The Easy Way to Try Google Apps

It’s been a long time coming (and discussing) but last month I finally began the process of switching the company from our old Exchange E-mail servers to Google Hosted. I can’t express how excited I am about this. Less to maintain on my end and a heckuva lot cheaper to boot. And way better spam management. And I get to decommission two very old servers that are a bit of a pain to maintain (and poorly backed-up as well!).

Initially, there was a lot of concern about doing the change-over.  One day you’re an Outlook / Exchange user and the next day you’re web browser and Google Mail — that may be jarring to some folks!  Fortunately, trying it out is very very easy, no need to switch over the MX records right away.

[note: I'm not offering folks the option to use Outlook and Gmail via POP3.  Our Outlook seats are Outlook 2002 (blech) and I don't care to spend money to upgrade 'em.  If someone absolutely has to have a desktop client, I'll point them at something like Thunderbird]

When setting up users for hosted Google, each user gets a temporary email address in the format of username@yourdomain.com.test-google-a.com.  Once I realized that, I sent a note out to all the folks in the company soliciting beta testers. I got about a 50% response rate which I think is pretty cool — that’s half the company that won’t be panicked on the day we make the big switch. 

For each interested beta tester, I logged into the Exchange Administrator and created a new “Custom Recipient” using that temp. email address. Then I opened up that user’s Mailbox settings and set it to forward to their custom recipient.  Thus, all new mail from that point on goes to their hosted Google account. 

Our Exchange version is very old. My terminology in the preceding paragraph may not match what more modern versions have, but conceptually I’m sure it’s the same.

I helped each tester export their contacts from Outlook and import them into Google. Then I helped them import their Outlook Calendar to Google as well. A brief overview of the wonders of “labels” and they’re off and running.

Know what I personally really dig? I love how easy it is to use my Pocket PC to read my mail and check my calendar. As long as I’m near a wi-fi connection, I can quickly check either with the browser. Who needs a BlackBerry?

Possibly Related posts:

1. Handling Ex-Employee Google Apps Email Accounts
2. Google Calendar — more
3. Google Email Uploader
4. Will Google Apps Always Lag Behind?
5. Thoughts on Google IMAP Support