Currently, this page is just a random assortment of thoughts --
hopefully I'll get it organized before it outlives its usefulness...
Email Availability
- In the past, if Palatine's T1 line went down, email was out for
everyone in all offices until the local phone company fixed it (this
has taken more than 24 hours on more than one occasion). Now,
even if the T1 line goes down, even Palatine users will be able to
continue using email via the ComCast cable backup, over their smart
phones, from home, etc...
- The old system was on an old Mac G4... If the hard
drive died, I'd be able to recover the server within about 2 hours but
only to the previous evening's backup.
- I'd been getting some reports of our old system not being available
in some more obscure locations (even the web interface was unreachable).
- Smart Phones - Google gives us a number of connection options for
smart phones including BlackBerry support (whereas our old system was
somewhat difficult & really only gave us the most basic options)
Email Interface
The old interface was pretty horrible & tended to time out
(just in time to kill your connection & erase your work before
you could send that email you'd been typing for 20 minutes!)
Email Security
The way google handles security for email is better than our old system
Greenleaf v Sites/Wiki
Sure the greenleaf is great - but it relies on people to learn a
lot of HTML or Dreamweaver even if they want to do some very basic
editing - anyone that can use a mouse can create a page in the Google
system - it's a huge savings in time & cost... Also,
the Greenleaf is out of commission if our T1 in Palatine goes down --
or if we lose power -- or any number of other events.
Calendar
I've had a number of requests for calendar functionality from
various people. Going with Google gives us a great system and it
means we don't need to buy yet another server & software system.
Documents
We were stumbling into using Google docs with the use of the Field
Schedule - however, this relied on each person to create thier own
Google personal account (which Clean Air didn't have any real control
over). Going with the Google corporate system centralizes this so
any new employee automatically has access... and if someone
leaves CleanAir, they'll automatically lose access.
Chat
Rentals uses chat already with the Houston office - again, that
was a pretty hodge podge approach with each person needing to set up
thier own personal accounts - now it's automatically available for all
employees.
_displayNameOrEmail_ - _time_ - Remove
_text_