Does anyone have experience using Gmail for their small business?
February 18, 2010 10:03 AM Subscribe
Does anyone have experience using Gmail for their small business?
I am thinking about switching my company's email to gmail, because of problems we're having with our current provider.
We have a domain from godaddy.com (I searched for registration, found it's registered to our company, but the admin contact is at a boutique computer firm), and looking at google's information, I should be able to just sign up, etc.
Couple of things: we're a nonprofit 503(c)6 company (so I don't know if that qualifies for google's "non profits" which are listed as 503(c)3's.
Many people at the office are very basic computer users; can I hook up the email with Outlook so that their front-end stays the same?
Any other lessons learned, etc? I want to keep the user-experience as close to the same as I can, but decrease the 45 minute lag time between sending/receiving interoffice emails, etc.
I am thinking about switching my company's email to gmail, because of problems we're having with our current provider.
We have a domain from godaddy.com (I searched for registration, found it's registered to our company, but the admin contact is at a boutique computer firm), and looking at google's information, I should be able to just sign up, etc.
Couple of things: we're a nonprofit 503(c)6 company (so I don't know if that qualifies for google's "non profits" which are listed as 503(c)3's.
Many people at the office are very basic computer users; can I hook up the email with Outlook so that their front-end stays the same?
Any other lessons learned, etc? I want to keep the user-experience as close to the same as I can, but decrease the 45 minute lag time between sending/receiving interoffice emails, etc.
We use Google apps (the free version) for our small business. It is fantastic.
We ditched outlook completely and just use the Gmail web interface. I highly recommend this, as the Gmail interface and searchability are really easy for basic computer users to grok.
The big pros are:
posted by generichuman at 11:01 AM on February 18, 2010
We ditched outlook completely and just use the Gmail web interface. I highly recommend this, as the Gmail interface and searchability are really easy for basic computer users to grok.
The big pros are:
- All the searchable love that is the gmail interface
- Simple shared calendars
- iPhone & Blackberry integration
- Free as in beer, for now
- Vague discomfort with all of our business email being dependent on a free service that we don't own
- Ads on our mail pages on the web interface
posted by generichuman at 11:01 AM on February 18, 2010
The law firm my girlfriend used to work at used Gmail. There are of course disadvantages, but it's worth retraining the basic email people on Gmail rather than Outlook I think. It's very simple to use, and behaviors they could learn like archiving rather than deleting, can save lots of headaches in the future. The search features and tagging features are simple to use and work exceptionally well. Also being able to check their email from any computer doesn't hurt.
posted by haveanicesummer at 11:18 AM on February 18, 2010
posted by haveanicesummer at 11:18 AM on February 18, 2010
I've been using Gmail for my startup for the last year and I love it. Google Apps standard is free (up to 50 users). We have mail, calendar, intranet and the suite of office apps (though we really use MS Office). Integration with my blackberry is seamless (Google Sync on the BB keeps calendar & contact database sync'd and RIM's Blackberry Internet Service pushes email to my BB is the usual BB way). The other founders have an iPhone & a Palm Treo which both work fine. With the Google Gears add on for Firefox (or using the chrome browser) you have offline access to your email. Its pretty reliably, we've had a couple of outages in about a year, the worse lasted a couple of hours. But that's OK compared to maintaining our own exchange server.
posted by Long Way To Go at 11:59 AM on February 18, 2010
posted by Long Way To Go at 11:59 AM on February 18, 2010
There is indeed a non-profit discount on Google Apps - it is the same as the educational discount.
You can configure Google Apps to work with IMAP, which I think Outlook supports, but I agree with others that you might want to just ditch Outlook entirely. The seamless integration between Gmail/Gcal/GDocs is great.
The only advantage to using Outlook is if you have users who have laptops who are traveling and need access to email when they're not connected to a network, and of course the lack of retraining.
posted by kenliu at 12:30 PM on February 18, 2010
You can configure Google Apps to work with IMAP, which I think Outlook supports, but I agree with others that you might want to just ditch Outlook entirely. The seamless integration between Gmail/Gcal/GDocs is great.
The only advantage to using Outlook is if you have users who have laptops who are traveling and need access to email when they're not connected to a network, and of course the lack of retraining.
posted by kenliu at 12:30 PM on February 18, 2010
Like everyone else said, Google Apps for your domain is great. Use the free version on a lot of domains, and the only issue I've run into is getting it working nicely with Exchange - ended up just not using it in the end.
The majority of the clients I have using it are using it with Outlook and Outlook Express - but I'd agree with everyone else that using the Gmail interface is a better way to go. I finally convinced my mom to start using the web interface too, as I was tired of dealing with her Outlook issues.
The admin for Google Apps tells you how to setup your dns for your domain to work with GoDaddy (and other providers). Here are the instructions for Godaddy:
posted by backwards guitar at 12:31 PM on February 18, 2010
The majority of the clients I have using it are using it with Outlook and Outlook Express - but I'd agree with everyone else that using the Gmail interface is a better way to go. I finally convinced my mom to start using the web interface too, as I was tired of dealing with her Outlook issues.
The admin for Google Apps tells you how to setup your dns for your domain to work with GoDaddy (and other providers). Here are the instructions for Godaddy:
posted by backwards guitar at 12:31 PM on February 18, 2010
Using it here, and loving it. The only drawback is that the calendar sharing is ... a bit funky. It's harder to configure sharing and group calendars than it is with Exchange, but overall it's a don't-look-back win.
posted by bonaldi at 12:58 PM on February 18, 2010
posted by bonaldi at 12:58 PM on February 18, 2010
I supervised our switch to Google Apps and it was extraordinarily simple and hassle-free. A couple notes and highlights:
- Using Google Email Uploader, we had about 30 users' mailboxes imported from Outlook in less than a day. Just for your own peace of mind, though, I recommend that you get a backup of your Exchange data from your Exchange host.
- Google has great documentation and start-up guides, but they can be a little tough to find. I recommend these Gmail training videos as a good starting place.
- Almost everybody liked Gmail Notifier -- it sits on your desktop and lets you know if you have unread messages, and it can make Gmail your default mail program.
About retraining people to use Gmail instead of Outlook: it's totally worth it. In fact, it will make your life easier. I've got some users who have very, very, very basic level of computer skill, and they love Gmail. I get many fewer support calls from them and they seem much happier with the whole experience. Actually, the folks who had the hardest time with the transition were the advanced users -- those who had a couple hundred folders and subfolders and custom rules and search folders already set up in Outlook. They needed some extra help to adapt their workflow to Gmail (and now they actually like it better -- it just took a couple of months). Some tips I gave them that seemed to help:
- Labels are (basically) just like folders. You can drag and drop messages directly into your "folders" just like before.
- Shorten your label names so you can read them at a glance. At the bottom of your list of labels, click the “Edit labels” link. Click “Rename” next to each label and shorten it so that you can see it in the label list.
- Use the “Move To” button. This will move a message out of the Inbox and into a Label. Using “Move To” will make your labels work exactly like folders.
- Set up Filters. Filters are like Rules in Outlook. You can use them to automatically move specific types of messages out of your Inbox and into a Label. Here’s a tutorial video that will show you how to set up a filter.
Good luck! Hope this helps!
posted by ourobouros at 1:58 PM on February 18, 2010
- Using Google Email Uploader, we had about 30 users' mailboxes imported from Outlook in less than a day. Just for your own peace of mind, though, I recommend that you get a backup of your Exchange data from your Exchange host.
- Google has great documentation and start-up guides, but they can be a little tough to find. I recommend these Gmail training videos as a good starting place.
- Almost everybody liked Gmail Notifier -- it sits on your desktop and lets you know if you have unread messages, and it can make Gmail your default mail program.
About retraining people to use Gmail instead of Outlook: it's totally worth it. In fact, it will make your life easier. I've got some users who have very, very, very basic level of computer skill, and they love Gmail. I get many fewer support calls from them and they seem much happier with the whole experience. Actually, the folks who had the hardest time with the transition were the advanced users -- those who had a couple hundred folders and subfolders and custom rules and search folders already set up in Outlook. They needed some extra help to adapt their workflow to Gmail (and now they actually like it better -- it just took a couple of months). Some tips I gave them that seemed to help:
- Labels are (basically) just like folders. You can drag and drop messages directly into your "folders" just like before.
- Shorten your label names so you can read them at a glance. At the bottom of your list of labels, click the “Edit labels” link. Click “Rename” next to each label and shorten it so that you can see it in the label list.
- Use the “Move To” button. This will move a message out of the Inbox and into a Label. Using “Move To” will make your labels work exactly like folders.
- Set up Filters. Filters are like Rules in Outlook. You can use them to automatically move specific types of messages out of your Inbox and into a Label. Here’s a tutorial video that will show you how to set up a filter.
Good luck! Hope this helps!
posted by ourobouros at 1:58 PM on February 18, 2010
We use gmail, google documents and google calendar at the small property management company I work for and I think it works very well for us. I have used the chat function to talk to prospective tenants too.
posted by Melsky at 2:39 PM on February 18, 2010
posted by Melsky at 2:39 PM on February 18, 2010
I run Google Apps for my own personal domain, and if I were setting up a small business, I would most definitely run it with Google Apps. It's (almost) never down, you don't have to perform maintenance on it or manage servers, you can access it from anywhere, and it's very easy to manage and configure users and groups. It's almost shocking they give it away for free.
posted by joshrholloway at 6:33 PM on February 18, 2010
posted by joshrholloway at 6:33 PM on February 18, 2010
Be careful about dumping outlook. There are a lot of things it does very well which gmail doesn't support - especially around booking meetings, tasks, follow up flags and simple email management (for example, I work on a clear inbox policy which doesn't translate well to googles labels).
Also if you don't have a net connection for whatever reason (including travelling) then you're out of luck.
Suggest that you let those that want to stay with outlook do so if they are more productive. Google apps has exchange server support so you just need to point their clients to there.
posted by mr_silver at 11:29 PM on February 18, 2010
Also if you don't have a net connection for whatever reason (including travelling) then you're out of luck.
Suggest that you let those that want to stay with outlook do so if they are more productive. Google apps has exchange server support so you just need to point their clients to there.
posted by mr_silver at 11:29 PM on February 18, 2010
This thread is closed to new comments.
Also agree with ditching Outlook, although you can get them to work together without a problem: Gmail supports both POP and IMAP. And of course, you can use whatever mail client you want and the web interface concurrently.
posted by adamrice at 10:48 AM on February 18, 2010