Aims provides the academic community including students, faculty and staff with email services in partnership with Google that gives access to email hosted by Gmail. Students, faculty and staff also have access to other Google Apps such as Calendar, Drive, Sites and more.
Information Technology
Gmail and Google Apps
You can log into your Gmail account via the Aims homepage or anywhere you can access Google including on desktop PCs, laptops, mobile devices or campus workstations. Here you can use the entire suite of Google applications, referred to as Google Workspace.
Once a Google calendar has been delegated or shared to your account, you can easily access it using the steps below.
- Open your own Google Calendar
- On the left, find the “Other calendars” section.
- Click the plus + next to “Other calendars” and then click Subscribe to calendar
- Search for and select the calendar that has been delegated to you
- On the top right, click the back arrow next to Settings.
- You should now see the calendar under your “My calendars” section
- You can toggle its view on/off, view events, and manage events on its behalf.
- To create an event on the delegated calendar, add a new event as you normally would, but where your name is listed, click the name and choose the delegated calendar instead.
Migrating content from a shared account’s Google Drive to a Google shared drive
migrate-shared-google-drive
Migrating content from a shared account’s Google Drive to a Google shared drive ensures that your team still has access to the content after moving away from signing in to shared accounts directly. Aside from maintaining access to your team’s files, shared drives have a number of advantages over using a shared account’s Google Drive:
- Your team is able to control access to the content. As team members come and go, your team can manage access to the shared drive to ensure only the people who should have access do have access. When using a shared account, it’s impossible to know who the password has been shared with and who is accessing the account.
- Improved collaboration. Add comments and tag team members into your comments to assign a task or action item. Drive will send them an email notification that summarizes the activity and comments on your files, and you can respond to these items directly in the email, without the need to switch between apps.
- Trackability. Quickly know who viewed or modified a file without having to check with other team members.
- Accessibility. Your ability to access the content is tied to your own account. You won’t have to worry about not being able to access the content if someone resets the password of a shared account.
- Better user experience. Single sign-on (SSO) improves the user experience by enabling you to sign in to a number of different applications with one set of credentials. Signing in to a secondary account will make this experience less seamless.
- Greater security. Shared accounts pose a security risk to the college data since it’s impossible to know who has the password, even if they are no longer with the college.
The steps below will describe how to ensure your team maintains access to content saved in a shared account’s Google Drive beyond May 10, 2021.
- From the shared Google account, click the Google apps icon in the top right corner and then click Drive. Verify that content shows within the My Drive folder.
- Navigate to your own Google Drive account
- Right-click Shared drives on the left side and then click New shared drive.
- Provide a name for the shared drive, for example, the name of the shared Google account.
- Right-click the newly created shared drive and then click Manage members
- Add the team members that currently have access to the shared Google account. You can use this page to determine the appropriate permissions needed.
- Navigate back to Google Drive for the shared account.
- Select all the files that you wish to move and then right-click Move to
- Click the back arrow next to My Drive. Click back until you see Shared drives.
- Double-click Shared Drives and then select the newly created shared drive.
- Click Move and confirm by clicking Move again
Delegate access allows a Google account to be managed by another person who is delegated to the account. It provides a way for someone else, such as an assistant, to manage your inbox or calendar on your behalf. Employees can also request delegate access to a shared account if used by the department.
Access to shared Google account email and/or calendars requires that you access it by delegation rather than signing in to the account using a shared username and password. Each shared account will receive several email notifications regarding this change and the steps required to request delegate access. This change is required for our efforts to modernize and protect the college’s online environment.
Shared Google accounts must be accessed by delegation rather than signing in to the account using a shared username and password.
Providing all users of college technology with a streamlined and secure user experience is important to us. We're able to help deliver this experience through single sign-on (SSO) where you only need one username and password to access various technology services. It is important that each person have only one corresponding online identity to facilitate this improvement.
Aims uses single sign-on (SSO) to provide an easy and consistent login experience to a multitude of online college services. With SSO, you only need one username and password to access a growing number of applications and services that use it for authentication. In addition to improving the overall user experience and boosting productivity, SSO also increases online security.
All shared Google account passwords will be reset on May 10, 2021. Your access will not be lost if you have completed the steps outlined in the notification email that will be sent to each shared Google account.
You will still be able to read, send, and delete email messages, and manage calendars from either Gmail/Google Calendar or the Outlook application. If you are currently receiving forwarded emails from a shared account, you will continue to receive them.
Sign in to your Gmail account.
Click your profile image or initial in the top right corner. Additional Google accounts that you have signed in to will appear. If your access is currently delegated, you will notice a key over the profile image and the word "Delegated" to the right of the account name. Accounts shown without these indicators mean that you are signed in to the account directly.
Each shared Google account will receive several email notifications regarding this change and the steps required to request delegate access.
No, you do not need to request delegate access if you already have it for the account(s) that you need to access.
Yes, use these steps to set up delegate account(s) in your Outlook client.
Delegate access is not natively supported on mobile apps; however, you can follow these steps as a workaround.
You have a couple of options if the files currently reside in the shared account's Google Drive:
Create a shared drive and then move the content to it. Assign privileges to the individuals that need them. You can find instructions on how to do this here. Share the content with the individuals that need to access it before May 10.
There are a number of add-ons for Google Forms that allow you to change the sender email address for forms along with the email address(es) that submission notifications are sent to. Please contact IT.Security@aims.edu for details on getting this set up.
Similar to Google Drive for the shared account, you have two options available:
- Move the Sheet to a shared drive that your group has access to
- Share the sheet with the individuals who need access
We recommend using Google groups for collaboration and managing sharing for Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Forms. Group membership can even be automated by Aims IT based on certain criteria that you define. Contact IT.Security@aims.edu if you are interested in setting up automatic group membership.
For information about Google groups, see Get started with Groups
While delegated accounts cannot be accessed on mobile devices, the three steps below provide a workable solution for sending and receiving email for a delegated account on your mobile device.
- Forward incoming emails from a delegated account
- Create a label in Gmail to filter emails forwarded from the delegated account
- Set replies to send using the delegated account address
After completing the instructions below, you will be able to log into your Aims Gmail account using the Gmail mobile app on your iOS or Android mobile device, and email messages sent to the selected delegated account will be delivered to your inbox. When you reply to messages sent to the delegated account, it will appear as if they were sent from the delegated account.
NOTE: These instructions assume that you have already set up your Aims email on your mobile device.
To forward incoming emails from the delegated account follow the steps listed below:
- Go to your Gmail account.
- Sign in with your Aims email address and password.
- In the upper-right corner, click on your account photo or the circle with your first initial in it.
- From the drop-down menu, click to open your delegated account.
- From your delegated account, click the gear icon, then See all settings.
- Click the Forwarding and POP/IMAP tab.
- Click Add a forwarding address in the Forwarding section.
- Enter your Aims email address, then click Next and then Proceed, and then OK.
- Select Disable forwarding for now and then click Save Changes.
- At the top of the page, click the down arrow in the Search field. The Search Filter window will open below the Search field. In the To field, enter the delegated account email address and then click Create filter.
- Select Forward it to and select your Aims email address.
- Click Create filter.
- Return to the Forwarding and POP/IMAP page in Settings and ensure that Forward a copy of incoming mail is selected and your Aims email address is listed in the drop-down menu (there may be others as well).
- In the second drop-down menu, ensure that keep <account name> Mail’s copy in the Inbox is selected.
- At the bottom of the page, click Save Changes.
To create a label in Gmail for filtering emails forwarded from the delegated account, follow the steps listed below:
- Open your Aims Gmail Inbox.
- In the upper-right corner, click the gear icon and then See all settings.
- Click Labels and then Create new label.
- Enter the desired label name in the Please enter a new label name: field (e.g. Delegate account name).
- Click Create.
- Click the down arrow in the Search field. The Search Filter window will open below the Search field.
- In the To field, enter the delegated account email address.
- At the bottom of the Search Filter window, click Create filter.
- Select Apply the Label, then select the new label that you created.
- Click Create Filter.
By default, when you respond to an email that was originally sent to the delegated account and then forwarded to your inbox, the reply will show as coming from your own email account. To show the reply from the delegated account instead, follow the steps listed below:
- Open your Aims Gmail Inbox.
- In the upper-right corner, click the gear icon and then See all settings.
- Click Accounts.
- Under Send mail as, click Add another email address.
- In the Name file, enter the name that will be shown when you send emails from this account. Note: It’s recommended to use the same name shown on the delegate account.
- In the Email address field, enter the delegated account email address.
- Uncheck Treat as an alias.
- Click Next Step and then click Send Verification. Gmail will send a verification message to the delegated accounts email address to confirm that you own it.
- Open the delegated account and locate the Gmail confirmation message. Click the confirmation link, then click Confirm. If successful, you can close the verification window.
- Return to your Aims Gmail inbox.
- Within the Accounts tab select Reply from the same address the message was sent