With their speed, simplicity, security and standardization, Chromebooks are a great choice for the computing needs of many organizations. For organizations that decide to switch to Chromebooks, the deployment process is a crucial step in the transition to these browser-based devices.

Chromebook Deployment Strategy

Google suggests a three-stage strategy for Chrome deployment consisting of the following three categories:

1.) Development

Set Preferences, Policies, Windows Base Images, and more.

2.) Partial Deployment

Identify subset of your organization to use for testing your development settings. This group should act as a feedback loop for your development process.

3.) Full Deployment

Deploy Chromebooks to your entire user-base.

This approach allows you to evaluate your Chrome OS settings and determine what needs to be changed and what additional functionality you need to find solutions for before you deploy to your entire user base. This staged release strategy provides a much smoother transition from your legacy devices. To learn more about this deployment strategy, see Google’s Chrome for Business Deployment Guide.

Training Sessions

Comfort level with the Google Apps suite will likely vary across your organization. Assuming every employee isn’t completely adept at using Google Apps, you will want to hold training sessions for your users. Be sure to show your employees how to perform all of the tasks they use their computers for on a day-to-day basis.

You should also consider providing your users with online training resources for anything that the initial training sessions didn’t cover.

Virtualized Desktops

You may want to implement a system to allow your users to use virtual machines to access native-only apps such as Microsoft Excel or Adobe Photoshop. There are a solutions, such as Ericom AccessNow, that will let you run a Windows application or full Windows desktop from within a browser tab in Chrome.