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Loading ...Business student Andrew Houshian of the University of Texas at Austin’s McCombs School of Business sent us some questions, asking us how we like Google Apps. We have been hankering to answer this question publicly, so here we go!
Was there any training or seminars needed to teach people how to use/utilize google apps?
M: Not really - we have our managers give newcomers to the company a general introduction, but the introduction tends to be more about how we use the apps, rather than how to use the apps in general. Perhaps one of my management team will interject here, if their experience has been different.
S: No training was needed. However, like any app you have to spend time learning the quirks and how to work around them
How long did it take to train/assimilate people to using google apps?
M: As far as I know, it wasn’t very long - but then, our team is young, very used to working with computers and the web in general, as well as on office apps, and Google copies the basic functions of the MSOffice & OO pretty directly.
S: It is pretty much “plug & play”
Have you faced any challenges while using google apps?
M: The spreadsheets are quite limited in their manipulation options - they are fine for very basic stuff, but for anything of signficant size or complexity, they are not really sufficient.
Google Presentations is clearly the weakest suit of the suite - the only thing we have found Google Presentations good for is easy sharing of a simple presentation. The inability to export a Presentation to a .ppt makes it a near-unusable product, except in the way just described. All collaborative manipulation has to be done the old-fashioned way of mailing .ppt’s around.
S: Google docs:
- There is no “domain wide” sharing ability
- Renaming documents can be problematic
- There can only be one “owner” of a document at a time
- In spreadsheet program - problems w/ copy/past functions, loading large documents
- Can be resource heavy
- The share function is problematic - creating and changing group sharing lists is not clear, you always have to go through an invite screen.
- You can only email everyone the document is shared with, not individuals
- Print formating can be problematic
From a project management tool there are several areas that are lacking:
- Gantt chart
- To do functions
What are the benefits of using google apps?
M:
- Real-time collaboration
- Automatic versioning: version control, roll-back, and auditing are all really simple
- Universal availability of all documents - Google Docs acts like an excellent file server for us. We are a virtual company spread across six countries, four continents, and 14 time zones. I travel quite a lot, and it is a wonderful plus that the essential documents are always up-to-date and available to me anywhere in the world even if I destroy or lose my laptop. Hardware loss is an inconvenience, not a disaster.
- Inexpensive, fast, and convenient scaling as the company grows, or as an employee leaves.
- Effortless sharing of documents inside and outside our company.
- Simple, well-integrated, and low-effort integration of calendars and email - it keeps our scheduling easy, and reminders are sent to the screen, to email, and most importantly for me, SMS
- The RSS feed into the Calendar is very useful for bringing reminders and such from all our other online systems together into one place (currently, we use Pipeline for biz dev and Basecamp for project and document organization - but we would immediately dump both if Google had a good solution)
- Email and Gtalk are great - fast, well-designed interfaces and good integration with on-computer and on-device clients (i.e. email clients, chat clients)
- Storage capacity is way more than sufficient.
S:
- It integrates seamlessly with gmail
- Multiple people can work in a document at a time
- Easily integrates with word & excel
- Ability to share with people outside of domain
- Real time functionality
Were you looking at using other applications? If so, which ones? Finally, what made you choose google apps over the others?
M: We went with Google Apps because of its integration with GMail, which we already were in love with. We still use Pipelinedeals and Basecamp since Google doesn’t have an alternative, but as said, we would switch to Google if they had something good.
We will probably implement a GANTT chart based project management software - we’d love it if Google had it, but it unfortunately doesn’t.
S: I was not part of making this decision. However I have looked around with limited luck finding alternatives. I do know that adobe has a version coming out. Main thing for us was integration into gmail accounts that the company email system runs on.
Which level/tier (top executives, mid-level management, entry-level employees) does google apps impact the most?
M: All levels - our company and our company’s communications depend on it.
S: All levels equally
Which applications are you actually using from google apps (gmail, google talk, google calendar, etc.)?
M: Gmail, Calendar, Gtalk, Docs, Spreadsheets
S: Gmail, google talk, google calendar, google docs, google reader
Which of your business processes/divisions has google apps benefited the most?
M: As said, top to bottom - we run our communications as well as our operations on Google.
S: The company is built around a web based application - we are a virtual company with no single physical location. Spread across 4 continents, something like 9 time zones and speak many different languages amongst the team.
Would you recommend google apps to other companies?
M: Yes.
S: Yes
How long have you been using google apps?
M: One year.
S: Me personally - almost 6 months.
Were there any hidden costs you didn’t anticipate (training, consulting, maintenance, loyalty)?
M: No
S: Not that I know of
How would you change or improve google apps?
M:
- Upload and store any format of docs to Google Docs - perhaps with search still in there (i.e. pdf’s, .ppt’s, etc.)
- Project management
- Deal tracking/biz dev app
- Ability to edit docs from mobile devices
- MAKE IT EASIER TO ADD GROUPS OF PEOPLE TO DOCUMENTS - currently, for it to show up in an individual’s list of documents, you must explicitly share it with each person individually. This is a HUGE pain, and obviously doesn’t scale well at all. We have 22 people and it is already a horror.
S: See my list above. I would certainly give it much better speed, it is resource heavy and has a dragging interface. Also, I would create a strong project management suite
Answers provided my Mark Harrison, CEO, and Saul Wainwright, Director of Client Services. (And, while Abraham Harrison may be a Google App “beast of breed” case study, we have never received any monetary love from Google — this is straight from the heart — and from the “gripes about Google Apps” we have stored as a Google Doc. Enjoy!)
Filed under: 3rd Party Apps, Abraham Harrison, Abraham Harrison LLC, Abraham Harrison Staff, Google, Google Applications, Google Apps, Google Apps Premier, Google Talk, Online Applications, Web Applications, Web Apps, Web Services
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This is a nice overview for people who are new to the web application way of thinking. Of particular interest is today’s Wall Street Journal article http://tinyurl.com/23twt6 that portends the appearance of the long sought-after GDrive, Google’s answer to online file storage.
This is how we’ll be able to more speedily and effectively share larger files, such as PDFs or those PPTs that are less than ideal in Presentations. As the article mentions, the real test will be to see how Google is able to deal with the sharing of copyrighted material.
Yes. And since you can push 20M files through Google Mail, the issue generally isn’t Google — Hell is Other Mail Servers, as I like to bastardize the saying. I can throw around 10M+ PPT presentations, but when it comes to dealing with mere mortals, I need to use YouSendIt, http://www.yousendit.com — it is sort of like FTP-for-dummies. Crap, I remember when I had to explain to clients how to access files from FTP sites. However, music and video houses and studios all use FTP to share files — I love them for that!
How do you share big files amongst your colleagues and to clients? How do you move that 20M deck around?