From Carol L. Smith, CIOThere are 1600 students, faculty and staff members who have activated their Google Apps accounts and we’re halfway through the first phase of our campus transition. Following are a few quick updates about the project.
As always, if you have any questions about the Google Apps rollout (or any other IT-related projects), please don’t hesitate to contact me at clsmith@depauw.edu.
Cheers,
--Carol.
Key Points in the following include:
- Remember the timeline: On May 1 Google Apps will be DePauw's primary email system
- Sending mail to DePauw distribution lists from Google Apps (i.e., faculty@depauw.edu, staff@depauw.edu, facultystaff@depauw.edu)
- Remember that the Google Apps automatic out-of-office responder does not work right now
- Clean up your GroupWise/Tigermail account before you copy your old email to Google Apps!
- New tool available for copying your old calendar to Google Apps
- Where to get help
1) Remember the timeline: On May 1 Google Apps will be DePauw's primary email system
On May 1, 2010, Google Apps will be DePauw's primary email system. On this date, you will no longer be able to send email from GroupWise/Tigermail and all incoming email will go directly to Google Apps Mail. Be sure to plan a personal timeline so that you have begun using your Google Apps account as your primary system by this date!
Google Apps Transition Timeline
-- January - March - Early adopters
-- March 1 - All faculty, staff and students could begin using Google Apps at DePauw at their own pace and copying their GroupWise contents to the new system.
-- May 1 - Google Apps becomes DePauw’s primary email system
All incoming/outgoing email to/from DePauw will go through Google Apps instead of GroupWise, but GroupWise will still be available to copy your old email and calendars to Google Apps.
-- May - September - Copying GroupWise contents to Google Apps continues
-- October 1, 2010 - GroupWise server is shut down.
Everyone must have copied everything from GroupWise into Google Apps by this time.
2) Sending mail to DePauw distribution lists from Google Apps
(i.e., faculty@depauw.edu, staff@depauw.edu, facultystaff@depauw.edu)
You cannot send email to DePauw global distribution lists (faculty@depauw.edu, staff@depauw.edu, facultystaff@depauw.edu) from your Google Apps account until after May 1. Until then, just use GroupWise to send emails to these distribution lists.
3) Remember that the Google Apps automatic out-of-office responder does not work right now
Currently, when you set up an out-of-office message in Google Apps it creates an "email loop" between the Google Apps Mail and your GroupWise account. Google automatically detects this and prevents your out-of-office responses from getting sent back to the original senders properly.
Until May 1, then, you must set up your out-of-office reply using your GroupWise account.
4) Clean up your GroupWise/Tigermail account before you copy your old email to Google Apps!
There are several factors that affect how quickly, or slowly, your email copies over to Google Apps during the copying process - number and size of email messages to be moved, size of attachments and data transfer rates. Therefore, we highly recommend that you clean-up your email before copying it from GroupWise to Google Apps.
To find recommended steps for performing clean-up, visit Before Copying.
5) New tool available for copying your old calendar to Google Apps
We have a new tool, called SwarmSoft, to copy your GroupWise calendar items to Google Apps calendar. SwarmSoft enables you to download the GroupWise calendar to a CSV file that can be imported directly into Google Apps.
Information and instructions are available at Copying Calendar Items.
6) Where to get help
Check out the Google Apps Information site and the FAQ’s list for information and assistance. Based on questions we receive, we make frequent changes there so the most common questions are easy to find.
If you cannot find the answer you need on the help site, email gapps@depauw.edu.
Demonstrations, workshops, meetings with your department -
There are several demonstrations and workshops scheduled during the next few weeks. The schedule is available at the Google Apps Information site and on the University calendar (search for the #googleapps hashtag).
The transition team is also happy to meet with your department to provide a demonstration and help you develop a departmental rollout strategy. Many departments are planning to transition their members together as a group so they can help each other learn the new system and avoid the awkwardness of trying to share calendars between Google Apps and GroupWise.) Contact gapps@depauw.edu if you wish to arrange one of these meetings
