Posts tagged ‘Google Apps’

Google Apps wishlist: More finely tuned administrative controls

April 1st, 2009

In Google Apps there are users, and there are administrators… of everything.  A Google Apps administrator has the permission to change anything and everything about a domain’s settings.

Wish: Google would let organizations create administrators of just some things. 

As it stands,  organizations are unable to give administrative power in an a la carte manner via the Google Apps Dashboard. This can bring  extra burden to organizations who typically would let first level support handle basic account stuff, and leave more delicate configuration changes to a select group of people.

This can result in the person you trust to change your SSO server configuration, having to be the person who resets a user password.

Not optimal.

When your pilot is small, it’s fine limiting your Google Apps cabal to a small set of administrators who have the power to change anything in the Google Apps dashboard, but who rarely get called on to support uesr requests. But once your Google Apps implementation grows, that design doesn’t scale so well.

Google Apps does have an API which has led to many 3rd party tools, (some costing $30,000+), which may allow customers to more finely tune administrative rights, but this basic characteristic would be most welcomed in the native Google Apps Dashboard, as most pilot users will need this before they commit to anyting enough to buy 3rd party tools.

Posted in Google Apps by andy | No Comments »

Google Apps in the Enterprise: What’s hard, what’s easy, what’s unexpected.

April 1st, 2009

There are plenty of people talking about cloud computing, hosted apps, and Google Apps, but not that many documenting the process in the enterprise, except for soundbyte-ready “We saved thousands of dollars!” testimonials.  I thought I’d share some of the highs and lows of implementing Google Apps, especially Google Docs, in a non-web enterprise with thousands of users.

There will be both raves and complaints, but mostly just decision-making quandaries, as this stuff is so new, both culturally and product-wise.  I’m a big fan of Google Apps, and would recommend it to any type of organization, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t tons of challenges and improvements to be made by Google, 3rd party tools providers, and even us users. :D

When it comes to adopting emerging web tools, industry coverage typically represents two extremes:  hip private companies and independents who embrace the chaos, and archaic giants who fail to recognize the value of  web productivity tools, are overcome by fear and conservatism, and are handicapped by (perceived?) regulation.  

Many organizations don’t fit in either of those buckets. Most of us work in organizations with people of varying degrees of literacy and enthusiasm about cloud apps.

I’ll write about having a cloud initiative in a thousands-of-employees public company that has: people wildly enthusiastic about 3rd party cloud computing, hostile gatekeepers, and most plentiful, people who don’t necessarily care either way, but who need to get on board for any initiatives to move forward.

I’m going to take you on a magic ride.

Stay tuned for posts about wishlists, gold-stars, and shoulda-woulda-coulda’s.

Posted in Google Apps by andy | No Comments »