Tag Archives: the cloud

How To Access Google Apps Offline

Access Gmail, Google Calendar and Google Docs, even when you’re offline. It’s easy with Google Chrome.

It’s a question we face every time we set a new client up with Google Apps: what if I’m offline? Will I still be able to access everything?

That answer: absolutely. With Google’s new offline access you can read and write emails offline, and have read-only access to your calendars and documents.

Best of all: it’s easy to set up. Here’s how, in three simple steps.

Step 1: Install Chrome

Do you have Google’s Chrome on your computer? If not, download Chrome now. Whether you’re a Windows, Mac or Linux user doesn’t matter, because all three platforms are supported.

Sorry: offline access doesn’t work with Internet Explorer, Firefox or any other browser.

Step 2: Install The Apps

Got Chrome installed? Good. Now you need to install the apps for the services you want to install. Here are the links:

Gmail Offline
Google Calendar Offline
Google Docs Offline

Install the apps and you’ll see the above icons every time you open a “new tab.”

Step 3: Enable Syncing

Got the apps installed for the services you want to use offline? Let’s get syncing set up, then.

Gmail is easy: just lauch your new “Google Mail Offline” app and you’ll be asked for your username and password. Enter it and Chrome will start syncing.

Gmail’s offline interface is similar to its tablet interface:

You’ll be able to read all your email offline and compose new emails. For obvious reasons, any mail you send won’t actually be sent until you re-connect to the Internet.

Google Calendar and Google Docs are also easy to set up: just click the gear in the top-right corner, then click “Offline.” You’ll be prompted to enable syncing.

Google Docs offline doesn’t let you edit documents, but it does let you read your documents:

You can also browse your entire calendar offline. It will look just the way you’re used to, but it will not be possible to edit anything.

Conclusion

There you have it: access to your Google world, online or off. It’s good to know you can access your information even when the Internet isn’t available.

Have questions about Google Apps, or anything Google related? Can’t get the offline access working the way described here? Please contact us or visit us at 1825 Pearl Street in downtown Boulder. We’d love to answer your questions.

Google Apps Gets Even Better

We have been implementing Google Apps as an online collaboration solution for almost 2 years now. It allows companies and organizations of all sizes to access their business email in the Gmail interface, collaborate on documents and spreadsheets in Google Docs, share calendars with Google Calendar and create internal or external web sites with Google Sites. Emails are sent from [email protected] and not a gmail address. While this platform is very powerful for business, Google Apps users have not been able to access the many other tools that Google offers such as Google Places, Picasa, Blogger and YouTube.

This has changed. As of November, Google has allowed Google Apps users to access most of its tools by logging in with their Google Apps user name and password. At this point, they are in ‘early adopter’ phase and the featured need to be enabled in the management section of the domain. This is particularly important when considering the number of Google tools that can be integrated as part of a business suite of communication services. For example, Google Maps allows businesses the ability to create a listing for their business to allow potential customers to find its location. In the past, in order to create this account, users needed to log in with a gmail account.

Here’s the problem:

Let’s say that an employee sets up the local listing on Google Maps with his gmail account as the log in. That employee decides to flee the country due to political persecution (hey, it can happen). When the owner of the company tries to make a change to the business hours listed on Google Maps, he cannot access the account. That’s a problem.

The solution:

The employee sets up the local listing by using the company’s [email protected] email account. When he flees the political persecution, there are no issues for the owner to clean up. That’s good business

Apply this example to any number of the Google tools available to business (Google Voice, Adwords, Checkout, Analytics, etc.), and you can understand why this recent change is a big deal. Google currently has 30 million users and 3 million businesses in its Google Apps suite. Having only launched in 2006, that is impressive growth.

In addition to growing the tools available for its users, the Google Apps team also can be proud of the Google Apps Marketplace. This marketplace works in a similar manner to the App Store started by Apple. Google has made its API available for software developers all over the world to create amazing tools that integrate with the Google Apps suite. This means your accounting system can automatically put a reminder on your Google Calendar that an invoice is due. It means that your CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system can be embedded in your email interface for easy addition of contacts and action items relating to relationship management such as a follow-up call. This event would then be added to your calendar. Now that’s efficient.

We have played with Solve 360 recently and loved the functionality. It’s got a seamlessly integrated section under the email message box that allows a wide range of actions to be implemented. This means we can add company info to their contact, share the contact with a sales team, categorize them as a revenue source or tag assignments to staff related to that contact. Really amazing stuff.

Cloud Computing Reduces Carbon Footprint

We love cloud computing. There are so many ways that cloud computing improves a business. Businesses can expect to lower their power usage when not hosting their own server environment. There is also the cost saving associated with not purchasing or leasing server hardware. Servers do not take care of themselves, so businesses get the added benefit of lower IT admin costs. For now, we’ll focus on the environmental sustainability aspect of cloud computing.

We wish there were more studies on this topic. That being said, we are thankful that Accenture, Microsoft and WSP Environment and Energy have done a study on the environmental benefits of utilizing cloud computing in a business environment. The study is focused specifically on the benefits of utilizing Microsoft Cloud Computing systems (Sharepoint, Exchange and Dynamics CRM). While this study may focus on these products, the results could easily be applied to other cloud solutions such as Google Apps, cloud CRM solutions and Dropbox file sharing.

At iSupportU, we always try to find ways to use technology in a more sustainable manner without compromising efficiency. The great thing about cloud computing is that there are gains in both efficiency and sustainability. After implementing Google Apps as a solution in a business, their total IT costs drop, their power consumption drops and their efficiency increases. This means benefits in the bottom line for these businesses. That excites us.

For more information on the benefits of Google Apps, check out our blog post, “10 Reasons Why Google Apps is the Perfect Solution for Your Business“.

To read the Cloud Computing study in its entirety, just download it here Cloud Computing and Sustainability – Whitepaper – Nov 2010.

10 Reasons Why Google Apps is the Perfect Solution for Your Business

Three years ago, if a business wanted to have a central location for email hosting, calendar sharing and document collaboration, they needed to invest in a server. So you might ask… why should I get onto the cloud? Let me count the ways:

A company of 10 users would save about $30,000 a year by using Google Apps to host their email, calendars and documents
The average employee will be 2.8 times more productive while using mobile computing solutions
Email mailboxes in the Google Apps Premier platform have 50 times the average storage space of other email hosts
Each employee will gain an additional 278 hours of work time each year by dealing with less spam
It takes 10 hours per year on average to update and add patches to mail servers… get that time back
With a 99.9% uptime for a company’s email, calendar, contacts and documents, Google Apps helps add 270 hours of productivity to a company of 10 users (the number grows with larger companies who must deal with downtime of servers)
People loose laptops… they also get stolen… that means lost data and compromise to a company’s security; when you’re on the cloud, the data is safe from thieves (companies will spend $10,000-$30,000 recovering lost data)
With a 10% failure rate per year, hard drives will always fail; this will cost a 10 employee an average of $1,500 per year on data recover; keep your money for other expenses and keep it on the cloud
With Google Apps, new features just show up; no installing, no restarting, no paying for the new software and no compatibility issues
Because Google Apps runs in a web browser, your company can easily keep a mix of Macs, PCs and even Linux computer in house with no compatibility issues

If this all makes sense to you, let us know. iSupportU has done dozens of implementations for businesses from 1 to 100 users. If your company does not have an IT department, this is the perfect way to decrease outsourced IT costs. If your company does have an IT department, this allows them to focus on the many other ways to improve the efficiency of the company’s IT systems without having to worry about email, calendars, contact and document sharing.

For more information on how to get your company on the cloud, give us a call. We’ll take a look at your current IT situation, develop a strategy designed specifically for your company and work to implement that strategy within clearly defined time lines.

Manage company voicemails with Google Apps

If your business is anything like ours, voicemail matters. We’d love to answer every phone call, but sometimes people call during off hours or while we’re on the phone with someone else.

Traditional voicemail systems suck, however. Using the phone to access an inbox is a terrible form of human-machine interaction, especially if you’re used to the quickness of email. I don’t want to “press 1 to hear new messages”; I want the messages to appear in front of me.

Enter Google Voice. This amazing web app, part of the Google Apps suite of online software, manages our voicemail for us on the web. Every message left is transcribed for quick reading, then emailed to every member of our staff.

Because a message left hanging can quickly turn a current customer into a past customer, it’s essential that someone on our team get back to every voicemail left as quickly as possible. But once that team member calls back, how do the other members know not to call back themselves?

Simple: we respond to the voicemails to reach quickly everyone in the company. Sometimes we’ll summarize the conversation, sometimes we’ll request someone else call the individual and sometimes we’ll simply say the conversation’s happened and all is well. The point is the entire the team, wherever in town their bikes may have taken them, knows what’s going on.

Sound complicated? It isn’t. We can set this up for your business, and even train your staff to use it properly. Give us a call or contact us for more information. Google Voice is just one part of a suite of software that will change the way you do business, for the better.