Mail migration consists of three basic steps:

1. Familiarizing yourself with Google Mail, Calendar, Contacts, and Docs.

• Login using the username and password provided
• Checkout the help area
• Watch the videos posted to the right

2. Moving user data to new server, and configuring email client (Outlook) to receive mail from new server.

3. Changing setting on your mobile device sync with the new server.

There is some preparation that each user can do to make the migration easier, and faster. Here is a list of quick tips:

Reduce the size of your Inbox, Sent Items, and Deleted Items.

• Delete all items not needed.
• Empty Deleted Items
• Archive sent items over six months old
• Archive Inbox items over six months old or move to Personal Folder.
• Save all email attachments to local drive or server.
• Clean Contacts of duplicates or records not wanted or needed.
• Make sure you calendar is up to date

Essentially, you are just assuring that you Outlook records are lean and clean. You don’t want to transfer data that will not be needed.

Moving your data to the new server.

This step will move all your existing mail, contacts and calendar events to the the Google server. This can be done prior to the transition date or after. The transition date is the date when new mail will be delivered to the Google servers. After this date, you will no longer see new email come in to your existing Outlook profile. You will need to either create a new profile or access email via an Internet browser.

In this case you would access new mail, create new calendar events, and create new contacts via browser, and then use Outlook to have access to all old mail, contacts, and calendar events.

The same would be true for your mobile device, you would have a configuration for the old server and new.

You would then run the Google migration tool at any time to move the data and create a new profile. Once you completed this process, you would delete the old profile in Outlook, and remove the setting for this server from your mobile device.

The advantage of this method is that you are not fighting a deadline, and you can move your data when time permits. The disadvantage is that you will not have all your data in one place until you migrate.

The other option is to migrate before the transition date, and have all your data ready and in one profile. The disadvantage to this method is that you will need to access your old profile to retrieve those messages that came in after the migration, but before the transition. This is not usually a lot of messages, especially when we schedule the transition over a weekend.

You can decide what method will best for you, but here is where we will discuss the process of moving your data, creating a new profile in Outlook, and accessing Gmail and Google Apps in a browser.

Access from a browser:

CFT
https://www.google.com/a/cftrm.com

CAPS
http://www.google.com/a/caps4ups.com

You can also go to http://google.com and click on "Sign In" in the upper right hand corner of the browser.

Enter your username (everything before the @ in your email address) and password.Once signed in, you can access email, calendar, contacts, and documents from the top left.

You can search for help on any subject from the help link in the top right corner of the screen. Depending on your browser and the configuration, access to other areas may open in another tab, or window when clicked.

Google Migration Tool:

When you are ready to move your data to the Google server, go to the URL below, but read this entire section before you do. I have found that when you click on the download button, it just begins the migration process. NOTE: This is for Outlook Only.

Download and Install Google Sync Tool

After you download Apps Sync, and the install process begins, you will be prompted to enter your email address and password.

You will then select the profile with the data you wish to transfer. Check “Import data from an existing profile” and select your profile from the drop down list. Check all the remaining boxes.

You will then see a progress box as shown below. This process may take quite awhile depending on the size of your mailbox. It would be best to run this late at night to let it complete.

When finished you will see a box as shown below, click OK, and you will be ready to go. If there were errors it will be displayed. Should you get an error, make note of it and email me.

all your records should now be available to see in Gmail. The next step will be to open your new Outlook profile.

You will be prompted to open a profile from the “Choose profile box” when you open Outlook. Choose the profile that has a “-Google Apps” after it. This is your new Outlook profile.

When you reopen Outlook, you will see a sync progress box. You can choose to have this not open each time by deselecting the box in the lower left hand corner. You are now ready to access your mail, contacts, and calendar in Outlook, or browser.