Below are direct links to instructions for various Google Apps Migration tasks. Please reach out support@shuttlecloud.com if you need further assistance.

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.

Summary
Formerly 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 Scenario
When 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 Solution
One 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 Benefits
The 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, Inc

To 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.

Bluedrop acquired Serebra and turned to ShuttleCloud in order to execute a data migration between the two existing domains.  

Summary
Bluedrop utilized ShuttleCloud’s migration products and services in order to move Google Apps domain data due to an acquisition. The company that they acquired, Serebra, needed to have data migrated to the Bluedrop domain and then have serebra.com setup as a part of the bluedrop.com Google Apps instance with very little impact on their system.

Client Background
Bluedrop is a Canadian-based performance learning company. This includes training, courseware, learning platforms and simulations for both business and governmental organizations. Beginning over twenty years ago as an IT consultancy, Bluedrop now employs over one hundred people. As part of their mission to continue to invest in their business the company decided to purchase Serebra, based in Vancouver.

Client Scenario
Both companies were already using Google Apps domains and Bluedrop wanted to combine them both under the Bluedrop brand name.  The process would include adding the serebra.com domain as an alias under bluedrop.com and the end result would be all data merged into one domain under the Bluedrop brand name which all Bluedrop users would be a part of.  Additionally, Bluedrop’s legacy email users would also need to be migrated onto the new domain.  Bluedrop required a partner that would be able to complete this process smoothly in a matter of days using a hybrid migration solution.

ShuttleCloud’s Solution
To aid in getting data moved over from Serebra’s old domain, ShuttleCloud used a hybrid migration method. In order to move over all the Google Apps data from Serebra, a managed process was used that was guided by one of ShuttleCloud’s experienced project managers. This included moving all data for selected users – Gmail, Google Calendar, Contacts, Docs and Sites information from serebra.com to bluedrop.com. During the migration, there was no email downtime and minimal impact on users for all other Google Apps services.

For the migration of select legacy email accounts over to the Bluedrop Google Apps domain a self-service migration process was used. A simple portal like this one required users to enter in the relevant login information for their legacy accounts. By also putting in a contact email address, they were even notified when the process is complete. This allowed users the ability to start the migration process on their own accounts and was easy to do for anyone who wanted to move their messages over.

Hybrid Migration Benefits
In total, seven users from the Serebra domain had all of their Google Apps data moved over to Bluedrop using a managed migration. The remaining thirteen users were able to use the self-service migration portal to consolidate their old email data into the Bluedrop domain.

Using a hybrid migration model is beneficial for getting important data moved over to a new Google Apps domain. Domain-wide Google Apps service data is ideal for a managed migration where a project manager from ShuttleCloud is able to lead and guide the process along the way. Organizations that have users on legacy email accounts will benefit from a self-service process that allows the user to take ownership of their legacy data.

This can be done from a variety of hosted email providers that support IMAP such as AOL, Yahoo!, Zimbra, GroupWise, GoDaddy and Gmail. In the case of the Bluedrop migration, this allowed the complete migration process to complete in a very short period of time. All data was moved over within five business days.

“Top notch service with superior customer service skills.  Would recommend to anyone.”
– Brad Yetman, Manager, Technology and Infrastructure at Bluedrop