Get Ready for Google Apps!
OIT will soon be moving student e-mail (BroncoMail) accounts to Google Apps for Education, with faculty/staff e-mail accounts scheduled to move from GroupWise to Google Apps beginning later this year.The Help Desk has already begun to receive many questions about moving GroupWise e-mail to Google Apps, and we plan to use BroncoBytes to regularly update you on the progress of the move, as well as the changes and benefits of using Google Apps for all your e-mail and calendaring needs.We’ll start off with a few answers to frequently asked questions about Google Apps:Q: What is Google Apps, and why are we switching to it?A: Google Apps for Education is a service consisting of several applications branded for Boise State University, including e-mail, calendaring, instant messaging and document storage and sharing. More information on Google Apps can be found on Google’s website. Google Apps is an industry leader in e-mail and group collaboration, offering significant benefits over using GroupWise and our current BroncoMail system. Google Apps will provide us with document sharing, instant messaging, better spam control, massive amounts of disk space for e-mail storage, and decreased IT administration costs and labor.Q: Massive amounts of disk space for e-mail? How much?
A: Google Apps storage space is growing by about 1 megabyte each day. Right now, there is over 6 gigabytes of storage space for each individual account. By comparison, our largest GroupWise accounts are barely over 1 gigabyte in size.
Q: What if I already have a Google e-mail (Gmail) account? Can I just use that instead?
A: Gmail e-mail and Google Apps e-mail are two separate creatures. You can’t substitute an existing Gmail account for your Google Apps account, but you will be able to set your Gmail e-mail to be delivered to your Boise State University Google Apps account.
Q: Will my e-mail address stay the same?
A: Employee e-mail addresses will not change. They will continue to be name@boisestate.edu.
BroncoMail addresses will change from name@mail.boisestate.edu to name@u.boisestate.edu, but we will make sure mail sent to name@mail.boisestate.edu will continue to be delivered correctly for several weeks during the transition period.
Q: What will happen to my GroupWise archive?
A: The current plan is to keep your GroupWise archive in its present location and use a new tool to read the mail and calendar items in your archive after the switch to Google Apps. This will allow you to start using Google Apps in a fresh environment, yet still have access to your archived GroupWise mail.
Q: When will all of this happen?
A: We hope to have BroncoMail addresses moved to Google Apps by the beginning of March. Faculty and staff accounts are currently being scheduled for later this year, and we will pass along more information as soon as we have it.
Stay tuned in the coming weeks and months for more information!
Q. Will I still be able to use my Blackberry with Google apps?
A. Yes, Google has enabled access on the Blackberry via standard email protocols. They have even developed an application to sync your calendar. The calendar sync can even transfer information from shared calendars to your Blackberry handheld (very cool).
Sincerely,
Mr. Bb
P.S. It is nice to see Broncobytes work flawless on my Blackberry handheld.
Are email and calendar updates pushed to the BB as they are now? Do you receive a notice that you have new items (via tone, vibrate, etc) or do you have to pull them?
The email and calendar items are pushed to the handheld. You are notified when the device will notify per your preference.
Peter
Question 1 – will I be able to sync mail (without using POP3 or iMap) with an iPhone?
Question 2 – is the educational version of GMail Web-based or will we use a program like Outlook?
Question 3 – with the move to Google, is a portal in the near future?
Michael,
Answer 1 – We are planning to provide instructions for setting up a POP or IMAP client, but we won’t be providing any official support for those clients.
Answer 2 – The applications are web-based. In terms of the e-mail client, we’ll be supporting the web-based client.
Answer 3 – We have no plans at this time to develop a portal, but it certainly is a possibility further down the road.
As someone who moves around campus lugging a laptop, a portal would be a wonderful blessing. The ability to log on to my favorite and necessary apps one time would be a wonderful experience!
Michael,
The day software finally catches up to your mobile needs will be a great day for all of us!
- Shad
Okay, I think I’ve answered my own questions. It appears that Google Apps DOES have a Standard Edition, which is free. However, if someone besides a student or member of an organization wants to use Google Sites, they’ll need a domain name. I’m now waiting for google apps to confirm one of my domain names so I can try it out. Can’t wait. thanks for your prompt responses to my answers. I am very excited about the potentials for Google at Boise State.
Will this be independent of the BSU computer network? If BSU internet or computer systems go down, will Google be the one keeping things running? When you are several time zones out of Boise and BSU goes down and with it goes email and you have colleagues sending you information for a grant proposal or a paper with an impending deadline, losing a whole day, like has happened multiple times this year while I’ve been on sabbatical, is really frustrating.
Elisa,
Yes, an advantage of Google Apps is that it runs on Google servers. If the University loses network connectivity, as happened early this morning, you’ll still be able to access your email when away from campus.
The email and calendar items are pushed to the handheld. You are notified when the device will notify per your preference.