Google Apps Migration

I added a new Page - to my blog - Google Apps Migration Checklist - a checklist of all the Google services that I had been using / or that one could use... and how I manage to transfer data from the standard accounts to the Apps account.

I did have a google Profile... but I can't access it anymore... it links to my Picasaweb which I also can't access...  It's said that there are no Profiles or Buzz yet in Apps - so my only task would be to delete that profile and free the profile name?

The trouble was that I had a Google Apps domain - oliverslay.com.  I already had a standard account @gmail.com ... When I tried to use Picasa or Profiles or other.. using my main email address, which was now in my Apps account, Google created a standard account with my oliverslay.com email - a third account! - through which I could access services not in Apps at the time.

When they expanded the services for Apps users this month, I had to give the account tied to my main Apps user, a different email address... and I gave it another address within my oliverslay.com domain..... I think... but now I cannot access that account.  The Profile has in the URL, oliverslay ... and Picasa has my name on it... I would like to use them...

I used Profile to send myself an email... the address on the profile sent a message to me.. and I received an email saying the message was sent... aha... it was sent to a different domain attached to my oliverslay.com Apps account... that means I can log in and transfer data across... phew!...

An AdWords account can have any user attached to it... and any number of users to administrate it... but a single email address cannot be attached to more than one AdWords account.  That needs to be understood when switching accounts around.  If you log into AdWords it will open a new account... so now, no-one can make you an administrator of their account.  I had to create a new user... give them administrator access to my new account, grant them access... then log in as them and terminate my own access to that AdWords account... just so my email address was now free to be attached to my client's account.

Trouble is, I discovered there's something called My Client Center - where you should be able to add various accounts in order to manage them...  http://www.google.com/intl/en/adwords/myclientcenter/  - So now I will have to terminate my access to my clients account and try again...

I was lucky with YouTube... YouTube had their own accounts before Google took them over.  I had a YouTube account and one day I associated that account with my standard GMail login... I found that I could disassociate it from my account, log in using the old YouTube account (the username and password of which you have to be able to remember) and then associate with my Apps account.  My brother was not so lucky... he never had an original YouTube account - and would be forced to re-upload his videos to his new Apps address and he'd lose his YouTube nickname...

Google Apps must be causing a lot of people a lot of headaches... it's not straightforward what can be done and what can't .. and nowhere is it made easy...