My IT staff rocks! Over two weeks we ran many tests, measuring an aggregate failure rate of < .04% for email, calendars and contacts. We ran directory sync against our AD to auto-provision our users. We ran Google Exchange Migration to push all emails except those from the last two weeks over to Google. Then this weekend we pushed the remaining emails, along with calendars and contacts (in separate batches) over to Google.
I have to give credit to the vast majority of our users who were patient and followed instructions pretty well. They got themselves connected with a minimum of assistance from our Help Desk. The bulk of our calls today were from people who didn't receive that last email to Outlook giving them their temporary Google password. Perhaps the biggest kudos go to one prof at our South Korea site who got himself connected with a minimum of hand holding!
The biggest obstacle? Change! It's unbelievable how many people asked if they can keep using Outlook or Entourage. In all of our communications about the Google migration we have emphasized to our users the importance of adopting the web browser as the primary user interface for Google Apps. Google is designed to be presented via the web browser. Color me so surprised that people still asked the Help Desk to hook Google up to Outlook. One professor proudly announced that he had gotten his Entourage to work with Google.
Problems encountered ...
We should have set up administrative assistant calendar delegations FIRST! As a result most calendar appointments for the President and VPs did not get migrated! They were very patient as we found and resolved the problem.
2. Hidden Dependencies
Watch out for those long forgotten dependencies like the electronic fax server and MFP dependency on a print management program that integrates with Exchange to relay outbound faxes to the fax server. Oops! BTW - this is why I have been pushing TOGAF ... it pays to have your architectural dependencies documented!
Watch out for those long forgotten dependencies like the electronic fax server and MFP dependency on a print management program that integrates with Exchange to relay outbound faxes to the fax server. Oops! BTW - this is why I have been pushing TOGAF ... it pays to have your architectural dependencies documented!
3. Oblivious Users
We went to a lot of trouble to prepare a migration web site with loads of getting started information, FAQs and tutorials. I can't believe how many calls we received asking about topics that we covered on our migration web site. I know, right?