Sheepdog is proud to announce its new reseller partnership with Synergyse as a reseller of their interactive training materials inside Google Apps! Synergyse has created an interactive, self-paced training program for the Google Suite of Applications. This training does not require additional software downloads and works directly within Google Apps to guide users through training modules. As a reseller, Sheepdog will offer Synergyse as an optional, supplemental addition to personalized Sheepdog instructor led training.

“We are excited to bring Synergyse to existing and prospective Sheepdog customers. This product gives organizations easy to use training at their fingertips for Google Apps such as Gmail, Calendar and Drive. The Synergyse solution set is definitely a valuable addition to our growing portfolio of best in breed cloud solutions” said Paul Ryan, VP Strategic Partnerships at Sheepdog. “As a well established cloud services advisor and solution provider, we work with our customers from an initial cloud strategy, into solution selection of best fit, right through to deployment, custom development and personalized support. Synergyse offers user friendly interactivity to learners and measurability to organization leaders who already recognize the benefit of investing in the efficiencies of Google Apps.”

Synergyse’s training classes are available to users 24/7, which allows users to take lessons at their own pace and at a time convenient for them. Their classes are also fully interactive and accessible inside Google Apps, which means a user never has to leave an application to learn how to use it. Additionally, Synergyse training materials automatically update as new features and products are rolled out in Google Apps, which means users are never behind the learning curve.

“Our partners are integral to the success of Synergyse as they work very closely with the client to identify the correct change management solution” said Synergyse Founder & CEO, Varun Malhotra, “Bringing Synergyse into the clients hands helps our partners focus on higher level training while giving the clients 24/7 access to interactive training.”

To learn more about how Synergyse can benefit your Google Apps training program, watch this short video. For more information regarding our training solutions for Google Apps, please contact us.

About Sheepdog
Sheepdog, is a Cloud Services Broker, and authorized Premier Google Apps Reseller with locations in Halifax, NS and Toronto, ON. For additional information about Sheepdog, please visit our website at http://sheepdog.com/

Watch the Synergyse Demo

Halifax, NS, Canada – Halifax-based companies, Oris4 and Sheepdog have signed a value-added reseller agreement. The agreement will see Sheepdog, Canada’s leading Cloud Services Broker, add Oris4 to its stable of business software tools it sells throughout North America.

“Sheepdog is an outstanding partner for Oris4,” said Oris4 co-founder, Andrew Doyle. “They are the established leaders in selling cloud solutions like Google Apps and Salesforce in Canada and they understand the value that Oris4 brings their customers. We fill a daily business need of their customers. They see opportunity in that and we are excited about the potential of this partnership.”

Sheepdog will add Oris4’s cloud content management system to their suite of cloud based business solutions.

“Oris4 is a natural addition to our product mix,” said Brandon Kolybaba, CEO of Sheepdog. “We see the need for document management and organization every day. The fact that Oris4 is fully integrated to products like Google Drive, Gmail, Google Docs and Salesforce makes it an easy addition to our mix, providing our customers an easy way to get the document they need in their hands quickly regardless of where it is stored or what it is called.”

Oris4 is a cloud content management system that revolutionizes searching and managing content across your company. It connects all of your information sources – including Salesforce, Box, Google Drive, Gmail, and shared drives – letting you to find what you need virtually without searching for it. Oris4 delivers the document, file or email you need to do your job when you need it. Each file is linked to the people or companies you are working with and available to you regardless of how and where it was saved.

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For more information, contact:
Dwayne Primeau, VP Sales
Sheepdog
(888) 807-5765
dwayne.primeau@sheepdog.com
www.sheepdog.com

…more

Sheepdog / Oris4 …

About Oris4
At Oris4, we’ve developed a genuinely innovative and simple information platform targeted at the enterprise market. Oris4 is easy to use, scalable and delivers real ROI. It gathers and indexes all information whether it’s internal or external, structured or unstructured from wherever you save it and organizes it in a manner that lets you find anything in a few clicks. We put all of your company’s information at your fingertips. It is the best corporate information integration tool on the market. For more information visit Oris4.com.

About Sheepdog
Sheepdog, Canada’s leading Cloud Services Broker, provides cloud strategy, deployment services, custom application development and personalized support to bring your business processes to the cloud. Sheepdog has helped hundreds of organizations and tens of thousands of end users adopt cloud solutions from Google, Salesforce, Backupify and other leading cloud vendors. Sheepdog is headquartered in Halifax, Nova Scotia and has regional offices in Ottawa, Calgary, and Toronto. For more information visit Sheepdog.com.

• Monica Adair, ACRE Architects Inc., Saint John
• Sarah Albert, PGYIN Holding Inc., Moncton
• Laura Araneda, Vic Progressive Diamond Drilling Inc., Sussex
• Keith Brideau, Historica Group of Companies, Saint John
• Pam Cooley, CarShare Atlantic Ltd, Halifax
• Mike Cormier, Crandall Engineering Ltd., Moncton
• Michel Gauvin, Kurius Intelligent Homes & Buildings, Dieppe
• Guy Haché, West End Sports, Beresford
• Brandon Kolybaba, Sheepdog, Cloud A Halifax
• Levi Lawrence, Real Food Connections Ltd., Fredericton
• Brent MacDonald, Xiplinx Technologies Ltd., Saint John
• Jason MacDonald, MJL Enterprises Inc., Charlottetown
• Andy Osburn, Equals6.com, Halifax
• Sébastien Pitre, V. Pitre Fondation, Robertville
• Ryan Roberts, Managed Markets Rx Solutions, Inc., Saint John
• Kirsten Simonsen, The vEastern Prosthetic Clinic, Moncton

The Wallace McCain Institute at UNB runs programs this program for high potential entrepreneurs to give them what they need to succeed. The focus is on entrepreneurs that are at a crossroads in their life & company. The program surrounds the entrepreneurs with experiences to inform their gut and push beyond where they ever thought they could go which helps build business judgement rather than teaching textbook skills.

“Being selected from the 450+ business owners for the Wallace McCain Institute’s Entrepreneurial Leaders Program is a great honor for me personally. They have a proven track record of enabling and empowering people to achieve results and I’m very excited about how it will enable Sheepdog to take our business to the next level,” said Sheepdog CEO, Brandon Kolybaba.

All about the WMI Entrepreneurial Leaders Program (ELP): from Wallace McCain Institute on Vimeo.

Students, professors and administrators alike love Google Apps for Education’s fast, easy collaboration capabilities that help bring them together in real time. So much, in fact, that 72 of the top 100 universities in the U.S. have gone Google.

Google Apps for Education can help streamline academic tasks like essay writing and class scheduling, and because it’s 100% powered by the web, everything can be accessed and edited anytime, anywhere on almost any device. By making quick, effective communication a snap and removing time-consuming bottlenecks, Google Apps for Education frees up more time for learning and teaching. And last but certainly not least: Google Apps for Education is completely FREE for schools to use.

Here’s a quick look at some of the advantages Google Apps’ tools have to offer:

Gmail

• Take advantage of 25GB of free storage per user
• Enjoy powerful spam filtering
• Rely on 99.9% uptime
• Avoid ads for students, faculty and staff
• See who is online and connect instantly via text, voice, and video chat
• Use administrative settings to control chat and limit who can send emails to whom

Calendar

• Easily schedule lessons and meetings
• Overlay multiple calendars to see when people are available
• Send invitations and manage RSVPs
• Integrate Calendar with Gmail and other popular calendar applications
• Share Calendars school-wide or with select colleagues
• Control permissions to help maintain security and privacy

Drive

• Start with 5GB of free space per user
• Use Drive on Mac, PC, Android or iOS to access a single source of up-to-date, version-controlled files from anywhere
• Share individual files or whole folders with specific people, teams and partners
• Create and reply to comments on files to get feedback or add ideas

Within Drive, take advantage of the following tools optimized for collaboration:

Docs

• Create rich documents with images, tables, equations, links and more
• Gather input and manage feedback with social commenting

Sheets

• Share lists, track projects, analyze data and track results
• Use features like advanced formulas, embedded charts, filters and pivot tables

Slides

• Create slides with the presentation editor
• Embed videos, animations and dynamic slide transitions
• Publish presentations so anyone can view them, or share them privately

These tools and more are helping over 14 million students, faculty and staff worldwide work better together, save costs, improve security and more. Learn how when you download the FREE Top 5 Advantages of Google Apps for Higher Education.

PS – Members of the Sheepdog team will be attending CANHEIT this June! If you’d like to arrange a meeting to discuss Google Apps for Education, get in touch with us.

Google Apps for Education is helping schools everywhere offer their communities better ways of working together while saving significant costs.

Higher Education Institutions enjoy the following budget-friendly advantages with Google Apps for Education:

• It’s FREE for schools to use
• Upgrades are free and automatic with a simple refresh of your web browser
• Each student enjoys 25G of storage
• There are no servers or client software to upgrade or maintain

Nearly 14 million students, faculty and staff worldwide are using Google Apps for Education. Below are three examples of schools in North America realizing great savings in addition to improved collaboration and communication.

1. University of Minnesota
– $1 million annually

Background

• With the fourth-largest main campus student body in the U.S. and four other campuses statewide, the University of Minnesota is comprised of over 67,000 students and 17,500 staff and faculty.
• The university was using mismatched and clunky collaboration and messaging tools.
• Their old email and collaboration systems were sometimes unavailable and maintenance and upgrades were challenging to schedule.

Solution

• U of M began looking for a fully integrated suite of services that was platform-agnostic, standards-based, simple to support, compatible with mobile devices and cost-effective.
• They landed on Google Apps for Education.

Results

• They expect to save over $1 million in annual support.
• They were able to avoid a $1 to $2 million investment into new systems that would have been required to replace their legacy systems.
• The switch has allowed them to shift their efforts from keeping infrastructure systems running to more value-added activities like integration and faculty tool support.

2. Utah State University
– $800,000 annually

Background

• Utah State University boasts 7 colleges and more than 200 majors comprised of 850 faculty and 23,000 undergraduate and graduate students
• Their email was hosted on a limited 20-year-old operating system that didn’t even allow students to retain email accounts after graduation.

Solution

• The university arrived at Google Apps for Education to provide the most cost-effective feature set, ease of use, economy of space and seamless integration into the university’s IT infrastructure.

Results

• Google Apps for Education saves the university $800,000 annually that would have been spent on building an email system in-house and supporting the necessary servers, licenses and storage infrastructure.

3. Boise State University
– $90,000 annually

Background

• As Idaho’s largest university, Boise State University is comprised of 19,000 students and 2,400 faculty and staff
• In February, it became clear the current email system could not keep pace with the technology
• students were demanding.

Solution

• The university wanted to deliver a more functional and reliable mail system while introducing tools to foster collaboration and deployed Google Apps for Education.

Results

• They were able to realized $90,000 in annual savings.
• Implementing Google Apps for Education significantly decreased the volume of calls to the help center.
• They were able to re-allocate IT Staff to work on other value-added projects.

For more insight into how schools across North America are harnessing the power of Google, download the FREE Top 5 Advantages of Google Apps for Higher Education.

PS - Members of the Sheepdog team will be attending CANHEIT this June! If you’d like to arrange a meeting to discuss Google Apps for Education, get in touch with us.

Universities across North America are merging the world of tradition and academia with cloud technology, embracing new tools and improving the way their people learn, work and collaborate.

In fact, 72 of the Top 100 Universities in the U.S. have switched to Google Apps for Education. Seven out of the eight Ivy League universities have gone Google, too.

By switching to Google Apps for Education, students, teachers and administrators are transforming the way they work together, improving collaboration, increasing efficiency, saving costs and reducing environmental impact without sacrificing privacy or security.

Below are some of the ways Google Apps for Education is transforming savvy schools:

• Students and professors can better collaborate in and out of the classroom
• Office hours can be held via Google Hangouts and text or video chat
• E-portfolios can be created and maintained in a Google Site
• Professors can give real-time feedback in a Google document
• Group projects can take place across continents instead of side-by-side in a library

The Google Apps for Education suite includes all of the standard tools like Gmail, Calendar, Good Docs and Drive. Schools can also make use of Vault, Google’s archiving and e-discovery solution, that helps them prepare for internal investigations, litigation and compliance audits. Access to Google Apps for Education is free, and students get up to 25GB of storage space on Google’s servers.

Some of the institutions from the Top 100 that have gone Google Apps include:

• Yale University
• Northwestern University
• Brown University
• Vanderbilt University
• Princeton University
• University of Notre Dame
• University of Southern California
• Georgetown University
• Rice University
• University of California, Berkeley
• University of Maryland
• Boston University
• Rutgers University
• Clemson University
• University of Minnesota
• University of Dayton
• University of Mississippi

For more insight into how 72 of the top 100 universities in the U.S. are harnessing the power of Google, download the FREE Top 5 Advantages of Google Apps for Higher Education.

PS – Members of the Sheepdog team will be attending CANHEIT this June! If you’d like to arrange a meeting to discuss Google Apps for Education, get in touch with us.

Touted for its ability to improve collaboration, increase efficiency, save costs and reduce environmental impact, Google Apps for Education is able to help students, professors and administrators work better together without sacrificing privacy or security.

In fact, Google Apps is designed to provide educational institutions with a safe platform for data, offering a level of security and reliability most schools can’t achieve on their own.

Google Apps for Education includes dozens of security features specifically designed to keep data safe, secure and in your control.

• Risk Reduction – Because Google’s data centres don’t include unnecessary hardware or software, the number of potentially exploitable vulnerabilities is greatly reduced.

• Two Factor Authentication – Google Apps offers an extra layer of security with two factor authentication, which greatly reduces the risk of hackers stealing usernames and passwords.

• Data Encryption – Browser sessions are automatically encrypted without the need for VPNs or other costly, cumbersome infrastructure. This helps protect students and teachers’ data as it travels between the browser and Google’s data centres.

• Data Ownership & Control – The Google Apps Terms of Service contractually ensures that your institution (or students, faculty, and staff) are the sole owners of their data. You also have full control over how data is shared and who it is shared with.

• Privacy Policy – Google Apps is governed by a detailed Privacy Policy, which ensures we will not inappropriately share or use personal information placed in our systems.

• No Ads – Google Apps for Education is completely ad-free, which means your school’s content is not processed by Google’s advertising systems.

• Distributed Data – Google operates one of the most robust networks of distributed data centres in the world, and Google prioritizes the protection of the intellectual property on these servers (in fact, employees at Google rely on the same environment education customers use).

• Google Apps Vault – As an add-on to Google Apps, Vault can help schools further safeguard information and meet security and compliance requirements with mail archiving tools that retain email messages in a searchable repository for up to 10 years.

For more insight into how schools can improve the way their people work together while maintaining superior security and privacy, download the FREE Top 5 Advantages of Google Apps for Higher Education.

PS – Members of the Sheepdog team will be attending CANHEIT this June! If you’d like to arrange a meeting to discuss Google Apps for Education, get in touch with us.

A recent survey from CDW indicated that employees are having far greater influence on how a company will adopt cloud computing than ever before.

The fact that many modern employees use cloud applications at home weighs on IT directions and strategies in the workplace. According to the research, roughly two-thirds of the IT professionals surveyed said that their use of cloud applications and services at home and away from the workplace played a major role in their cloud-related recommendations at work.

More than 1,240 IT professionals took part in the CDW research, producing a number of interesting results. Some compelling figures resulting from the survey include:

• 68% reported that employee requests for cloud services have increased during the past two years

• 73% of IT pros said employee use of cloud apps and mobile devices has significantly influenced their organization’s decisions about the cloud

• 66% said their use of the cloud at home has influenced their work recommendations about moving to the cloud

• 46% of cloud-involved tech pros said non-IT top managers are more involved in cloud decisions than in other IT areas

• Tech pros estimated that their organization expects to save 13% of their IT budget due to the cloud

The push from employees to move to the cloud combined with increases to productivity and cost savings are encouraging more businesses to go Google. By aligning cloud services with necessary applications and the preferences of employees, organizations can better capture business value, increased efficiency, improved employee mobility and more.

For more insight into how Google Apps can help improve communication, boost productivity and maximize ROI, download Sheepdog’s FREE Executive’s Guide to the Benefits of Cloud Computing.

Sheepdog has helped hundreds of organizations realize the benefits of cloud computing, transforming the way people do business by improving communication and collaboration, supporting cost savings and maximizing return on investment.

A perfect example of a business that has transformed the way they work with Google Apps is Hudbay Minerals, a leading metal mining company operating in North and South America. Hudbay partnered with Sheepdog to oversee the deployment of over a thousand emails from Exchange to Gmail. In addition to updating its email platform to a more flexible and reliable solution, Hudbay was able to benefit from the full Google Apps collaboration platform.

Sheepdog created a customized deployment and change management strategy for Hudbay that accommodated a number of elements specific to their business, including:

• Decentralized Structure — Hudbay’s decentralized organization

• Multilingual — The requirement to communicate in Spanish and English

• International — With offices in Peru, Colombia, Chile, Winnipeg, Flin Flon, and Toronto, the solution had to work everywhere

• Transferable — As employees and teams are constantly evolving and moving, there was a strong need for a consistent experience that was transferable across locations combined with as much training and support as possible

• Always On — Like many businesses, Hudbay could not afford to be “down” even for a second. Any implementation would require zero disruption to business or user productivity.

Businesses like Hudbay are ideal candidates for the cloud based on its ability to help increase productivity and minimized travel. Google Apps’ web-based tools are designed to reduce communication barriers by enabling people to connect quickly and effectively as well as create, edit and share information and documents in real time. These tools allow employees to be more productive, reducing redundancies and facilitating more streamlined processes for feedback.

The ability to communicate and collaborate virtually in real time can also drastically reduce travel expenses – a huge expenditure for many modern organizations – and minimize costs associated with traditional conferencing solutions.

Hudbay was able to fully realize these benefits with the guidance of Sheepdog’s highly-effective change management strategy. In switching to Google Apps, Hudbay realized the following results:

• Employees readily adopted the new Google technology

• Business remained undisrupted

• Google Apps provides a single, consistent communication and collaboration platform for all Hudbay users

• Employees now enjoy improved email services and new translation enabled collaboration capabilities

To learn more about Hudbay Minerals’ results, download the case study.

For more insight into how Google Apps can help improve communication, boost productivity and maximize ROI, download Sheepdog’s Executive’s Guide to the Benefits of Cloud Computing.

Sheepdog has joined the Canadian Cloud Council to further advocate thought leadership, implementation strategy and cloud best practices to senior ICT and business leaders. The Canadian Cloud Council (CCC) is a national vendor-neutral association providing an educational forum for Canada’s cloud computing thought leaders, policy makers and industry advocates. CCC works with small, medium and large enterprises to accelerate the speed of Canadian cloud adoption and position Canada as a global leader in the field. CCC’s agenda is supported by a national network of technology innovators, cloud providers and users and is the preeminent source for Canadian cloud expertise.

CCC’s vision and values are complimentary to Sheepdog’s vision: When your sights are only set on seats in the cloud, it’s easy to forget about who the cloud is actually for. Our focus is on people, the work they need to get done, and the technology, support, collaboration and communication that helps them do it better.

As Canada’s leading Cloud Broker and longest serving Google Premier Partner, Sheepdog’s experienced team has deployed cloud solutions across literally hundreds of organizations, large and small. As a Cloud Broker, Sheepdog offers insightful cloud strategy, deployment of transformational cloud-based applications, development of custom applications to further integrate off-the-shelf features and provide personalized support services.

About Sheepdog

With headquarters in Halifax and local representatives in Toronto, Ottawa and Calgary, Sheepdog helps organizations leverage cloud computing to improve communication and collaboration.

Sheepdog currently employs close to 30 Nova Scotians has an impressive track record of accomplishments including being named Progress Magazine’s 2012 Fastest Growing Company under $25 million. Sheepdog’s offerings encompass the entire cloud computing lifecycle from IT strategy, cloud solution deployment, custom application development and personalized support.

For more information, visit Sheepdog.com