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How to maintain G Suite security settings ?

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Setting G Suite Security Settings

If maintaining security is not at the forefront of your business model, then you are opening yourself up to hackers and data loss. G Suite offers security features to help protect your employees’ accounts and maintain your company’s data integrity.  This blog post will explain how to maintain: G suite security settings.

View User Settings

As a G Suite administrator, you can access user security settings to ensure password strength is up to code and turn on two-step verification security protocols. To do this, you must first log into your administrator account and access the administrator console.

  1. Click users.
  2. On the user’s screen, you can verify the status of two-step verification enrollment. If you do not see a column listed for the two-step verification, click the more icon and choose select columns to expand your screen to include any missing options.
  3. Select the user whose security settings you wish to check.
  4. Click Security. Again, if security is not an option, select show more to find the missing section.

Two-step verification

If the user has enabled the two-step verification, the backup verification codes are accessible by clicking show backup verification codes. Google suggests all G Suite users utilize the two-step verification process for maximum security. As an administrator, you can disable this feature if an employee no longer has access to the mobile number they used to set up their security.

To begin the two-step verification initiation process log into your administration console and select set up two-step verification for your domain. At this point, you should notify all your users of your new security protocol and include instructions on how they can finish setting up their enrollment.

All users must opt into the two-step verification themselves regardless of company policy. After they choose to opt-in, users need to navigate to the two-step verification page to set up their codes. Once on the two-step verification page, select Get Started.

  1. Enter the email and password associated with the G Suite user account.
  2. Click the start set up button.
  3. When prompted, enter a mobile phone number in which to send a text message containing a six-digit verification code.
  4. Verify the phone number by entering the six digit code which you received.
  5. Choose to add the current computer as a trusted device. If the machine used to set up the two-step verification is and not your regular computer, do not select “trust this ”
  6. Confirm that you want to use two-step verification.

Unless the computer is a trusted device, each time your user logs in they will be required to enter the six-digit verification code. Mobile devices using Gmail and Google calendar may require app passwords in addition to their verification code. The app password is entered once and remains the same until the user updates their login information.

Password Strength – G Suite Security Settings

As the G Suite administrator, you can help protect your users’ accounts by monitoring and managing the length and strength of their passwords. Setting a length requirement prevents users from creating short passwords which are easy to hack. Start by logging into your G Suite administration console.

  1. On the dashboard navigate to security and then basic settings. If the security option is not visible on your panel, select more controls to browse to the security features.
  2. In the section labeled password strength, enter a minimum and maximum length the user passwords must abide. For example, must be between eight and 20 characters.
  3. Click save.

Also in the security section of the G Suite administration dashboard, you can monitor how secure user passwords are. Navigate to the password monitoring area of the security section. From here you can view a graph showing the overall strength of your users’ passwords. This bar graph will change over time depending common passwords that are known to be vulnerable and your password length requirements.

Keeping your G Suite user accounts secure is your best line of defense against hackers and data loss. It is also a good idea to back up all G Suite user information. CloudAlly offers an affordable backup service for all your G Suite accounts.

Dropbox vs G Drive

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Dropbox vs G Drive

The way people work is constantly changing. More employees need access to documents and files even when they aren’t at their desk. For that, they need a remote location in which to store their data that is accessible from anywhere something like the ever-present cloud. With so many cloud choices, we have decided to take a deeper look at Dropbox Vs. G Drive’s business offerings.

Plans and Pricing

Both Dropbox and Google Drive have tiered service plans that allow users to pick the best options for themselves. Both companies offer personal and business platforms to best meet client needs. However, they do differ slightly in overall features and pricing of these tiers.

Dropbox

Dropbox’s service features make them a leader among cloud storage service providers. All their plans include:

  • Access from anywhere
  • Offline access
  • Automatic Updates
  • Office 365 integration
  • Commenting
  • File Requests

All options offer versioning recovery for files stored in Dropbox. However, the length of time for version roll back varies. Dropbox’s professional plans allow users to store up to 120 days of version history.

Business tier plans come with a few extra features. Smart Sync and team folders are only a couple of the extras available. Professional plans also have HIPAA compliance, granular permissions, and an account transfer tool.

Dropbox’s professional pricing plans are:

Name Size Cost Annually Cost for Month to Month
Standard—business 2 TB $150 per user $15 per user
Advance—business As much as needed $240 per user $25 per user
Enterprise—business As much as needed Call for quote Call for quote

 

Google Drive

Offices using G Suite automatically have access to a Google Drive. As with Dropbox, Google Drive has much to offer in the way of features.

  • Anywhere access
  • Large file sharing and storage
  • Offline access
  • Link sharing
  • Collaborate with others
  • Two-factor authentication
  • Sync between different locations, e., desktop, web, and mobile
  • Productivity tools

As part of G Suite for business users, Google Drive has additional features including:

  • Audit report
  • Data loss prevention (Enterprise level only)
  • eDiscovery
  • Smart search across G Suite with Cloud Search
  • 24/7 support by phone, chat or email
  • Shared calendars

Unlike with Dropbox, however, Google does have some space saving solutions. For the most part, anything stored within the Drive counts against the storage space. However, there is some instance where files within the drive do not count against the storage space. These include:

  • Files in “Shared with Me” in which you are not the owner of the document. These only take up space in the owner’s drive, not yours.
  • Google Photos stored using the “High Quality” setting.
  • Photos and Videos backed up from a Pixel phone.

Google Drive storage may also vary between the web based application, desktop, and mobile application. Shared items do take space on your hard drive on both your desktop and mobile devices while they do not take space on the internet. Additionally, Google Drive does not sync items stored in the web application’s trash to your desktop or mobile application.

Google Drive is offered as part of the G Suite service package. Each license you purchase has access to individual Drive locations, not just a centralized dumping space for entire team. The different tiers depend on what your need are. While both the Business and Enterprise plans offer the same Google Drive storage, there are other features offered for G Suite users that may need.

Google Drive with G Suite

Name Size Cost Monthly
Basic 30 GB $5 per user
Business Unlimited (or 1TB for fewer than 5 users) $10 per user
Enterprise Unlimited (or 1TB for fewer than 5 users) $25 per user

 

Google Drive’s business plans do have a size restriction. For teams and companies with over five users, the storage size is unlimited. However, for businesses with fewer than five users, the storage space is limited to 1TB per user.

Security

Security is an important consideration. You need to be certain that the documents you store are protected from malicious attacks. Both Dropbox and Google Drive offer security features to keep your data safe.

Dropbox

Dropbox is proud of their ongoing security features that help to protect your data from malicious attacks. Their security features include:

  • 256-bit AES encryption for storage
  • SSL/TLS transmission protocols
  • File versioning (30-day for personal plans, 120-day for business plans)
  • Remote device wipe
  • HIPAA compliance (business level options only)
  • Two-factor authentication
  • Password-protected and expiring link sharing

In addition to their built-in security protocols, Dropbox routinely tests their system for vulnerabilities. They currently work with third-party companies and the security research community to find bugs and holes in the system and report it back to them.

Like many cloud services, Dropbox does allow third-party applications to connect to your account, with your permission. To help protect information, they utilize OAuth, a standard authorizing protocol which allows you to grant granular permission to apps you wish to connect.

Google Drive

Like their competitor, Google Drive has security measures in place to ensure safe storage of your data safely. Some of the safety features they have included:

  • SSL/TLS transmission encryption
  • 256-bit AES security
  • 2048 RSA encryption keys for validation and key exchange phrases
  • Certified by SOC1, SOC2, and SOC3 by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountant
  • Certified ISO/IEC 27001

Google uses Perfect Forward Secrecy to encrypt content during moves between servers. While stored on their servers, the information is walled off from others who may share the server, in much the same way that banks separate accounts. This separation protects your files from intrusion by other Google account holders.

Like Dropbox, Google uses outside contributors to keep their security protocol in check. In fact, they were one of the first companies to offer a Vulnerability Reward Program to their web account holders.

Apps

There are several ways for you to access both your Dropbox and Google Drive. Each cloud service has a desktop and mobile apps in addition to web access.

Dropbox

If you sign up for Dropbox from your desktop or laptop computer, one thing you will notice prompts to download the desktop application. With this application, a dedicated folder appears on your computer. That folder gives you a direct link to files stored inside your Dropbox account. The desktop application also provides you access to Dropbox files when you are offline. Once you go back online, the folder automatically syncs.

Dropbox allows you to take your files on the go with their mobile apps. You can get mobile applications for Apple, Android, and Windows devices. As with the desktop application, this tool allows you to stay in sync with all files in your account and any shared with you from other accounts. You can use your document scanner to upload images such as white boards and convert them to easy to use PDFs.

Of course, you can still access your Dropbox account via the internet. Once you browse to their website, sign in. From here you can preview, download, and upload files. Any changes you make automatically sync with your desktop and mobile apps.

Google Drive

As with Dropbox, Google Drive has a desktop application. This folder syncs files that you choose to sync to your computer’s hard drive, you choose which objects and folders to sync and which to leave exclusively online. Any file not synced cannot be accessed via this application.

Google Drive’s mobile app works their desktop software similarly. With the mobile app, you can:

  • View content
  • Access files
  • See file details and activities
  • Access Google Photos
  • Use camera to scan documents into PDF
  • Set content permissions

Of course, you can always access your data on the web. By logging in to your Google account, you can view, edit, and set content permissions. Moving items into the trash online will remove things from your sync folders. However, the trash does not show up in the synchronized folders.

Whether you choose Dropbox or Google Drive, you need to protect your data with a backup and recovery solution. CloudAlly’s G Suite backup service includes Drive with unlimited storage at a cost of $3/month or $30/year per user. CloudAlly’s Dropbox backup service will be available Q4 2017 at a cost of $2/month or $20/year per 5GB of data.

G Suite Vs Office 365

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G Suite vs. Office 365

Businesses are always looking for new ways to help their teams work together while keeping their overhead low. To do this, many administrators choose to use services such as G SuiteVs. Office 365 to gain the word processing, spreadsheet, and power point capabilities while connecting their employees with a way to store and collaborate on files. Let’s look at the two major players, G Suite and Office 365.

Features

Both G Suite and Office 365 offer businesses new methods of productivity. Each has competing features that make them appealing to their key demographic and allow employees to create, store, and share documents and files.

G Suite Features

G Suite was, until end of 2016, formerly known as Google Apps. This program is Google’s answer to the question of how to help businesses with the tools needed for everyday use in addition to offering a space for employees to work together.

To help employees with the tools they need to create files, G Suite includes a variety of applications. All the applications are available online and are accessible from anywhere with the user’s G Suite log in information. These apps include:

  • Docs
  • Sheets
  • Slides
  • Forms

Docs, Sheets, and Slides are the Google equivalent of Office products. Forms is a form creation program that allows employees to create questionnaires and surveys. Google then analyzes them for you quickly.

They also tackled online storage with Google Drive and, to a lesser extent, Google Groups. Groups are not an exact storage area as it is a communication tool. However, the files shared with the group do remain stored there until someone removes them.

To allow employees to work together and communicate, Google offers a wide array of options, all of which G Suite includes. Co-workers talk using

  • Gmail (which comes with a custom domain email @yourcompany)
  • Google Calendar
  • Google+
  • Google Hangouts with Video Chat
  • Google Groups

To help workers keep on track, Google Keep and Google Tasks work as a scrap pad to help workers with their list of things they need to do. Keep allows users to capture and organize ideas. Tasks work as a checklist of what needs completing.

Google Sites is a content management area for data storage and company intranet. Sites are easy-to-build websites. The sites built here allow co-workers to share and collaborate as well.

Office 365 Features

Like G Suite, Office 365 is Microsoft’s answer to the business need for anywhere access. At the core of the service are the popular and familiar applications. Unlike with Google, some of the Office 365 services offer local copies in addition to web-based versions of the applications.

Web and Desktop Apps include:

  • Word
  • Excel
  • PowerPoint
  • Outlook

Desktop apps only:

  • Access
  • Publisher
  • One Note

Each desktop application license covers up to five devices such as tablets, phones, PCs or Macs. It allows employees to load the applications on their mobile devices, work computers, and personal systems used for work purposes.

Office 365 comes with 1TB OneDrive storage per user. Like Google Drive, OneDrive is a place for users can create, edit, download, and share documents and other media.

As for collaboration where users can talk and work together, Office 365 offers a variety of options. Select plans come with a dedicated email with custom domain addresses. However, the straight Business plan does not come with email, but Microsoft does offer free email at Outlook.com

In addition to email, Office offers:

  • Skype for Business for chat and video calling
  • Teams for chat
  • Yammer for chat
  • Exchange for messaging

Select plans include SharePoint which for intranet use to allow employees a central location to work together on projects.

Security (Office 365 Vs G Suite)

When it comes to security, both companies work hard to protect their users. Both try to monitor their servers for weaknesses and offer patches as quickly as they can to holes in their infrastructure. Both providers offer HIPAA compliance to their consumers, with the appropriate paperwork.

G Suite Security

When it comes to security, Google tries to have their users’ best interest in mind. In fact, Google is not only HIPAA compliant but also certified with ISO 27001, ISO 27018, EY Point, and AICPA/SOC. These certifications highlight their dedication to security.

G Suite comes with Spam, phishing, and malware prevention. They also have brand phishing defense as part of their security infrastructure.

On the user-controlled side, administrators can turn on two-step verification which forces users to use an alternate code in addition to their log-in credentials to access their files. Administrators also control the single-point sign on to unify access to other enterprise cloud applications and management of mobile devices.

Additionally, Google offers data loss protection (DLP) to allow administrators to protect proprietary information from being emailed to outside sources. Any messages that contain the information set in the DLP is either blocked from being sent or quarantined. Quarantined emails alert the sender to allow them to remove any sensitive data before sending.

Office 365 Security

Like Google, Microsoft ensures company data is secure. Microsoft uses service-side encryption to protect data both at rest on servers and during transfers between the user’s device and Microsoft’s servers.

When the files are on the servers, Office uses both file-level and volume-level encryption. Multiple types of encryption protect data in transit. This encoding includes Internet Protocol Security (IPsec) and Transport Layer Security (TLS). Microsoft uses third-party auditors to verify their cryptography independently.

Along with TLS and IPsec, Microsoft uses Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) to filter potentially dangerous email messages from company Office 365 inboxes (available on select plans). The protection keeps spam, viruses, and malware out without having to set additional settings.

Additionally, Microsoft offers the same two-factor authentication that Google provides their customers. The authenticating code arrives by text, phone call, or using a mobile application. Clients using two-factor authentication may also need application passwords to use non-browser based clients such as Outlook or Skype for Business.

Plans and Pricing

Both G Suite and Office 365 offer a tiered business system that allows clients to pick the best plan for their company.

G Suite

G Suite has three plans for businesses to choose. All options come with a 15-day free trial.

Plan Name Cost per User per Month
Basic $5
Business $10
Enterprise $25

The Basic Plan includes:

  • Email
  • Video and Voice Conferencing
  • Shared Calendar
  • Docs, Sheets, Slides
  • 24/7 customer support via email, phone, or online
  • Security admin controls
  • 30GB storage

Business Plans include everything from the Basic plan plus:

  • Unlimited Cloud (or 1TB per user if there are fewer than five users)
  • Smart search across G Suite with Cloud Search
  • Archive and set retention policies for email and chats
  • eDiscovery for email, cats, and files
  • Audit reports to track activity

Enterprise Plans include everything from Business and Basic plans plus:

  • Data Loss Prevention for Gmail
  • Data Loss Prevention for Google Drive
  • Hosted S/MIME for Gmail
  • Integrated Gmail with Compliant 3rd Party Archiving tools

Office 365

Office 365 also has a tiered solution for companies to choose. There are three primary plans to accommodate businesses with 300 or fewer employees. Microsoft also offers Enterprise level plans for larger corporations. Business Premium, E3 and E5 Enterprise plans come with a 30-day free trial.

Small Businesses
Plan Name Cost Per User Per Month (Annual) Cost Per User Per Month (monthly)
Business Essential $5.00 $6.00
Business $8.25 $10.00
Business Premium $12.50 $15.00

Business Essential includes:

  • Online web apps of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook
  • 1 TB OneDrive storage per user
  • Skype for Business
  • Exchange
  • SharePoint
  • Teams

Business includes:

  • Online web apps of Word, Excel, PowerPoint
  • Desktop apps of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote, Access, and Publisher
  • 1 TB OneDrive storage per user

Business Premium includes everything from the essential plan plus:

  • Desktop apps of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Access, Publisher, and OneNote
Enterprise Level
Plan Name Cost Per User Per Month (annual)
E1 $8.00
Pro Plus $12.00
E3 $20.00
E5 $35.00

E1 includes:

  • Online applications of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook
  • 1TB OneDrive per user
  • Hosted Email 50GB
  • SharePoint
  • Video Conferencing for up to 250 people
  • Skype Meeting broadcast for up to 10,000 people
  • Teams
  • Manual retention/deletion policies
  • Tasks
  • Planner
  • 24/7 web/phone support
  • No limit to number of users

Pro Plus includes:

  • Desktop apps of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote, Access, and Publisher
  • Online applications of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook
  • 1TB OneDrive per user
  • 24/7 web/phone support
  • No limit to number of users

E3 includes everything found in the E1 tier plus:

  • Desktop apps of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote, Access, and Publisher
  • Unlimited OneDrive Storage
  • Yammer messaging
  • eDiscovery with in-place search, hold, and export
  • Schedule management with StaffHub

E5 includes all E3 benefits plus additional security measures and calling features such as:

  • Exchange Online Advanced Threat Protection
  • Custom lock box for mail access control
  • Advanced data governance
  • Organization analytics
  • Phone system with add-on calling plan
  • Audio conferencing with a dial-in phone number.

No matter if you choose to go with G Suite or Office 365 for your business needs, it is crucial that you back up information created and stored in these services. CloudAlly offers continuous backup for all your employees using either G Suite or Office 365.  Both G Suite and Office 365 exchange start at $3 per user per month or $30 per user per year.

Try out our ROI calculator – Figure out the cost of not backing up your data.

Google Pop or IMAP Options

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Google POP or IMAP Options – How to Recover Your Gmail Messages

In this edition of How to, we will discuss how to import Gmail messages into a local email application. While Gmail allows you to import other email services into your Gmail inbox, it is not as simple to work in the opposite direction. However, with the adjustment of a few settings, you can push your Gmail messages to a third-party email service.

Using Gmail Forwarding to Link with Service

Businesses using G Suite automatically have access to Gmail for their users. However, many companies still use email software loaded locally on each employee’s computer hard drive. Because of this, Google has POP or IMAP options to load Gmail messages into these software titles.Google Pop or IMAP Options

POP Settings

For Gmail to work correctly with a third-party email software such as Thunderbird or Outlook, each user must first turn on either the POP or IMAP features in their Gmail settings. To do this, start by logging into your Gmail account and selecting the settings icon in the top right-hand portion of your inbox.

  • Choose settings from the drop-down list.
  • On the configuration screen, select the Forwarding and POP/IMAP tab.

If you plan on only using one third-party external email, you may wish to use the POP settings. However, if you want to use multiple computers with external email programs, the IMAP settings are what you need to focus.

To configure Gmail for POP service, you will need to set the POP download section of the screen.

  • If this status for pop shows as disabled, select Enable POP for all mail (even mail that has already been downloaded) or enable POP for all mail that arrives from now on.
  • Under When Messages Are Accessed with POP, choose an option from the drop-down box. You can decide to keep Gmail’s copy, Mark Gmail’s copy as read, archive Gmail’s copy, or delete Gmail’s copy. Choose the option that works best for you.
  • At the bottom of the screen, click save changes.

In your local email service, you may need to configure the Gmail account. Start by adding a new account and entering your username and password. If you receive an error message, go into the advanced settings to ensure that you correctly set the incoming and outgoing servers. You may also need to adjust the port numbers to match Gmail’s configuration.

  • Incoming server: pop.gmail.com
  • Require SSL: yes
  • Port: 995.

Outgoing settings by default are:

  • Outgoing server: gmail.com
  • Require SSL: Yes
  • Require TLS: Yes,
  • Require Authentication: Yes
  • SSL port: 465
  • TLS port: 587

Check with G Suite administrator to verify outgoing port and server settings are correct.

IMAP Settings

To configure Gmail for IMAP service, scroll down to the IMAP settings found beneath the POP settings.

  • If this status for IMAP is disabled, choose the enable IMAP option.
  • For the setting when I mark a message in IMAP as deleted, decide between auto-expunge on which immediately updates the server or auto-expunge off which allows the user to update through the web browser.
  • Under the when a message is marked as deleted and expunged from the last visible IMAP folder option, choose between archive the message (which is the default and the only alternative for auto-expunge on), move the message to the trash folder, or immediately delete message forever.
  • Finally, choose the folder size limits to meet your needs. You can decide not to restrict the number of messages in an IMAP folder, or you can set it to 1000, 2000, 5000, or 10,000.
  • At the bottom of the screen, click save changes.

As with the POP service, to add your Gmail account to your local email software, choose to add account and follow the prompts on the screen. If you receive a message indicating that you need to configure your account settings, use the following information:

  • incoming server:Gmail.com.
  • Require SSL: Yes.
  • Port number: 993.

For outgoing settings,

  • Outgoing server: gmail.com
  • Require SSL: Yes
  • Require TLS: Yes,
  • Require Authentication: Yes
  • SSL port: 465
  • TLS port: 587

Recovery

Recovery of Gmail messages may be involved. Deleted emails go to the trash folder. Restoration from the trash is easy. However, once you empty the trash bin, recovery of email is harder. Administrators may be able to restore the file. However, if it has been longer than 30 days, or the employee’s account is purged, recovery is impossible.

The use of an additional online backup does prevent email loss due to accidental deletion or employee account removal. Unlike some competitors, CloudAlly makes it very easy to restore Gmail messages to third-party email platforms. When restoring missing messages from user accounts, administrators can choose to download the files in Outlook compatible format. The user quickly integrates the downloaded data into their desktop application.

How to Delete G Suite Account

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Q&A

How to Delete G Suite Account ?

How to Delete G Suite Account

Turnover is a natural part of doing business. Employees come and go with regularity. Businesses using Google applications to run their offices must consider what happens to those accounts once an employee is no longer part of the company. As an administrator for your business’s Google Apps account, you should delete the former employee’s service promptly to maintain licenses while keeping overhead costs down. How do you do that without losing relevant information? How to Delete G Suite Account ? The following steps will help you remove a Google apps account while maintaining sensitive data.

Limit Former Employee Access

The first step in deleting a Google apps account is going to be limiting the previous user’s access to this account. The benefit of using Google apps for your business is that employees can access it from anywhere. You must start by changing the former user’s password to prevent him or her from logging in from outside the company.

Also, any two-step security verification in place must be disabled at the time of password reset. Continuing to employ a two-step verification process can make it difficult to secure data within the account and harder for someone to take over projects associated with this account.

In a final step to limit the user’s access, you must reset all login cookies from the administrator screen. This forces any devices logged into the account to be logged out and requires the new passcode to be entered before access.

Back Up Important Data

Once you are confident the former employee no longer has access to the account; you need to download or backup all data within the account. Backups ensure that you lose nothing during the transition.

Put Someone in Charge of Dispersing the Data

It may take time to go through all the files, emails, and calendar sessions. Therefore, you should delegate someone to act as an executor of the departing employees Google apps account. This person will be responsible for determining who:

  • Accesses to emails
  • Transfers ownership of any files located in the departing users Google drive account
  • Transfers ownership of the departing users Google groups
  • Accesses to any shared calendars

The executor of the account should also set up a vacation autoresponder letting others know that the departing user is no longer with the company and whom to contact instead.

Additionally, the executor will look through the departing employees account to determine which of the remaining Google services employed on behalf of your organization by the former user. The agent will then decide whom to turn access over to.

Deletion and Diversion

After approximately 90 days, or when your administrator has reassigned all emails, files, and calendar events, it is time to delete the Google apps account. It is important to remember, however, that once the apps account removal is complete, any emails sent to that account will bounce back as undeliverable. Therefore, it is essential that you plan for a diversion of these messages.

There are three different ways you can divert emails from a closed account. They include:

  • Catch all addresses – this is an email that intercepts any email sent to your domain in which a user account does not exist. A Catch-all includes closed apps accounts and mistyped addresses.
  • User alias – assign the departed users email address as an alias to a current employee. Typically, this would be the executor or someone hired to replace the former employee.
  • Google group – create a group using the same address as the recently closed account. You can assign several employees to receive notifications of messages received.

Have a Second Backup

It is important to remember that any file or email not distributed before the Google apps account entirely deletes lost forever. That is why it is so important to have a backup solution. Google only allows for recovery of files for up to 30 days and restoration can only go back to the original user.

This retention policy is what makes CloudAlly unique. Unlike Google’s limited recovery ability, we provide unlimited cloud storage with no expiration date. Even after you have deleted a Google apps account from your Google dashboard, the former employee’s emails, contacts, calendar events, and files remain stored on our servers for you to distribute. Your administrator can search this data and restore it to a current employee’s apps account whenever necessary.

Fees are just $3 per month per user or $30 per year per user. Try us out our free for 15 day trial to see how well works for your company.

Google Apps Backup and Restore

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Backup services for G Suite: A quick guide for application managers

Guide – Google Apps Backup and Restore

If you’re responsible for management of your company’s G Suite application, (previously/otherwise known as Google Apps for Business), you’ll appreciate its ease of use, reliability and mobile friendly features. Yet even though G Suite is a comprehensive, intuitive set of productivity apps, there may be times where a file is deleted or moved off to a device and lost due to accidental or malicious activity. CloudAlly’s Google Apps backup and restore service is your best defense against data loss, whether you have a large G Suite deployment or even a single user.

Beware the security threat from within!

According to many sources including CSO Online, the biggest threat to company data isn’t from external hackers – it is from internal employees. Strong data ownership policies are vital, and mitigating your risk with an automated file backup and recovery service is equally as important.

If you are G Suite Enterprise, Business or Education client, you may say, “Hold on, I subscribed to Google Vault, it’s a backup service, right?”. As we explained in recent blog post, Vault is an archive system for G Suite that enables legal holds, archiving and audit compliance, and there are limitations you should consider.

CloudAlly’s backup service complements Google Vault, and mitigates data loss by providing point-in-time recovery for an entire mailbox, folders, or individual items, unlike Vault’s item level functionality. You can discover more about strengths and weaknesses of Google Vault (and the opportunities of running both services) by clicking the link above. Our AWS storage sites in the US, Australia and the EU ensure business and personal users around the world can quickly backup and recover their G Suite data with minimal business interruption.

Have concerns about security or compliance?

Data in our AWS storage infrastructure is protected with AES-256-bit encryption, which meets compliance requirements like ISO 27001 and HIPAA. Our website and application have been reviewed and authorized by GoDaddy, Google, Amazon Web Services (AWS). CloudAlly participates in the Cloud Security Alliance. Data in motion is secured using SSL (HTTPS) encrypted servers.

For businesses that aren’t prepared to make the financial and time investment required to set up Google Vault, or don’t foresee needing to set up retention schedules on electronic files, or needing to submit user activity reports to an auditor, CloudAlly is a powerful stand-alone backup service for file and content preservation.

Backups for more than file storage and sharing

Working with a Google service like G Suite, it’s easy to be complacent with the idea that you can simply set up a set of folders and permissions in Drive, and the files will be stored there as long as your employees need access to them.

As users become accustomed to how Docs, Slides and Sheets automatically save their files – they may also take it for granted that files can be easily moved between folders, and it’s easy to get to them from their computer or mobile device. Until they are deleted on a laptop by accident, and the desktop sync app runs, and files are put into the Trash bin and stored there for a limited time (typically 30 days).

Backup services are important for other G Suite Apps as well. Think about when your employees change their Android phone, or if they delete someone from their Contacts by accident then need it again. Gmail and Calendar backup services can be extremely helpful should an employee leave the business, and you need to access their messages for the new hire that takes their place. Other Google Apps backup and restore functions we provide include Tasks, Chats and Classic Sites.

Easy activation, setup and configuration

It only takes a few minutes to setup a CloudAlly account and activate backups for your entire organization. No technical programming expertise required.

Step 1 – Click on the “Sign Up” link to start your Free Trial for 15 days. Confirm your trial account by clicking the URL we send you via email.

Step 2 –Sign into your CloudAlly account and click on activate a new backup. In a separate tab, sign into your G Suite account with administrative privileges and then from the CloudAlly backup screen click on “Integrate with Google”

Step 3 – The system will auto-discover all of your G Suite users and you can either activate all or selective backups as needed. You can also specify your backup time in the preferences section.

When you are logged into G Suite, you can always get to your CloudAlly dashboard quickly by clicking the “9-dot” apps icon at the top right hand corner of your screen. The left-hand administrative menu offers controls and settings for:

  • Backup scheduling management (Daily, every three days or weekly)
  • Data restore and download
  • Two-factor authentication for heightened security
  • OAuth Authentication (using social media credentials for convenience and security)
  • User management
  • Convenient in-app support documentation and ticketing
  • Guides and tutorials

No Fine Print “Gotchyas”

With some backup services, the basic subscription cost is low, but you are limited to a small amount of storage space before prices increase drastically.  Others charge higher fees for performance Service Level Agreements. CloudAlly doesn’t have pricing tiers based on consumption or bandwidth, our affordable Google Apps backup service plan is priced at $30 US per user per year, with volume discounts available for more than 100 users.

Our partnership with Amazon enables us to offer a 99.9% uptime SLA, and offers you peace of mind that your backup data will be available when needed, so you can retrieve all your files from a specific backup execution, or even a single file at a time.

Cloud-to-cloud backup from CloudAlly is an affordable way to safeguard G Suite data and content. It’s easy to set up, your data can be restored to your accounts with ease, and your data is stored on AWS S3 Secure storage. Once you set up and schedule your backups, we monitor and protect your critical data so you don’t have to purchase or manage onsite storage drives or appliances.

According to the 2017 Ponemon Cost of Data Breach study, each corporate record which is lost or stolen costs businesses $141. Though this is down from $158 in 2016, how many records do you store in G Suite? Consider the cost and business interruption which could result from user error or malicious data theft, compared to the cost of Google Apps backup and recovery from CloudAlly, which is negligible and a sound insurance policy to assist you in your day of need.

As a G Suite for Business administrator, you are often called upon to solve problems like accidentally deleted files, e-mail and contacts. In other cases, a website refresh may go in the wrong direction, and a r restore to a previous iteration is often the best pivot. Don’t let complex data backups and recovery processes cause business interruption. CloudAlly is the affordable way to make scheduled and on-demand backups easy, and data recovery painless.

Ready to sign up and safeguard your data? Get started now with a FREE TRIAL