Google brings in Multi-domain support feature in Google Apps that will let Companies, Schools with Multiple domain share and access information at a lightning speed from a central place.

Google Apps is one of the new and interesting customizable packages from Google for enabling easy and quick Information sharing on the web, irrespective of the location. Using Google Apps in your organization simplifies a whole lot of complex stuff like File Transfers, Schedule Meetings, Task creation, Emailing, Video and Voice chat, Foreign Language Translation and much more. Everyday thousands of people enjoy the fruits of this novel online application from Google, which provides hassle-free information access and transfer.

Google Apps and your Internet Domain

An Internet Domain is the unique name you see in the URL address of an organization’s website and the one that follows @ in an email address.  This unique name will have standard suffix separated by a dot and will denote a particular category like .edu, .org, .com etc.,

As an individual user, you might be familiar with a Gmail account like “abc@gmail.com” to access various Google services. Google takes this idea a step further with Google Apps. Yes, Google Apps lets Companies, Institutions, or any other groups use their own domain or create one and let them have a play with their assorted applications with amazingly simple-to-follow steps. With Google Apps, Employees and Students can instantly collaborate and share information online with their colleagues, peers and friends.

Organizations with Multiple domain names

Some Companies will have multiple Internet domains. For example, an organization ABC will have domains like ABC.au, ABC.in etc., based on their location. Employees of one location should be able to access, share and interact with their counterparts or superiors working out of a different location. Will using Google Apps enable seamless information flow across the Internet Domains? Well, Google has come up with an efficient solution for companies with more than one internet domain.

How Google addresses the Multiple Domain issue

With Google Apps your company can further add domains in two ways.

1. Use Domain Aliases

2. Create Multiple Domains.

Use Domain Aliases

One way of having additional domains for your company is by having Aliases. If you want to have two distinct names that point to the ‘same’ set of users and PCs in your Company’s network, you can create a Domain Alias. Initially, you have to create and verify one ‘Primary Domain’ via the Control Panel in the Google Apps that will best denote your business and operations. Then, to add an alias, go to Domain Settings->Domain Names->Add a domain alias. Key in the name of the domain you wish to add as an alias. Follow the steps like choosing a verification method for your new domain, email set up delivery steps like making changes to the DNS settings of the domain host from the given list of MX names etc.,  Finally click I have completed these steps once you are done with the instructions listed.

However, alias Domain names are always not flexible and have a snag like, usernames in the email address cannot refer two different persons with the same name. For example, “Tom@ParentCompany.com” and “Tom@SubsidiaryCompany.com” must refer to the same employee. Here ‘SubsidiaryCompany’ is domain alias of the ‘ParentCompany’.

Google Apps administrators in many companies which have multiple domains, found this procedure quite complicated to shift employees from one domain to the other or set up different Google Apps account on each domain of the company. There is no way of creating a central repository of data until sometime back.

Create or add multiple domain names

Now the Google Apps administrators can heave a sigh of relief. Because, the newly added feature in Google Apps called ‘Multi-domain’ support alleviates the cumbersome procedures and helps them converge all the information on a central location and cater to the various users on multiple Internet domains. With this feature, employees will retain their domain-specific email ids, but still will be able to view their colleagues’ email ids on a different Internet domain through the Global Address book. This will enable seamless information transfer from one domain to the other. At present, this feature is available to Premier and Education edition users at no additional costs.

Well, with this new feature, Google adds a feather to its cap and showcases Google Apps as one of the efficient packages of applications that an organization of any size can deploy and reap the benefits of their extraordinary online services.