Jekyll and Hyde Accounts

In 1886 Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson published a novella entitled [The] Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. The novella is famous because of its interpretation of Dissociate Identity Disorder, a psychiatric condition in which a person displays at least two distinct identities each having their own way of interacting with and perceiving the world.  In the story, the main character, a doctor, struggles in understanding the difference between good and evil. He spends a significant amount of time trying to repress his evil urges.  Dr. Henry Jekyll creates a potion which transforms himself into the evil Edward Hyde.  Throughout the novella, the Mr. Hyde personality grows in power and no longer relies on the potion to express his evil.  Eventually, the potion's role reverses and Dr Jekyll must rely on it to remain his normal "good" self.  As the potion runs out he realizes that he will be Hyde forever and chooses to take his own life.

With the many different types of Google Accounts, some of them are naturally going to develop personality disorders (I'm kidding...kind of).  There is a current known issue that has been given the name "The Jekyll and Hyde Problem."  The problem surfaces when someone with a free personal Google account shares the account name with a Google Apps account.  The Google Apps account can be any Enterprise, Education, non-profit, admin-controlled account.

Note: When signing up for a Google Docs account, you don't have to have a Gmail account.  I can use any email address to sign in at docs.google.com provided I have an account where the username is an email address.  However, if you use your gmail address for your personal docs account then you will never have the Jekyll and Hyde problem.

Here is how the scenario works:

I have a Google Docs account (which I created at docs.google.com) using my business email, lets call it Ted@tedjcompany.com. I log into this account by logging in at https://docs.google.com. This is my personal account which is the "Jekyll" account.  This account is called Jekyll because I haven't taken any potion yet so when people share docs with me using Ted@tedjcompany.com they are shared to my personal account.

TedJCompany decides to use Google Apps for business.  This means that TedJCompany now has their own dedicated domain called @tedjcompany.com.  Since I am the system administrator I decide that I want my employees to be able to use Google Docs.  To access the my business Docs account directly I will sign in at https://docs.google.com/a/tedjcompany.com.  The potion has now been consumed.  Any docs that are shared with Ted@tedjcompany.com will now only be shared with my Business account.  If I sign into my personal account via docs.google.com, I will not see any docs that are shared with Ted@tedjcompany.com.  This is the Hyde account because this account is the most powerful of the two and shall not allow the personal account to have and docs shared with it. The potion runs out and the Jeykll account becomes seemingly useless.

Instead of killing off both accounts, there is a solution! The system administrator should be able to resolve this if they carefully transition to the new infrastructure. They should carefully read all help articles below and follow the steps.  Ideally, before the transition users with potential conflicting accounts should change their account information.

Contact users with conflicting accounts

Resolve conflicting accounts (this includes information on how to resolve accounts before OR after migration to the Google infrastructure.)

Understand data sharing options

Please comment if you have any questions!

Cheers!

P.S. The book is free if you have a Kindle!