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Google Apps - let your greed meet your imagination

Whatever you wish you could achieve with Google Apps, you should never stop being greedy. What you are imagining today might be available to millions of users tomorrow. Google Apps is always launching new features on each of the services in the package. I will blog about the new feature updates in this blog regularly.

Document template in your Google Docs

Wasn’t this what you were wishing to have yesterday? Wouldn’t it be great to be able to create an invoice template and share it with everyone in your organisation using Google Docs? How about create a project plan and share it with your project team members? Even better, since Google Docs supports multi editing, it totally goes with the fact that project work requires the ability of non conflicting editing. Well, this is all available now in your Google Docs account. You can browse the public template gallery to see what choices you have, or better off, get creative and create a killing template and share it with the world.

Google Site template Gallery

Many of us probably thinks Google Sites has always be a half finished product – the concept of having a website with associated access level is not new, because this is basically what every CMS based website can do. I personally think the availability of site templates completes the service. No we have a great CMS website from Google, and let’s hope more great features will be available to make it better.

Sign up for Google Apps, and at least you can be sure that this part of your business is innovative and always keeps your business ahead of its competition.

Tags: google apps setup, Google Apps updates
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Google Apps standard edition only available for 10 or less users

Google has just announced that for domains that would require more than 10 users, they would soon have to choose Google Apps for Business and pay the annual subscription fee of £33 per user.

Prior to this change, Google Apps standard edition (free version) is available for up to 50 user accounts. For domains that have registered Google Apps standard edition before the change, they will still be able to set up upto 50 users. The change only applies to new domains that register after the change.

So are you considering using Google Apps standard edition but haven’t got around to it? Now is the best time to grab an account even you don’t really need to use it now. If you need our help with your Google Apps setup, feel free to drop an email to info@sefari.net

Sefari Ltd is a UK Google Apps authorised reseller.

Tags: google apps reseller, google apps setup
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Google Apps error & fix: “User name already exists”

One of the most annoying messages you might get when trying to create a new user account is “user name already exists”. There are several reasons why you are getting this message:

You or one of your colleagues has already added the user name as his/her nickname. In this case when you are trying to add the user account, you will get “user name already exists” message
The domain administrator has already set up a group using the user name.

If the reason for your message is either of the two above, you are lucky as the fix is simply to remove either the nickname or the group. After that, you can set up the user account easily without meeting the message again.

In most cases, you probably realise that neither of the two reasons above applies. There is no group or nickname by that user name. What has happened? Occasionally, when a user account is added, especially when you add a number of users using bulk uploading method, the account does not show up immediately in your user list. Thinking that the account may have been missed, you would probably try to set up the account again. When doing so, you would inevitably get the “user name already exists” message.

What the message tells us is that the user account exists on Google Apps server, although it may not show up on your control panel immediately. The problem however is that you do not have the account’s credentials and as a result, you are not able to access account until the account shows up in your user lists.

Google Apps Bulk Upload feature gives us a chance to reset the password of the account. In your Google Apps domain control panel ->advanced Tools, you will find the bulk upload option. When you click on it, you will see the instructions on how to create a CSV file and in step 2, you can check the “update existing accounts with new names and passwords” checkbox. All you need to do is include that problematic user account to the CSV file and upload it. The password of the account will be updated to whatever you have specified.

After this is completed, you can access the account using the new password. At least you don’t have to wait for the user account to appear in your user list before using it.

Do you have any questions / issues of using your Google Apps account? Do you have any magic fix that you would like to share? Let us know.

Tags: Setup Google Apps, user name already exists
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Domain is already on Google Apps, what to do?

If you take a look around in the Google Apps help forum, the top repeatedly asked questions are probably around accidently deleted user account, deleted secondary domain, and the frustrating message of “This domain is already on Google Apps…” etc. There isn’t many options available along with the message, which usually leaves you puzzled.

There are many reasons this may happen. For example, your previous IT administrator may have tried to register the domain on Google Apps, but left it half way through; sometimes when you register a domain with some registrars, your domain are automatically registered with Google Apps which you are not aware of. In either case, it is hard to recover the original account used to register the domain. Is there a way to fix this?

The answer is yes, and actually quite simple. You just need to follow the steps below:

Go to this URL, please remember to replace yourdomain.com to your actual domain that you want to register on Google Apps. www.google.com/a/yourdomain.com
You will see a login page for the administrator of this domain’s Google Apps account. Click on forget password? Link
Follow the link to reset your password. You will get a message “a reset email is sent to the secondary email address”. This secondary email address is one provided when register with Google Apps. If you have no access to this email address (if this is registered with someone else), click on the link “Reset your administrator password by domain verification”
Follow the onscreen instruction to verify your domain by either adding a CNAME record to your domain, or upload a HTML file to your root folder of your hosting server.

This way, hopefully you can prove your domain ownership and reset the administrator details to your own, including using an email address of your choosing as the secondary email, and change the password. Even if the domain verification failed, you will have the option of contacting Google and someone at Google will be able to help you verify the domain using other methods.

If you have any questions about setup or using Google Apps, please feel free to contact us.

Sefari is a Google Apps Authorised Reseller.

Tags: domain already registered, google apps setup
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Sign into multiple Google Apps account using one browser

If you have been using more than one Google accounts, Google Apps account for longer than a year, you probably remember that you were able to log into both your Google account and Google Apps acount, or two different Google Apps accounts at the same time using one browser. However, since Google has improved Google Apps account so that it now works more like a normal Google account, you can only log into one Google account at a time. Signing into another account will trigger a message asking you whether you would like to switch account.

You can either use different browsers to log into different Google account at the same time, or you could use the nice multiple sign in setting provided by Google. To do this, simply log into one of your Google accounts, and go to this link below:

https://www.google.com/accounts/MultipleSessions

On this page, you can choose whether to enable multiple sign-in. Select the services that you would like to enable multiple sign-in and click on save. You are good to go!

We will keep publishing little tips of using Google Apps here from time to time. Bookmark this blog and come back again in a while.

Tags: Google Apps, multiple accounts
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8 reasons why you should not use secondary domain on Google Apps

If you are already using Google Apps, you may or may not know that Google Apps Premier (business) edition and Education edition support secondary domains. First of all, it is necessary to quickly go through what a secondary domain is.

Separate secondary domains

Basically this means you can manage all your domains under one Google Apps account. For example, if you own domain1.com and domain2.com and you have set up domain1.com on Google Apps, you can add domain2.com as a secondary domain and create its users separately. It treats users in two domains as separate users.

Domain Alias

This is quite different from secondary domains, as this simply means using another domain as your primary domain’s nickname. For example, for your domain.com, you also want to use domain.org. If you set it up as domain alias, all the users in your primary domain will have an email address as user@domain.org, which works pretty much like an email nickname from the user point of view. When you are testing Google Apps before changing MX record, the test domain created by Google Apps can be considered a domain alias.

This sounds great, doesn’t it? Managing multiple domains under one account, hum, and perfect solution for group companies. Well, not quite, see what you think at the end of this post.

Limitations of using secondary domains

Control panel settings – all domains under one Google Apps account share the same control panel policy settings. This also means that all domains will share the same customised logo. The administrator of the Google Apps account must have an account in the primary domain. This may not be a deal breaker.
Domain alias are supported on the primary domains only – basically, if you added a domain as the secondary domain, you will not be able to add alias to that domain.
Customised access URL is not supported on secondary domains. For the same reason, you cannot have one global URL to access apps on all the domains.
No Google groups on secondary domains
In terms of sharing docs, users from secondary domains are treated exactly the same as if they are under different Google Apps accounts. You don’t get any convenience just because they are managed in the same Google Apps account.
You are no longer able to limit the sharing in your primary domain. The share setting is either inside or outside your organisation – the combination of all your domains.
No custom web address mapping in secondary domains. In other words, you cannot use domain2.com as the web address for your Google Site on the secondary domain, which is quite similar to the fact that you cannot access apps on secondary domains using customised URL.
No access to third party apps on Apps Engine on secondary domains

What does this mean? This means hey, secondary domain option is there for your convenience, but don’t use it. It is best to learn all the limitations of using it before you set out and do it. It is a lot of hassle when you need to delete the secondary domain and create a separate account.

Tags: Google Apps, secondary domain
Posted in Google Apps | 2 Comments »

Using Google Apps on Outlook with Google Apps Sync

Cloud based Google Apps provides an exciting and innovative alternative to Microsoft Exchange, however, it can take quite some time for users who have been using MS Outlook to switch to web based interface. It is not surprising to find that despite the willingness to switch from Exchange to Google Apps, lots of businesses still wish to continue to use Outlook interface.

Google Apps Sync

The introduction of Google Apps Sync has made Google Apps even more appealing to most businesses. It connects and syncs Google Apps account with local Outlook, and most users would not even notice the difference of working with Google Apps and MS Exchange server. Incoming mails and meeting appointments etc are sent to Google Apps server and synced downwards to local Outlook, and any changes to your calendar, contact and outgoing mails are upwards synced to Google Apps server and sent to the rest of the world.

However, it is worth noting the differences between using Google Apps and Exchange server. For advanced users, some features that were available from Exchange server may not be available using Google Apps; on the other hand, cloud based Google Apps means it will enable some wonderful features that traditional Exchange server is unable to offer.

Access your data anywhere in the world

Cloud based Google Apps is available to you anywhere in the world, as long as you have internet connection. On the contrary, Exchange server usually sits behind company firewall, and is not easily available (You may have access to the server through services such as VPN and proper firewall and server configuration).

Using MS Outlook the same way, well, almost the same way

The Outlook works just like it does with MS Exchange server, with some minor differences. For example, Google Apps email uses the idea of labels, which will be displayed as folders in Outlook.

Instead of auto archiving data regularly by saving as PST files, Google Apps provides an archived folder in your Outlook, and you may drop your mails into archived folder for readily access. For the same reason, the Autoarchive feature on Outlook is turned off by default.

With Google Apps, you will be able to find your personal contact list, frequent contact list, and a Global Contact List. Whether in your contact list or not, an email address will be auto-completed while you type after you have entered the first time. Google Apps support contact sharing mainly inside the domain, however the distribution mailing list feature is not fully supported.

You may still flag a message for follow up, using different colours as you may with Exchange server, but the different coloured flags will be synced to Google Apps web interface as Stared. There is only one type of star.

.Sefari provides Google Apps setup and migration services. Please feel free to contact us by emailing info@sefari.net

Tags: Google Apps, google apps sync
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6 reasons why you should use Google Apps email service?

At this moment, organisations of all size, as well as private web domain owners, are moving, or thinking about moving to cloud based emailing systems. Cloud computing, as fantastic as the name sounds, offers great advantages in electronic communication over traditional emailing systems based on physical servers that actually sit in your office, or home. Of course, emailing is only one of the many areas where cloud computing plays a more and more significant role. Google Apps has been available for a few years now, as it gradually improves and grows, it is becoming a cloud based emailing system of choice.

1. Anti spam and security

Even the free Standard Edition of Google Apps offers generally satisfying spam filtering service. If you haven’t tried Google Apps yet, think about the Google Mail personal account of yours (I wouldn’t believe if you say that you don’t have one). Compared to all other personal email services available to public, such as MSN, Yahoo mail, or AoL, GMail is probably distinctly outstanding in spam filtering performance. Honestly, I didn’t even notice any spams in my inbox; they have been quietly filtered and dumped in the spam box, and cleaned out in the background. Occasionally I tried go into the spam box to see if there has been any mistakes. Guess what, not a single one.

Have you experienced much of down time, or slow loading with your GMail? Well, it does offer Basic HTML mode if your internet connection is temporarily slow.

2. Innovative and User based interface

Google Apps mail offers the option of displaying mails as conversations (default setting). I still remember back many years ago when I first experienced conversation thread style of sorting mails in GMail. The only question I was thinking at the time was: how come this was not the way to sort emails in the first place? It is just logical, convenient, and cool.

3. Use your domain

Another wonder I was having when using Gmail (private email) back many years ago was how great it would be to have this on my own domain. On the outside, it was an professional looking business like email service, on the inside, it has the interface of freedom, innovation and inspiration.

4. Access your email wherever and whenever

This is a bliss of cloud computing - your data and service are available to you wherever you are and whenever you want them. Google Apps offers incredibly easy integration with other mail clients, with your Blackberry, iPhone, or android based mobile phones.

5. Extremely low cost

Google Apps offers the free Standard Edition to meet the needs of various businesses and individuals. The Premier edition costs considerably less than other cloud based emailing services. Switching to cloud based systems like Google Apps can significantly reduce your infrastructure costs in terms of setup and maintenance.

6. Apps collaboration - more Apps to come

Google Apps offers a lot more than just email. Recently, an update saw that most of the Apps that used to be only available to Google Mail private accounts are now available to Google Apps users. With great research and development teams in Google, you are be assured that more great Apps are coming on the way. Integrated Apps package means smart, efficient and effective communication

Can’t wait to get started? During promotion we are happy to offer you Google Apps Setup service for free. Please contact us here.

Tags: Google Apps, Setup Google Apps
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How much does it cost to set up Google Apps?

Looking at my Google Analytics statistics this weekend, I noticed that many visitors have landed on to my site wondering how much it would cost to set up their Google Apps account.

Apparently, that depends on which version of Google Apps best suits your needs. Google Apps offers three versions of services: Standard, Premier and Education. You may read here the differences between the versions of Google Apps. Generally speaking, money wise, Google Apps Standard version and Education version are free (of course, not any organisation or individual can get the Education version), while the Premier version costs $50 (or equivalent amount of value in GBP and Euro) per user per year. For example, if your company has 10 employees, and each would like to have a Google Apps user account, it would cost you $500 per year. You may say, well, I also need an account for sales, or admin. Of course you can buy extra user accounts for these (typically email accounts), you can also set them up as Google Apps Groups, so that you wouldn’t have to pay a penny for these group accounts.

There are other costs involved. For example, if you would like to have it set up by professionals, you are very likely to be charged a small amount of set up fee. If you need to migrate your old archives from other email clients to Google Apps, they may also charge you for that too. Good news is that, at the moment till the end of 2010, we can set up Google Apps for you for free. In addition, we can help you migrate your emails for 10 accounts or less for free.

If you haven’t got a domain yet, you need to purchase a domain. That would costs you a small amount of yearly fee. To set up Google Apps, you would not necessarily need a hosting package for your domain. You only need access to your domain administration which you will be granted when you take up the domain.

Any other costs? I think that’s pretty much it. If you would like to have a website, you could use the Google Sites app integrated in Google Apps, and again, you don’t have to pay for the hosting fee. As you may have realised by now, Google Apps does provide an incredibly affordable service. Whether it is great or not, you will just have to see for yourself.

Tags: Google Apps, Setup Google Apps
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