The news came through yesterday that Google has made Google Plus available to schools and businesses using Google Apps. However there was one catch, Google Plus has to be activated by your Google Apps administrator. As you might imagine, there is more to activation than merely clicking a radio button on the administrator’s page.

Considerations

The Google Support website has an extensive list of consideration admins should work through before enabling Google Plus. I’ll leave it to you to work your way through all of them, but here are some highlights:

  • Users need to join Google+ by creating a Google+ Profile
  • Your organization must be using the new accounts infrastructure. Google+ is not a core Google Apps feature, therefore, it is only available if your organization has moved to the new accounts structure.
  • Users must meet the age requirements for Google+ which is at least 18 years old.
  • Users must agree to the consumer Terms of Service because Google+ is a non-core service that is not covered by the Google Apps contract.

Transfer existing Google+ data

Besides all of the administrative hurdles, there is also the consideration of users with current personal Google+ accounts who wish to transfer that data to the new Google Apps version. The data that can be transferred includes profiles, streams, circles, contacts, and photos. The most likely tool to use for this data collection and transfer is called Google Takeout.

You can create an archive file of all your Google+ data or your can pick and choose what parts of Google+ you want to store and transfer.