Turning on Google+ for Google Apps, Finally! -

Google has finally allowed Google Apps customers to take advantage of Google+

They claimed that if you’ve got Enable New Apps by default turned on that Google+ would be turned on but that didn’t appear to be the case for the first Apps domains I tried this on. In both cases, they are set up to enable new apps by default but I still had to go in and turn it on. I’m guessing it is so they can get positive assent to the following screen (and to avoid a Buzz-type corporate privacy problem):

Note that the default button on this page is to NOT turn on Google+. I’m guessing some serious CYA thought went into this screen. Clicking on “Turn Google+ on” should return you to the Services tab where you can save your changes.

Once you’ve done that, you can inform your employees they can go in and signup for Google+. By going to http://plus.google.com/ your domain members will no longer be greeted by a message saying you are not allowed to join Google+. Your employees should, instead see the following:

In addition to reminding your domain users that the account is managed by the domain administrators (who can access, modify or delete your data at any time) they also have the signup screen to create your Google Profile. Note that Google insists currently on people using their real, commonly used names rather than psuedonyms or generic Corporate profiles. This is coming however soon they say.

When you set up your profile, you can get creative with your photos, even applying Halloween effects.

Enjoy!

Some caveats to keep in mind:

Your Google Apps account must have already been transferred over to the newer account infrastructure (where the Apps account is a Google Account as well).
Your domain users/employees/students can share information easily outside the organization
You must have Picassa Web Albums and Google Talk turned on as services in your Google App account
Know that your users can export/transfer their Google+ data using services such as Google Takeout at any time.
If you are a Google Apps for Education customer that is NOT an institution of higher learning, you’ll need to apply to get Google+ added to your account. I assume this is to prevent exposing underage (ie: high school or grade school) students from getting accounts through their school but I could be wrong.

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Michael Gibbs

I'm a technologist at heart, assisting companies best utilize the Internet to market themselves and sell their products and services online. This includes organizations as large as Google and as small as one or two individuals.
At Over The Top and Exhibit A Communications, I've programmed solutions for Google as well as at least one other company that was later acquired by Google.

I've been CTO of an Internet SaaS company and spent my time pretty evenly between guiding the future technical strategy of the company, architecting software solutions for my dev teams, designing and running a data center to service our clients world-wide as well as being a technical evangalist/sales engineer to our media clients large and small.

I've also been Chief Photographer of the Daily Sun/Post newspaper back when it was a 5-day a week daily newspaper.

I also spent a great many years as a beach lifeguardfor the City of San Clemente as well as Jr. Lifeguard instructor and then as it's program coordinator.
Bragging rights
Private Pilot with Instrument rating and proud husband of soon to be 25 years (and counting).

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