Google Apps Domain Migration Case Study: Lore

Lore, at the time known as Coursekit, reached out to us about migrating their domains in tandem with a strict timeline for their company rebranding.

SummaryFormerly known as Coursekit, Lore decided to change their branding. In order to do this, they also needed to change some of the back end functions of their business, which included moving their existing Google Apps domain data. The company decided to utilize ShuttleCloud, a company that is highly adept at performing cloud migrations, to migrate over from coursekit.com to lore.com as the primary Google Apps domain.Client Background

Lore is a social network for learning, currently focused on course management. Started by students at the University of Pennsylvania to help turn their courses into communities online, the company was also a graduate of startup incubator TechStars NYC just like ShuttleCloud. Since being part of the TechStars summer 2011 class, Lore has seen adoption grow to professors at 600 colleges in their first semester live.

Originally Lore positioned itself against Learning Management Systems, like Blackboard, to make it easy for people to understand what the value of their service. Early on, this messaging, combined with the name Coursekit allowed them to effectively communicate their offering to the market. The company knew early on, however, that this name would be a temporary tactic, and to take the next step toward their vision of being the social network for learning, they would need something broader.In April 2011, the company launched the rebrand from Corusekit to Lore, which is explained on their blog here.Client ScenarioWhen Lore approached us about helping with their migration, it was clear to they didn't want to simply place a band-aid on their Google Apps domain by just making their newly registered lore.com domain as an alias under coursekit.com.There are a series of limitations that are connected with simply rebranding with an alias. Over time, it can become problematic to rebrand using this method. Instead, the company sought out the guidance of ShuttleCloud to help them move their Google Apps Mail, Calendar, Contacts, Docs and Sites.ShuttleCloud's SolutionOne of ShuttleCloud's project managers assisted Lore with moving all of their Google Apps cloud data using a managed migration format. This consisted of transferring Google Apps information for 19 users in total and the entire process was completed in five days, a very short amount of time. Once all of the data was moved over and data was verified the coursekit.com domain was moved to an alias under lore.com from the Google Apps management console.With this method coursekit.com emails would still be received under the new lore.com domain and users could receive as well as reply to messages with the new lore.com domain name without any loss of email. Just like the way that coursekit.com now directs to lore.com, emails addressed to accounts at coursekit.com are sent as an alias account to lore.com. The end result is a complete domain switch for both customers and employees of Lore.Managed Migration BenefitsThe key benefits involved with ShuttleCloud's managed migration process is the ability to work with a project manager to ensure a smooth transition. The managed migration process utilizes a set of procedures that enable minimal downtime and impact for users of a Google Apps domain. Communicating with the end-users of the timing of the domain switch is all that is needed. Since continuous business operations are incredibly important in the digital age, relying on the expertise of ShuttleCloud can be highly advantageous to ensuring a simple transition from one Google Apps domain to another one."Fantastic service. When hiccups came about, their team was on the phone and making things happen into the wee hours of the night." - Hunter Horsley, Operations & Marketing at Lore, IncTo learn more about the ShuttleCloud data migration process and how it can help organizations switch their brand while forwarding an old brand name as a domain alias, please check out our Google Apps to Google Apps domain migration page.