Why you should use a Google Cloud Partner!

More than 5 million businesses use Google's collection of productivity apps known as G Suite (formerly known as Google Apps for Work) and over 5,000 businesses sign up every day. With such a large and growing user base, Google relies on partners like Interlock IT to provide customer relationships and expertise, personalized outreach, and a broad range of services to users. Partners like us also provide essential services that allow users to take maximum advantage of G Suite, ease their initial setup and assist with migration, customization, and the general user experience.

Our team at Interlock IT helps companies move to the cloud to streamline productivity, user experience, and cost. As a G Suite reseller we manage hundreds of global G Suite customers and are occasionally asked what the benefits are of partnering up with a reseller. There are many reasons why it's useful--and in many cases better--to have a reseller manage your G Suite domain. Here are just a few:

Data Migration and Deployment
As the first Canadian Premier Google Apps Partner, Interlock IT has a highly experienced and dedicated team to lead your transition to G Suite. Our deployment team addresses all migration needs, including deployment, integration, and adoption. Our team is here to ensure that your business has a smooth and seamless transition without any downtime or data loss. All data from legacy systems are safely transferred with utmost care. In our almost seven years of moving hundreds of customers to G Suite, we have not once experienced a lost email or file - you're in safe hands!

G Suite Integrated Add-ons
With our large customer base we have lots of hands on experience with G Suite integrated add-ons to cover your needs in any situation. Need to manage leads, contacts, and drive sales results with Solve CRM or Copper CRM? Want to replace your on premise accounting solution with Xero? Need time sheets, expense reporting, and online/automated credit card billing with Freshbooks? There is a wealth of 100% web browser based cloud software solutions available that deeply integrate to G Suite, eliminating separate login/passwords, and much more.

Support
Although G Suite includes free Google support, Google support reps are unfamiliar with your company and business needs. Compared to Google support, our smaller and agile team understands and builds rapport with our customers on a deeper level, maintaining a healthy customer relationship to quickly and efficiently resolve tier 2 support issues. We're a simple phone call or email away and can even submit/escalate support requests to Google on your behalf accordingly so you can focus on running your business.

Training
Many businesses don't leverage the full potential of G Suite until their users have received adequate training. With our engaging G Suite training sessions, we can demonstrate the features and best-practices of the Google experience. Our G Suite Certified Deployment Specialists stay up to date with the latest improvements and upgrades to provide a wide range of rich content training for all G Suite applications including Gmail, Calendar, Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Google Drive. For businesses that prefer to maintain their own infrastructure, we also train IT administrators on Google's Admin console for fine-grained admin controls, audit reports, eDiscovery, and custom application development.

Custom App Integration
Every business has its own unique needs, and in some cases the out-of-box solution doesn't cover all the bases. Our team has ample experience with designing and integrating custom applications with G Suite. For example, Blink Reports is a product we created to bridge the gap between Google Sheets and Xero to allow Xero customers to build financial reports, charts, and virtual dashboards connected to their live Xero data. Need standardized signatures? Need to synchronize G Suite users with your school administration system? These are just a few examples of solutions we've custom built for our customers. If there's a cloud application that your business needs to integrate with G Suite, our team is ready to design and deploy it!

Among the many advantages, these are a few key benefits of running your business with a Google Cloud Partner. With a reseller like InterlockIT, you're not only getting powerful world class collaborative G Suite tools, you're also getting many years of experience providing cloud-consulting, on-going technical support, and domain management. Contact us today to purchase your G Suite subscription with InterlockIT! It's quick, simple, and you'll thank yourself later!

The Cloud Powerhouse

We like to think cloud-technology users understand the power and security Google Apps can bring to their daily workflow. As industries evolve, so do the trends in user interaction with technology. Cloud adopters understand that IT systems don't have to be complicated, difficult, and expensive. Solutions like Google Apps empowers companies to grow at unforeseen heights and we find cloud adoption increasing more than ever, especially in fast-growing companies and startups.

Interlock IT recently had the pleasure of leading a Google Apps implementation for Imaginea Energy - a Calgary based oil and gas company. As Imaginea grew, they recognized their legacy storage, productivity, and email tools didn't reflect their open and transparent culture. Their closed environment made it difficult to collaborate together beyond very small teams so they started to look for a solution that was robust and powerful enough to mirror their vision. Google Apps for Work was their answer.

Within as little as four weeks, Interlock IT helped Imaginea Energy migrate email to Google Apps and transform into a highly productive and collaborative workplace. Flexibility to work remotely also allowed their employees maximum autonomy. Collaboration became seamless with Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Forms. Working offline became a possibility with immediate syncing upon network connectivity and Google Hangouts saved significant travel costs, enabling teams to spend more time on-site and less time driving. Since the implementation, Imaginea has become unstoppable and continues to grow rapidly.

Interlock IT loves saving customers the headaches and costs that accompany clunky outdated non-cloud platforms, and as anticipated, Imaginea was able to cut their IT costs in half! Interlock IT helped strategize the move of their legacy oil and gas applications from their traditional on-premise Windows servers to virtualized Windows servers on Google's Cloud Platform. Just see what Greg Bennett from Imaginea had to say, "At Imaginea, we defy industry stereotypes by focusing on Planet, People and Profit together. When you set out to reimagine an industry like oil and gas, achieving that vision is only possible with the right people and the right tools. The Interlock IT team led us through a smooth transition to a powerful, cost-effective, and secure collaboration suite. With Google Apps, we’ve set course to truly transform our business and the energy industry." Be sure to check out Greg's full blog post on the official Google for Work blog.

In recent years, the use of Google Apps has been growing steadily and capturing large chunks of the market. Businesses as well as consumers are increasingly considering Google Apps for meeting their productivity and collaboration needs. It's no secret that the markets are flocking to Google Apps and chances are that even your business or organization already uses at least one cloud-based application. Why not give Google Apps a try? As cloud experts, we've witnessed the repeated success of companies that embrace the Google platform. Industries ranging from energy to education and beyond are aware of the potential Google Apps brings to their respective trade. Contact Interlock IT today to learn how Google Apps can revolutionize your business workflow!

Autodiscover and Outlook

We see lots of confusion in our customer base about the function that Autodiscover serves in both traditional on-premises environments and cloud-based environments alike. At a high level, Autodiscover basically allows you to skip all the back-end configuration work that legacy mail clients need and have the Outlook email client do it all for you.

In environments with Active Directory, getting Autodiscover to work properly can be more trouble than it should be, but with access to group policies and a bit of information, you'll be able to get it working.

What is Autodiscover?

Autodiscover is a service that runs in the background of your Exchange or Office 365 install and can automatically configure profile settings for users running Outlook 2007 or newer, Mac Mail, or mobile phones. It provides access to Exchange features for Outlook 2007 and up clients that are connected to your Exchange messaging environment, and it uses a user's email address and password to provide profile settings to supported clients and devices. If the Outlook client is joined to a domain, the user's domain account is used.

In earlier versions of Microsoft Exchange (2003 SP2 or earlier) and Outlook (2003 or earlier), you had to configure all user profiles manually to access Exchange; Autodiscover negates the need for this manual setup. Extra work was required to manage these profiles if changes occurred in the environment and if this maintenance stopped or fell behind schedule, Outlook clients could stop functioning entirely.

Autodiscover is a function of Exchange (and, in a roundabout way, therefore also a function of Office 365). Outlook clients are coded in such a way that they can take advantage of Autodiscover, but for this to work correctly, Outlook needs to be told where to "find" the Autodiscover information. The order of logic that Outlook uses when trying to retrieve information is:

• Service Connection Point (SCP) lookup – Outlook will get Autodiscover information from Active Directory. If this fails, Outlook begins its 'non-domain' connections;
• HTTPS root domain query;
• HTTPS Autodiscover domain query;
• HTTP redirect method;
• SRV record query;
• Local XML file;
• Cached URL in the Outlook profile (exclusive to Outlook 2013 and newer).

How does Autodiscover work?

When you install a Client Access Server in Exchange 2013, a default virtual directory named Autodiscover is created under the default website in Internet Information Services (IIS). This virtual directory handles Autodiscover service requests from supported clients under the following circumstances:

• When a user account is created or updated;
• When an Outlook client periodically checks for changes to the Exchange Web Services URLs;
• When underlying network connection changes occur in your Exchange environment.

Additionally, a new Active Directory object named the SCP is created on the server where you install the Client Access Server.

The SCP object contains the authoritative list of Autodiscover service URLs for the entirety of your Active Directory forest. (You can use the Set-ClientAccessServer cmdlet to update the SCP object.)

How to manually override Autodiscover service for your PC

Occasionally, Outlook clients can "find" incorrect Autodiscover settings – we find this is most common when businesses decide to switch to Office 365 from an on-premises Exchange environment. Here's how you can force Outlook to stop looking for Autodiscover

1. Click Start, and then click run
2. In the Run dialog box, type regedit, and then click OK
3. In the Registry Editor, go to the following registry key:
• HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Outlook\Autodiscover
• Create a new DWORD (32-bit) string named "ExcludeScpLookup" and set its value to 1.

You can alternatively use the command prompt to exclude SCP lookups by using following commands:

reg add HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Outlook\Autodiscover /v

ExcludeScpLookup /t reg_dword /d 1 /f

Hopefully this has helped you get a better understanding of how Autodiscover works for Outlook as well as how to override default priorities.

Migration is worth it! - Windows Server 2003 no longer supported

Early last year Microsoft announced that it was ending support for Windows Server 2003 but would continue to provide extended support for some additional time. We addressed this in an older post and pointed to an alternative solution, Google Apps.

Here is some breaking news if your business is still running on Microsoft Windows Server 2003:

Last week, Microsoft announced its discontinuation of extended support for Windows Server 2003. So what does this mean? It means Microsoft will no longer provide fixes, updates, or technical assistance. This also means no more security updates, leaving physical and virtual instances vulnerable to any and all new security threats, which have been increasingly damaging.

Businesses that are still running Server 2003 face a number of vital considerations. It’s been over a decade since its release and the computing world has changed drastically since. Although the Windows Server 2003 platform worked well in its time, it’s now become a liability and a limitation for organizations still relying on it. Waiting to upgrade is both expensive and risky as you’re now susceptible to security threats and paying hefty fees to maintain old hardware. It's now time to leave the obsolete server and update your business' infrastructure.

Leaving Windows Server 2003 is an opportunity for change. So where do you go? Windows Server 2012 R2, Microsoft Azure, and Office 365 are all concrete solutions with great benefits, including improved performance, reduced maintenance requirements, increased agility and speed of response to business. Microsoft recommends collaborating with a partner to help execute a successful migration strategy. We have, not one, but two Microsoft Silver Competencies and are here to help you!

Alternatively you could step into the Google infrastructure and perhaps find that it's better suited for your specific business needs.

You now know that you are at the end of your Windows Server 2003's life cycle, contact us today to pave your way to a successful and permanent migration to the cloud! Migration is worth it!

Migrating from Google Apps to Google Apps - moving accounts

A common question Google Apps Administrators ask is, "How can I move my old Google Apps data to a new Google Apps account or across domains?"

There are multiple ways of handling this when using Google Apps. Let's take a brief look at a few of them.

Google Apps Migration for Microsoft Exchange (GAMME)

You can migrate email, contacts, calendar, and public folder data from on-premises and some hosted Microsoft Exchange servers. GAMME also allows you to migrate data from a series of PST files and email data from some IMAP servers. You can find more details on how to migrate data from Exchange using GAMME here. However, if you're using GAMME to migrate from one Google Apps account to another, you'll only be able to use it for mail data. [Free]

Migrator by Backupify

Migrator for Google Apps allows you to transfer the complete contents of any single Google Apps account from one domain to another, or to merge all the data in one account with another account on the same Google Apps domain. This migrates Gmail, contacts, calendars, and Drive data. You can also use Migrator to move data between a free gmail.com account and a paid Google Apps account, so if you used a consumer account to "test drive" the Google Apps system but don't want to lose your data, Migrator is your best bet. [$15 per migration - first migration is free]

Google's Data Migration Service

This method is simple and allows you to migrate without having to install any client software. Simply enter some basic information about the environment from which you're migrating, specify what to include in the migration, and select the users whose email you want to migrate. You can even monitor the status of the migration for each user's account in the admin console. Details here. [Free]

You can also move contacts, calendar, and Drive data manually (though Drive data can only be moved within the same Google Apps install automatically; to move it to another domain, use Migrator). It is a bit more time consuming but you can easily see what has and hasn't been moved. Here are the ways to move your data manually: Exporting Contacts, Importing Contacts, Exporting Calendar, Importing Calendar, Transferring Drive Contents.

What about Google Vault? We recommend exporting the contents in MBOX format and keeping a backup either locally or on a service like Google Drive. This will help you reference the information as needed by opening the mailbox in a client like Thunderbird. In most cases, all important data will remain in the user's account and get transferred into the Vault of the destination user when migrating the inbox. Here is how a Vault export works.

Hopefully this has helped you retain your valuable data. InterlockIT has led many migrations and our team of experts are available anytime to assist.

Automated updates: Making work easier

Why should you choose cloud-based solutions over on-premises systems?

Not too long ago you had to run commands in PowerShell to convert an existing regular mailbox to a shared mailbox in the Office 365 Exchange admin console. This was necessary to migrate data into a shared mailbox, since it's currently not possible to migrate directly into a shared mailbox. The process was a little tedious, boring, and required some valuable time, especially if you have little to no experience with PowerShell.

First, you'd connect to Office 365 from an elevated PowerShell console...

Set-ExecutionPolicy -ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned
$UserCredential = Get-Credential
$Session = New-PSSession -ConfigurationName Microsoft.Exchange -ConnectionUri https://outlook.office365.com/powershell-liveid/ -Credential $UserCredential -Authentication Basic -AllowRedirection

Then, convert the mailbox and set size quota. Note that shared and resource mailbox sizes increased from 5GB to 10GB in Q4 2013 and increased from 10GB to 50GB in Q4 2014.

Get-Mailbox -identity engineering@domainname.com | set-mailbox -type “Shared” Set-Mailbox engineering@domainname.com -ProhibitSendReceiveQuota 50GB -ProhibitSendQuota 49.75GB -IssueWarningQuota 49.5GB

Assign permissions to specific group to access shared mailbox…

Add-MailboxPermission engineering@domainname.com -User "Engineering Group" AccessRights FullAccess

Finally, remove the Office 365 license. Shared and resource mailboxes do not require a license in Office 365. To remove an Office 365 license from shared mailbox to prevent from being charged for usage, perform the following commands…

Connect-MsolService
$MSOLSKU = (Get-MSOLUser -UserPrincipalName engineering@domainname.com).Licenses[0].AccountSkuId
Set-MsolUserLicense -UserPrincipalName engineering@domainname.com -RemoveLicenses $MSOLSKU

This was the procedure to convert a regular mailbox into a shared mailbox. Now, thanks to automated updates through the cloud, you can have this process completed in a few clicks.

Login to your Office 365 account through the Office portal, and navigate to the Exchange Admin Centre. Once you are logged into your dashboard, click on the Recipients button in the menu on the left. You should now see a list of user mailboxes. Highlight the user mailbox you would like to convert to or from a shared mailbox and click on the convert button as shown in the screenshot below. (You should receive a prompt stating, "Are you sure you want to convert this regular mailbox into shared mailbox?" Click Yes.)

You can also convert a shared mailbox to a regular user mailbox following the same kind of steps. You would go into the shared menu at the top of your recipient list screen and "convert to regular mailbox".

There are many benefits of using a cloud-based solution, one of which is vitally important if you want to save yourself the hassle of setting up your own Exchange server and infrastructure, managing and maintaining desktop Office software, and installing patches and updates every month. The cloud allows you to be free of these restrictions and updates automatically as the example shown above in automating mailbox conversion. Microsoft takes care of all the dirty work so you don't have to. It's like having an IT department that maintains your cloud systems and continues to improve for your efficiency and ease.

On-premises systems will have you waiting and configuring things manually and more frequently. You must consider that implementing the same capabilities as cloud-based solutions requires servers, network infrastructure, IT personnel to install, manage, and update it all (not to mention you still have to buy the software). 

These are just a couple compelling reasons to switch your on-premise system to a cloud-based one. You can now see that cloud-computing is a highly attractive and intelligent proposition if you are looking to make the most of technology today at lower costs and lower risks.

If your current IT provider is still recommending on-premise server solutions, you're not getting good advice! Get in touch with our team at Interlock IT and we'll help make your work easier and more efficient.

Interlock IT earns two Microsoft Silver Competencies!

Cloud Computing is entering its second second stage of hypergrowth in enterprises. Forrester estimates the public services cloud market will grow to $191 billion by 2020, a huge leap from "just" $58 billion in 2013.

Businesses of all sizes are looking to roll out fully cloud-enabled productivity suites with a minimum of disruption to their business. We've seen a huge uptick in demand for cloud-based systems that remove the stress of administering your own email system or file server and let you focus on the things that matter—like finding new clients or executing on projects.

Early in his career as Microsoft's new CEO, Satya Nadella knew that the way forward both for Microsoft and other businesses was "mobile first, cloud first." Shouldn't your business be able to work from anywhere in the world, on any device, at any time?

Office 365 plans start at $5.10 per user per month and for $12.90 per month the desktop versions of the Office suite are included. At that price managing on-premises email servers or paying for hosted Exchange no longer makes sense.

As a Microsoft Partner with Silver-level Competencies in both Small and Midmarket Cloud Solutions and Cloud Productivity, the team at Interlock IT is well-positioned to help you move from your antiquated email system that doesn't work at the pace of modern business.

Google Apps, Uber, and Netflix – Disruption and doing things 10 times better

As a relatively small market compared to the ten-fold larger United States, Canada is slow to receive the latest in disruptive technologies. Netflix rolled out its now-ubiquitous video streaming service in the US in 2008, and Canada didn't get Netflix streaming until September 2010. Now incumbents like Rogers are racing to provide Netflix-like functionality.

Uber does everything you need
and looks good doing it.

Another example is the oft-beset-upon taxi service Uber. Traditionally, when you need a taxi in a hurry, you either run to your nearest major street and hope that an empty one rolls past or you phone the taxi company. Then you have to wait for the taxi to show up and hope it's not nabbed by someone else in the meantime. Once you arrive at your destination, calculating the tip, giving payment, and getting a receipt is a cumbersome process that hasn't changed significantly in many years.

Uber allows anyone to request a ride via a mobile app or the web. Drivers arrive curbside in just minutes, you can track the movement of your ride, and you receive a text message when your driver arrives to pick you up.

Once you've arrived at your destination, Uber handles the payment automatically through the app and your online account. No need to fumble with cash or wait for a credit card transaction to process through a painfully slow payment terminal over a cellular connection. With Uber, the cab driver simply ends the ride on his smartphone and the payment is processed. You'll have the receipt in your email by the time your feet hit the curb.

Uber first launched in San Francisco in 2009, and has since rolled out to more than 50 cities in 20 countries, including Toronto and Montreal. The service only recently launched in Toronto area, though, and since it relies on local drivers to provide rides, there aren't many cars available in the area just yet. In San Francisco, "No one under the age of 40 with a smartphone is going out and getting a cab anymore."

I had the opportunity to experience first hand how Uber has transformed the marketplace in San Francisco while attending the 2014 Google Global Partner Summit. My three Uber trips were an eye-opening experience that tells me this is going to cause a similar market disruption in Toronto. It's just a matter of time.

On the other hand, Mississauga Taxi
looks and behaves as dated as it is.

Local companies like Mississauga Taxi have an app that works, but it doesn't see much competition from Uber at the moment. They haven't taken it to the next level to turn it into a disruptive technology. The Mississauga Taxi app omits vehicle choices, automatic payment processing, visibility of cars in the area, or a custom pick up location by dropping a pin. Its address search is cumbersome as it couldn't find the local Port Credit GO Station which Google Maps finds and autocompletes before I finish typing it.

The one nice feature was the ability to monitor the location of the cab dispatched to pick me up. After that, the taxi ride and payment experience is just like the old days and it took me longer to use the app than it would have to pick up the phone and call the cab company. In fact, when I arrived at my destination the Mississauga Taxi driver was fortunate that an individual not willing to wait for the next train to downtown tapped on his window and asked for a ride. However, the in-a-rush new customer had to wait while my cab driver booted up the payment terminal from scratch, entered the cab fare, inserted my credit card, let me enter the tip amount, my pin code, wait for the slow cellular data connection to process the payment, then finally print the receipt. With Uber in San Francisco, I simply got out of the cab and felt my smartphone vibrate immediately with the emailed receipt. What a massive difference in customer and driver experience!

Technologies like Netflix and Uber tend to be borne out of frustration with the traditional way of doing things, and Google thinks the same way, all the way from the very highest levels. Larry Page has said he, "expects his employees to create products and services that are 10 times better than the competition." Why? Because products and services like the Google Apps won't cause market disruptions if they are designed to be only two or three times better than the incumbents like Microsoft Exchange and Lotus Notes. You have to start fresh and completely change the way things are done to have any hope of making things 10 times better. Only then will you cause a disruption.

Miss the disruptive wave and you can end up like BlackBerry, a business that will continue to survive, but will also continue to downsize to match their shrinking customer base.

So why stick with the incumbents who always seem to be two steps behind, responding with too little, too late? Get Google Apps for your business now and earn more money like the individual taxi drivers in San Francisco that ditched the traditional cab company and switched to Uber.

Google Apps let you work the way you live by enhancing consumer products used by billions with the features and controls that your business needs to be productive, innovative and successful. Google Apps will change the way you do business!

Google Apps Vault brings better integrated email archiving to Google Apps

As a Google Apps Postini Authorized Reseller we've handled numerous implementations of Postini email archiving and message security.  While Postini has great technology its user interface was ages behind the simplicity of Google Apps.  We're definitely excited about the release of Google Vault which is so much better integrated into the core Google Apps product.

Google Apps Vault eliminates all sorts of administrative headaches for Google Apps and Postini customers such as managing duplicate user lists, email aliases, and email distribution groups across the 2 systems.

Currently Google Vault is only available to new Google Apps customers but we expect Google to allow the migration of existing customers from Postini to Google Apps Vault soon.

By the way, Google Postini is still the best cloud spam and virus filter for Microsoft Exchange or other emails servers on the market.  It will continue to be supported and enhanced for the long term as there is a huge install base of existing users.  Since ~90% of all email is spam, Google Postini removes this heavy load from your internet data lines and on-premise Exchange server.  When we switch customers from an on-premise firewall based spam filter to Postini or Google Apps they are often shocked by the dramatic drop in load on their internet data lines.

Source: http://googleenterprise.blogspot.ca/2012/03/google-apps-vault-brings-information.html