The road to G Suite - A quick overview of the transition

G Suite offers many advantages as a professional productivity suite. Some notable ones are collaboration, uniformity, integration to other platforms, ease of access, and ease of use. This post aims to highlight some of these advantages and keys to establishing a successful implementation. Administrators and pilot users are certainly familiar with the time and effort it takes to teach end users a new software. Thanks to Google's focus on usability and user experience, G Suite is one of the easiest productivity suites to learn.

Globally welcomed and renowned, Google's software has become widely used and accepted by businesses and consumers alike. With over 1 billion monthly active Gmail users, folks have been exposed to at least one other Google product, such as Drive, Calendar, or Hangouts. Even if you haven't used many of the applications, just being exposed to them gives you a baseline of familiarity and eases the learning process. It's also very likely that your end users may already be using G Suite applications like Docs, which means they probably require minimal user training and can focus on more important tasks.

We live in a fast-paced business world which requires us to have tools that are easily accessible. Unfortunately many end users still believe business software can only be accessible on one specific platform and on one specific device at a time - those days are long gone! Google understands access needs vary from user to user. Some prefer a specific OS (Windows, Mac, or Android) and others prefer a specific device such as a laptop, desktop, or tablet. Because G Suite is cloud based and cross platform efficient, it can be accessed from any user’s preferred software and hardware configuration. Undeniably a familiar environment helps speed up the learning and work process.

Although G Suite is easy to use we sometimes find end users to still be mildly resistant to change as they're already comfortable with their current workflow. To ease the process, we recommend the following:

Make the announcement: of course it's best to let everyone know that changes will be occurring to improve their workflow and performance. Consider having the changeover announcement made by a high ranking person in the organization to help ensure users read their communication instead of just deleting it. Announcement of the change will collectively get the team aware and curious of what's to come.

Prepare for the change: implementation of a new platform brings with it some challenges and is not a short term matter. For example, changes to company policies may occur as the team gains access to the plethora of G Suite features. In order to ease user concerns, we recommend gradual adoption. There should be a clear plan for what changes to policy and workflow are needed over a clearly defined time frame. A well planned and communicated migration helps make transitioning easier on both your IT staff and your end users.

Educate everyone: hesitation should be expected and worked with. As mentioned before, many end users already have familiarity with and use Google products in their personal lives. Leverage this into showing them all the benefits G Suite has to offer. Organize training around teams with users that encourage learning on their own by using the system. InterlockIT provides in depth training on all G Suite products - get in touch here. Consider the advantage of G Suite’s cross platform capacity by allowing users to learn on hardware/software that they're comfortable with (if this is applicable) as it can quicken the learning process. We recommend Google's Chromebook to simplify workflow and easily administer your team.

It's understood that transitioning to a new productivity platform brings with it challenges that have to be properly addressed, but by putting user concerns at ease, having proper training, and a clear plan of action for implementation, your switch to G Suite should go smoothly and be viewed as an opportunity to grow and streamline your workflow. To learn more about migration services and G Suite deployment, contact our InterlockIT team today!

Googlization of Education

Google Apps for Education (GAFE) has taken the K-12 system--and even post-secondary education systems--by storm. It's a core suite of productivity applications that Google offers to education institutions for FREE, allowing them to offer more productive, collaborative, and efficient learning experience. GAFE is more than just Gmail, Calendar, Drive, Docs and Sites. It includes dozens of other collaborative tools supported by Google such as Classroom. Everything is in the cloud which means that creations can be accessed from any device with an internet connection.  

The new generation of students don't install desktop software to check email. In fact, email is barely even used by teenagers. The majority of top 100 educational institutes have already adopted Google Apps which has seeded the next generation of works. GAFE is growing rapidly with currently more than 50 million users, and is anticipated to reach 110 million users by 2020 according to PR Newswire. 

Here are a few Canadian schools that have already upgraded:

• Edmonton Schools (roughly 90,000 users)
• University of Alberta
• Wilfred Laurier
• Lakehead University
• Nipissing University
• University of Windsor
• McMaster, Mount Royal, Trent, Ryerson, Prince Edward Island, Saskatchewan, Ottawa-Carleton School Boards, Memorial
• Calgary Board of Education
• Greenwood College
• Upper Canada College
• Lakefield College
• York School
• Royal St. George

Google Apps for Education isn’t just about the core education services, it's a complete suite of communication and collaboration cloud applications. Although collaboration isn’t new to schools, the GAFE approach enables students and teachers to drop legacy desktop software and work together in a much more effective and productive way. For example, teachers don’t have to collect giant stacks of assignments to haul home; everything is online. Furthermore, the teacher’s comments can be placed in-line on the assignment in question, allowing students to quickly and effectively assimilate the feedback.

Google Apps for Education is leading the way for schools who are changing the way they think about education and technology. Chromebooks, for example, are fast, low-cost, easy-to-use notebooks that meet the requirements of most students. With more student-owned devices coming into schools every year, and with the conversion from wired to wireless access, it's vital that students are equipped with a consistent set of learning resources anytime, anywhere. By providing students with access to GAFE, new teaching and learning workflows can be developed and adopted to support student learning anytime, anywhere with single sign on access.

With an already huge and expanding market, coupled with an all-accessible powerful app suite at a low cost, it's easily a winning combination. Google Apps for Education is seeing an explosive surge in user growth, with schools maturing into much more advanced and collaborative learning institutions. Contact our InterlockIT team today to learn how to increase the retention of your staff and prepare for tomorrow's generation of students and teachers with superior technology.

Google Drive files - How to transfer ownership

If you create a file in Google Docs, Sheets, Slides or upload a file into Drive, you are the 'owner' by default. What does this mean? There are essentially three kinds of users in Google Drive: owner, editor, and viewer. Although most users are able to view and edit a single document, there can only be one individual owner at a time. Being an owner of files, even pdfs or other other file types, counts against your 30 GB quota if you are on regular Google Apps (not unlimited) - this is a good enough reason to transfer ownership of files to stay under your storage limit.  Here is a chart outlining each type of user-privilege in Drive and what sets them apart from one another:

As illustrated in the chart above, the highest right an owner has over their files and folders is the ability to delete and transfer ownership. There are two kinds of ownership transfers: transferring ownership of single documents and transferring ownership of all documents collectively.

Transferring ownership of single documents in Google Drive

1. In Drive open the Doc, Sheet, Slides, file, or folder that you'd like to transfer the ownership of.
2. At the top right corner of the screen click the blue Share button as shown in the image below.

3. Click Advanced in the bottom right of the sharing box.

4. Type the email address of the person you want to transfer ownership to and click OK. (You can choose to send them a notification by checking off the Notify button)
5. Once their name appears under 'who has access', click the 'Can edit' drop down menu next to their name and assign 'Is owner'.

6. Click Done.

Transferring ownership of all documents in Google Drive: 

If you're an administrator for your Google Apps domain, you can transfer ownership of all documents in Drive from one user to another. Being able to transfer ownership of all documents can be useful in the event of an original owner leaving the organization. It's important to note that once a user is deleted from the domain, their documents cannot be transferred. The good news is that administrators are able to restore the account for five days and transfer the documents that way.

1. Sign-in to the Google Admin console.
2. Go to Apps > Google Apps > Drive.
3. Click Transfer Ownership.

4. Complete the Document ownership transfer section:

5. In the Form field, enter the username of the current owner and select the user's domain.
6. In the To field, enter the username of the new owner and select the user's domain.
7. Click Transfer documents to save.

Once this is done, the newly transferred documents are automatically organized in a single new folder, titled with the previous owner's email address, in the new owner's Drive. The original owner will maintain editing privileges until their account is deleted or their edit permissions are revoked.

You can find additional details directly from Google's support page. If you need assistance, training, or support for you Google Apps, be sure to contact our InterlockIT team!

Chrome Device Management for Google Apps

+Mike Zafiris on our team recorded an overview of Chrome Device Management for Google Apps for the Google Gooru site.

Check it out on Google Gooru at: http://www.googlegooru.com/chrome-device-management-for-google-apps/



Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_hkAmpnYOg

Chromebooks for customers, employees, students, and guests in Canada

We've been using our new Samsung Chromebook for about a month now and it has become our favourite road device and preferred "Let Me Google That" tool. With an 8 second cold boot time, over 6 hours of battery life, and secure access for employees and guests, it's the perfect business and personal cloud productivity device. Today, Chromebooks have been enhanced for simple public kiosk use. For more details visit: Chromebook kiosks for customers and employees.

Public users leave no trace behind and IT managers have no viruses or malware to worry about. Starting at a price of $249.99 (on sale for $229.99 until May 2!) at Best Buy or Future Shop, it's a very cost effective business or family computing solution.

A Google Apps domain is not required to use them but certainly having one gives you enhanced administration and control over the devices deployed across your organization. For example, you can centrally configure the passwords for WiFi hot-spots your employees may access. For more details, take a look at Google's documentation on Managing Chrome Devices.

In Canada, Alberta School boards are fans and have deployed over 3,400 Chromebooks so far. Our customers that have already eliminated servers from their premises and moved to the cloud are ready to go!

The cost savings of Chromebooks add up quickly when you consider the alternative of buying a Windows netbook, Microsoft Office, antivirus, and a Windows Server (domain controller) to centrally manage passwords and computer policies. Yet on Windows devices, you are still at risk unless you encrypt the hard drive. Windows with Microsoft Office or Outlook store oodles of confidential email and other documents on your notebook hard drive that is easy to access if it falls into the wrong hands. With a Chromebook, you can still store email and documents offline for updating while on a plane but it's stored in an encrypted format and the built in secure boot features ensure that your data stays secure. Plus, it is easy for administrators to remotely wipe a Chromebook, leaving no trace of the data that was on the machine.

Contact us at InterlockIT.com to learn more and to determine if Chromebooks are a good fit for your organization!