What is the Google Apps transition?
While Google Apps users have long had integrated Gmail, Documents, Calendar and
Contacts, other popular services like Analytics, Reader, Picasa and
Google Voice, have been off limits. Google recently decided that it
would offer up all of its supported services to their business users,
and they are having to transition users over to the newer, fuller list
of services.
What does the merge mean to me?
If you are one of our many web design clients we have set up with Google Apps, then
your account has probably already been transitioned. You may not notice a
difference at all. The biggest change for many users is that they can
now access new services by using their same business account they have
been using to sign into their email. Have a info@yourdomain.com email account? Well now you can sign in to YouTube, or Picsaweb (or over 60 other applications) with your email!
What is a conflicting Google Apps account?
One major problem that it is causing for some users, however, is conflicting
accounts. Since you couldn’t use a business account for other services,
many users took their email account, and created a “Google account” to
go along with it. Say you sign into your email everyday with info@yourdomain.com, before the transition. If you wanted to use that email address with a
non-core service, you would create a separate Google account with the
same email address and then access those services. These users are now
having to merge their accounts together. Most see a warning notice the
first time they log into their account after the transition that guides
them through the process. No worries. If you are still having problems,
try the Google page on resolving conflicting accounts.
I cant see my Google Analytics anymore!
Since Google Analytics is the main service that we suggest users employ, and that
was not a core application before the transition, many clients are first
encountering a problem when they try to log into their Analytics
account. Usually, this means you just need to finish the transition
process and merge your accounts together. For additional problems there
is always the Google “can’t sign in” troubleshooter.
And as always, if this is all Greek to you, give us a call. I’m happy to help 🙂
