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Beware of Marketplace Apps on the Move

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Last week, Google announced that the Google Apps Marketplace was open for business to all Google Apps users, not just administrators.

While this move opens up a wide range of personal productivity applications to Google Apps users, it is not without risks.

  • Your users can now commit you to paid apps and services that you may not want as part of your environment.
  • Apps may require permissions to data in your Google Apps environment that needs to be, or you want to be, private and secure.
  • Not all apps are from well-known vendors.

As we have written in the past, third party apps can present a risk to your data and your business.  And while Bring-Your-Own-App (BYOA) can be beneficial to staff efficiency and effectiveness, Google Apps administrators should careful and should understand the security health of the domain.

As such, consider turning off marketplace access to all users.  (Customers with a support plan: Ask us and we will do this for you).

We also recommend that you consider a Google Apps Security Health Check (special offer through Sept 30th) to ensure that Marketplace, mobile, and other third party apps are not already posing a risk.

If your current Google Apps reseller is not providing guidance on best practices, security and other important issues, contact us.  We would love to have you join us as a client. 

 

 

 

Drive vs Docs = New Google URLs

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google drive
Google Drive and Google Docs are no longer the same thing.  As Google expanded the file service capabilities of Drive, Docs and Drive were separated to better reflect Docs as the office productivity tools and Drive as the secure file service.

Recently, Google made changes to ensure this distinction is evident in the URLs we use to access these services.

  • drive.google.com still points to Google Drive, and drive.google.com/a/<domain> still takes you to your Google Drive page
  • docs.google.com will soon point to a new Google Docs homepage that takes you directly to the Google Doc apps

We recommend updating your bookmarks as well as your custom URL mappings.

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If you need a hand with your custom URL mappings, please let us know.

Restore Google Drive Files Offers Some (but not enough?) Protection

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google drive
Among the myriad of new features and upgrades announced at Google I/O this week, Google added the ability to restore users’ Drive files that have been deleted from the Trash folder.

While offering some protection, the feature is limited in its scope.

  • You cannot restore individual files; you can only restore all files deleted within a date range you provide.  The minimum date range is 1 day (24 hours).
  • You can only restore files for individual users, one at a time.
  • You can only restore files that were deleted from Trash within 25 days.
  • When restoring files, the permissions are not restored.  Only the user will have access to the files.

With these limitations, we do not expect the ability to restore a user’s Google Drive files will be of great use to most organizations.  With a limited retention period and lack of granularity, the tool provides a big shovel when most users need a spoon.

The solution also depends on users’ ability to recover information from the Trash folder, a process we find difficult at times due to the limited ability to search Trash in Drive.

True backup/recovery solutions give users and administrators that critical features that deliver more usability and effectiveness:

  • Flexible retention:  Allow organizations to implement policies related document and records management, including extended retention and removal of data past retention windows.
  • File-Level / Item-Level Restore: Most data loss and restore needs result from human error or action and impact fewer than 5 files.  Acceptable restore capabilities include the ability to restore individual files (or entire accounts) and should include the ability to select file by version or point in time.
  • Protect Meta Data:  Protect the meta data as well as the files themselves.  File ownership, permissions, etc. should be preserved and recoverable with the file.
  • Data Export:  Provide the ability to export data so that it may be migrated to other accounts and/or other systems.
  • Administrative Control:  Identify and allow backup/restore administrators that are not full domain administrators.

Absent many of these features, the ability within Google Apps to restore a user’s Drive files is a limited feature that will not meet most organizations’ needs for data protection.

Third party backup/restore solutions are still a necessary and appropriate component of a robust Google Apps environment.

Feel free to contact us if you would like to explore backup/recovery options and solutions.

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New Google Sheets are Here

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Google Sheets
Over the next few weeks, Google is rolling out the new version of Sheets to all users. Sheets include a many new features beyond offline access, speed, and no more limits on formula complexity and sheet size.

Spell check is not yet part of the new Sheets, but is coming soon.

You can click here to learn more about the new Google Sheets, and you can see Google’s announcement here.

For those that want to help users get the most from Google Docs, contact us about self-paced, integrated Google Apps training and other professional development options.

 

Gmail: Save Attachments to Drive (it’s about time!)

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Drive-Attachment
Finally!  OMG!  Booyah!  Oh, Vey!

You can now save attachments directly to Drive from within Gmail messages.

Rolling out to Google Apps for Business, Government, and Education over the next week or so, you no longer need to download to your desktop or “Downloads” folder and then sync or upload files in Drive.

From inside the message, you can preview or save files directly into drive, with the ability to browse and select folders.

Click here for more info and usage examples.

Be More Social with Secure Google+ Communities

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google-plusBusinesses often hesitate to use social media tools internally, fearing that information may be shared too broadly or outside the company in error.  Google has taken a major step to alleviate these concerns with the recent announcement of Secure Google+ Communities for organizations running Google Apps for Business, Education, and Government.

Going forward, all Google+ communities are only visible to people within your domain.

You can still create and share communities with external parties — customers, vendors, business partners — utilizing a new suite of management settings.

Why use Google+ Communities?

  • Encourage employees to share more information about themselves in their profiles, such as skills and interests, making it easier to find peer resources and discuss new ideas
  • Sharing files from Drive is easy, as is sharing videos
  • Threaded discussions and comments facilitate communication and teamwork, even across functional areas
  • Manage events, meetings, and hangouts
  • Better engage your Gen X and Y team members

You can learn more about the power of social tools, and other ways of getting more from Google Apps, by viewing the recording of our recent event in New York.  The event was co-hosted by Google with The Manhattan Chamber of Commerce, The 4th Bin, and Google Gooru as supporting sponsors.

HIPAA Compliance with Google Apps Just Got Easier

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HIPAA Logo
One of the challenges using any IT service are external requirements for data use and privacy.  Among the most restrictive are those imposed by the Healthcare Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).  HIPAA regulations intend to ensure data is private and protected from accidental or intentional breach, and is only shared as needed to ensure appropriate medical care.

One aspect of HIPAA requires entities to execute a Business Associate Agreement (BAA) with any organization with which Protected Health Information (PHI) is shared.  Sharing not only includes data provided to other medical professionals, sharing includes data stored on systems or managed by services.  The BAA defines each party’s roles and responsibilities with respect to data protection and privacy, and accountability in the event of any inappropriate breech or release.

For organizations using Google Apps for Business, Education, or Government, documenting HIPAA compliance just became easier.

Google Apps administrators may now complete and execute a BAA with Google covering key services in Google Apps, specifically:

  • Gmail
  • Calendar
  • Drive
  • Google Apps Vault

The BAA does not cover other services within Google Apps, nor does it cover third-party or marketplace applications.  As such, signing the BAA and implementing Google Apps as part of a HIPAA compliant infrastructure still requires planning, policies and procedures, and an examination of other systems and applications.

Contact us to learn more.

 

Users Ask; Gmail Delivers New Features

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GmailOne of the benefits of Cloud Computing, is that user-requested features can be developed and released quickly and efficiently.  Over the past few weeks, Google has done just that with the Gmail component of Google Apps for Business, Government, and Education.

Full Screen Compose

For those of us who like a  bit more room when organizing our thoughts, the Gmail compose box/window can now be made full screen by clicking the “maximize” or “pop-out” button.   From within a compose box/window, you can also make full screen compose your default setting via the drop down arrow at the bottom right of the box/window.

Quick Action RSVP

One of the aspects of Google Apps that we love, is the integration between Gmail and Calendar.  The Quick Action RSVP shows up to the right of the email subject line for calendar invites.  Click on the button and you get an event card with RSVP options.

More than allowing you to RSVP to meeting requests from within the invitation (without going to your calendar screen), now you can RSVP from the inbox without opening the invitation.

One More Reason

And, of course, these types of integration snippets are some of the reasons we strongly encourage use of the web interface to Google Apps, rather than Outlook or Thunderbird.

Special Bulletin: Message Security, aka Postini, Goes Native in Google Apps

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A major change is underway within Google Apps for Business / Education / Government editions. Google is fully integrating the spam and virus protection of Google Message Security (GMS, aka Postini) into Google Apps and the cPanel.

While the transition starts in February, there are some caveats to the consolidation. As such, some organizations will want to maintain their stand-alone GMS service.

Currently, the newly integrated service provides for white list, black list, content filters, message filters, and spam sensitivity settings. The integrated service, however, does not have some of the features on which many of our customer rely. If you want/need any of the following, it is necessary to continue running stand-alone GMS for now.

  • Daily Quarantine Messages
  • Addition of Message Archive & Discovery and Message Encryption
  • Policy-Based TLS Encryption
  • Delivery Manager
  • Log Search
  • Reporting

The latter three are more of an issue for the IT folks, and TLS Encryption is transparent to the user.

The biggest user impact is the replacement of the daily quarantine message with the “Spam” label in Gmail.  Some users like the digest structure and the ability to deliver from within the message.  In using the Spam label, users can mark messages as “Not Spam” or can manage them from within the folder.

Also, until we are able to connect the Message Archive & Discovery and Message Encryption services directly to Google Apps, the stand-alone GMS environment will be needed.

If you have questions or concerns, do not hesitate to contact us.

Google Apps and Google’s New Privacy Policy

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The cloud world is buzzing as Google announced that effective March 1, 2012, it would consolidate more than 60 privacy policies for different services into a single, simplified policy covering all Google services.  Not surprisingly, we are already fielding calls from our Google Apps for Business / Education / Government customers with questions about the impact of the change.

Rest easy.  Here are the answers.

Not Much is Changing

The consolidated privacy policy is not changing how Google collects or uses information with individual services or across services.  The policy is providing a simpler, easier to understand document that is consistent across all services.  Google has also removed components of its existing privacy policies that are redundant with content in the Terms of Service policy for each service, which are also being updated and consolidated into a single, consistent policy.

Note that the Privacy Policy address how Google collects and uses information about individual users, but that the Terms of Service dictate how Google treats content you place or store using Google services.  To understand how your information is protected, you must review both documents.

Public and Free Services versus Business / Education / Government Services

The new Terms of Service and Privacy Policy provide a baseline for all services.  The Terms of Service clearly states that

“Also, in some of our Services, there are terms or settings that narrow the scope of our use of the content submitted in those Services.”

Google Apps for Business, for Education, and for Government all have these additional terms and settings.

Confidentiality in Google Apps for Business / Education / Government

The Terms of Service for Google Apps for Business, for Education, and for Government each define Confidential Information as follows:

“Confidential Information means information disclosed by a party to the other party under this Agreement that is marked as confidential or would normally be considered confidential under the circumstances. Customer Data is Customer’s Confidential Information.

Very simply, the agreement defines all user/customer content in these services as confidential.

The Terms of Service prevent Google from accessing or disclosing customer information without permission and guarantee a standard of care related the security, availability, and privacy of customer information.

Exceptions

There are exceptions when Google may disclose or publicly display Google Apps for Business / Education / Government customers.

  1. A User Marks Content as Public:  If a user marks content as “public” or as “publish on the web”, the user is giving permission to Google and instructing Google to index the content in Google search engine and to make the content available to everyone publicly.   Google Apps administrators can limit user permissions to prevent them from marking content as public.
  2. Required Disclosure:  Per the Terms of Service, Google may “… disclose the other party’s Confidential Information when required by law but only after it, if legally permissible: (a) uses commercially reasonable efforts to notify the other party; and (b) gives the other party the chance to challenge the disclosure.”

Summary

While Google’s consolidation of privacy policies makes for great, sensational headlines, the reality is that their is no material change in how Google addresses information privacy.  For Google Apps for Business, for Education, and for Government customers, there is no change what so ever.