Here is where you add, change, or remove user accounts; create the Start page layout for your user base (more on this below); run a chat session; design a Web site; set up e-mail accounts; define mailing lists (you can include recipients outside your domain); launch the calendar; and run Google Docs and Spreadsheets. To highlight GAPE's focus on larger user groups, the administrator can update user accounts en masse by using a spreadsheet file containing the changes.

As the administrator, the Start page is basically a portal you set up for your users. You define the basic look (choosing colors for the header, text, backgrounds, etc.) and elements (calendar, weather, news headlines from a variety of content providers, and so on) that can be placed in up to three columns. You also check boxes to specify which additional elements users can add to their own Start pages (or you can forbid any changes).

In addition to the predefined content, you can add custom sections with static text (for announcements or a basic set of links, for example) or copy the headlines from an RSS feed (which we included in our Start page with just a couple of clicks).

All the administration tasks are handled by checking boxes (to place content) or dragging and dropping (to rearrange it). If you've used any of the custom home pages at MSN, Yahoo and others, you already get the idea.

For our site (using the domain enterpriseofficetips.com), the URL to our Start page was http://start.enterpriseofficetips.com, which redirected to http://partnerpage.google.com/enterpriseofficetips.com. This page displayed a skeleton Start page with a link to log in to the system with a username and password set up by the administrator.