CDW Google Workspace for Education Reviews

The "foot in the door" that CDW Amplified for Education had was around the Google Administrator console audit for all of our settings in Google Workspace. They make sure to point out anything concerning, in every little nook and cranny, regarding how we are configured, and offer suggestions for changes or best practices.

We did the audit for the same reason that anybody else does one. You don't know what you might be missing. You don't want to find out, after you've had a breach or something bad happened, that you didn't have things configured correctly. You want to be proactive with those issues.

The result of the audit process is that it can give you quite a bit of work to accomplish, and that led to some of the more in-depth engagements that we've had with them. In responding to things from the audit, they made available some tools, like their Gopher suite, that helped our organizational units meet their recommendations to be effective.

We've also engaged with them on significant projects such as email migrations from Exchange to Gmail and the directory sync from Active Directory to Google called GCDS. They helped us optimize and manage those with automation.

We work regularly with them on a weekly, if not daily, basis. We're in touch with them on different things that we have cooking, whether it's troubleshooting and responding to customers or planning for the changes, project-based things, that we're going to put in place over the summer.

The first benefit has been a shorter time to resolution.

Also, it is said that nobody talks about security until there's a breach, but we do a lot of work to prevent any issues from happening. We've had no significant issues with abuse or breach in our Google system. No news is good news there.

We are currently applying the results of and the suggestions from the audit, and responding to support requests from 12 schools and three administrative buildings across our district's footprint. There are a handful of us who interface directly with CDW, five or six of us on the IT team, but the solutions that they have provided in response to support requests have impacted a broad range of people. Every one of our 1,500 staff members and 10,000 students has been impacted by our work with CDW.

We are always trying to put a good, powerful set of tools at our teachers' fingertips. As Google is constantly changing and evolving, we want to take advantage of the new things that are added to empower our teachers. But, we don't want to dive into the deep end of the pool without proper knowledge of how that might impact things, or what unforeseen circumstances might come up if we change a setting.

The collaborative gets us into monthly updates. I could follow the Google Workspace Updates blog, and I do, but the monthly CDW Education Collaborative applies those updates to education and provides forums and context for discussion around how other schools are doing things. That can lead to why we may or may not want to enable a feature out of the gate. Without that, we would be much slower to respond.

Beyond the audit, one of the most valuable features is their support. As we struggled to keep up with the demand coming in from our users during the pandemic, it was very helpful to be able to supplement our own IT support with CDW's IT support. Rather than us burning 45 minutes troubleshooting an issue, we could just loop them in on it and they would perform it for us and help us deliver a quick solution. That was really critical when we were going through the height of the pandemic. And even post-pandemic, with a lot of needs coming our way, having that hybrid model is really great. We can share the load with their support and they are always quick and friendly and super helpful.

In terms of their knowledge of Google Workspace for Education, I don't think there's anybody that could give you better knowledge and expertise than Amplified IT. They're so very knowledgeable and well-versed in everything, from small to large, the things that you're trying to accomplish in Google Workspace. I would give them the highest number on the scale: five out of five or 10 out of 10.

The Google for Education Audit feature is extremely thorough and we've greatly benefited from having that knowledge. So much so, that we are in the process of revisiting it. A lot of things got tacked on or adjusted in rapid fashion over the past couple of years and we're ready to revisit the audit to make sure that, as things settle down, we continue to do the best we can for our users. And we plan on help getting CDW's help with that too.

Immediately after the CDW acquisition, some of our expectations were a little disrupted.

For example, when you purchased Chromebooks, you would get service credit that you could turn into hours. Because we purchased the Chromebooks from CDW, and now CDW also owns the company where we would redeem those credits, I don't quite understand that dynamic, but that was impacted. In the last couple of weeks or months, it seems that they're trying to find paths to being flexible with those service credits and stack. That is one area that they may be slowly catching up on, after the acquisition.

But there was a year or so after the acquisition when we were having to purchase more hours out of our budget, rather than use our credits for those hours that we got for purchasing Chromebooks. But they are finding ways to do that appropriately now. It's not quite the same, but it's getting better.

We have been using CDW Amplified for Education since 2016 or 2017. We did an audit with them shortly after I arrived.

They are always quick to respond to our service requests. They usually get back to us the same day. It's a really speedy and helpful service.

Positive

We were on our own and doing what we could do on our own. But as we became more dependent on Google and Chromebooks, it started to grow outside of that scope, and then we brought in some support to make sure that we were in good shape in that regard.

When CDW was brought up by the IT supervisor at the time, who said, "We should do an audit with CDW," I said that I remembered working with them on an audit a long time before at a different company. When their name was brought up I said, "Those guys were great and did a really great job with our audit. We should have one done here too."

The initial engagement was straightforward. You provide them access and they provide you with all the different configurations in the audit that you could consider improving. I don't want to minimize those results. The audit was very thorough, very granular, but it was simple and straightforward.

In terms of maintenance, it's a support service. Google runs the software and does the updates automatically. But CDW Amplified for Education helps us either change the configuration or offers solutions for different support requests. There are no updates that we have to do for CDW. They do have the Gopher suite, which they make improvements to occasionally, but they are automatically available when you use the extension.

Our ROI comes through the fact that we don't have to hire another person and train them to be experts in Google. It's a great deal from that perspective. 

Also, the peace of mind is something that we can go with to our leadership group, the cabinet, the superintendents, and let them know that we're putting ourselves in a position to succeed and to have teachers focused on students and learning and their education, as much as possible. It's tough to put a number on that, but we certainly feel good that we're doing everything we can for those folks.

In addition, cyber security is something that we try to call out. So far, we're doing really well. We know that it's not a matter of "if", it's a matter of "when". There is always potential for any number of things to go wrong, but we have been pretty quiet as far as any issues are concerned with our Google environment.

One good thing that they have started putting in place is an unlimited plan for support and the audit is included in that. We are strongly considering that model for our upcoming renewal. I'm glad that they are offering that. I think they are finally responding to what their customers are looking for, post-acquisition. 

CDW is also a reseller for the enterprise licenses for Google and they've done a good job of securing discounts for that. And other partners that we work with, such as Itopia, that are billed monthly, are actually run them through CDW, and they're able to secure good pricing for us on those as well.

You want to make sure that you have the right folks at the table from within your department to leave your team a little bit of room to cross-train, so that there isn't just one person who is a liaison between CDW and your organization. You don't want too many cooks in the kitchen, but we've been using five or six folks within our department, depending on the type of request.

Also, set aside some time to apply all the great information that they're going to give you in the audit. When it comes to the managed Gopher suite, bring somebody who knows data and can apply and make the right decisions around the changes that need to be made within your organization, whether it's Gopher for Groups or Gopher for Chrome.

When it comes to CDW's flexibility and customizability, there are a few more limits, since they were acquired by CDW, to how flexible they can be. I'm not sure if that's for compliance reasons or just part of CDW's policies. Prior to their acquisition, they were always able to flex with us. And because they work so directly with Google, they could find a way to help, such as, "Hey, we bought 2,400 Chromebooks, we're going to get some service credits that give us hours that we can use for support." Since the acquisition they may have been slightly less flexible, but I think they're working on that.

We are very happy with the model and the ways they're able to help us. They have a service account in our admin panel that lets them look at what we're looking at through the same lens. There's always room for improvement, but we're very happy with the arrangement that we have currently.

Overall, using CDW Amplified for Education to help us work with Google Workspace for Education has been an excellent experience. We are very satisfied with the services.

Positive

We're a Google Workspace for Education school and use the solution for that suite of services. We use it to conduct security audits of our Google environment and for staff development through training courses. This helps us develop a knowledge base and keeps us up to date so that we can manage our Google environment as accurately and efficiently as possible.

As a small to medium-sized school district, we don't have a large tech department full of staff, there are only two of us. CDW Amplified for Education allows us to maximize our workload. To do all the required jobs for our students, teachers, and devices, we need to work hard and know what we're doing. We found that taking the time to go through the training courses, security audits, or attend CDW Amplified learning sessions, helps us do our jobs better and more quickly than if we had to figure it out and manage it all ourselves. The product allows us to maximize our impact on our environment for our students.

Amplified is deployed across our entire environment; we have five district buildings, including our district office. We use a Google environment, so the solution supports the whole district, though we have a single domain and a single console to manage Google. We have 1,700 students and around 250 staff members, so there are approximately 2,000 end users. 

The willingness of Amplified IT to educate my small staff on a wide variety of Google-based tools is the most significant improvement to the organization. Amplified learns all the information for us and then disseminates the information in a structured package that helps us know precisely what will be addressed. The intended audience is identified for each learning webinar, which helps us focus and save time on training. For a small department carrying out various jobs across the board, the solution helps us stay sane and manage our Google environment appropriately. We could easily be overwhelmed without Amplified's support. 

The training is excellent; we use it a lot and find it to be the most valuable feature.

We also use many of the solution's admin tools to manage users and devices and create Google Classrooms based on a connection with our student information system. These tools are quick and easy to learn how to use, which helps us maximize our time efficiency. 

Amplified for Education is flexible and customizable; Amplified IT responded quickly whenever we filed support tickets, typically because we try to achieve something not necessarily unique but not a one size fits all tool. Their staff has always been responsive, not just promptly, but in a solution-focused manner too. They help us resolve issues as quickly as possible. 

The Google for Education Audit feature is a well-supported and wonderful tool for diagnosing problems and recommending solutions. We initially used it when taking over a Google environment we didn't establish to figure out what we had and where we wanted to be. With the significant change in the educational environment through COVID, many more tools and settings became available in the admin console, so it's hard for us as a small department to keep track of what is where and what the best practices are. Our most recent audit immensely helped us with that, specifically in developing an action plan to take steps moving forwards. We've been reviewing bits of that audit process for four months, as the report is comprehensive and provides much information. The audit feature is currently driving our action plan for our Google environment.  

We've been using the Little SIS Premium feature for six or seven years, and it's excellent for helping IT admins to roster Google Classroom classes. It partners with our student information system to create Google Classrooms for our teachers, which is very helpful. It can be daunting for a music teacher to make all the classrooms required for 400 middle schoolers and 650 high school students, but Little SIS can do it for them. 

The Little SIS Premium feature is very helpful for assisting IT admins in performing bulk updates; because of our audit, we used some of the admin tools to bulk update users and clean up our user accounts. It would be harder to do that through a tool like GAM, as it's more challenging to learn, and we don't have the time to put into it. During the testing season, when multiple computer-based assessments are going on simultaneously, the ability to move the devices of whole buildings or grade levels has been an enormous time-saver. We can run the tool to make bulk updates and streamline a job that would otherwise take a full day or multiple days down to around an hour. Without Amplified for Education, I doubt we could sustain what we currently do with regard to computer-based assessment.  

The service is excellent in helping us work with Google Workspace for Education. It allowed us to understand what the different settings mean and trained us on how to best use Workspace for Education most efficiently. Workspace has various levels, and we are at a paid level, so Amplified ensures we get the best value for our dollar by helping us learn how to best use the paid features and tools. That makes a big difference because we shouldn't be spending taxpayer dollars on tools we aren't using. The security investigation tools and reporting are also beneficial and make a difference for us. 

It would be good to offer more focused teaching and learning updates accessible to teaching staff.

We've been using the solution for about seven years. 

I rate the stability ten out of ten. It has never been an issue. 

I rate the scalability ten out of ten; we started with fewer than 200 Chromebooks, and now we manage over 2,000. Our user count has been stable, but our device count increased dramatically, and we never had a doubt that Amplified would struggle to keep up with our increases.

The CDW team's knowledge of Google Workspace for Education is excellent, and they do a great job of connecting us with an expert in the subject matter based on our specific issue. They're very agile and willing to connect us with another team member with more expertise in the problem area.  

The CDW team's ability to support and maintain Google Workspace and Chrome OS is tremendous; their knowledge is top-notch, and I don't envision a world in our future without Amplified. They're gifted at what they do and invest time in maintaining their level of expertise so that they can relay key changes to us effectively. 

Positive

We didn't previously use a different solution; we became aware of Amplified about the same time we were transitioning from the classroom into the technology realm. When we first stepped into the environment, we had limited documentation and knowledge about what was being done. The ability to lean on Amplified for support and learn quickly helped immensely. They helped us understand what we had and what was necessary to move forward, and they provide a service of such value to us that we continue to partner with them year after year.

Our ROI is in the time saved, bulk changes, intricate settings, and security research. The Amplified tools have paid dividends; we had an email panic that needed to be pulled back out of user inboxes, and without the tools, it would have taken much longer. We accessed a training video on the tool, which we had never used before. We could help ourselves and resolve the situation in 20 minutes rather than contacting Amplified directly.

The pricing is fair, and because we joined North American Google Technical Collaborative, we get access to abundant resources. Our membership also discounts admin tools and audits, which is helpful. Access to Collaborative is great because we can also seek help from other user community members instead of raising a support ticket.

I rate the solution a ten out of ten. 

Outside of account and device security and settings, we have very little infrastructure to manage, and we don't really use Amplified for that.

We don't necessarily use the product to empower teachers, although some webinars and training are related to integration tools and features, letting us know what's out there. In our district, we share this information with our teacher technology leaders, called technology mentors. They can make informed decisions on which tools may be applicable at specific levels and in particular subject areas.

The platform doesn't require much maintenance; now and then, we open one of the bulk changing tools, and an update will run in the background, but we can continue working.

My advice to those considering Amplified for Education is that it is not necessarily the best fit for everyone. I can't always speak to other districts' needs, but if you're looking for more skill and knowledge in managing a Google environment, Amplified will do a good job establishing your needs and getting them met quickly.

I first started using it to manage Chromebooks in large numbers, for doing things in batches with them. We then used CDW Amplified for Education to migrate all of our server files to the cloud, and we added Gopher for Users. The next year we added Little SIS and the year after that, Little SIS Premium with sync.

CDW Amplified for Education enables us to manage the Chromebook fleet quickly and easily, and spreadsheets give us the opportunity to use formulas too. For example, we can use index match to merge data into the Chromebook fields and use that to update. The Admin console has been awesome.

Among the most valuable features is the simple fact that the Gopher series works from a spreadsheet, and I have been using spreadsheets for a couple of decades. It makes it so easy to do massive amounts of updating.

The customizability of CDW is great. It has filled all the holes that we had, things that we had been missing in a premier management tool. I also manage and have familiarity with different management tools for fleets of devices, but I find it pretty simple to do things with this one. And it's flexible. I can do a lot of things with it because it makes sense to me.

We've also been using the Little SIS Premium feature for helping IT admins roster Google Classroom classes for a couple of years. Some teachers like it, some don't, but I keep it because it is so convenient for the teachers that do like it for creating and managing the roster. I like the flexibility that you have to merge classes before you accept them and merge them with already-created classes. Teachers can set up their classes ahead of Little SIS actually syncing everything during the summer. I know that Clever started doing that, and I looked into it, but I don't think I can move away from Little SIS because of how much more management and how much more flexibility it offers.

This is really minor, but there are a few tools, add-ons for spreadsheets, put out by a different company, that CDW doesn't have. But I think CDW can do better than them. I don't know if they're even in the business of doing things like that, but maybe a few add-ons for Sheets to help manage data better would be an area for improvement.

As an example, there is an add-on called Sheet Spider, which was once a script, a long time ago. When New Visions took it over, they didn't maintain the code as well and we have some trouble with it sometimes. There's really nowhere to go to get help. But it's such a useful tool for the school that we still use it. In contrast, when CDW does things, there is a place to go for help. They maintain the code and updates to the APIs. All of that is so slick and so good. If CDW had something like Sheet Spider, it would be so much better.

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

A couple of times, in the Gopher for Chrome tool, I've had issues with the spreadsheet filtering and the tool itself not communicating very well. I've then had to set it up again on a new spreadsheet. But that's very minor, although it happened pretty often. Other than that, I haven't noticed any instability.

We have it deployed across our entire district, with about 100 users, including the teachers who use Little SIS.

It's pretty easy to add users. I don't think it matters whether you have 10 people or 1,000, 10 devices or 100,000 devices. It runs the same.

Their tech support was very helpful and very knowledgeable. I never had to be passed off to anybody else. I was pretty impressed with how quickly my questions were answered and how quickly my issues were resolved by the same person.

The Amplified section of CDW's team, when it comes to knowledge of Google Workspace for Education is, bar none, the best. Their ability to support and maintain Google Workspace and Chrome OS is fantastic. They keep up with every little change that an administrator of Google might want to know and they share it very efficiently and effectively.

Positive

We were looking for Chromebook management, the mass updating of Chromebooks and moving them around. There isn't really a good way to do that in the admin console. I was using a script by Andrew Stillman and he ended up bringing that to Amplified IT. He actually ended up bringing me into CDW.

We used other solutions, but there really wasn't anything as good. I found out about CDW before they started promoting their Gopher series.

When we first started with them, a couple of things were a little bit rocky because I wasn't able to choose my own timeline for getting started. As a result, some things got lost in my email because I wasn't quite ready. In terms of onboarding, it wasn't a person-to-person process. It was more an email saying "Here is all the stuff you need to do and know." They do have open office hours, times that you can sign up for, but it wasn't a prescribed process where we were going to meet and then set dates and rollout dates, et cetera. I would have liked to see it organized like that, with more of a one-on-one onboarding process.

Most of it was done by just me, on our side.

We have absolutely seen ROI through time savings and fewer mistakes when doing bulk updating. We also have more automation in our IT team.

Also, the amount of learning that I have been able to do from the webinars that they put out every month, and sometimes more often than that, is very much worth it.

The pricing is reasonable. I like the fact that I got a discount when I joined the CDW Education Collaborative, and that was worth it alone.

CDW has such a good reputation that you don't need to look anywhere else. They're just so good at what they do.

The tools that they put out are more backend tools. The solution doesn't necessarily touch the teaching side of things, other than the fact that it updates the roster. It's a time-saver in that way.

To prepare to use CDW you should have a really good understanding of how Google Sheets work and a good understanding of how the management console works for managing users and devices. You also need a good understanding of how Little SIS affects teachers in the classrooms, or how it could. You should also be aware of how the setup can affect how teachers use the tool. Having an understanding of the teaching environment is important.

We use Workspace for Education for Gmail, Google Drive, and Google Calendar. It's also our LMS. Google Classroom is the biggest thing, and we use Google Meet for parent-teacher conferences when we can't have them in person. 

Google offered many of these services for free during the pandemic, and we wanted to continue to use them. Many of them are only available with a subscription, which also gives you the investigation tool and any other features in the admin console that the free version doesn't offer.

The platform covers about 1,000 students and 150 school employees. 

Amplified has something called the CDW Education Collaborative, which I paid to be in. They go over every new Google update in great detail multiple times over the month, and there are recorded webinars with slide decks that you can watch at your leisure. That is amazing because there are things that administrators may need to adjust. It also helps me educate my end users and show them features that they weren't aware of. 

If I can't figure something out, I go to the CDW Education Collaborative and post my question or search to see if someone else had a similar issue before contacting Google support. It's another source of information that I can go to and troubleshoot with other admins. 

Amplified is our provider of Workspace for Education Plus, and our teachers would be lost without it. 

Google Workspace for Education Plus allows me to drill down into my admin console to investigate issues. We can customize what Google calls its "waffle" menu, which is a portal to services like BrainPOP, Kami, Learn360, and Lumio. It's one place our staff can go to easily find the tools they need. They can see it inside their Google Classroom, and so can their students.

The Google Admin console isn't open source, so I can't customize it. However, I can create customized rules and do what we call a "walled garden" depending on the class and grade level of a student. I can set age-appropriate content restrictions for each grade. That part is nice. We also use Google to authenticate other products. I have two-step verification enabled for all staff. I can use that authentication for our student information system and for any other service.

I can use the Google console to track the usage of various G Suite products and generate reports on who is going where, how long they've been logged on, their IP address, etc. One feature that teachers like is the plagiarism detector. They can tell if a student is pulling language off of another site. 

Little SIS helps admins do a lot of work in Google Classroom. For example, we can archive a class if a teacher forgets. We can dive a little deeper than what the admin control allows.

We can go in and push updates to a Chromebook. A window pops up and tells the student that it's time for them to do an update. We could force the Chromebook to take the update with the restart, but I don't do that because I don't want to interrupt a student who may be working on a project.

Google is constantly updating everything. I'm currently putting together the spring edition of the newsletter I send to staff outlining all of the updates since the last newsletter in January.

Little SIS should be built into Google Workspace for Education. It shouldn't be a third-party service that we need to buy. When we pay for the Education Plus platform, the admin should be able to completely control Google Classroom. Google's standard learning management system doesn't give admins much visibility and control aside from seeing who's a member and what classes are happening.

We started using the free version of Google Workspace around 12 years ago and the paid version five years ago. We've been partnered with Amplified IT since 2020. 

Google issues a status update if services aren't working or there is an outage. That happens with any online platform, but they quickly resolve issues, and they're good about communicating with us. 

For example, they have been having issues with Google Meet for the last three or four days, but they're constantly giving us updates. They have an app status web page where we can see what's working across all platforms.

We have Active Directory, and we do a Google sync. All of our staff and students are entered into our Active Directory, and their Google accounts are synced nightly. It's all smooth. 

I rate Google's support a ten out of ten. I contact support often. We have two refugees from Ukraine who only speak Russian. I worked with a Google support engineer to set their Chromebooks to display in Russian and translate all their websites. 

Google tech support is amazing. I deal with many vendors, and they are the best that there is. They will tell you if they don't know the answer and go investigate it. They confer with their colleagues and contact you immediately when they have the answer. I seldom have to wait long. The longest I had to wait for an answer was two days, but they were constantly communicating with me by email or phone.

Positive

Before we started working with Amplified, we purchased Google Workspace directly from another vendor. Amplified has a lot of expertise from working with Google directly. They have conversations with Google and encourage us to submit enhancement requests. Amplified also has a broad knowledge base that we can use when we have issues.

The setup was straightforward. Deploying Google Workspace required us to switch from an email server to Gmail. That part took three or four days. We're a small school district in rural Central Minnesota, so we don't have a large IT team. I deployed it with the help of a contractor. 

The return on investment is my time. I can implement things more quickly instead of trying to find the needle in the haystack.

The price isn't outrageous. It was cheaper for us to go through them. Now that they're part of CDW, we see huge savings. When we purchase Chromebooks, we get points that we can put toward buying other services from Amplified IT.

We considered a few consultancies. One was ManagedMethods. We liked the fact that Amplified IT keeps us informed about the latest updates with presentations we can watch live or a recording with all the slide decks. That's huge. 

Google sends Workspace update emails with an article showing you how it works, but it helps to have someone walk you through the changes on the admin console, showing you where to go and how new features work. It takes the technological jargon that you read in Google articles and makes them more approachable.

I rate CDW Amplified for Education a nine out of ten. Nothing is perfect, but we've had an excellent experience. If you're considering a paid service from Google, you need to talk to your staff. Everyone wants everything, but you need to think about which services you're willing to pay extra for and how much you will use them. Do they do the same job as any other services that we already have? 

We use them for troubleshooting purposes and we use their Little SIS product, which integrates with and builds and maintains our Google Classrooms and the students in and out of the classrooms.

The North American Google Tech Collaborative, all of the message boards and blog posts, and all of their monthly updates in the meetups, are invaluable in helping us know what's coming up with Google. That whole piece is great. If we have an issue or something we haven't seen before, there's a good possibility that either one of the Amplified staff, the developers, or one of the other members of the Collaborative has seen it before.

And our teachers benefit from the features of Amplified, such as Little SIS. They don't have to manage their classroom rosters and their classrooms are already built for them. And I manage them twice a day on a daily basis, which means they don't have to focus on that part. It just works for them and they can do other things that are more important to their teaching.

The most valuable aspect has been the Little SIS product. It helps us a lot with our Google Classrooms and issues that we have with them, and it gives us a lot more insight into Google Classrooms use. It's excellent for helping IT admins roster Google Classroom classes. I wouldn't want to do it without it, now that we have been using it. It's also great for performing bulk updates. I run the sync updates every morning, myself. And it's phenomenal for helping us manage our Google infrastructure.

Also, the Google for Education Audit feature is great. The audit is very in-depth and can help pinpoint problems and issues even before they happen.

In the Little SIS interface, when when I'm doing a student search and trying to see where they're rostered, for example, it would be nice to have a little more insight into what the students are actually doing. It would be good to see how much time they spend in their Google Classrooms and how much time they're expending working on assignments. That's one thing where it's somewhat limited.

We did our first audit with them about five or six years ago.

Since implementing any of their products, I can count on one hand how many times it has crashed. There may have been five times that I've had issues where it seemed that it might be down.

It's very scalable. I was able to deploy to one school, and then I was able to ramp it up to the whole district, with thirteen schools in total, with no issues.

We use it in multiple locations and have about 550 teachers and 6,500 students that are affected by Amplified.

Amplified's flexibility is something I really like. It's been a really good product and they're always open to suggestions and always there with support too, which is great.

They are very knowledgeable when it comes to Google Workspace for Education. Their ability to support and maintain Google Workspace and Google Chrome OS is amazing and they're great to work with.

Positive

We used to use a number of other products, things we haven't been using for the last couple of years. In the beginning, the audit that Amplified did for us was a way for us to go through our Google Admin panel to make sure all the settings were correct. Then we used another product of theirs called Gopher for Chrome as an inventory-type solution, but we've gone with a different inventory system at this point, although we have considered possibly going back to using Gopher for Chrome as well.

The deployment was pretty straightforward. Little SIS took two or three days. And that was with our student information person having to get the data into the form I needed it to be in. It was two of us involved in the process.

The Google Classroom management piece has provided us with a big return on investment. It's given me more time to focus on other things. It gives the teachers more time to focus on what they're doing. And during the last few years, with COVID, it was good to have the administrative ability, when a teacher was sick or not available, to put subs into the classrooms co-teachers.

I don't know what that price is now because we haven't had a recent audit, but the price at the time was just right for us.

Overall, their pricing is fair, right there with the market. For us, what helps is that because we are so ingrained with CDW, when CDW and Amplified combined, the pricing we received from them was right at market value, and sometimes even less than other products that we might look at.

We really did not look at any other options at the time. We looked over what their audit process was, what it could do for us and our Google domain, and the price at the time. 

We're only using some of their products and it's not that they're perfect in every way, but I haven't experienced issues where I would want to see improvement.

I believe Amplified offers a trial period, so before you jump in with both feet, definitely do the trial. Do it on a smaller scale so you can see the processes of setting things up and getting it ready to go. Be sure to ask for a trial of the Collaborative to see what value you can get from that. There is almost no question that hasn't been discussed in there and you can usually find an answer to almost anything.

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 the solution for a Google audit and for the added tools provided to integrate with the Google admin console. The first problem we tried to solve was to find a way to integrate with the Google admin console, in particular using tools that allow us to rapidly onboard and offboard Chromebooks. We had a good experience doing that, so we started to use the platform to audit for blind spots we may have had in our security settings.

We're a school district, so technically, the deployment is one district, but we have three different school buildings. We have under 1,500 end users. 

Amplified improved our organization by validating areas where we are on track and by helping us reduce our blind spots. The world is changing so fast, so it's nice to have another set of eyes, a third party outside of the district, that can tell us when we're on the right track and alert us about security risks.

The most valuable element of the product is that the people we work with at CDW are excellent; they're very reliable and knowledgeable. 

Amplified for Education is pretty good with regard to customization and flexibility. If you need the product, it's very helpful, and I can see how some of the aspects we haven't used could be valuable to other organizations. Once we explain what our problem is, they're pretty flexible. 

We use the solution's Google for Education Audit feature with Gopher for Chrome to pull information from the admin console and manipulate data. We can add serial numbers, device IDs, student IDs, etc., and push all changes back to the console with a couple of clicks rather than going one by one. The Google for Education Audit feature is excellent for diagnosing problems and recommending solutions; it provides a 50-60 page report on all the present features. CDW did an onboarding call ahead of time, followed by another call to discuss the findings of the report, and they put us in contact with specific departments to fix whatever issues were there.  

We previously used the Little SIS Premium feature, and it was great for helping IT admins roster Google Classroom classes; the setup was rapid, so I got it up and running in 30-60 minutes.  

One of the product's best selling points is how the Little SIS Premium feature helps IT admins perform bulk updates, so I rate them ten out of ten for that one.

Little SIS is excellent for helping IT admins manage their infrastructure; this is the solution's bread and butter, and it does it very well. I give CDW a ten out of ten here too, as whenever we pitched ideas to the developers, they would usually integrate them into the product not far down the line.

I rate the product ten out of ten for helping us work with Google Workspace for Education. If anyone called me and asked me what I would recommend, I'd highly recommend Amplified IT.  

CDW could be better at marketing precisely what they and their product can do. There are sometimes cases where we didn't know the company had a specific capability. It can also take some work to get ahold of the representative we need; our rep is excellent, but we sometimes need to schedule with others, and there can be delays when scheduling in Google Meet. The system works fine for the most part, but it would be nice if we could bring someone onsite occasionally.

We've been using the solution for three to four years. We started using Amplified IT before CDW acquired them, and once they were acquired, it made it even easier as we already had a standing relationship with them.

Amplified is highly stable; we never had any downtime. 

The scalability has been tricky from a licensing standpoint as we're such a small school; we're right on the cusp of 1,000 students, which is where the price break happens. CDW has always been great to work with, so I don't mean that as a knock; it's been a little challenging sometimes.

We've contacted tech support numerous times, and their knowledge of Google Workspace for Education is great. The only issue is not an Amplified or CDW problem, but more of a Google issue in that they keep changing the names of their products. Amplified IT is pretty good at informing us of those changes, however. 

The CDW team's ability to support and maintain Google Workspace and Chrome OS is pretty hands-off. Our CDW rep and Amplified IT rep are both excellent, so it's pretty easy between that and the solution not requiring much maintenance. 

Positive

Before using Amplified, we had an internal tool. 

The initial setup was pretty straightforward, and that got better over time. Even in the early days, the solution was very easy to set up and deal with, but it benefitted from the backing of a large corporation like CDW.

We didn't have a concrete implementation strategy; we grew with them as they grew and as our needs expanded. Two staff were involved in the deployment; myself and the Director of Technology. The product doesn't require any maintenance from our side. 

I can't give an exact dollar amount, but with the landscape changing so quickly and as a tiny school district, it's precious to have an external source letting us know we're on the right path. It helps us when we're preparing for budgeting, and it also helps with the non-technical admins, such as principals and the superintendent. We know that if there ever was a situation where we got into any issues, we could call CDW, and they would help us work through them.

Overall, the pricing is pretty good, and we don't have any complaints. The admins were initially hesitant about approving the audit, but once they saw the comprehensiveness of the report, it was clear we got our money's worth.

We evaluated many options but determined Amplified was the most robust and economical.

I rate the solution a ten out of ten. 

We stopped using the Little SIS Premium feature after a couple of years through no fault of Amplified. Our student information system had the system included, so it became redundant for us to pay extra for the same feature.

The tool is relatively low-impact regarding empowering our teachers because we use it more on the infrastructure side. That's only because we have yet to push forward on the aspects that would be most relevant to teachers, but I know the product would be successful if we went in that direction.

I advise those evaluating Amplified to speak with one of the reps if they have any concerns and get a demo of the product. Once you use it for a short time, you'll be sold on its capabilities.

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.

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.