Sign Up Instructions for GMail for Your Domain

Yellow Interactive is phasing out our internal email service in favor of transitioning our customers to a third party provider, GMail For Your Domain. We've been impressed with Google's GMail service and are therefore recommending it to our customers. You can set up accounts to work in Outlook or another desktop email client as you do now, but instead of using WebMail for online email access, you would be using their GMail interface. GMail includes a number of handy features for managing your messages when away from your primary computer. More information can be found at https://www.google.com/a/.

First, you will need to sign up with Google:

1. Navigate to https://www.google.com/a/ and click the "Get Started" button
   
   
   
2. To select Googles free Standard Edition, click the "Sign Up" button under that heading
   
   
   
3. If you have a google account, sign in – otherwise, click on the “Create an account now” link
   1. If you create an account, enter your current email address, create a password and agree to terms & conditions of service. Your current email address is where your welcome email from Google will be sent. The welcome email includes important information about your account so be sure it is an account you are able to access.
      
      
      
4. Choose a domain name. This is where you enter your domain name under the "I already have a domain" heading. If your email address is "jsmith@your_domain.com", your domain name is "your_domain.com"
   
   
   
5. Sign up for Google Apps Standard Edition for your domain. Note: the number of users = the number of email addresses you want to use in conjunction with your domain. It is OK to request more than you are currently using – we recommend rounding up. However, if you request too few, you can ask Google to allow more email addresses for your domain at a later date.
   
   
   
6. Create your first administrator account. This account will allow you to log into Gmail and manage email settings for your domain. A commonly selected email address to use with this account is "admin@your_domain.com." The user of this account will be able to add new email addresses, change passwords for exisiting accounts, and more. Assuming you choose to provide Yellow Interactive with the email address/password combination for this account, we will also be able to manage email settings for you.
   
   
   
7. Upon agreeing to terms and conditions, you’ll be taken toward a “Dashboard” page detailing the Google services available for your domain. The online sign up process is complete. You may explore the list of services or stop at this web page.
   
   
   
8. Check your email. Google will have sent you a welcome email to the address you provided in association with your Google account (step #3 above). Please forward this email along with the email address and password you created in step #6 above to admin@yellowinteractive.com.

What happens next?

1. Once you forward us Google's welcome email as well as the email address and password you assigned to the admin account (step #6 above) Yellow Interactive will set up your email accounts in Google’s mail system. This is done in preparation for switching your domain’s email service from Yellow Interactive to Google.
   
   
2. We will let you know we’re ready to make the switch and, with your approval, Yellow Interactive will update the DNS record for your domain so that mail sent to anyone@yourdomain.com will go through Google’s mail server and no longer Yellow Interactive's.
   
   
3. Once we have updated your DNS record, you will need to set up an additional account in your email program that checks your mail through Google’s mail server. This following link provides instructions for setting up the Google account in your email program, however, it is important to remember that any time you're asked for your username during the configuration process, you'll need to enter your full email address (username@your_domain.com):
   
   • Google's Configure Email Client List
   • Tips for using your account with mobile devices (Treo, Blackberry) or multiple computers
   You will want to leave your original Yellow Interactive email account active in your email program for 1 week. The update to your DNS record will likely take a couple of days to fully take effect. During this transition time, you will receive mail sent to your email address through both the Google and Yellow Interactive mail servers.
   
   
4. In additional to accessing email through an email client, email can also be accessed online through the GMail system by navigating to this address (replace "your_domain.com" in the URL below with your domain name):
   http://mail.google.com/a/your_domain.com