Hello,
First, I'd like to thank everyone for being patient. Joe, Michael, and I have been working hard to get the ball rolling with the email phase of this beta test. I was almost ready to kill the whole project. I've realized recently that in many regards, Google still has a long way to go versus our existing Microsoft infrastructure. However, there is still tremendous value in what they have to offer, as well as tremendous value in our exploration of the product. Google isn't going anywhere. And as they refine their services we'll have a firsthand sense of the latest and greatest.
As I mentioned when we started on this venture, this is a beta test. Unfortunately this is not an actual implementation, and there are some shortcomings because of this. More importantly there are some caveats you should be aware of due to the fact that we are running two email systems that do not have complete parity. However, I still encourage you to dig in, explore, and report back on what you like and don't like.
We have configured what is called "dual delivery." This means that when someone sends you an email, it will be delivered to both your Exchange inbox and your Google inbox. This way, if we revert back to Exchange you won't lose anything. In addition, we've begun migrating the contents of your inbox from Exchange to Google; however, the contents are being copied rather than moved, so everything stays in place in both systems.
Once the mail is delivered to Exchange and Google, they exist independently in each system. That means if you delete an item from your Google inbox it does not get deleted from your SRGmail inbox and vice versa. In addition, sent items are not synchronized. Sent items that you send from Google do not end up in your Exchange sent items and vice versa. This also applies to messages that you tag, label, or archive in either system.
Deleting an email from your Google inbox does not delete it http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.giffrom your Exchange mailbox or vice versa. While your Google inbox has a storage capacity of 25gb, your Outlook mailbox will still have a capacity of 250mb. Your Google inbox will have 100 times the capacity of your Outlook Inbox.
I recommend that you use your Google Inbox for storage and organization and regularly just delete your Outlook inbox. We can very easily get everything back into Outlook if necessary, maintaining the organization your create in Google. Here is a great overview of using Gmail:
http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=90877&topic=12925
While your Exchange calendar is synchronized with your Google calendar (using this calendar sync tool: http://www.google.com/support/calendar/bin/answer.py?answer=89955), resource calendars are not. I encourage you to explore the calendar interface for sending, receiving, and managing calendar data; however, do not create calendar events that require resources in Google calendar.
To enhance your Google experience, it is strongly recommended that you download either Google Talk (windows users) or Google Notifier (mac users). This will provide real-time notification for email, calendar, and chat.
Google Talk (Windows): http://www.google.com/talk/
Google Notifier (Windows): http://toolbar.google.com/gmail-helper/notifier_mac.html
Other Chat clients (These are multi protocol, so you can use your gchat account alongside other IM accounts like yahoo or aim):
Adium (Mac): http://www.adiumx.com/
Trillian: (Windows): http://www.download.com/Trillian/3000-2150_4-10047473.html?cdlPid=10844164
That's all for now! I will be scheduling a face-to-face meeting for the team in the next month to review progress and answer questions. Don't forget you can always post questions and comments to this blog! (http://srgmail.blogspot.com/)
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1 comment:
Thanks for the update, Matt, and for your diligence throughout this whole process. I'm glad Google isn't going anywhere...we'll just have to figure out how it best suits our needs (my hunch is storage, too!)
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