CDW Google Workspace for Education Reviews

We primarily use the solution to either problem-solve or streamline processes we are already doing. We've used several tools to assist in distributing Chromebooks and setting up accounts and groups. Much of our engagement with the solution has been for making our processes more efficient. 

Amplified for Education is deployed over 12 sites and is focused out of our district office. 

As well as transitioning from a Microsoft-centric district to a Google-centric one, we have almost 100% participation in our Google Classroom. We now use Gmail throughout the district, and the transition was smooth, thanks to Amplified. The initial setup went very well, and we had significant assistance along the way.

We use North American Google Technical Collaborative, an area where group members can see what updates are available, attend training, and receive information on product updates. We also use the forum to search for answers to questions that have already been asked or post about our issues to get feedback from other users.

We use the solution's tools, such as Gopher for Users, which was very helpful when we got 1,000 Chromebooks. Our leading IT team member said that with this tool, we can get tasks done in hours, which would have taken weeks previously.

The product's flexibility and customizability are excellent and Amplified has great support. We have significant turnover in our tech area, so we currently have a group in training to help them acclimate to their new positions.

The Google for Education Audit feature is beneficial for diagnosing problems and recommending solutions, and it's comprehensive. We used the audit service twice before and intend to use it again soon. Tech changes fast, and an audit can help us catch up with new features we may not even know are part of the admin console. It will also help our new staff get acclimated to each area.  

In terms of empowering teachers, the solution is essential in the backend. The teachers may not know why everything is working the way it is, but we do, as we get it up and running smoothly in the backend. 

Overall, the service is excellent for helping us work with Google Workspace for Education. Anytime we've encountered an issue, we've had rapid response times from Amplified's support, and they're flexible enough to switch gears and help us get back on track. 

The support is good, and we usually get a response within 24 hours, but the response times could be more efficient. Sometimes, speaking with someone one to one is helpful, and some issues are more elevated from our perspective but less from the global perspective of Amplified, where it seems like less of a problem. Quicker attention in this regard would be a welcome improvement.

We've been using the solution for at least six years. 

The stability is excellent. We have not experienced any downtime. 

The scalability is good; we haven't seen any issues or reached the ceiling. We're a relatively small district, unlike LA or Chicago. Regarding end users, we have 8,600 students and 700-800 staff using the platform.

We contacted tech support on multiple occasions, and we usually send in a support ticket and then get an immediate response saying it has been received. Typically within 24 hours, we get Amplified staff to fix the problem or help us with it.

The CDW team's knowledge of Google Workspace for Education is excellent, and that has been the most attractive part of working with them; they know the product very well, as they've been with it since the early days.  

The CDW team's ability to support and maintain Google Workspace and Chrome OS is good. They've grown, and it's only the first few years since they acquired Amplified IT, and our concern was that we might lose some customer support or contact. Thus far, we've maintained our relationship, so far, so good.  

Positive

We didn't previously use a different solution. I saw Amplified at a workshop I attended when we transitioned to Google. That was their area of expertise then, so we decided to go with them. We went from a Microsoft-centric district to an early integration of Google Classroom and switching to Gmail. We had to go from Active Directory with the accounts we already had and find a way to migrate over to the Google environment. Amplified IT and Amplified for Education were integral in helping us figure out the most painless way of doing that.

The initial deployment was straightforward, and it was done by a couple of Amplified's staff and a team of three or four on our end who organized and carried out the implementation.

Outside of keeping up with product updates Google might make, there is no maintenance requirement on our end. Unless we're having an issue, we don't need to contact Amplified directly.

Our ROI is the lack of significant issues and the ability to work through the smaller ones. Our Gmail works correctly. We're able to manage students and Chromebooks without problems. That's our payback; it's not a direct line, but our operations run smoothly and issues that arise are easily fixable.

Amplified is flexible with pricing. My only concern as I am in education is that Google started out free versus the cost incurred now; I wonder if it would be sustainable if we had budget cuts.

I rate the solution a ten out of ten. 

My advice to those considering the solution is that Amplified has excellent product knowledge. That's why their tools work so well; they know how their product integrates with the primary tool.

CDW Amplified for Education provides Google support for those tough questions that don't have a straightforward answer. They offer training and tools to enhance the Google Workspace environment for our district. We also purchase licenses through them. Amplified provides user training and third-party tools for the Google environment that Google doesn't provide.

Amplified's training is top-notch. They offer certifications and run admin boot camps, which are fantastic for getting my team up to date. Their training team does an excellent job of getting us educated. Though I've already taken the class, I go back periodically because Google constantly changes features. 

There are significant changes every month or so, so you need to pop back into their training. They will go over what's new. You need to attend these training sessions because Google has a business mentality instead of an education mindset. When you go through their training, they'll tell you about all the stumbling blocks or hazards you may encounter because Google made some changes. 

Chrome Gopher is the primary way you will handle your Chromebook infrastructure. It allows you to make mass changes to descriptions and asset tags in your organizational units. You can do everything that will enable you to make these gigantic fleet moves and keep your Chromebooks where they should be. It's a fantastic tool that Google does not provide. Google only allows you to modify one Chromebook at a time, but it's different when you have 21,000 and need to change 4,000. There is much to maintain, and you can't manage Chromebooks without tools like Gopher. 

Gopher allows us to put all our users on a nice little list and look at the attributes of their accounts, such as passwords, associated email addresses, etc. You can reset passwords or configure the account to reset on the next login. Gopher lets you reassign Chromebooks to organizational units as your students move through grade levels. 

When students leave your district in June, you can build a customized Google Sheet of all users and compare that with a list of seniors to suspend all the accounts that have graduated. Your console doesn't have a way to do this, so you need to go through every senior and manually move each account one by one. It isn't feasible to manage people like that. These tools are essential for a K-12 environment. You simply can't run a Google Workspace environment for education without a product like this. 

Amplified allows you to structure your users and Chromebooks with Gopher tools, providing instant infrastructure that can be properly managed. You also need a content filter that adjusts to the student's grade level. My elementary school students need different rules than high school students. High school kids can view sexual education materials but not kindergarteners. It empowers the teachers by creating an infrastructure that they can count on and don't have to worry about. Everything is built on that.

Little SIS is fantastic. Before we had Little SIS, it was problematic to find a substitute when a teacher had to go out on sick leave. We didn't even know what classes she had. Now we can go into the system to grab her schedule and assign a co-teacher for an indefinite or specified period. We can also dispatch a tech to fix a problem in the classroom so it doesn't impact the teachers. 

It allows a system admin to look at the classrooms that our teachers create. Google provides no native ability to look at these classrooms, modify them, or interact with them. They are literal black boxes we have no control over or information about. Amplified's tools give us visibility into that environment, which is critical for an educational workspace.

Without Little SIS's insights into the classrooms, we could have situations where a teacher is on leave, and no one can get into their classroom to assign a substitute. You would need to hack into the teacher's account to see the classwork, and you honestly don't want to do that. It even emails teachers to let them know this is happening and to expect the account to be there for this period.

Little SIS helps admins manage infrastructure so that we can monitor all the classes. We can watch out for student-created types and shut them down or restore classes that teachers accidentally archived. 

Their Gopher tools are pretty flexible. I have implemented them in several different situations. Gopher allows me to pull all my Chromebooks into a Google Sheet and apply mass updates. I can make several sub-forms to create the functions that I want to happen, plug that back into their form, and press the update button. It enables me to create my workflow, plug it into theirs, and update my entire fleet. It's better than having someone's proprietary solution that can't be customized where you have a limited pre-defined set of options. 

Google Sheets is like my own personal playground. I can make whatever sheets I want. I've built forms that dynamically grab a set of Chromebooks from a larger list. I can grab 30 serial numbers and tell Gopher to update only these records with these fields, etc. I can quickly organize my fleet and build a structure and workflow. 

Google for Education Audit encompasses a few things. This is a wide use case scenario. Sometimes we need to audit things coming out of Google. Password changes are an audit of that particular user event. We can use it as an investigative tool. For example, if someone accidentally sent out an email with sensitive information, we can find out who received it and pull it from those inboxes. 

I haven't used it much for diagnosing problems besides pulling back emails and identifying when password resets aren't happening because there's an issue with the sync between Active Directory and the place where our Google passwords are stored. If a password reset fails, we don't get a good warning about it, but the audit can tell us that all the passwords stopped on this day. 

I wish Amplified would develop a few more tools. There are a few functions that I want to do through an interface like Gopher. For example, I want a tool that lets me quickly browse my organization's publicly available Google documents. 

I want an administrator to be able to check which documents everyone on the internet can see with a link. It would help everyone in the organization understand what they've shared and with whom. It would also be great to have a tool to look at all the Google Drives in our district and who has access. 

More in-person training classes would be nice. They used to come to a school or organization and host seminars, but they stopped doing that. It seems to be entirely online. That provided some additional contact that people could leverage for advice after class. I miss that, but it's hard to criticize Amplified because they do everything well.

We started working with CDW Amplified for Education in 2017. 

I'm terrified that their tools might crash because I need them. I've never thought about it. They've always been there, and I've never considered being without them. Fortunately, it has never been an issue. 

We went from a couple of hundred Chromebooks to 21,000 and didn't notice a difference. Their tools just work.

I rate Amplified's support a ten out of ten. I regularly contact Amplified because they're a great source of information. Occasionally, odd things happen. It isn't daily, but fairly often. For example, they have a system to assign Google licenses to all students in specific Google groups. We have a dynamic way of adding all of our students that are current and in the correct grade levels to a group. Every morning, an Amplified process ensures that everybody in that group gets a Google Workspace for Education license. 

However, I had to pull some grade levels out of there because they didn't need it, and it shot an alert at me that was like, "Hey, we pulled out more than 75 licenses. Is everything okay?" I had to respond and tell them it was fine, and that they should run the process. Weird things often happen in the Google environment that they need to check. Sometimes a person has an email alias that causes problems because nobody knows about it. 

Some of these accounts are ancient, and a new account might not work because there is already an alias in the system. You can contact them and ask them to go through your entire structure to see which of your 16,000 users has this alias. They'll chew through it and let you know.

I work with one person the most, and I don't think I've had a question she couldn't answer. They've always fixed my problems unless they run up against one of Google's limitations, and that's as far as it can go. I can't think of a time when they could give me an answer. 

Positive

There wasn't another solution that offers what Amplified does. Yesterday, I found my former coworker from a district in Texas where I worked back in 2014. We were chatting about Google. They also use Amplified because it's the only company that knows what it's doing. I don't know of anything better. 

In theory, people could use GAM and do a whole lot of typing themselves, but I don't envy that individual. Amplified is making custom tools for all this stuff, and that isn't sustainable in an environment like ours. There's constant turnover, and it isn't going to work if we only have one guy making custom code.

I could say it's a little expensive, but there's nothing to compare it with. No one is doing anything like this, so it's difficult to say if their prices are higher or lower than they should be. Everyone wants everything to be free, but that's not the world we live in. It's invaluable because there's no other way to do it. 

I rate CDW Amplified for Education a ten out of ten. I've never met someone from Amplified who I didn't like. I've never had any problems with them. They've always gotten back to me with information. Everybody that I work with at Amplified has been amazing. If they ever offered me a job, I'd take it, but I don't think I've got the skillset they want.

Before adopting Amplified, you should consider which team members you need to train because you can't afford to train everybody at the highest levels. You also need a budget to buy tools. That's one downside. They don't offer a simple all-in-one package where you get all their tools on an annual license. That would be great. It's a la carte. I wish that all of our billing was done at the same time. It would be nice if all the enrollment and collaborative tools were in one package.

You need to get all your ducks in a row in the accounting department. Once you start using these tools, you can't live without them. They only go for a year, so you must ensure you get them yearly. Amplified will take care of you, so you don't need to do much groundwork on your own.

We mainly use them for support and all of our program updates for Google. They are a huge help with support with the Google for Education domain.

They helped us get our Google Workspace set up correctly, all the security aspects and best practices.

They have also saved us a lot of time. They do a lot of the research when new things come out and have given us products that help us to better organize our district.

The most valuable feature is the monthly Google updates.

We have also used Google for Education Audit three times and it has been very helpful for us. We've changed several things based on the audits and Amplified's security recommendations.

If they supported more products, that would improve things. Right now, they only support one classroom management product. If they could integrate with more products, rather than just one of each type, that would be helpful.

I have been using Amplified for Education since it started.

As far as I've seen, they've done nothing but grow, so they seem very stable.

As a school district, we have grown by almost 10,000 students in the last five years, and we haven't seen any difference. The programs work smoothly.

They are very helpful. I can call them for anything that I need and they point me in the right direction.

They are very knowledgeable about Google Workspace for Education. They work so closely with Google that they know what the newest updates are and the bugs that exist. I have contacted a couple of people in their support department who weren't as knowledgeable and they had to escalate it, but that's pretty common with support services.

Positive

We did not have a previous similar service.

The initial deployment was straightforward. But we've been with them for so long that we have added pieces as we go.

There were two people involved in the deployment: the person who purchased it from them and another for the implementation. There wasn't really an implementation strategy. The only features they had when we started were the audit and Google updates. Everything else has been added since then. We started with them to get the audit done and implement the changes that they suggested.

There's no maintenance involved on our side as a result of using the service.

The ROI is that it saves us a lot of time. Their Gopher tools save us a lot of configuration that we don't have to do on the back end.

The pricing is very competitive and you receive a great amount of information for the price. It is well worth the cost.

When we went with Amplified, there really wasn't anything else out there because Google Workspace was so new for education.

Go with the audit as your first step. I would suggest the first thing you do is hire Amplified for the Google domain audit. It shows the inside of the company itself and how much knowledge they have.

Overall, Amplified for Education is instrumental in helping us work with Google Workspace for Education, day to day. We use them on a daily basis.

I discovered CDW Amplified for Education when I was working at another school, and we were looking for a better way to manage our Google environment. When I learned about the solution, it was called Amplified IT. I came across them while looking at a reseller for either GoGuardian or SysCloud.

We wanted to back up our system because a principal who had left the school took things with them. We needed a filtering solution to protect students and staff. While I'm aware of Little SIS, we never implemented it at my school because of multiple schools not having the right SIS to work with it.

I was exposed to a lot of useful tools through Amplified. For example, GoGuardian is a tool that I've used in a couple of different school districts. We don't have that here, but if my current organization was looking for a new filtering solution, I'd recommend GoGuardian based on my experience working with GoGuardian and the Amplified team. If we were looking for a backup solution, I'd go with SysCloud because of my experience working with the SysCloud and Amplified teams.

If we were looking for Chrome management and tracking tools, I would go back to Gopher for Chrome and the other lab tools they have because of my experience. Ryan and the Amplified team introduced me to those tools.

It's hard to say how working with Amplified affected the teachers. When I began using the tools they offered, it did eventually get to the student's level, but the teachers weren't in those conversations. I can't say that the teachers were directly impacted, but they benefited indirectly. I don't know if I had any teachers who joined those sessions who could say that they learned something that they could apply to their work. I was the one that turned it over to them.

Amplified helped us utilize Google Workspace for Education more effectively. It was a phenomenal experience. They have cornered the market in the understanding of the solution's backend and created opportunities for us to provide feedback to Google about bugs and feature requests. Their connection to Google was powerful, and many things changed as a result.

I liked the customer service aspect. Amplified holds your hand, and you never feel like you are being sold something. I was being educated and given the opportunity to make my own decisions based on what I needed to see. That was one of the selling factors for me. They weren't pushy. If I needed a solution, they had three or four options to choose from.

They later developed a networking group that I found helpful. I became a big fan of that. I was answering questions for other people while learning about Google, and the other products they offered.

I used a version of Google for Education Audit before, Google Workspace. Depending on how many Chromebooks or Chrome licenses you buy, you can get Google for Education Audit as an incentive. They would look into our environment and give us some suggestions, but I don't recall if they were the company that did the full audit, or if another company did prior to my arrival in one of the schools.

I used Gopher for Chrome and the tools that they have. I've used some of the other labs that they launched. Those were helpful. They had a full Chrome inventory at one point that was used to track all of our systems. Gopher for Chrome was used to track the last user who logged into a device. Those were powerful tools.

I haven't seen the same level of outreach since CDW purchased Amplified. When they were a separate company, there was a little more flexibility and a more personal touch. CDW purchased Amplified IT to add more resources, but I think I've lost that direct connection to the team that I used to have. I would like to see them return to the customer service model they had before the acquisition. 

In the past, I could contact our rep, and he'd call me back within minutes. I could have a one-on-one call with their product expert or a video session to figure out a problem. I never felt like I was being nickeled and dimed on that. 

Also, if you purchase tools from them, you should be entitled to join their communities for free. They charge a separate fee to be a part of that community. If you don't qualify for that incentive, it could be cost-prohibitive for a school to purchase that part. The community was the most helpful aspect, and I'm no longer a part of it. I feel disconnected from that group. 

I started using Amplified in 2015 or maybe a little before then. 

There were problems in the past, but they were quickly resolved because I could send an email or text to our contact, and it would be resolved in minutes or I would get confirmation that they were working on a solution.  

The product lines they offer are built for the biggest environments, so they can also work in the smallest.

I rate CDW's support an eight out of ten. They're responsive, but it feels different compared to before the acquisition. CDW's knowledge of Google Workspace for Education is pretty strong. They have a good sense of what's happening because of their acquisition of Amplified. I think they needed that as their outlet. Before that, they were knowledgeable, but they weren't as knowledgeable because they weren't doing it in the same way.

CDW has a strong relationship with Google, and they understand what all their customers are going through. They've seen all the problems or pitfalls you may face before you experience them. 

Positive

There was another solution called EdTechTeam that was emerging at the same time. It was a similar deal where you received an incentive if you purchased a number of Chromebooks. Sometimes it was professional development or discounts on solutions within the Google environment. They might dive into the backend of the admin console and provide some recommendations on how to make you stronger. They were a leading partner, but I don't know where they went. Amplified is still around.

The setup is straightforward, depending on the product. It never took long because of Amplified. Sometimes it took a while because our data wasn't clean or some other issue, but we always had that hand-holding process, if necessary, where we could get some support from Amplified directly. I always have small teams working with me on the deployment. It's typically me and two other people. 

Every product I've used from Amplified has made my job easier. I can offer protection and backup solutions to my supervisor or provide teachers with the support they need to deal with problems on the platform. When a teacher has issues, I can bring in the vendor and Amplified's representative to help negotiate that conversation and get that problem fixed. It's a high return on investment. I've been with them for so many years, and I've gained a lot from them, particularly our representative.

I think it's unfair to blame Amplified for prices going up because the vendors themselves are the ones changing the prices. Amplified tries its best to take the smallest possible cut, so the schools don't feel it, but there must be some kind of markup. 

When I paid to be a part of that community, I could purchase at a discount because of cooperative pricing. That helped, but it didn't always go that way. As the company began offering more bundled products, the price began to rise. Amplify did what they could to keep the price low, but sometimes they couldn't get it as low as we wanted to. In other cases, they included more training to make up for it. They realized that the service level should stay high as the price went up, so they would throw in additional hours for setup, integration, troubleshooting, professional development, etc.

I rate CDW Amplified for Education a ten out of ten. If you are considering Amplified, you should be ready for bumps along the road but know that someone will be there to help you through it. There are knowledgeable people out there, so you shouldn't feel like you need to go at it alone. 

We primarily use CDW Amplified to manage Google Workspace for Education, and we implemented the product to make management easier.

The solution saved us a lot of time on administration.

Regarding Amplified for Education for empowering our teachers, it helps ensure the process is managed, smooth, and working for them. Teachers don't have to worry about management because we take care of that for them. 

We can access North American Google Technical Collaborative with Amplified, a great resource that utilizes peer resourcing. 

Regarding the solution's tools, the most valuable feature currently is the space and storage monitoring. 

Amplified for Education's flexibility and customizability are pretty good; we can make feature requests, and they're usually very open to our suggestions.

We use the Google for Education Audit feature. We recently just completed one, and it's a beneficial service for diagnosing problems and recommending solutions. We aim to conduct an audit every two years.  

The Little SIS Premium feature is a very helpful tool for helping IT admins manage their infrastructure. It simplified the process a little and is better than relying on the admin counselor.  

We also use Little SIS to perform bulk updates with Gopher for Chrome; it's very straightforward to use, pulls excellent information, and the Gopher component is handy too.  

Overall, Amplified is a precious resource for helping us work with Google Workspace for Education. I would find it difficult to manage that without its tools and assistance.  

A web interface for some of the information stored on Sheets would be a welcome change, especially with the ability to delegate to Level 1 techs or even technical coordinators within the schools. Then they could assist in the management or see some statistics. Much of what Amplified does is Sheet driven, and I like the Sheets, but having a web GUI is better for some.

We've been using the solution for around five years.

The main products are very stable, and we rarely see serious issues. A more peripheral product I've used maybe twice has been down for a couple of weeks, but I don't know its user base.

The solution is scalable; it can handle significant loads. We're a sizeable district with roughly 15,000 end users.

The tech support is very responsive, and we've never had an issue where we needed to hound them; they generally find the problem and fix it.

Until the acquisition of CDW Amplified for Education, the CDW team's knowledge of Google Workspace for Education was likely lacking. 

CDW's ability to support and maintain Google Workspace and Chrome OS has progressed since the acquisition of CDW Amplified for Education. 

Positive

We didn't previously use a different solution. When we started using Amplified, there were very few other options available. 

The initial deployment was extremely straightforward, and I carried it out myself. Initially, I worked with the one tool I needed immediately, Gopher for Chrome. Then, I went down the line authorizing other services to talk to the domain. Amplified doesn't require any maintenance on our end. 

The solution provides an ROI, especially in terms of saved time. What now takes me five or even fifteen minutes, could previously have taken all day.

The pricing is reasonable for what we get out of it. 

I rate the solution a nine out of ten. 

We use the Little SIS Premium feature, though not to sync classrooms; we use it as more of a classroom management tool.

I advise those considering the product to take advantage of the complete evaluation, including all the features you're interested in. Talk to their support to help you get set up, and don't assume you can figure it out alone. It isn't difficult, but getting an idea of the support and how the tools function is reasonable.

We use them primarily for support in our use of Google Workspace. We also use them for Workspace domain audits. And they have worked with us on some integration projects as well, helping us with some user and backend management pieces.

We were really looking for someone who could give us timely and accurate support on the products that we were using. The Google pieces are great and extremely powerful, but a number of times you need to have that person that you can go to immediately to answer a question, and CDW Amplified for Education has been that "person" for us.

We're able to use things in a more timely fashion because we're able to get questions answered about things that would normally hold us back from doing some key tasks.

It is also empowering our teachers because it's giving us, on the IT side of the house, the tools that we need to make their lives easier. We have been able to simplify the toolset that they're being asked to use. We're able to make sure that everything is working as they need in the classroom so that they don't even have to think about it. They can just use the tools for instructional purposes and not have to worry about anything else.

Overall, for working with Google Workspace for Education, CDW is invaluable. It's not really a question in my mind as to whether or not we are going to use it from year to year. It's more a case of thinking about what we are going to add or how we should modify the offerings we have from them to help us do our jobs better.

What we use on the most regular basis is their help desk. And something that we have used time and again is full audits because that has given us the most insights into the system as a whole. The audits have enabled us to run much more smoothly.

Also, Little SIS, for helping to roster Google Classroom classes, has been game-changing. Things like bulk updates are things that have made our lives significantly easier. It also helps IT admins manage their infrastructure. We've been able to simplify a lot of our processes and reduce duplication of efforts across systems, particularly in the areas of users and user management.

It's tough to come up with something that needs to be improved. If I had to come up with something, it might be having a single dashboard for all their different services that connect to the Workspace domain.

I have been using CDW Amplified for Education for four to five years.

There haven't been any issues with stability.

We haven't had any issues with scalability either.

They've been fabulous. They have been open to all sorts of questions and issues. They're needs-based. They look at what we need to do and go from there. They're extremely responsive and willing to help, either via support tickets or a webinar.

The CDW team's knowledge of Google Workspace for education is top-notch. Their ability to support Google Workspace is doing everything that we need done.

Positive

We used other companies for certain aspects, but no one really covered the breadth that CDW covers for us.

The money spent is worth it.

The pricing is incredibly competitive. It's not a matter of cost, and their service offerings are fabulous. Cost is never the determining factor in what portion of their services we're going to use. It's just whether we actually need that piece for what we're doing.

Prior to getting on a call with them, outline all of your specific needs across all the different Google tools that you're using. Try to be as exhaustive as possible with that work leading into a call so that you know what questions to ask.

The main product we use is called Little SIS, but we've also used them for some technical advisement on the Google Admin console.

We use the Little SIS product to mass organize Google Classrooms. That means we can bulk-upload hundreds of users, add co-teachers, and add students on behalf of teachers and other users of Google Classrooms. It gives us administrative capabilities that we didn't have already through the Google Admin console.

The audit was also helpful, offering a detailed look at our admin setup.

I've also taken advantage of multiple webinars that they offer, where they provide opportunities to learn from their experts. They know a lot because they work with many different schools that have a variety of issues. You can definitely learn from their experiences when listening to others teach about technology. Sometimes a speaker can come across as a know-it-all, someone who makes you feel that if you don't know something you're probably not high up on the tech ladder. But I've never felt that way with regard to CDW Amplified for Education. They understand that everyone is coming from a different place and is at a different level, and they want to help everyone reach whatever goals they're trying to achieve.

While CDW doesn't get to the level of teachers, it empowers tech leaders and administrators, and the people who are setting up the infrastructure for Google Workspace for Education. Consequently, it can empower teachers and students. But CDW's audience is predominantly technical leaders and technology specialists.

The ability to bulk-upload users into Google Classrooms using Little SIS has been life-saving. Otherwise, we would have had to upload them one at a time or use a product called Gam, but the Little SIS interface is very user-friendly and allows other people on our team to assist in the process.

Rostering Google Classroom classes is one of the main reasons we have it. There may be other ways of doing it, but Little SIS does it with ease. And because we use Google Classroom for so many things now, beyond just a traditional teacher's class, such as for a counselor for a whole grade level, a club activity, or study hall teacher—which means we have some larger scale Google Classrooms in place—it makes sense to have the ability to bulk-upload students. And it makes sense that it also be done by people who wouldn't necessarily have the time or technical know-how to do it. That ability of Little SIS is very important.

We don't do much customization of the product, but it's reasonably flexible for what it is. It gives us the ability to do certain things and gives us reporting of some metrics. The flexibility is also in the ability to allow roles and users to have certain capabilities. For example, I can allow a department chair to have access to the teachers only in their department, as opposed to giving them access to the entire school. That was a feature that was very useful early on and an example of the flexibility of the product.

The Google for Education Audit feature was also pretty useful. We had them do it and we were able to have a follow-up call. They gave us some advice on best practices that they recommended for our Google Admin console. We then met as a team and discussed which ones we wanted to implement and to review the results of the audit together. Everything was very friendly and there was no pressure to buy something or consider adding more features or hours to the consulting package. It was very much: "Here is what we've seen and noticed and here are some action items for you if you'd like. And if you need additional support, let us know." It was very easygoing, without pressure to purchase anything, and has never involved a sales pitch. It feels like they are looking out for folks like me, tech directors at schools, and they really do want to try to help us make sure we have the best practices in place.

Speaking to the empowerment of teachers, and maybe this already exists, but I would like to see them develop and market more for teachers. Maybe they could hire teachers or teacher leaders to deliver the same types of programs and opportunities that CDW seems to have been focused on with technical directors and tech leaders. They could do the same thing for the teachers. Teachers are definitely willing and interested when it comes to learning more about the technologies that they're using. That could be an area of growth for CDW.

We have been using Amplified for Education for about five years.

The stability is very strong. It's up 99.999 percent of the time.

It's also very scalable.

I contacted their technical support once and they have a lot of knowledge of Google Workspace for Education. They're also very knowledgeable and have a strong ability in supporting and maintaining Google Workspace and Chrome OS.

Positive

We did not have a previous similar service.

The deployment was straightforward. It took an hour or two to deploy Little SIS, while for the audit there wasn't really any deployment necessary.

Our strategy with Little SIS was to check out the product and test-drive it with a small group of my team. We then rolled it out through the department chairs who were going to use it, did some training for them, and supported them as we moved forward.

We have about seven active users and there is no maintenance of it on our side.

Our ROI is from the audit results and changes we made to our Little SIS usage. For the price we paid in previous years, there was definitely a return on investment, mostly in time saved, efficiency, and the goals we were able to accomplish using it.

One of the reasons we started using Little SIS was that it was included in a bundle or we got some credits when we purchased Chromebooks. Now we've purchased it outright and continue to find value in it.

The pricing has been competitive. I have a renewal notice for next year and the prices are increasing. They're coming closer to a point where we definitely have to look into the value of Little SIS and what that product offers us.

I know that Google is working on a product that is very similar to Little SIS and that will be interesting to see when it is fully released and we can do a comparison.

Regarding the audit, some of the services are more expensive than they need to be, but I work in a place that has a pretty strong team when it comes to what we generally need help with. But for smaller institutions and departments, it makes sense to have something like CDW to provide some additional technical support, because CDW has the experience that a smaller school may not have access to.

My advice is to think about the typical problems you're trying to solve and if CDW has a product or offering that addresses them, definitely consider it and weigh it against any other options, if available. CDW is going to be a contender for many schools.

CDW Amplified for Education has definitely made a name for itself as one of the premier organizations that support Google Workspace for Education and schools that are using it. As a part of the CDW environment now, it's a pretty powerful combination in terms of purchasing, but also for support. It's very important not just to spend money on the technology, but also to make sure that the technology is going to be used and that you train successfully on it. It seems logical to have a pretty strong presence in training and support alongside purchasing.

We use them for tech support for the Google Admin console, and as a touchpoint for the community they have, which allows us to connect with other school districts using Google across North America.

We were trying to connect with other schools that were facing similar questions to those that we would have. We were looking for a central resource, a community where we could go that provided other users' experiences with Google.

The biggest benefit has really been around the connection to other schools that have been using Google.

There are two aspects that are the most valuable to us. The first is that it's nice to have the tech support available, another set of eyes when we have a tech question. The second is their community and the things they've put together with all of the districts across North America. That has truly been a great resource for us.

I also liked the Google for Education Audit because it confirmed that we had our settings the way we should have them and it pointed out some settings that we needed to work on or have further discussions about.

It would be great if we had a central place to log in and see all the different things we have access to as a member. Currently, there's no centralized place like that. There are things that we pay for that we could easily forget. It could be that we don't need a particular feature right now, but in a year, when we need that feature, we won't even really realize that they have it. It would be nice if they had a centralized place for all the features you get with a membership, and to know how many support hours we have remaining.

We started using Amplified for Education in 2015.

There has only been one time when one of their products was not available for me to use. It's not like a specific box or something that we have physically, but anytime I have looked to use their tools they have been available, with the exception of that one time.

The scalability is fine because we can onboard other members to the community and that person has access to the various things that are available.

They've been very flexible in all the questions that we've had for them and their answers. Their knowledge of Google Workspace for Education has been great, and when they don't know, they'll reach out to more people in their department. I can always depend on at least an initial response within 24 hours.

And their ability to maintain Google Workspace and Chrome OS is definitely among the big things we use them for.

Positive

We did not have a previous service like this.

When you join up with Amplified, it's not that it's a specific product that you're going to jump into. It's more of a membership to the community or an engagement with their tech support people. It's not really a "deployment".

Something quantifiable is a little hard to specify, but the sharing of knowledge and the amount of knowledge we have been able to acquire have certainly been a return that we've seen year-over-year.

The pricing is very fair for what you get, and a good value. That's especially true given that schools are always facing budget issues. It's not a $ 10,000-a-month product, and we appreciate that.

I'm not even sure there are many other options out there. They have cornered the market pretty well, filling the need that they saw. There are a couple of free discussion boards where schools get together to talk about these things, but as a paid, closed community, I don't know that there are many others out there.

For somebody who is looking for direct support, it's great. For somebody who wants to collaborate with other schools on how they do things and get recommendations for how things are set up in the Google environment, it's absolutely something I would recommend.

The service, overall, has been great for helping us work with Google Workspace for Education. Again, the key has been the ability to connect with others through their community and have access to their tech support. That has been incredibly beneficial for us.