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Back in February we announced a contest challenging our customers to show us their Google Search Appliances and share a picture of where their yellow GSA boxes fit into their organizations. The prize? Tickets to the upcoming upcoming Google IO conference, to be held in San Francisco on May 27-28. We had some great entries – but when we saw this picture, from the Web Dev team at Atlanta'sWellStar Health System, we knew we had a winner.



WellStar's GSA keeps "operations" running smoothly

Congrats to Rob and the Web team at WellStar in Atlanta, Georgia. Here's their story:

Before GSA: With five premier hospitals in the Northwest suburbs of Atlanta, 11,000 employees and the largest nonacademic Physicians Group in the State,WellStar Health System has become one of the biggest not-for-profit health care systems in the Southeast. As WellStar grew, it became increasingly difficult for folks to find our stuff. WellStar’s intranet houses a physician portal containing content from over 70 different clinical sites – along with unique portals for 60+ supporting enterprise departments – andeveryone's generic material permeated our content management systems (CMS ). Employee and patient volumes intensified, organically creating a nightmare of a file library, and it seemed that our system needed 20CCs of Findability Stat! The challenge was to efficiently serve everyone at once while minimizing the impact on our own busy environment.

After GSA: Our previous intranet search limited employees to each of our internal .Net portals, meaning employees would have to be sifting through the right haystack to find a specific needle, which gave them a whopping 1.4% chance of starting in the right place. This all changed with the GSA. The GSA crawls from a central location and provides a single URL to hit when employees need fast results. Its active replacement of cached, dead-end links diminishes wasted search time, and the “Text Only” document display feature is an essential business asset for clinical employees without specific readers.

After purchasing the GSA and performing a minimal setup, our team found that the appliance was pulling several hundred rabbits out of its hat every eight hours. It was finding the one-of-a-kind policy, form, safety, and class information details from long forgotten documents – all without requiring someone to organize the material. Thin-air content was rediscovered, removed, and replaced with current information, and incoming help calls starting with “Where do I find…” have been eliminated.

We had a few other standouts. Here's one.



Two GSAs were all it took to change the "State" of search

Meet Chris with the State of Missouri in Jefferson City, Missouri.

Before GSA: The State of Missouri is made up of 16 executive agencies and various other non-executive agencies, boards and commissions. Prior to the purchasing the GSA, the state was simply a collection of data silos that provided no unified search for our citizens or the companies who wanted to do business with us. The bottom line: it was difficult (at best) for tax-paying citizens or businesses to find the information that they needed on the various State of Missouri web sites.

After GSA: After implementing the GSA as a centrally-managed device, we made search available to all of our executive agencies as well as to our other agencies, boards, and commissions. The GSA allowed us to index all the relevant information from across all of these entities and provide a unified search option to our citizens. The flexibility of the device also allowed each of the agencies to integrate the search onto their unique agency site and further refine the search capabilities they offered to their taxpaying customers. Not only have the search capabilities greatly increased, from the citizen’s perspective, the data silos are no longer there and results across each agency are much more relevant.

From all of us at Google: thanks, WellStar and State of Missouri.
In the next few weeks we will be releasing their full case studies and if you are interested in knowing how other customers are using their GSAs we have more success stories here. Thanks for your participation and don't forget to register for I/O. Congrats again to the winners!

Posted by Dave Kim, Google Enterprise search team
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Recent commentary on channel growth around cloud computing and the emerging business scenarios for trusted IT advisors are good examples of the growing momentum around the ecosystem of channel partners like consultants, resellers and developers pursuing new models for doing business in the cloud. We're excited to share details of what we're seeing and are we're pleased to offer two ways to learn more about the benefits of cloud computing.

For solutions providers, developers, and resellers. Co-hosted by Google and salesforce.com, this live discussion is aimed at helping channel partners understand the business change that cloud computing drives, and how to build the services that help customers benefit from these changes. Participants can expect to gain a fuller understanding of what cloud computing is, how it transforms the way that organizations think about IT, and how to make the most of the opportunity "in the cloud" for business growth and development.

Partner with Google and Salesforce.com

Wednesday, April 29
10:00 a.m. PDT / 1:00 p.m. EDT

For organizations thinking of moving to a cloud platform for business productivity. We're participating with Daston Corporation, a Google Apps Authorized Reseller, to showcase Google Apps, Google's enterprise-ready communication and collaboration tools. This live webinar will feature an overview of Google Apps, and how the expertise of resellers like Daston can help organizations make the transition from traditional platforms to IT in the cloud.

Google Apps – a new way of communicating and collaborating
Wednesday, May 6
11:00 a.m. PDT / 2:00 p.m. EDT

Posted by Maureen Bradford, Google Partner team
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Listening to Google Apps admins talk – with us and with each other – made it clear: as IT professionals, admins wanted a way to connect online somewhere in the Google environment. We heard a clear call for a gathering place, or community – a meeting point where admins could meet one another, identify each other by business type or geography, discuss topics unique to their roles, and share learning and best practices in a way that helped in their professional roles.
We wanted to make the site relevant and easy for admins to use, and we also wanted to use Google Apps as fully as we could. So we used Google Sites, of course, and integrated the Google products that most admins already use, like Google Maps, Moderator, and Forms. A few highlights:
  • The Admin community map – allows admins to easily see where their fellow community members are located; also highlights further information with a "click" on the marker.


  • "Share your perspective " – uses Google Moderator to let admins easily add their own comments to posted topics, or vote on comments added by others. We've set this up to feature four topics at a time, so there's always something to talk about.
  • "Stay Current " – the latest product information and posts to the Admin Help forum, so that Admins can see what's being discussed in Support
We want this forum to create a sense of connectedness and community among the people who work as admins for Google Apps – a place where they can learn from each other, share what they've learned, and create a dialog that can help all of us learn. We also want it to be a place where people considering Google Apps can come in and find out more about what it offers, so we made this an "open" environment, where people can easily invite colleagues who might want to know more. There's even a way to send an email right from the forum itself.

The Google Apps team hopes that this community adds value for admins, and we hope you'll take a look today.

Posted by Monali Narayanaswami, Google Apps team

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We often speak with customers who ask, "What can Google Apps do for my business?" We have a list of answers – communications tools including Gmail and Google Calendar, collaboration apps like Google Sites and Docs, and security tools by Postini – and we like to get those answers out wherever we can.

That's why we're inviting people in California's San Francisco Bay Area and Mountain View (to start) to a business roundtable reviewing Google Apps and sharing how businesses (including Google) use them to drive innovation and streamline IT. In the tradition of Google's internal "Tech Talks," this will be open forum for discussing insights and lessons learned from using Google Apps and getting the full benefits of this multi-purpose business "tool kit."

By the end of this event, you will have answers to these questions:
  • What is Google Apps?
  • How can Google Apps cut costs and create efficiencies – in other words, save money, time and headaches?
  • How can Google Apps help businesses drive innovation?
  • How are other businesses using Google Apps?
  • Does Google Apps meet my business's technical expectations?
We're offering these roundtables twice, with limitied participation – so if you're in the area and want to attend, please register here with this form created in Google Docs.

San Francisco
  • Tuesday, April 7
  • 9:00 AM - 11:00 AM
  • Google SF Campus (we will contact confirmed participants with details and exact location)
Mountain View
  • Wednesday, April 8
  • 9:00 AM - 11:00 AM
  • Google Mountain View Campus (we will contact confirmed participants with details and exact location)
We look forward to meeting with you and providing you with the information you need to move your business forward with the help of Google Apps.

Get timely updates on new features in Google Apps by subscribing to our RSS feed or email alerts.


Posted by Jenya Denissova and Jeff Austin, Google Apps and Postini Team
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Editor's Note: We are pleased to welcome Michael Cohn, CEO of Cloud Sherpas, as a guest blogger. Cloud Sherpas recently helped TechCFO, a Google Apps customer, build 3 types of Google Sites - a knowledge base, a customer workspace for collaboration, and a company intranet. For this project, Cloud Sherpas developed the Google Sites Bulk File Uploader and worked out a transition plan to meet TechCFO's collaboration needs, while planning for mail migration down the road. Along with TechCFO's Neal Miller, Michael will speak at a webinar – "How Google Apps Can Unlock Information, Increase Innovation, and Streamline IT, " next Thursday, March 26.

As a Google Apps Authorized Reseller and enterprise deployment partner, most of Cloud Sherpas' work focuses on helping clients migrate legacy enterprise messaging environments – Lotus Notes, Microsoft Exchange, Novell GroupWise, and others – to Google Apps. These migrations can take a long time depending upon the number of users, amount of data to be migrated and complexity of the legacy systems.

When Neal Miller, a Partner at TechCFO, came to one of our Google Apps demos, he had a more pressing problem to address: how to help the firm's partners located across the country more easily share their expertise as CFOs to benefit all of their clients. This problem was concerning to them since the company's prime asset is the partners' financial knowledge – unlocking its potential would pay dividends to TechCFO. TechCFO's solution at the time was to upload documents to the public folders in their hosted Exchange server – but it was really difficult to search for information. The partners needed something that was simpler to search, simpler to access and provided better performance. Google Sites provided us with the tool to address their needs. Additionally, we developed the Google Sites Bulk File Uploader to help manage the migration of 100's of documents into a unique nested Google Site format.
Google Sites has proven to be a tool that TechCFO can use for multiple purposes. Since the firm needs to share information and collaborate on financial strategy and planning with its clients, we also created Sites they could easily use with people outside their firewall. Each client Site provides a secure "workspace" that is only shared with that client since they may post financial models or legal documents to it. We also built TechCFO a company intranet to share HR information, announcements of new team members and other company news.

Working with TechCFO opened my eyes to another way that companies interested in Google Apps can get started – through Google's collaboration apps. Using Google Sites, TechCFO saved thousands of dollars over other collaboration options – and the firm will save even more when it moves over other applications such as Gmail and Google Calendar. Google Apps has opened up a mountain of possibilities – though sometimes you need the help of a Sherpa to get you to the top.
I invite you to join us on an online seminar exploring "How Google Apps Can Unlock Information, Increase Innovation, and Streamline IT, " where Neal and I will be on hand to show you examples of what we built, and how we did so. We'll also be happy to answer your questions online.

How Google Apps Can Unlock Information, Increase Innovation, and Streamline IT
Thursday, March 26, 2009
1:00 PM ET / 10:00 AM PT / 5:00 PM GMT
Register here.
Michael Cohn, CEO of Cloud Sherpas

Cloud Sherpas (www.CloudSherpas.com) is a cloud computing systems integrator and application developer. As a leading Google Enterprise partner, Cloud Sherpas helps organizations leverage Google Apps and Google App Engine to dramatically reduce IT expenses. The company delivers deployment, change management, support and development services to commercial, enterprise and educational institutions seeking to adopt cloud computing. Cloud Sherpas is a Google Apps Authorized Reseller and enterprise deployment partner. The company also supports cloud computing solutions from EMC/Decho, TriCipher and other best-in-breed vendors.

Posted by Serena Satyasai, Google Apps Team
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Google Enterprise is now talking on twitter under the name GoogleAtWork. GoogleAtWork will share information on product updates, webinars, things happening with customers, media coverage for things that we offer or do, and other news. We're also using twitter to listen to things that people are saying about us and the organizations we want to serve.

The conversation is just getting started, and we're excited to already have a growing crowd of followers. We're sharing a picture of them here:

Thanks to TwitterSheep for this cool illustration, displaying the self-proclaimed attributes in the profiles of our followers.

"Twitter?," some may ask. It's the 140-character "microblogging" site that's gained a huge fan base for both individuals and organizations – and we're glad to be joining the ranks. We think it will be a great community and home for the Google Enterprise team, and we hope that you'll follow us there. Here's how:

If you're already using Twitter, simply click here and choose "follow". If you're not using Twitter yet, sign up here – it's easy, and free – and then "follow" GoogleAtWork.

This blog won't change at all based on our use of twitter – except in one way: you can now see a stream of our twitter conversation on the right margin of this page (you may have to scroll down a bit).

If you have ideas or suggestions about how you'd like to see us use twitter, add them here – or better yet, follow us and enjoy the new voice of GoogleAtWork .

Posted by Ellen Petry Leanse, Google Enterprise Team

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We made a commitment last year to increase transparency and communication with Google Apps customers in several ways. We heard your feedback around the need for better communication when issues like yesterday's Gmail outage occur.

As part of that commitment, we're pleased to announce today the availability of the Google Apps Status Dashboard. Customers can use this Status Dashboard to check on the current service status of individual services such as Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Talk, Google Docs, Google Sites and Google Video for business. Administrators of Google Apps for their businesses, schools and organizations can also view the performance of the administrative control panel.

The Google Apps Status Dashboard represents an additional layer of transparency that we believe will be particularly useful for our business users, and it's also relevant to users of our consumer products. The Status Dashboard is the best place to check for information on service availability for Google Apps anywhere in the world. In my role on the sales team, I regularly talk with customers to make sure that they're getting the most out of Google Apps and I think that you will find this tool indispensable in managing your Google Apps deployment.

Additionally, here are other resources I often recommend to help account administrators get up and running quickly and smoothly and also to stay on top of new functionality:

Google Apps Help Center. Our Help Center for Google Apps admins can answer questions on "getting started" and also help you troubleshoot or find out the status about known issues. Topics include everything from email routing to data migration. We update the information in the Help Center regularly so it's a good starting point for any questions you encounter as you setup and manage your Google Apps account.

Google Apps Help Forum. In addition to our own online support resources (see below), we have a vibrant community of Google Apps administrators who are always willing to lend a helping hand. To read tips and get help from your peers, join this discussion board for IT admins. This forum is moderated by Google Apps Advisors and fueled by the knowledge of expert Power Posters. Recent questions answered in the Help Forum include ones on IMAP functionality and MX record settings.

Google Apps update alerts. Whenever we launch improvements to any of the apps or add new administrative capabilities – whether it's a minor user interface tweak or the release of major new functionality – we publish a summary with usage instructions and links where you can find more details. For example, we recently shared information on new capabilities for administrators to authorize who can upload videos to Google Video for business and instructions for setting password strength requirements. You can automatically get this information either as email alerts to your inbox, or you can subscribe to the RSS feed.

Google Apps Channel on YouTube Here you can find product tutorials and overviews, as well as video testimonials from Google Apps customers and recordings of Google Apps-related talks and webinars. We recently posted a tour of a corporate intranet built by one of our customers and created a Google Apps Learning Center playlist to educate end users on topics such as "Webmail vs. Desktop," "Archiving or Deleting" in Gmail, for example. Take a look at the videos we've created.

The Solutions Marketplace. If you know that Google Apps is right for you but need some extra help, visit the Solutions Marketplace to find details about products and services from vendors whose solutions integrate and extend Google Apps. You can find vendors to help you with setup and deployment, data migration, integration with existing IT systems, user training and more. You can see how vendors have been rated by other customers and also read about customer experiences with partners.

I hope that this information helps you get the most out of Google Apps. One of the great things about Google Apps is the community that has grown up around it, thanks to you!

Posted by Tessa Prescott, Google Apps Sales Team
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