E-mail rapture - two days in...
Tuesday, December 22, 2009 at 06:38AM The district switched its 1400 e-mail, calendar, contact users from Exchange/Outlook/Entourage to Google Apps for Education last Friday night - the E-mail Rapture. Today is Tuesday. This tech director has not (yet) been tarred and feathered. In fact, I am pleased by how smoothly things have gone so far, due in large part to the great efforts of our tech staff (not me!) User accounts and saved e-mail all seemed to transfer very well and we continue to support folks moving contacts and calendar events.
The biggest surprise for me was that the bulk of the questions have not come from our least capable e-mail users, but from our "power-users." One of Gmail's great strengths is its simplicity, but simplicity in this case also means fewer bells and whistles that our long-time Outlook/Entourage users had grown to appreciate. Here are a few of the questions I've been asked over the past couple days. Most involve finding and installing helper apps or enabling Google Labs tweaks.
- How can I create subfolders for my e-mail?
- How do I put a picture in my signature file?
- Why are there still messages going to the old email server?
- Why can't I get my cellphone/iPod/Blackberry etc to work with the new email system?
- How can I get the new e-mail program to produce a noise when I get new mail?
- Can I add a view of calendar events on my email page?
- How do I change the colors of my calendar events?
- How do I delete/modify the chat screen on my e-mail page?
- Is the My Day feature from Entourage available?
- How do I share my calendar so specific people can see the details of my events?
- How can I see all the district's e-mail users in my contacts list?
Two features have indeed "stumped the chump." I can't find a way for users to sort inbox messages by name or subject or reverse chronological order. And I can't find a way to have multiple windows in e-mail where one of which shows the actual contents of a message. But according to discussion boards, neither can anyone else.
I am stretching my own ability to search out these little solutions a bit - really sort of fun. Nothing like figuring out a good work around!
So - so far, so good.
Come early in January, we starting giving people practical ways of using GoogleDocs to share information. Then the fun will begin as teachers see the benefits of the entire MAPS Apps solution!
There is no small irony that 15 years ago I was begging teachers to use e-mail. Today I am finding teachers in a panic that they can't get their e-mails, calendars and contacts on their Blackberries and iPods. And on the other end of the spectrum we still seem to have folks who have not yet felt the need to check their email over the past four days. Ah, to have such a care-free life!
Go figure...
Reader Comments (8)
My guess is that you are not getting many questions (and have survived) because you had a very well though out and detailed process for this transition. Your emails and help tips were great! You had a plan for LOTS of tech support for the first day! Kudos to you and your staff.
I love your stump the chump list since it is exactly the same list of questions I got when we switched over to Google for Education. I have not figured out how to sort the inbox either.
I just got my Droid phone, and set it up with my gmail. Im trying to learn how to "silence" the sound alert that tells me I have a new message. LOL. Unlike those 25+ years younger than me, I'd much rather be oblivious to the gmail while Im shopping, driving, eating, etc. Now I understand why that group is constantly looking at their phones.
Yes Im a big fan of shared calendars and my day in a view in my email through the school email. But I think if we migrated to Google Apps, I could make the transition easy enough. And I do consider myself a power-user too.
Watching this transition with keen interest. Good question about viewing district users in an email list.
Thanks, Sharon. I think my own learning curve - figuring out how to help teachers and administrators accomplish things with the new program - has been steeper than almost anyone's. Good for a person!
All the best and thanks for the kind words,
Doug
Hi Helen,
According to the support forums, sorting a Gmail in box is just not an option. I am really surprised some clever programmer has not yet figured it out. (I did figure out how to make our school Gmail the default e-mail program in Firefox. Whew!).
All the best,
Doug
Hi Cathy Jo,
Have fun with your new phone. The damn service rates keep me away from any smart phone. That and the need to get away from communications for a bit now and then.
We figured out how people can view all district users in their contacts. We just created a cvs file of all users and shared it via GoogleDocs where it could be downloaded and imported by individuals who wanted it.
There is ALWAYS a work around!
All the best,
Doug
No sort feature because this is Google's Email, the Grand Poo-Bah of Search Engine's email program. You are not supposed to sort, you just search for what you remember, or by the person's name.
(Yeah, would still be useful to have a sort, but I'm surprised by how rarely I need it with such a powerful search engine to extract the most likely relevant letters.
Hi Susan,
I agree that this is a mindshift for lots of folks. I am struggling with it myself as a dedicated folders kind of guy.
I wish Google searched the trash automatically instead of asking the user to click a small link to find the items in the trash at the bottom of the search screen.
All the best,
Doug
Wow! A school using google docs and gmail. I was shown your blog by a co-worker, we shared documents using google docs; it was so easy for us to work on the same document, see updates immediately......hang in there!
Hi Rich,
So far, so good. I'll keep folks posted on our progress via the Blue Skunk. I believe we will see an increasing number of schools moving in this direction once early adopters have taken their lumps!
All the best and thanks for the comment,
Doug