Bringing Google Apps for You

Ontrack Systems continues to solidify its position as an authorized reseller of Google Apps. Helping you achieve excellence with your Google Apps implementations at a lower cost with better user adoption, Ontrack Systems have created dozens of technical assets and intellectual property through these experiences. We work with optimal uptime, premium security, a wide range of collaboration capabilities and easy mobile access for users.

Compared to in-house or on-premise systems from Microsoft or Oracle, Google Apps could provide significant cost savings and that’s why many of the organizations moved to Google Apps. Moreover, these organizations are now moving beyond cost savings and enjoying the other benefits of Google’s cloud-based service.

SERVICES WE OFFER

All prices are minimums and may vary based on deployment time frames, total number of users, additional pre-configuration work, etc. Contact Ontrack Systems for a detailed quote.

While we're glad to provide you with your licenses and answer any common questions you may have, we'd really like to make sure you get the most out of Google Apps. To do that, we've put together a few packages to help get you up and trot as quickly as possible.

"Introductory" Package

Are you just starting or introductory phase of your business? The Starter package includes:

• Google Apps Domain creation
• DNS configuration for web addresses and mail delivery
• Initial user accounts’ provisioning
• Basic configuration of Google Apps domain
• Training for Google Apps administrator
• Telephone-based, go-live support.

"Migration" Package

Do you currently have an email system and want to make a change? Migration package includes all services in the introductory package, plus:

• Consultation on migration from existing systems
• Management of mail flow change
• Setup of Google Apps for Outlook Connector
• "Train the Trainer" session (in hours)
• Customized documentation on mobile device setup (BES for Google not included)
• Email based, go-live support.

"Professional" Package

For organizations with a large, enterprise infrastructure in place, Ontrack Systems will integrate Google Apps back-end systems into your existing back end systems, ensuring a seamless experience. The professional package includes all services in the migration package, plus:

• Advanced Postini configuration
• Set up synchronization with your Directory Services (i.e. Active Directory)
• Setup and training on Single Sign-On (SSO)
• Development of self-service orientation and training web site for users
• Configuration of mobile devices for connectivity to Google Apps (BES for Google not included)
• Phone based, go-live support

Add-On Services

• Google Apps Connector for Blackberry Enterprise Server setup

Google Apps Data Migration

Email/Calendar/Contact Migration -

Ontrack Systems will develop and execute a planned migration of some or all of your users' old email into Google Apps, ensuring that your users' import information stays with them in their new mailbox.

PST Uploads -

For users that have one or multiple PST files, Ontrack Systems can process the uploading of those emails as well. This will allow your organization to remove old PST archives from computers and file servers, consolidating email and saving on storage costs.

Shared Contact Migration -

Does your organization have a large number of shared contacts in your Global Address Book? Ontrack Systems can upload them into the Google Apps Shared Contact directory, so they continue to be available for all users.

Unsure which Google Apps solution is right for you? Ask any queries by filling out this form.

GOOGLE CALENDAR ENLIGHTENS EDUCATION 

Google’s online class calendar is the best way for teachers to take advantage of their web presence and achieve transparency between the classroom and their students’ learning outside the classroom. Students can check project requirements, homework assignments and test due dates at home. Teachers writing assignments on the board, forcing students to use their paper planners, are actually preparing their students for a world that no longer exists. If there are any work environments which still require that skill, be sure they will be out of business before these kids graduate. These hyper-scheduled students need the ability to manage their activities electronically.

On the teacher plane, the maintenance of a calendar is yet another cumbersome task, ready to suck time out of an already overtaxed schedule. Or is it?

A variety of methods teachers adopt to keep track of what they are doing. Some plan their class schedules on napkins, some use desk calendars, and others use picture perfect, graduate school template lesson plans. To eliminate the time drain, teachers need a tool to direct their plan to a calendar that can be used for both planning and announcing. Google calendar

presents the perfect solution to online class calendars.

Teachers handling five sections often have to duplicate events across five calendars. They don’t have the time to click between five different monthly calendars; they need to see all five class events in one month, toggling on and off each class. They need to copy events from one section to others with less than three clicks. They need to make the class calendar open to both students and parents. It would also help if the calendar could send e-mail reminders that take less than two clicks to activate.

• With just a click, copy and paste, teachers can throw some gobbledygook
  code into their website, and their class calendar appears on their page in the school’s website. Once the calendar is embedded, the teacher never has to worry about it. They can post and copy events or change dates with ease.
• Students, creating their own Google account, can “add” a teacher’s class calendar to their own. By putting the calendar on their customized iGoogle page, their class assignments are always right in front of them. Students athletes who know what they are doing can grab their team’s schedule from one of those school sports scheduling sites and put their games and practices right alongside their assignments.
• Teachers and students can invite guardians/people to circulate information about a particular event without sharing entire calendar with others. It also allows you to track the responses of the people you have invited. Whenever you make a change, your invitee will also be notified of that change in their calendar, email, or their selected mode of notification. In a way, Google Calendar makes it easy to coordinate meetings with others at your school – you can quickly view free/busy information for many people at once to find a time that works for everyone.
• Publish calendar as a webpage and make available to non-Google Calendar user.
  Easy to create new events, set up reminders (pop up, SMS, or email), set up repeating events and more. Share the calendar with read only access, or grant someone else the facility to edit your calendar too.
  
  For more info visit here

CLASSROOMS LEAD TO GOOGLE APPS

 

A Case Study on How schools are implementing Google Apps into real time classroom lessons

Assignment:  How to best deal with global health issues?

As the world faces global health problems such as epidemics or pandemics, involve your students in an authentic lesson to increase their understanding of health related issues and give them the tools to make informed decisions about their own health and the health of their schools and communities.

A Student Challenge: Contribute to your school and community's understanding of a health crisis.

Sources

• Access to computer and Internet 
• An individual Google Account or school Google Apps account with access to Google Sites and Google Docs 
• A Google Account with access to Google Maps, Google Reader, Google Trends. 
• Recorder for Podcasting 
• Video Camera 

Directions

Subject:  Type A/H1N1 (Swine Flu) 

Teacher facilitates a class discussion to assess current student information and knowledge on the topic of an outbreak. Brainstorm guiding questions with students. Create a collaborative Google Doc to add additional topics or questions that students bring up during the brainstorming session

Guiding Questions:

• What do we need to know about this outbreak? 
• How do we meet the challenge of obtaining factual and objective information about this outbreak? 
• What solutions can we put in place to help our school or community understand and deal with this health issue?

Team Up

Based on the brainstorming activity, divide students into teams. Each team will investigate a different content connection to the outbreak. Research teams can choose to find information in the following areas:

• Historic outbreaks and outcomes (history) 
• How are governments reacting (government) 
• News media reports and facts vs. rumors (language, current events) 
• Statistics tracking and mapping (mathematics, geography) 
• Cultural differences and world reaction (sociology, psychology, world language) 
• The scientific and medical knowledge (science)

Create a class Google Site where students will post their collected information and do their researches on daily or weekly basis, Students from each team follow the research of the other teams by accessing the Google Site and posting comments and questions. Their Google Site will be a repository of the information they gather and create.

Sample activities:

1. Team History

• Research historic outbreaks of flu or other diseases and create a time line of those events 
• Collect oral histories by creating podcasts of people who experienced historic outbreaks. Search for visual and oral history information at sites like Smithsonian. 
• Investigate past and present health issues 
• Create a collaborative Google map of historic outbreaks.

2. Team Government

• Research how world, national, state and local organizations are dealing with an outbreak. 
• Follow government social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter to analyze government communications on the outbreak. 
• Research video sites, such as YouTube, to find and analyze national or world government official communications.

3. Team News Media 

• Set up an RSS reader, such as Google Reader, to collect news from a variety of sources on the outbreak. Include national and international news reports. 
• Analyze the "panic factor".  Which news organizations or blogs are contributing to misinformation or panic about the issue? 
• How are local and national rumors spread? Students make a check list showing how to verify information on news sites and blogs. Students discuss how and why local rumors start and spread.

4. Team Stats & Maps 

• Research and analyze charts and map statistical data on an outbreak. 
• Use collaborative spreadsheets such as Google Spreadsheets to collect and compare statistics. 
• View map sites to analyze statistics. Compare and contrast statistical information such as standard flu outbreak. Present information in graph or map form.

5. Team Cultural and World Reaction

• Analyze cultures and health related statistics in specific countries.  World language students access information in language under study. 
• Compare and contrast health related statistics and other factors between the countries under study. 
• Access sites such as Gapminder to visualize data differences between countries. Analyze and share this information in chart form.

6. Team Science 

• Research and monitor sites such as the Centers for Disease Control. 
• Interview and podcast or video local physicians, school nurses and other local authorities on disease spread and science. 
• Access video science programming specific to the disease such as the KQED multimedia series QUEST for up-to-date scientific information. 
• Outline a plan for explaining the science of the disease and produce a podcast or video informational guide.

Evaluation

Each team will present, create and post their finding after the completion of their research. Students critique, correct and refine their information and research. 

Real time innovation and respond to the ever changing E-world.

Students with their already finished research work can inform and support the school’s health official in preparing for an emergency health situation that can be applied to their locale.

The easy, yet impressive, whole-class collaboration is allowing Schools to spice up lesson activities and create a more interactive learning environment.

Want to migrate? But no idea how? Relax…

We will help you migrating to Google Apps with complete set up and deployment process coupled with Training and Support.

Approach us. We are a Global Authorized Google Apps Reseller.

  

AMPLIFY “APP”TITUDE OF STUDENTS

Why can’t a 21st century classroom leverage Internet and cloud-based tools helping students learn and teachers teach in collaborative and inventive ways? Think about Students exercising Google Docs to work on group projects; classrooms exploiting Google Sites to show off their work; and teachers applying Forms in Google Docs for instant grading and Google Calendar for lesson planning. Google Apps Education Edition is building online communities for students, teachers and parents. More

Few common questions that might pop up into your mind about Google Apps Education Edition

What is Google Apps for Education?

A: Google is offering your school a hosted solution which includes Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Talk, Google Docs, Google Sites, Google Video for education.  

Why Google Apps?

A: Reasons to Choose Apps:

Mounting students’ engagement and thus saving teachers’ time.

Freeing up IT coordinators and staffs from a considerable amount of software support.

Educational reformation plus annual Cost reduction.

When it comes to information safety and security, rely upon Google.

Real time innovation and respond to the ever changing E-world.

Work on the same document at the same time from anywhere in the world.

No deployment headaches as it will be done by us.

How much is Google Apps for Education?

A: Google Apps for Education is free.

Will there be advertisements with Google Apps?

A: There are no advertisements used with Google Apps for Education.

However, if you have an account for only alumni at your schools, you are required to enable advertisements.

Gmail also offers web clips at the top of your inbox which show you news headlines, blog posts, RSS and Atom feeds, and relevant sponsored links. Each clip displays the source from which it was received, how long ago the clip was published, and a link to access the entire story or page containing the clip. You may want to create custom RSS feeds for your University.

How much storage do users get with Google Apps for Education?

A: Mail: Each user has 25 GB of storage.
     Docs: 512,000 characters, regardless of the number of pages or font size. Uploaded Document files    upto 1MB can be and converted to Google Docs format.
     Spreadsheets: 400,000 cells, with a maximum of 256 columns per sheet. Uploaded spreadsheet   files upto 20MB can be and converted to Google Docs format.
     Presentations: Up to 10MB -- about 200 slides.
     Other files: Files that you upload but don’t convert to Google Docs format take up to a total of 1GB.
     Video: 10GB free of charge.
     Sites:  Quota per domain: 25 Gb
                  Max attachment size: 20Mb
                  Sites per domain: unlimited
                  Pages per site: unlimited

 What is the uptime for the Google Apps services?

A:  At least 99.9% of the time, ensuring that users have access when they need it.

Can existing email data be migrated to Google Apps?

A: Yes, Google provide a range of email migration options to migrate from legacy emails to Google Apps.

How many accounts can I get with Google Apps? Do I have to delete inactive users?

A: Google Apps for Education allows you to keep practically limitless users (as long as you aren't generating spam). More user accounts can be requested via the control panel interface. In addition to that, you don’t have to delete inactive users.

How do I upgrade my account to Google Apps for Education?

Only K-12 or higher educational institution can qualify for the free Google Apps for Education

    Visit here to explore how Postini Services fine tune   Google Apps for Education.

Want to migrate? But no idea how? Relax…

We will help you migrating to Google Apps with complete set up and deployment process coupled with Training and Support.

Approach us. We are a Global Authorized Google Apps Reseller.

Google Apps over Microsoft Office 365

We compared both Google Apps and Microsoft Office 365 and we decided to go with Google’s Apps due to their simpler cost model, wider breadth of applications, and deeper experience at building applications for the cloud. Microsoft Office 365 did not seem as cohesive as the Google cloud offerings. More info

Pricing Plans
You will be confused looking at the pricing chart options and very difficult to determine where you fit in Microsoft’s plans. Google’s offering costs $50 per user per year. It’s simple and easy to understand.

Simplicity
In all Google products, simplicity means everything. It is easy to use, simple for employees to understand at first glimpse, and offers a range of solutions that make an employee’s life just a little easier.

System requirement 
The Microsoft Office 365 states the following system requirement "To get the full Office 365 experience, we recommend that customers meet our system prerequisites. Minimum requirements for Office 365 include Office 2007+, IE 7+, Windows XP SP3+" 

Is it Cloud computing? Don’t you think cloud computing is about platform independence. You can use any modern web browser as all the apps are stored in the cloud. 

But according to Microsoft Office 365 you have to buy Office 2007- 2010 for every computer and pay a subscription for every user. How can this be cloud computing!

Cost
Office 365 features pricing plan that charge companies’ per-user, per-month. Google, on the other hand, charges firms $50 per user per year or $5 per user per month for those who want more flexibility. Over the course of 12 months, Google’s solution should be far less costly than Microsoft’s.

Office Integration
Google Apps can support Office documents. If you want to edit Word or Excel document in Google Docs, you can do that. And if you want to export those files to Office-friendly extensions, you can. If users don’t need Excel’s power, but still want Office functionality, Google Apps is a good choice.

Calendar Works Well
There’s no telling how Office 365 will work as a scheduling solution until the service launches. But those who are using Google Apps know now that the company’s Calendar app is superb. It’s easily modifiable, it syncs across many different services, and it doesn’t have a big learning curve for employees to overcome. It’ll be hard for Microsoft to match Google’s Calendar app.

Collaboration Works Well
Google Apps features solid collaboration tools across the board. While employees are using Google Docs, for example, they can work together to edit documents, interpret, and perform other collaborative actions. Moreover, Google Sites allows for a workspace where users can share ideas with each other. Unlike Microsoft Sharepoint you don’t have to train staff to maintain and configure it.

Google Cloud Connect
Google’s cloud services allows for integration into Office. When you are using Google Cloud Connect, you can make changes to an Office document in Microsoft’s program offline, which are then automatically synced to the Google cloud. Even better, multiple people can make changes to a file, and all the revisions are intelligently synced so there’s no overlap. All prior revisions are all made available in the cloud. In essence, the feature allows companies to maintain the same services they have now, but take advantage of Google’s cloud.

Expectation
One of Google’s biggest advantages in the productivity-solutions space is the expectation IT decision-makers have for its service. When people start using it, they realize that Google is serious about taking Microsoft on. By achieving greater heights than expected, Google Apps puts pressure on Microsoft to deliver the same “wow” moment to IT decision-makers. And that might not be as easy as some think.

There’s one other aspect to Google Apps that has never been seen before: the fun factor. Google has a scheduled rollout of new features. Virtually every day you log in do check out what's new.

It’s time for you to relax and nurture innumerable functionality which will make your work process faster. We will help you migrating to Google Apps with complete set up and deployment process coupled with Training and Support.

Approach us. We are a Global Authorized Google Apps Reseller.