User Help

These help guidelines are intended for a general user of the organization's Google Apps services. 'Users' are for the most part consumers of information that's provided by the leadership teams (managers) of each activity. These help guidelines will help you get the most utility from these services.

Included here are tips for understanding and effectively using each service, along with some troubleshooting info.  This help guide outlines the Best Practices we recommend when deploying and using Google Apps, however specific implementations by the owners/managers of individual activities may differ. This site provides a middle layer of information between information that may exist in each service and its menus, and the support help pages provided by Google. 

 Help Resources Context
 Settings and Menus within each Google service The first place to look, but when you get stuck...
 Google Apps Help Guide (this site) How to use these services in the context of ORG.  Offering some tips for setting up and using these services in a relevant manner.
 Google Help and Learning Resources Google offers many resources for digging deeper. This site provides some useful links throughout and in the 'Learn More' section at bottom of each page.

Google Services

We will be using these Google Apps services on a regular basis (n.b. Google has many others, too):
  • Accounts - to get the most from this environment, you'll need a Google Account (which doesn't mean you have to get a new email address, but by logging into your Google Account you'll have access to resources that are only available to a user account that has been granted permission).
  • Calendars - access personal and multiple ORG calendars, and you can add them into your smartphone and computer's calendar application.
  • Drive - folder/file storage with sharing (current materials and archives).
  • Gmail - email, note Google Apps addresses are:  bob@orgname.com; personal gmail accounts are: tony@gmail.com
  • Groups - join various groups, and as a member you'll receive email updates and have access to other group resources.
  • PicasaWeb - photo albums for sharing photos and slideshows (by links or embedding them into sites); archive storage.
  • Sites - easily edited websites (such as this one) under the control of each activity.
  • Video - upload and share video clips (by links or embedding them into sites).

Links

To 'Sign in' to your Google account, go to www.google.com and click on the 'Sign in' button.  Or you can use any of the links below and click on the 'Sign in' button.

When you're signed (logged) into your Google Account, you can access services via the black menu bar at the of the page.  In addition, here are some URLs to bookmark for quick access:
Service Google links
 Calendar  calendar.google.com
 Drive (folder/file sharing)  drive.google.com
 Gmail  mail.google.com
 Groups  groups.google.com
 PicasaWeb (photos)  picasaweb.google.com
 Sites (websites)  sites.google.com