Grand Traverse County and the City of Traverse City sought a solution that was secure and cloud collaborative. Onix and Google Workspace delivered what this municipal client needed. Don Sheehan, Grand Traverse County IT Director shares the agencies' mutual deployment story.
Grand Traverse City and County migrated from their Lotus Notes email platform to Google Workspace. The shift, now supporting their more than 750 employees, was the first major cloud application to be embraced by the county and city.
Google Workspace provided the two entities with secure, easy access from anywhere, along with document sharing. Staff gained the ability to easily synchronize email, calendars and contacts with smartphones. Average mailbox quotas were expanded from 400MB to 25GB, a 62-fold increase. For IT, there was no longer a need to install desktop software or maintain file servers. Integrated anti-spam, antivirus and archiving capabilities were now built-in.
The board approved the migration with a three-month implementation timetable. The county selected Google Premier Partner Onix as its system integrator. Onix leveraged Google Workspace resources fully for the project by providing shared project plan documents, communication templates and a custom learning site with documentation and videos for employees. Training was offered to all employees through online webinars.
The IT Staff managed the setup and conversion from Lotus Notes. Using a free tool provided by Google, the team migrated email, calendars, and contacts into Google Workspace. The IT Department also formed a group of 45 county and city volunteers that agreed to serve as “Google Guides”, assisting their fellow employees throughout the transition.
The Guides learned about Google Workspace, migrating to the platform a month ahead of their peers. During the final cutover, the Guides served as the first point of contact within their departments. Their help allowed the IT Department to make a smooth transition to the new environment.
County and city employees told the IT Department that they were excited about the new platform and couldn’t wait to try many of the new collaborative tools offered by Google Workspace. The IT Department also liked Google Workspace because it simplified user setup and server support shifts to Google. These were wins for everyone.
Editor's Note: Google Workspace is FedRAMP compliant. FedRAMP is a government-wide program that provides a standardized approach to security assessment, authorization and continuous monitoring for cloud products and services.
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