SDCCS Transition to Google Apps

							          SDCCS Transition to Google Apps – Frequently Asked Questions
General

  1. Why are we switching to Google Apps?
     To bring together essential communication applications. To improve productivity and
     communication. We can focus on student needs and adding value to the experience while
     Google focuses on building excellent products, maintaining the feature set, and innovating our
     communication options for tomorrow. Our goal is to offer you a reliable, practical, secure,
     feature-rich webmail environment. We think Google can help. We can focus on the core
     values of our school and let Google leverage its extensive operational experience with security
     and privacy.

  2. What happens to mail I have saved online at Tierra.net?
     Any emails, folders, or contacts will continue to reside on Tierra.net’s servers until they are
     deleted on Monday August 31, 2009. All email and folders associated with your account
     should have been migrated to your google apps account. Please take a moment to log back
     into the Tierra.net webmail account to verify that you have all information you want prior to the
     deadline. Tierra.net Webmail: https://webmail.tierra.net/index.php, select advanced interface
     when loggin in, this will enable all available features.

  3. Will I lose emails during the transition?
     The transition scheduled to begin on Thursday July 16, 2009 at 4pm will take approximately 48
     hours to complete. The transition replacing our existing email servers, and must send
     repopulate that information across the internet, during that time, email sent to your sdccs
     account may bounce back to the sender.

  4. Will my email address or password change?
     Your SDCCS email and password will remain the same as what you had on the Tierra.net.
     Only the servers used to process email are changing. Your email address will not appear
     different to anyone you send or receive email from.

  5. How long will my Tierra.net account be available?
     Your access to the Tierra.net webmail account will still be available until Monday August 31,
     2009. The account will only be available to allow for you to collect anything that was not
     migrated during the transitioning of email accounts.

  6. How do I access my new SDCCS email account?
     The new SDCCS webmail can be accessed online at http://mail.google.com/a/sdccs.org
     You will be asked to provide your username & password. This is the same as the Tierra.net
     webmail except the username does not need to contain the @sdccs.org. When signing in for
     the 1st time, you will be asked to agree to the google mail terms of use policy, and enter a
     verification code. Once you have completed those steps you will be taken to your inbox.

  7. Can I still access my Tierra.net account to send/receive mail?
     While the your Tierra.net account will be available to verify and retrieve any information you
     previously had stored on their servers, the sending and receiving of emails through the
     Tierra.net account will result in the email being bounced back. As of Monday July 20, 2009
     please use google apps webmail interface.


                                                                                Last revised July 16, 2009
           SDCCS Transition to Google Apps – Frequently Asked Questions
   8. When will the email transfer be complete?
      The transition scheduled to begin on Thursday July 16, 2009 at 7pm and will take up tp
      approximately 48 hours to complete.

   9. I access my email through a mail program on my computer; will I still be able to get my
      mail that way?
      If your computer is on campus, it will be setup already by the time teachers report for the 09/10
      schoolyear. If you use a mail program at home to download your SDCCS email Google
      provides guides to configure your software. See Google Help on the topic at
      http://mail.google.com/support/bin/topic.py?hl=en&topic=12806

Spam

   1. I logged into my SDCCS email account and there is a lot of spam, why?
      Google handles spam using a combination of methods to fight spam. Any message you
      receive can be marked as spam, but one person’s spam is another’s opportunity to collect $$$
      from Nigeria, so you must indicate spam emails manually while Google learns what you
      consider spam.

   2. How do I mark emails as spam now?
      All emails have a small box to the left of them in the inbox, you can select as many emails as
      you want and click on the Report Spam button on the toolbar above the emails. You can also
      click on the Report Spam button after opening an email.

   3. How does the spam filter work?
      The filter learns from what you report as spam. When Google sees that the majority of users
      label something as spam it is then added to a global spam filter. As you personalize the spam
      filter, you will notice a reduction in the amount of spam you receive.

Folders / Labels

   1. How do I create folders?
      Google uses labels to visually distinguish emails, for information on the use of labels and filters
      please visit http://mail.google.com/support/bin/topic.py?hl=en&topic=12881

   2. Why do some emails labeled “migrated”?
      All emails that were brought over from your Tierra.net account were given the label migrated
      by Google Apps to allow for an easy distinction between new mail and mail that you previously
      had on tierra.net

Contacts

   1. I had contact saved on Tierra.net are they in my Google Apps account?
      Any contacts you may have saved on Tierra.net are still there and you will need to export your
      address book from Tierra.net and then import the contacts to your Google Apps account.
      To export your contact from Tierra.net follow these steps.
          a. Log in to Tierra.net Webmail: https://webmail.tierra.net/index.php, select advanced
             interface when loggin in.
          b. Click on the Address Book icon, second from the left on the toolbar
                                                                                  Last revised July 16, 2009
      SDCCS Transition to Google Apps – Frequently Asked Questions
      c. Click on Tools in the text menus above the toolbar, select Export. A dialogue box will
          pop up asking you how to open a file called abook.csv, select save. (Make note of the
          location you saved the file to, as you will need that during the importing process.
      d. Log in to google apps SDCCS webmail at http://mail.google.com/a/sdccs.org
      e. Click on Contacts from the list in the left side of the screen.
      f. Click the import button near the upper right corner of the screen
      g. Click Choose File and select the file you saved in step C. Here you have the option to
          also import the contacts into a new group.
      Note: You may need to edit the contacts after importing to adjust any details that did not
      transfer correctly.

2. Is there a master address book?
   All email addresses ending in sdccs.org are automatically available to everyone within the
   sdccs.org domain. As you start typing a recipient the system will show you everyone goes
   name begins or contains that lettering.




                                                                            Last revised July 16, 2009