Don't Sink! Sync! - Google Calendar Sharing

Realizing that you've missed an appointment at the doctor's office or missed your kid's recital isn't fun. Sometimes there is just so much going on at once that it's hard to schedule and share everything with the people who need to know. You start sinking under all the events, commitments, appointments, and pressure magnetized to your fridge door. This is where Google Calendar comes in to save the day (and week, and month...).

If you already use Google Calendar, awesome! There is so much you can do to schedule events and track available/busy slots of time. With Google Calendar you have the ability to to see calendars that are important to you and share your own. You can send invitations to your events, track RSVPs by email, and even allow others to propose times that work better for everyone. It's all very intuitive and can be done from a single screen, allowing you to manage your business, personal, and other calendars. No more calling and emailing participants numerous times to schedule an event. When you know everyone is free, scheduling is a snap! Sharing is a great feature to help you schedule events, keep you in sync, and save you from missing what's important to you.

Share your Google Apps for business calendar as username@business.com with your personal@gmail.com account and give it rights to make changes. Here's how:

1. Log in to your Google Apps account and navigate to the calendar at https://calendar.google.com
2. Click the gear icon at the top right corner, then click Settings.
3. Click over to the Calendars tab, then click Share this calendar on the right-hand side.
4. Add your personal@gmail.com address and give it "Make changes AND manage sharing" permissions.
5. Click Save.

Now you can manage your business calendar while you're signed in to your personal account.

If your business calendar is on an Exchange server, you can share it to your personal Gmail account by following these steps. Note that you cannot make changes to your business calendar from Gmail.

Next, share your personal@gmail.com calendar with your business calendar and with the Gmail accounts of each of your family members, like child1@gmail.com, child2@gmail.com, spouse@gmail.com.

Enabling or disabling calendar sharing is a breeze. Add a couple of email addresses, and if desired, set their permissions (free/busy, see all event details, or make changes) so that they don't have to keep asking you to make changes since you've authorized them to.

1. Click on the drop-down arrow next to the calendar you want to share.
2. Click Share this Calendar.
3. Add the email addresses of people who you'd like to have access and set their permissions.
4. Click Save.

Once you have shared the appropriate calendars, ask your family members to share theirs with you as well so you can make changes to their calendars when needed.

Now you have the power to see what everyone else is up to (depending on the sharing permissions, of course) and other people can see what you're up to.

You also don't have to constantly check your calendar to see what's coming next in your day. Google Calendar provides several different ways for you to be notified of upcoming events including via text message, an email, or a pop-up. You can also get these notification on your iPhone or Android device if you've set up your Google Account to sync with it. If your kids have a smartphone or tablet, they can be synced to their Google calendar to receive notifications of events. (No more excuses for being late for your soccer practice or kids whining that they didn't know about it!)

With Google Calendar, you can access your schedule online from anywhere. If you forget your laptop or tablet, just open the Google Calendar app on your Android or iOS device to see all your events.

Organizing your schedule doesn't have to be a burden. With Google Calendar, its simple to keep track of all of life's important event all in one place. And the best part is, it's completely free!

Two-Step Verification: An added layer of security

You most likely use passwords everyday in your life. Unfortunately, they are not as secure as they once used to be. Even if all your passwords are different across a multitude of accounts, it will do little to ensure security if an attacker gains access to your email. To be blunt, passwords are fundamentally flawed. To add an extra layer of protection from malicious attackers trying to pry their way into your account, consider 2-step verification. 2-step verification ensures security of your account beyond a regular username and password with added authentication.

Authentication is a step of proving that you are indeed yourself, the legitimate owner of the account, before granting access. The problem with standard authentication is that it only relies on something you know, a username and a password. Often, this can be guessed, cracked, or compromised in some way. Attackers, if equipped with these credentials, can easily access the account cloaked as the authentic user, making it difficult to regain control. 2-step verification is built upon something you know such as a password, and something you have like a mobile phone, fingerprint, or key.

This is where Google 2-Step verification steps in. Logging into a Google Account that has 2-step verification enabled, requires a unique, time-sensitive code in addition to the standard username and password (this code can be sent to your phone via SMS or with an application like Authy or Google's own Authenticator). It is an extra step, but it helps ensure that your account is extremely difficult to compromise. Essentially, with Google you are combining two things: your standard credentials and something that only you have access to--your phone. Think of Google's 2-step verification as a layer of security similar to that of a bank's ATM. You insert your bank card (something you have) and input your PIN (something you know). A robber would need to gain access to both of these factors to gain access to your account, plus, with 2-step verification, your "PIN" changes every 45 seconds.

The process to set up your Google 2-Step Verification is user friendly and generally takes about 15 minutes. This small amount of time to ensure maximum security to your invaluable data will save you the stress of having your account compromised.

Signing in with Google's 2-Step Verification is simple.

1. Go to the sign-in page and enter your username and password like you normally do.
2. Google's system authenticates your username and password, and if they are correct, you will then be asked for a six-digit code, which you'll get from your phone.
3. After you turn on 2-step verification, non-browser applications and devices that use your Google Account will require an application-specific password to allow this application to connect to your account -- you only have to do this once for each application or device.

The benefits of 2-step verification are simple: Access to an account depends on a user to consult the source that is not readily available on the computer and is singularly designated in order to gain access to an account. 2-step goes much further to protect your information, as criminals have to work much harder to compromise your accounts.  

Set up 2-step verification on every account you can. In addition to using a secure, unique password for each account you have, it's one of the best and easiest ways you can protect yourself against any kind of data vulnerability.

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.

Go paperless! Lighten your business load

You may start off with bank statements, letters, receipts, business transactions, and inventories only to find that you've collected a stack of folders which eventually turn into a shelf full of boxed paperwork.

Well, what if you could evaporate all that weight up into a cloud and reference it at your fingertips, whenever, and wherever?

Thanks to technologies such as Google Drive, going paperless can really help your business. It not only helps clear cluttered workspace in the office, but also saves money and eases your business' environmental footprint. (Not to mention less trips to the printer too!)

Here are a few practical reasons why you should go paperless with Google Drive:

• Security and Focus: You no longer have to worry about losing or misplacing your documents. No more distractions on your desk

• Space: Enables you to save valuable office storage space. 

• Mobility: Allows you to have access to all your documents in one place even outside the office. 

• Time: Saves valuable time.

• Money: Save costs ranging from printing paper, photocopying, and printer maintenance.

• Recovery: Disaster recovery.

• Peace of Mind: Ensures security and privacy.

Of course, all you need is Google Drive with an account and a scanner. You can also use Android/iOS smartphones or tablets to upload files as PDFs. Here are some Epson scanners that can scan directly to Google Drive with a couple of button clicks!

Google Drive uses OCR (Optical Character Recognition) for easier search results once documents are uploaded to the Drive. Essentially, Drive turns all your scanned documents into searchable text for easier future referencing. OCR also enables you to save time by dismissing you from specifically naming saved uploaded documents. Instead, all you have to do is search a key word or tag from the document you wish to find and its right there at your fingertips.

Additional storage is cheap at $1.99 per month for an extra 100 GB or $9.99/month for an extra 1 TB or switch your organization to Google Apps Unlimited with Unlimited storage for $10/user/month

Drive also allows you to create and collaborate with others like share documents, spreadsheets, and presentations on the fly with complementary Google Docs, Sheets, Slides and Forms. You can even make files available offline when you are not under cloud connectivity.

You may find Google Drive for Work as one of your most valuable investments once you have made the transition to go paperless. You can work without limits. It is safe, secure reliable, easy, powerful, and built to optimize your individual and team productivity.

We have advanced to communicate paperless with instant messaging and email. Why not do the same with organizing documents and files paperless too. It's still early 2015 and not too late to save time, money, and some trees while your at it.

Going paperless is a great idea and our team here at Interlock IT will help you make paper filing a thing of the past.