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  1. #1

    Switching from Google Apps?

    I'm considering switching from Google Apps to something like Mandrill.

    Google Apps is nice... we actually have had Google Apps before they dropped the bombshell that they were ending the free tier of Google Apps.

    We don't need much more than the free Google Apps tier, though right now with getting e-mails to work with Blesta hasn't been... fun, let's say.

    I know there're guides for e-mail piping and I'm still working on wrapping my head around that. But I think ultimately in the end, I'd like to switch to something like Mandrill for the additional tracking of our e-mails. That, and the deliverability that Mandrill has.

    What're your thoughts on this?
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  2. #2
    We use Mandrill for transactional e-mail, and MailChimp for mass e-mail (which basically is only the monthly newsletter), and it works like a charm. Pricing is also very, very, very reasonable.
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  3. #3
    Quote Originally Posted by MightWeb-Marcus View Post
    We use Mandrill for transactional e-mail, and MailChimp for mass e-mail (which basically is only the monthly newsletter), and it works like a charm. Pricing is also very, very, very reasonable.
    That it is.

    Best practices for switching over? We don't need to migrate data.

    Basically what we're doing is looking at switching to Mandrill. And at the same time, we're going to create e-mails... where that will be, I'm not sure yet, but it needs to be able to work with Blesta via piping. Does Mandrill allow you to create e-mail accounts via that? Or do they just act as a relay for you?

    Hmm. Maybe I should have someone that deals with e-mails on a regular basis do that for us...
    ★ Nicholas @ EidolonHost
    ★ Blesta and InterWorx Reseller. See WebHost Licenses for details.
    ★ We have Let's Encrypt Support

  4. #4
    Well, switching over to Mandrill for us was just changing the server settings for e-mail in WHMCS, heh. As for MailChimp, we do manual exports of e-mails before every monthly newsletter, and import those. MailChimp automatically detects if one already exists, and if they've unsubscribed - so it's really rather simple. You can interconnect them somehow as well - but I haven't been bothered looking into it.
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  5. #5
    Join Date
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    Quote Originally Posted by Keiro View Post
    I'm considering switching from Google Apps to something like Mandrill.

    Google Apps is nice... we actually have had Google Apps before they dropped the bombshell that they were ending the free tier of Google Apps.

    We don't need much more than the free Google Apps tier, though right now with getting e-mails to work with Blesta hasn't been... fun, let's say.

    I know there're guides for e-mail piping and I'm still working on wrapping my head around that. But I think ultimately in the end, I'd like to switch to something like Mandrill for the additional tracking of our e-mails. That, and the deliverability that Mandrill has.

    What're your thoughts on this?
    We use Office365 for company emails and Mailchimp for mailouts. Works really well.

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Oct 2007
    Posts
    4,332
    You don't have to give up Google Apps to use Mandrill.

    Mandrill is mainly meant for outgoing transactional emails only so you can still keep Google Apps for regular emails.
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  7. #7
    Join Date
    Jun 2013
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    USA
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    One consideration is that migrating directly from Google Apps, that is, exporting from Google Apps can be difficult. Aside from downloading and manually importing the entire mailbox history...

  8. #8
    Join Date
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    Zoho is a fair alternative to GApps mail, they have paid plans also but their free plan doesn't have too low limits; You can use up to.. 7~ e-mail accounts on your custom domain I believe.
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  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by cyberhubdan View Post
    We use Office365 for company emails and Mailchimp for mailouts. Works really well.
    Nice! Though, I must admit, I'm not too fond of using Office365... but each to their own, yeah?

    Quote Originally Posted by JLHC View Post
    You don't have to give up Google Apps to use Mandrill.

    Mandrill is mainly meant for outgoing transactional emails only so you can still keep Google Apps for regular emails.
    Ah. We were already planning on giving up GApps anyway. I don't think there's an easy way of using multiple Google Apps e-mail accounts within Blesta... man, I really wish there was a way to set per-department google apps e-mails in Blesta and have Blesta use that without any additional stuff. You know, this is more of a feature request. I'll shoot that over to them.

    Quote Originally Posted by Gaiacom_LC View Post
    One consideration is that migrating directly from Google Apps, that is, exporting from Google Apps can be difficult. Aside from downloading and manually importing the entire mailbox history...
    Fortunately for us, we won't need to import/export anything!

    Quote Originally Posted by Mike_A View Post
    Zoho is a fair alternative to GApps mail, they have paid plans also but their free plan doesn't have too low limits; You can use up to.. 7~ e-mail accounts on your custom domain I believe.
    Sounds about right for us. I'll check them out.
    ★ Nicholas @ EidolonHost
    ★ Blesta and InterWorx Reseller. See WebHost Licenses for details.
    ★ We have Let's Encrypt Support

  10. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by cyberhubdan View Post
    We use Office365 for company emails and Mailchimp for mailouts. Works really well.
    Nice! Though, I must admit, I'm not too fond of using Office365... but each to their own, yeah?

    Quote Originally Posted by JLHC View Post
    You don't have to give up Google Apps to use Mandrill.

    Mandrill is mainly meant for outgoing transactional emails only so you can still keep Google Apps for regular emails.
    Ah. We were already planning on giving up GApps anyway. I don't think there's an easy way of using multiple Google Apps e-mail accounts within Blesta... man, I really wish there was a way to set per-department google apps e-mails in Blesta and have Blesta use that without any additional stuff. You know, this is more of a feature request. I'll shoot that over to them.

    Quote Originally Posted by Gaiacom_LC View Post
    One consideration is that migrating directly from Google Apps, that is, exporting from Google Apps can be difficult. Aside from downloading and manually importing the entire mailbox history...
    Fortunately for us, we won't need to import/export anything!

    Quote Originally Posted by Mike_A View Post
    Zoho is a fair alternative to GApps mail, they have paid plans also but their free plan doesn't have too low limits; You can use up to.. 7~ e-mail accounts on your custom domain I believe.
    Sounds about right for us. I'll check them out.
    ★ Nicholas @ EidolonHost
    ★ Blesta and InterWorx Reseller. See WebHost Licenses for details.
    ★ We have Let's Encrypt Support

  11. #11
    Join Date
    Jan 2013
    Location
    New Hampshire
    Posts
    105
    I was not a fan of google apps even when I was using it. I'd really prefer to setup my own intranet or portal system for my employees.

    Office365 is more expensive than gapps IIRC, however it has the office suite too which is a plus.

    Have you looked into rackspace email or another hosted email provider? I'm currently using rackspace and it's a lot more cost effective than gapps.

  12. #12
    I think mandrill is more for email marketing that actual hosted email. The company I used to work for migrated from Google apps to this service called Thexyz and that was an improvement I recall.

  13. #13
    Join Date
    Oct 2008
    Location
    Singapore
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    4,685
    Not a big fan of Mandrill since I get less emails into inboxes with Mandrill than using my own server...

  14. #14
    Join Date
    Jul 2005
    Location
    New Jersey, US
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    1,597
    We see people use google apps more than any other related service. They got rid of the free version but it is worth the price for the reliability of it. I haven't seen any other "free" services that offer the same reliability as google. So if you are using it for a business, google is definitely worth it in my opinion.
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  15. #15
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    @Keiro, just in case this is still an issue for you (and for anyone wanting do do something similar).

    Are you using a VPS/Dedicated Server?

    If you do, you can use split delivery, routing all email addresses that have not been added as accounts to your mail server, which would pass it on to Blesta.
    You will have to set up hosts at Google Admin -> Apps -> Gmail -> Advanced Settings -> Hosts, and tell Google which addresses to route through it ad Google Admin -> Apps -> Gmail -> Advanced Settings -> Default Routing.
    Then, set up your mail server to only accept connections from Google Apps servers and pipe emails to Blesta.

    There are loads of tutorials on Postfix that are available online, so I'm not going into details here.
    We are using this approach with WHMCS, and it works like a charm.
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  16. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by Xonova Hosting View Post
    @Keiro, just in case this is still an issue for you (and for anyone wanting do do something similar).

    Are you using a VPS/Dedicated Server?

    If you do, you can use split delivery, routing all email addresses that have not been added as accounts to your mail server, which would pass it on to Blesta.
    You will have to set up hosts at Google Admin -> Apps -> Gmail -> Advanced Settings -> Hosts, and tell Google which addresses to route through it ad Google Admin -> Apps -> Gmail -> Advanced Settings -> Default Routing.
    Then, set up your mail server to only accept connections from Google Apps servers and pipe emails to Blesta.

    There are loads of tutorials on Postfix that are available online, so I'm not going into details here.
    We are using this approach with WHMCS, and it works like a charm.
    VPS. A 768MB one, actually. We'll check this out and see if this resolves our issues. It sounds like it will but I won't have the opportunity to make the necessary changes until next week at the latest.
    ★ Nicholas @ EidolonHost
    ★ Blesta and InterWorx Reseller. See WebHost Licenses for details.
    ★ We have Let's Encrypt Support

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