Gmail for Business

kanky

Is anybody here using Gmail for Business?

Interested to get peoples views on it.

I am looking at the possibility of changing over from outlook. There would only be 3 emails addresses, however not keen on the fees.

Is it really that good?

Duckjob

kanky wrote: »

Is anybody here using Gmail for Business?

Interested to get peoples views on it.

I am looking at the possibility of changing over from outlook. There would only be 3 emails addresses, however not keen on the fees.

Is it really that good?

You can use Google Apps the free version for up to 10 email addresses.

hardCopy

You can still use outlook with Google apps for business. The editing tools aren't quite as advanced as outlook but the ability to weight search your mail for a contract or conversation is so much better than outlook.

We use it for 18 users, most of us still use outlook for day-to-day use and log in to the web interface if we can't find a particular mail. In our case we rely on proprietary plugins for outlook but you could work away fine with the web interface only.

ssimples09

Duckjob wrote: »

You can use Google Apps the free version for up to 10 email addresses.

The free version of Google Apps is quite good, I would definitely recommend.

nice1franko

I use it and find it fantastic. It's especially good if you are a high-volume email business (e.g. eCommerce).

Searching, as you might expect, is truly excellent. The spam filter is great. You can setup mail forwards with optional conditions, auto-replies, easily send mail from multiple accounts... it all just works great for me.

In fact, the two biggest problems I have with it (and the other suite of google services e.g. gdocs with live collaboration on spreadsheets etc) are:
1) I'm aware of just how heavily I rely on it
2) they must know so much about me! (/tinfoil hat)

TsuDhoNimh

kanky wrote: »

I am looking at the possibility of changing over from outlook.

I'm assuming this is a slight slip of the tongue (or keyboard)?

Outlook is a mail client (or 'personal information manager' if you take the MS spiel on it, as it does provide more than just mail stuff) that can be used with a huge number of mail services (including Gmail).

Did you mean Microsoft Exchange Server by chance? Or is it a mail service provided by your host?

kanky wrote: »

Is it really that good?

That depends on what you mean by 'that good'?

It's an excellent service that is hard to fault. The only real negatives have been outlined by nice1franko already, and when weighed up against the positives it's easy to decide that the benefits far outweigh them.

Excellent spam filtering, extremely reliable, relatively flawless access/backup systems, relatively great security, trusted mail servers for deliverability of mail, commonly used so wide variety of excellent tools to aid integration, easy set-up and maintenance, constant product development... and dozens of other benefits without even thinking about it too much.

kanky

My mistake! I am looking to move away from outlook and our current email provider completely.

I do use gmail for personal email already. However I have noticed that some of the functions are not as strong as outlook.

Namely, the use of an email signature with embedded logos.

Is that something you can easily do with gmail for business?

retenzo12

Run your gmail account through outlook and add your email signature/logo via html. Plenty of tutorial on youtube to do this. Im running my gmail account through outlook and have a logo signature. Wouldnt be a big fan of gmail for business use unless its run through outlook.

P.S When outlook is first installed the wizard sets up your outlook through gmail. Very basic, no techy knowledge required.

kanky

retenzo12 wrote: »

Wouldnt be a big fan of gmail for business use unless its run through outlook.

Why not?

retenzo12

kanky wrote: »

Why not?

I just dont like the way it amalgamates emails together even when people are not C,C'd. It gets very confusing or at least for me. But thats just my opinion.

hardCopy

retenzo12 wrote: »

I just dont like the way it amalgamates emails together even when people are not C,C'd. It gets very confusing or at least for me. But thats just my opinion.

I find the conversation view quite good once you get used to it. The speed of search is so handy though, you just never have to scroll through a list sorted by date like you do in outlook. I really miss it after moving away from the web interface.

I do find the lack of attached signatures a glaring hole in the product though, it would be an easy fix for Google to add it. It's a basic and frequently used feature of outlook and should have been mimicked in gmail.

You can add web hosted images to your signature but most of your recipients will have online images blocked on their end so it looks rubbish, this was one if the reasons we switched back to using outlook as our mail client.

You also can't flag outgoing mails as urgent (many people will be glad of this)

TsuDhoNimh

hardCopy wrote: »

I do find the lack of attached signatures a glaring hole in the product though, it would be an easy fix for Google to add it. It's a basic and frequently used feature of outlook and should have been mimicked in gmail.

There are a large number of reasons why a business shouldn't use embedded images in mails, despite how common they are, so I doubt this is an 'oversight' so much as a choice/concious decision by Google.

hardCopy

TsuDhoNimh wrote: »

There are a large number of reasons why a business shouldn't use embedded images in mails, despite how common they are, so I doubt this is an 'oversight' so much as a choice/concious decision by Google.

None of those reasons will win customers though

kanky

TsuDhoNimh wrote: »

There are a large number of reasons why a business shouldn't use embedded images in mails, despite how common they are, so I doubt this is an 'oversight' so much as a choice/concious decision by Google.

I would be interested to know why businesses should use images. I though if anything it would increase your brand identify and corporate image.

TsuDhoNimh

kanky wrote: »

I though if anything it would increase your brand identify and corporate image.

In a large number of cases your image won't be loaded to begin with. Most clients default to not displaying images as the security risk they pose (relatively minor risk, but major impact when it does hit), in terms of trojans and malware, is greater than the rewards of always showing them.

If the recipient trusts you and decides to allow the image(s) to load (at which point I'd already begin to question if it's actually gaining any branding value as the user is already brand aware and simply providing intelligent replies is enough to make a positive brand impact) and chooses to allow it all future times, on certain devices images still won't be loaded at all. This could be due to corporate policy/network administration settings, over eager antivirus settings or potentially a limitation of the device itself.

If they do allow it and it does render, then it becomes a question of how will it render. The end user might be using Outlook (which still has a huge number of versions out in the wild from 2003 to 2013, both PC and Mac variants), Thunderbird, Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Hotmail, Apple Mail, Sparrow, etc. etc. all of which can potentially render HTML using different rendering engines. In most cases this isn't too bad as they'll use something like the engine behind IE or FireFox, but if you take Outlook as an example it still uses (even in the latest 2013 iteration) the old Microsoft Word rendering engine so has horrid support for anything than the most basic HTML formatting in mails.

If the end user is on a mobile device, how will your signature look to them? Even ignoring the differences in display between the likes of android or iOS, even trying to ensure the signature image works suitably on various screen resolutions can be a pain.

Combine all of the above with the fact that you'll be slowing down the end user, using up their bandwidth/data allocations, potentially not having mail delivered as it just slipped over a spam threshold due to the image and I'm strongly on the side that believe the negatives of adding an image far outweigh the positives.

RUDOLF289

kanky wrote: »

My mistake! I am looking to move away from outlook and our current email provider completely.

I do use gmail for personal email already. However I have noticed that some of the functions are not as strong as outlook.

Namely, the use of an email signature with embedded logos.

Is that something you can easily do with gmail for business?

Have a look at WiseStamp. I am using the free version. It gives you any amount of options to create a signature with your logo and social media buttons

Cheers,
Rudolf289

Paddy GT

Google Apps is a no-brainer imo ... it is so accessible, portable and reliable and best of all free if you have under 10 users (although you can have many more email aliases if needed), plus you get lots of other nice features aside from mail such as the google calendar which is truly excellent.

I am a software engineer/web developer working on starting up my own company at the moment and I will be advising all of my clients to host their mail with google.

nice1franko

You can disable conversation view in options. You can have html sigs (incl images). You also can set up filters for labelling and/or automatic labelling.

Btw, labelling allows for much better organisation than the standard folder system because an email can have multiple labels. For example, an invoice from a supplier can be labelled with the supplier name, as an invoice and paid. You can then browse any of these labels as if they were folders.

Ballyman

This looks great. I currently use Outlook and my mail domain to host my mail, is there an easy way to transfer all the mail including folder structure from a .PST to Gmail?

Also, is there any offline desktop aoo I can use when Gmail is offline or the internet is down similar to the Gmail app on my phone?

Cheers

hardCopy

Ballyman wrote: »

This looks great. I currently use Outlook and my mail domain to host my mail, is there an easy way to transfer all the mail including folder structure from a .PST to Gmail?

Also, is there any offline desktop aoo I can use when Gmail is offline or the internet is down similar to the Gmail app on my phone?

Cheers

You can continue to use outlook as an offline app.

kanky

Is there any particular way to setup gmail for business.

I had a trial with google apps over a year ago, it expired.

Having read the comments here about it being free for 10 users or less I decided to try give it a bash. But it isnt giving me a free option, any ideas?

TsuDhoNimh

kanky wrote: »

Having read the comments here about it being free for 10 users or less I decided to try give it a bash. But it isnt giving me a free option, any ideas?

Forgot they made this change, it's a nasty one that I've never liked.

If you do/have signed up for the Google Apps for Business free trial, go to your 'Settings > Billings' and you'll be downgraded to the free plan.

If you haven't signed up yet, visit this page to sign up for the free app account directly.