Google Apps at Franklin Twp Schools

What is Google Apps at Franklin Twp Schools? 

Now you can have Google-powered email, calendars, document sharing, and more from your franklintwpschools.org account.

FAQ's

What is Google Apps?

A bridge between our organization and Google products. On one side, we have communication and collaboration needs for our school. On the other side, there are successful, innovative, online personal Google products. Google Apps allows us to embrace the strengths of both sides.

Google quality, Google connectivity. Our school, our people. Powerful, easy-to-use tools. Communicate via email. Create and share calendar events, documents, and spreadsheets. Access it all from one place - the Start Page.

Why are we using Google Apps?

To bring together essential communication applications. To improve productivity and communication. We can focus on student needs and adding value to the experience while Google focuses on building excellent products, maintaining the feature set, and innovating our communication options for tomorrow.

Our goal is to offer you a reliable, practical, secure, feature-rich webmail environment. We think Google can help.

We can focus on the core values of our school, such as student relationships, and let Google leverage its extensive operational experience with security and privacy.

Our IT staff can utilize an administrative set of APIs to build on top of Google Apps rather than starting from ground zero.

How do I get started?

Log in to http://www.google.com/a/franklintwpschools.org with your username and password, and you'll be authenticated for Google services.

If you want to visit Google services directly visit any of the links above.  You can also bookmark them for even faster access!

What options do I have for accessing email?

The primary option is webmail - http://mail.google.com/a/franklintwpschools.org

It's packed with exciting features and integrated with other Google services. In your online email account, you can create filters to organize your inbox before new mail arrives, schedule calendar events, map addresses in your messages, and track postal packages.

Alternative access options include:

Google App Sync for Outlook

This is the most robust option for those who want to utilize Microsoft's Oulook e-mail client.  If you would like to utilize this on a district computer please contact TechSupport and we can help you get started.  To utilize this service at home visit: https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gappssync

POP or IMAP

Configuring instructions are very similar to Gmail. In your mail client, anytime you're asked for an email address, enter your full email address (example: jdoe@franklintwpschools.org).

The incoming server is still pop.gmail.com or imap.gmail.com and outgoing server is smtp.gmail.com. For more client-specific instructions, such as Outlook Express, visit http://google.com/support/a/users/bin/answer.py?answer=12103.

Mobile

Connect to the web. Enter http://mail.google.com/a/franklintwpschools.org, and select OK. Bookmark the location for later.

If you have a BlackBerry, you can download the mail application. Navigate to http://m.google.com/a. It has most of the webmail features - search and conversation view. With automatic syncing, actions taken on your Blackberry are reflected in your email account.

This is separate from the Gmail for mobile application. A red M icon will appear for Gmail and a blue M icon will appear for our Google Apps email.

How are the Google services linked together?

You have one username for all services in the Google Apps package. Once you log in to one service, you can easily access all others.

What do I need to know about documents and spreadsheets?

It's a web-based word processing and spreadsheet application. It can help us collaborate on projects from anywhere. Your documents are stored online. You and anyone you invite to collaborate can access the document from any internet-connected computer, and make changes simultaneously. Multiple people can make changes at once, and everyone's changes show in real-time.

You can get started right away by creating a new document or by uploading a file from your computer. Since the products are integrated, you can use your email account Contacts list to invite people to view or edit your documents.

More Tips

Revision history -- Individual edits are kept so you can see who made changes and revert back, if necessary.

Search -- Just like the rest of Google products, you can harness the power of Google search to look for a document you haven't edited in months.

Security and privacy -- You choose who sees your document. Other users can only access your document or spreadsheet if you add them to the list of collaborators or viewers, or if you decide to publish the document.

Where can I find more information? 

Click here for a list of videos we have create for you 

Help Center: www.google.com/support/a/users