

 

We now used a managed service e-mail.

[edutech4schools]

I am about to start testing. Just waiting for our new domain to go live. I can feed back any info if you want?

[HallX]

Anyone else looking into the possibility of Google Apps, maybe it's time to revive this thread.

[6Foot2]

I wanted to go down this route. But we have chosen another path. This is off the cards [for now?]

[camel]

Looking into it myself, though also looking at Live@EDU too.

 

Just trying to confirm if Goolge Apps charge for email filtering where Microsoft don't for Live@EDU?

 

I've seen the pricing for the Postini service (filtering for Google Mail) at £6 per user for Message Security. Is this correct? Not seen any pricing for the Live@EDU offering.

[morganw]

The filtering is free, the archiving isn't.

I think Live@EDU is the same, free filtering.

[FN-GM]

Looking into it myself, though also looking at Live@EDU too.

 

Just trying to confirm if Goolge Apps charge for email filtering where Microsoft don't for Live@EDU?

 

I've seen the pricing for the Postini service (filtering for Google Mail) at £6 per user for Message Security. Is this correct? Not seen any pricing for the Live@EDU offering.

 

Postini is free for google apps for education.

[camel]

Thanks for the info. Where would I find the specific pages where is states postini is included in google apps? There are quite a few contradictory pages on the google apps home pages, uk edition, where some say that postini was free up until Dec 2010, and others that it is to continue as a free service for schools, and other places where it states £6 per user?

 

Cheers in advance for the help.

[AngryTechnician]

Postini has several different tiers, Message Security being one of them. The other tiers are chargeable, but this page states that Message Security is free "for a limited time", and doesn't have anything about that time having ended. I signed our school up after December 2010 and got it for free. I'm pretty sure it's still current.

[edutech4schools]

Signed a school up last week and got it for free.

[dave.81]

We made the switch in Jan to this. Currently only using mail and calendar, although i'm using sites and doc's for a lot of stuff already.

 

The planned deployment was a bit messed up but that was our fault, had to make a switch over night with no warning to staff or pupils, but on the whole it has been very successful. I recently run a questionnaire on how staff and pupils have found it and very few said it was worse than our previous system. 1 thing that i didn't think would be such an issue is the conversation view of emails, i know this can be changed, i didn't realise how many staff would fail repeatedly to understand the idea. The other repeated complaint is that you cannot change the display order, although i've never needed to do this.

 

We didn't have many users on Outlook on our previous system but 2 that did use outlook are missing the send via email working in Office. This can be fixed using Google Apps Desktop but this doesn't seem to work with Google Chrome Enterprise at present. That is something to to watch out for.

 

So far i would say it has been successful. 1 member of SMT is still fighting the change nearly 3 months in but that is slowly easing.

Edited March 31, 2011 by dave.81

[localzuk]

You can still hook Google Apps up to Outlook, using POP3 or IMAP.

[dave.81]

I dont want to allow POP3 but did try using IMAP but it only seemed to work using their outlook connector which then didn't work through our proxy. I'll recheck using just Outlook's IMAP settings though.

[36Degrees]

We use Google and I personally connect using Outlook 2003 via IMAP. The only real issue I have had is that occasionally emails categorised as spam have gone into my inbox (after clicking on them to see if they were legitimate) and wouldn't delete unless I logged in via a web browser.

[dave.81]

Just running through the next issue, IMAP will obviously work fine for the emails, do you sync your calendars with outlook? I know 1 member of staff who will complain if he has to go to 2 places for emails/calendar.

[localzuk]

I don't see why not - you can publish calendars in google apps so could do it via ics files or you could do it via Getting started with Google Calendar Sync - Google Calendar Help

[camel]

I don't see why not - you can publish calendars in google apps so could do it via ics files or you could do it via Getting started with Google Calendar Sync - Google Calendar Help

 

Agreed, though got Thunderbird linked to both my embc and google mail (home) and integrated google calendars through the lightning plug-in.

[edutech4schools]

1 thing that i didn't think would be such an issue is the conversation view of emails

 

One of the main features IMO.

[dave.81]

One of the main features IMO.

 

I agree...

[JWaite]

Has anyone got the gmail calendars fully working with outlook ? Every bit of info i can find requires an exchange server inside our domain to do this, but our LEA will only allow port 80 traffic so we never bothered and the reason we use gmail. The connecter apps helped but for 'tasks' i still need to use the webpage calendar. I'd say about 140 of 150 staff prefer to use a browser anyway.

We have been using it for 4 months and the staff love it. We plan to issue headsets soon and use google talk internally to replace some phones. We had to turn off the docs feature for the pupils though, took them about 15 minutes to work out they could open a word doc, invite their friends to collaborate and use it as a chatroom.

[edutech4schools]

We had to turn off the docs feature for the pupils though, took them about 15 minutes to work out they could open a word doc, invite their friends to collaborate and use it as a chatroom.

 

Although I have not got round to testing docs I have setup separate Domains for adults and pupils this should (but not tested) let me turn of share for the pupils only.

 

Maybe someone that has used it for a while can give some pointers on calendars issue.

[JWaite]

Here is a bit on google which points out the wonderful bits, and at the bottom are some of the calendar issues.

Google Calendar vs. Outlook - Gmail Help

 

Most of the advanced intigration needs you to host an exchange server to use outlook. Without exchange you need some extra syncing apps and things like tasks in the webpage calendar don't work from outlook. But the apps are allways changing so maybe a better one will turn up soon for us stuck without exchange.

Edited April 4, 2011 by JWaite
mistakes