So you want to have a google apps account for your veterinary business. Great! While Google has done an extraordinary job of explaining what Google Apps does, let’s talk briefly now about what Google apps can do for you and your practice.
Google has assembled its best tools (mail, document sharing, hangouts, etc) into one package for businesses. It allows whole teams to share these services using domain-name based emails with a high level of protections against spam and viruses, real time updating of information, and affordable pricing. For more information on whether Google Apps is a match for your company use this link
Getting Started and How To Google Apps
Probably the most challenging thing any practice manager will encounter when implementing Google Apps will be transferring the mail service from the existing email provider to Google. Google’s process for helping customers make the switch is nothing short of fantastic. The system is highly intuitive and if you run into a problem, a 24-7 support number is available. Phone calls are picked up quickly, technicians are very helpful, and as technical things go, the process is pretty painless.
Still, it’s helpful if you understand the big picture of what needs to happen in order for mail service to be switched from one email server to another.
If you have mail service already linked to your domain name, then you’ve essentially provided the server of your domain ( the machine in which your www.address lives) information on where email should be delivered. So, when someone types in your email address (linda@yourpractice.com), the email sender (server) knows how to find your email box. Clearly this is important information, so when configuring Google Apps, you’ll be asked to do two important things:
- Confirm that you are the owner of your domain
- Set up the Mail Exchange Records within your domain’s server
Confirming you are the owner of your domain
This is accomplished by going into the DNS (Domain Name System) settings of your current domain server and adding a Google-provided code (Google will give you this code during the set up process). The code doesn’t change anything with your email; it only confirms that the person setting up the Google Apps account also has control of the domain name (as demonstrated by your ability to add the code).
As an aside, the DNS is interesting. Domain names are actually a series of numbers that have been overlaid with a name. Since servers don’t read names, but code, the DNS serves as a directory of sorts translating domain names into their respective codes. This ‘points’ the server that is searching for the domain to the server that hosts the domain. For more on the DNS, you can go to this page.
Mail Exchange Codes (MX codes)
Once you clear the DNS hurdle, you’ll be asked to enter addition codes into your domain server’s settings. These are the MX codes or Mail Exchange codes that will also be provided to you by Google.
Mail Exchange codes are addresses that identify Google (or any other server) as your email provider. When setting up Google Apps, Google will offer you at least 5 different MX codes. You’ll simply copy and paste these into the appropriate fields of your DNS settings (again, Google does a great job of helping you find where these are located). Entering 5 codes is a way of providing you back up should one of Google’s mail servers are down for whatever reason. As the contact at Google explained, “As you can imagine, we are very big. We have to have back up in case there is a problem with one of our locations.”
Continue to follow through the Google Apps prompts (Google knows what it is doing 😉 When completed, you will be directed back to the Admin Console. You have 30 days to try Google Apps free of charge. Thereafter you are charged roughly 5 dollars per month, per user, depending on the plan that you choose. Remember that you can set up several free accounts like ‘admin@yourpractice.com’ or ‘clientcare@yourpractice.com’. This is an affordable way to assign one email per department for administrative purposes and change passwords as employees turn over.
Since Google has done such a complete job of helping individuals understand the full power of Google Apps, I will not try to out do what’s already near perfect. Simply take the tutorial offered by google or explore the innumerable videos and information on line about the benefits of Google Apps, what they do, and how to use them.
Migrating Historical Mail
Again, spending more than 5 minutes figuring this out is five minutes wasted. The team at Google is fast, incredibly helpful, and experienced so my advice, if you are trying to migrate old email into your new Google Apps email, is to call them and have them walk you through it. Still, it’s probably helpful to understand the big picture of what you’ll be doing when you migrate the mail.
From the console, you’ll go to the ‘migration’ app. Here you’ll tell google two things, the SMTP and the IMAP.
SMTP stands for Simple Mail Transfer Protocol and provides your email service information on how to move mail from your box, into your email server box, then into the recipients email server box, and how to put a copy of the email you wrote into your ‘sent’ box.
IMAP stands for Internet Message Access Protocol. It governs how your mail service provider accesses mail that is in your mail server box.
When you are configuring the Google Migration tool, you are telling Google what your SMTP and your IMAP protocols are for your existing email account.
Finding out this information is not as straightforward as determining the initial information about the Mail Exchange. If you are experienced doing this sort of thing, you can simply ‘Google’ help documents on what the SMTP and IMAP information for your mail provider is, otherwise, you are best off contacting the company that hosts your website for this information.
Once you have your SMTP and IMAP (alternatively you may have another kind of mail access code called a POP For an excellent resource page on the difference between SMTP, IMAP and POP, go here.) follow these steps:
- Go to you Google Apps Console
- Select the ‘gmail’ app
- Click on ‘user settings’
- Scroll to ‘routing’ (near the bottom of the page)
- Click ‘add another destination’
- Enter the SMTP and IMAP information
- Select ‘deliver email for all accounts’
- Save changes (button is located on the lower right of the page)
You’ll also have an opportunity to select how much of your email you migrated and when. Just follow the prompts. Be aware that browsers other than Chrome, may cause you problems in this part of the set up. If you are unable to make certain requests, close out of whatever browser you are in, and switch to Chrome.