Google will begin to allow application administrators to delay the delivery of updates of its domain to give them the opportunity to prepare and train their users for changes in the interface or functionality.
So far, Google has transparent driven enhancements to its suite of applications on an ongoing basis as is tested and deemed ready for prime time, as it does for your applications and consumer sites.
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However, some administrators of applications, especially those of large companies said they would like to have both a face to face in the coming changes and a margin of time before the update to go live in their domains.
Therefore, application administrators now have the option of “scheduled premiere of” way of updates, upgrades in a package that consolidates weekly or biweekly and boards to go live in the domains with a delay of one of the two weeks.
“This is a new process launched Google Apps that meets the needs of our enterprise customers,” said Rajen Sheth, product manager for Google Enterprise.
Along with the launch of the scheduled release of “way, Google is starting a website dedicated to updates and upgrades of applications and is designed to keep managers better informed about this issue through resources such as user training material final.
Apps is a fully web-hosted collaboration and communication suite that includes email, calendar, office productivity, instant messaging, the creation of intranet and other applications for use workplace. As such, application administrators have little or no control over the software, especially in regard to how applications are maintained and enhanced, a process handled by Google. For example, in 2010 Google evicted 130 upgrade versions for Google Apps.
While vendors host applications, maintaining and updating the patch is a great attraction of cloud-based software such as applications, also has the disadvantage of removing the control of IT departments in this software release cycles.
Thus, some administrators of applications, especially in large to medium-sized companies have a department to support end-users have told Google that they want more predictability about Apps versions, because even small changes can have a dramatic effect on your domains, Sheth said.
For example, an interface change could trigger a wave of help desk calls to end users confused that support staff can not immediately know how to deal with because they could not have seen the updated characteristics.
“They want to know if updates are occurring, what is happening in them, the most advanced notice and better information for themselves and their users about new features,” said Sheth. “That’s why people want to give more visibility to this.”
Industry analyst Rebecca Wettemann calls this new “scheduled premiere of” via a good idea. “This shows that Google is working to make their applications more palatable to business organizations,” he said via e-mail.
Companies often want to plan improvements around training projects and other initiatives or pilot projects for the application of a small group before launching an application to the general population, he said.
“This should help IT managers take advantage of Google’s innovations in his own time to deliver the greatest benefit and least disruption to end users,” said Wettemann. “On the implementation side, we will be seeking feedback from managers – and also looking for Google to increase its efforts to demonstrate that you are investing in enterprise-class applications and client services and business support providers expect .
Applications customers will default to this new “scheduled release” track, except for those who had previously opted to receive “pre-release features” in their domains. Customers will remain at the current “Rapid Release”, the track, in which the changes are driven from their domains when you are ready and without notice.
Even if they were not registered to “pre-release functions,” Application administrators will be able to change the “programmed release” to “rapid release” if they wish.
The improvements covered by the “scheduled premiere of” line are those that are visible to end users, such as changes in the interface or functionality, but no back-end updates or security patches or fixes and corrections, which always be activated as soon as “ready for everybody.