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Information Technology Services  

Google Apps for UNC Asheville

What is Google Apps?

Google Apps is a suite of web-based messaging and collaboration applications hosted by Google. Google provides these applications as a service rather than as software you must download and install. To access these applications, you simply use a web browser on any computer that's connected to the Internet.

What does Google Apps include?

UNC Asheville's Google Apps package includes Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs, Google Talk, and Google Sites.

Who can use Google Apps?

Faculty, staff, and students all have access to the Google Apps package.  Volunteers, vendors, and other affiliates can request access by completing the appropriate form.

Retiring employees may request a new @ret.unca.edu Google Apps account when they retire.

What are the key benefits?

Lots of storage - You get a full 25 GB of online storage for your email (much more than what you probably have now), so you can archive all of your email online. You'll no longer need to worry about deleting messages or saving them in offline folders.

Enhanced message organization and retrieval - With Google Mail, you'll spend less time managing folders and searching for messages. For example, you can add one or more tags, or "labels," to your messages to organize and store them more efficiently. And with the Google-powered search feature, you can find any message quickly and easily, whether it's in your Inbox or stored in your message archive.

Easier calendar sharing - Google Calendar lets you quickly and easily share your calendars and specify the details you want to show. Calendar sharing is a great way for you and your contacts to keep each other informed about your schedules. Now it's easier than ever to find out if someone is in a meeting, on a business trip, or on vacation.

Integrated chat - With the Google Talk instant messaging application, you can communicate instantly right from the Email interface. In addition, all your chats are automatically saved in your Email application, so you can always retrieve important information.

Real-time collaboration - Using Google Docs, you can create documents, spreadsheets, and presentations, and you and your collaborators can view and edit them at the same time. You can still use your other document editors, as needed, but now you'll have more options for storing and collaborating on documents.

Easy-to-build team websites - With Google Sites, you can quickly publish a robust internal website on which to gather all sorts of shared information, such as documents, spreadsheets, presentations, files, and videos. You can even embed Google calendars and other gadgets on your site!

Why did UNC Asheville choose Google Apps?

Lower infrastructure costs - All email is stored securely on Google's servers, so the university no longer has to maintain email servers on-site.

Ability to consolidate platforms - All students, faculty, and staff share the same email and calendar platforms making collaboration easy.

Lower support costs - Because Google hosts the email and calendar services, there's no more email client software to maintain on your computer. Other email systems have accounted for as much as 30% of ITS Help Desk calls, with Google Apps we're below 5%.

Innovative solutions - We can leverage the ongoing creative and technical solutions of the Google Apps platform to provide powerful, easy-to-use tools for getting your work done.

Highly scalable environment - With Google Apps, we're able to offer 25 GB online email storage to every student, instructor, and staff member.

Access to services from anywhere, anytime - A key benefit of the Google-hosted solution is that you can access email, contacts, and calendar from any computer or mobile device with an Internet connection, anywhere in the world.

More collaboration features - With Google's next-generation applications, you can collaborate with students, instructors, and colleagues more easily and efficiently than ever before.

For more information...

Last edited by webmaster@unca.edu on April 12, 2012