I started sharing documents using Google Docs before I set up Google Apps. A while ago I used Google Docs to store all my travel documents when I was travelling to Europe and Asia just in case my notebook gets lost. I also shared a shopping list with my wife in Chile and my farther in Germany. Instead of sending a few emails back and forth, the third saying ‘oh by the way, could you also get us 500g of Coffee in grains'- You just can’t get a decent coffee in Chile - we managed this process using a Google Doc.

I later started using it for internal business purposes (Action Lists, Financial Planning, Sales Pipeline, etc.). We then also included our clients as we developed mutual action plans on Google Docs. During Skype conferences we agreed the ‘who’ ‘what’ and ‘when’ on the spot and there was only one version available.

You can grant different levels of access: view only or collaborators. The really cool thing using the Spreadsheet is that 2 or more people can work on the same document at the same time. Only the cell that one person is editing is blocked for the others.

I just recall a situation about a year ago when we were developing flash animations for a group of dentists in Europe. Very detailed instructions for every single frame were entered and commented in an xls spreadsheet which was sent back and forth by email. So it happened that after version 5 was already agreed upon, we still received comments on version 3 and so on. Had I known Google Docs Spreadsheet at the time, it would have been less stressful.

You can create Text Documents, Presentations, Spreadsheets and Forms. You can also upload files (.doc, .txt,.xls, .pdf, .ppt, etc) that are then converted into an online version Later you can save it into an offline version, again. A new feature also allows you work offline on your Google Docs. Are the days of MS Office counted?

Watch this video to learn how it works:

The next stage on our Google Apps explorer tour was to set-up the Calendars. This is pretty easy to integrate. You can create as many calendars as you like and you can make them either private (only yourself have access), public within your domain (so you can share your calendars with your co-workers) or even public on the Internet.

Each of us has a private Calendar that we share within our domain. I still use Outlook where all my appointments are stored. I use GoogleCalendarSync to sync my Outlook with Google Calendar. Learn more about Google Calendar Sync

What’s really useful is the public calendars which you can embed into your website (like ours). If you want to announce an event on your website, you create a public event on your public Google calendar associated with your domain. It is then automatically displayed on your website. You can then also copy this event to the individual calendars of the user in your domain, so they have it in their personal Calendar as well.

Now that my Google Calendar syncs with Outlook via CalendarSync, I can also sync it with my mobile phone via Bluetooth. If I add an event to our Public Calendar, it is now displayed on our website, my Google Calendar, my Outlook Calendar and my mobile phone while the information is only managed in one place.

You can also set up sms notifications to your mobile. In theory you get a reminder sms to your mobile before an event is due. You must select your country first, then type in your phone number and select your local supplier. To initiate the service you receive an SMS text message with a verification code. It seems that you can use this service in countries like Afghanistan, Uganda or Liberia; unfortunately Chile is not listed. I have to keep the Bluetooth sync for a while and continue using Outlook.

Here is a list of related Youtube videos that explain how everything works in detail.

When we started Interactivar Stefan and I were working from different locations. We looked for Online Collaboration tools to avoid sending emails back and forth. I just wanted to get rid of it having experienced major issues with different versions of the same document in the past.

We tested a few and we finally decided to go with Google Apps. I made some experience with complex intranet solutions in my corporate life and later in my consulting business with a VPN based on Windows Server and Microsoft Exchange. Compared to that, what you can do with Google Aps for free is just amazing.

With the experience using Aps for Interactivar especially Email and file sharing for project documents with clients I now decided to use it for Hess y Roettges as well. Last Friday was a holiday in Chile, it was cold and rainy. So I took the chance to use that day for migration.

I set up Google Mail, Google Calendar, and Google Docs. Still to come: Google Sites! I started with Google Mail. These were the steps:

1. Associated my domain with Google Aps
2. Set-up User Accounts on Google Aps
3. Changed the MX Record with my domain host
4. Set-up IMAP for the accounts in Google and in Outlook.Tested and done.
   Find here more detailed instructions here.
   

This was pretty straight forward and I immediately could send and receive Emails via Outlook using the Gmail System under my own domain. Fantastic! Now I wanted to take advantage of the 7 GB Webspace that comes with each account for free and upload all the emails from the existing accounts. We used to backup our emails by frequently saving our Mailboxes into a pst file and stored it on an external hard drive in a separate place. The migration took the longest time. One way of doing it was just to move folders from my original Personal Outlook Folder into the new IMAP Email Folder that appeared in the Outlook Folder list as soon as the set-up was complete. It then synchronised automatically with my account on Google. From now on we don’t need to worry about backups anymore! For my Email account this wasn’t a problem as I don’t hold a lot of emails anyway, only the very important stuff. I actually migrated all my emails while watching the second half of Bayern Munich – Hamburg on ESPN.

It was more difficult for my wife’s email account. She has all the daily customer interactions in her Mailbox. So we had to upload about 400 MB. Using the previous method didn’t work. Outlook just crashed. There is a tool available that helped me transferring emails, the Google Email Uploader.

Took a few hours but now everything is up there and working fine. With that the contacts can be uploaded as well. You can use Outlook as before but you now have the option to use the Google Webmail function as well, which is pretty cool. If you set-up IMAP, it is similar to Exchange, constantly synchronising. The Spam Filter is very accurate. You actually don’t need to delete Emails anymore with more than 7GB of webspace. One difference is that Google Mail uses ‘Labels’ rather than the traditional folders. You can assign an email to various Labels, like tags. The search is just incredible. Once you get used to it you probably don’t need Outlook anymore.

There is some controversy around ads and privacy on Emails. The ads are only displayed when you open a particular email. It then displays ads relevant to the content. I was exchanging Emails recently with my real estate agent as we are looking for new offices in Providencia or Las Condes. When I opened the email, real estate ads for Santiago were displayed. It’s far from Spam I consider it as additional information. And if you want to get rid of it you can upgrade your account for 50 US$ per account per year.

Here is what Google has to say on Gmail Privacy:

In the next post I’ll share my experience with Google Calendar.

Xing doesn't like wrapper, so we are using our LinkedIn profiles now!

The guys at Xing don't want that website owners use wrappers to show their own public profiles on a website. Or maybe they do not know about the benefits for both? Our profile wrappers with Xing stopped working a couple of weeks ago, so we simply decided to use our LinkedIn Profiles. It is not a Joomla! CMS wrapper issue, e.g. Matthias Gerber, CEO at SinnerSchrader is doing the same and the wrapper is not working correctly anymore.  So what: It seems to me that the Germans loosing ground in the social networking world! In Latin America (at least in Chile and Argentina)  nobody seems to know about the Xing - eConozco deal, while everyone is talking about the Spanish version of Facebook?!

If you didn't updatet your networking profil since a long time, just follow the steps Guy Kawasaki mentioned in his Blog: Ten Ways to Use LinkedIn

Interactivar is now oficial contributor to First Tuesday Chile. We will support the organisation that connects entrepreneurs with investors with advisory work and the management of their Joomla based Content Management System: