We have tried many service software options for both our in-house team and our inbound marketing clients, but one SaaS we keep coming back to is G Suite. Google makes online collaboration simple and easy by streamlining processes and maximizing productivity.
No matter the size of your business we believe G Suite has something to offer.
4 Ways We Use G Suite
1. Creating
Docs
Online collaboration can save a lot of time, but it can also be a hassle. By removing the immediacy of working face-to-face, you sometimes get stuck waiting for a reply when collaborating on a document. With online Drive editing, you no longer have to wait for an email with an updated document. Now you can see in real-time the edits your teammates are making to consolidate your editing.
Work in Editing mode to change the document or Suggesting mode, which will automatically cross out the current text and add your suggestion in another color. Each editor will appear in a different color, helping you track exactly who made what changes. You can even view previous versions of the document and see who made edits.
You can also leave comments on the sides of documents or converse in the convenient chatbox available right through Docs.
Sheets
Like Docs, Sheets brings the ease and convenience of online collaboration to your spreadsheets.
Google AI will make your data even more impactful by giving insight to all members of your organization. Formula acceleration will suggest formulas as you type to both save time and minimize errors. Explore will show you advanced information about the data to help you find trends and customize the display to assist with analysis and visualization.
You can also type questions directly into Explore to get any answer you might need from Google AI. Even if you’re a committed fan of Excel, Sheets is easy to adapt to because it uses many of the same keyboard shortcuts and is compatible with Excel files.
Slides
Create attractive and impressive slide presentations with the convenience of online collaboration. Get all the editing features of PowerPoint from your browser; fully-design your own slides or use any of the many attractive themes available, add animations and objects, draw charts and diagrams, and edit text and images to create entertaining and informative presentations. You can also upload different file types to be converted into Slide presentations.
Forms
Quickly create customized forms that can be used in many aspects of your organization. Surveys and questionnaires can give you extremely valuable insight into your employees, your business, and your clients. Just choose your question types, drag to reorder, and create your list of recipients to gather important data from any source. You don’t even need a Google account to respond. Once the responses start coming in, all the information is conveniently stored in Sheets for you to easily analyze.
2. Connecting
One of the most basic features of G-Suite is Gmail. We and many of our clients heavily rely on email to communicate with co-workers and clients. Gmails hold 27% of the market, making it the most popular email client behind Apple iPhone.
The search feature allows you to access all of G Suite from your email, making scheduling, uploading, downloading, searching and more possible from one window.
Reviewing email conversations is also made simple by automatically organizing reply emails into threads. You also can rest easy knowing Google is protecting your data with frequently-updated anti-malware software.
Calendar
Keeping track of multiple schedules is simple with Google Calendar. With easy-to-read color coordination and customizable display preferences, Calendar allows you to combine several calendars into one without overwhelming or confusing you and your team.
Toggle between calendars and further simplify to help organize and consolidate scheduling. Having several calendars is especially helpful if you are looking at due dates for clients; assign each client a different color and toggle between filters to see everything your team needs to get done and prioritize.
3. Sharing
Drive
From Drive, you can access and edit files from your entire team. Every user starts out with 15GB of free storage, which is enough for most individual users and can be upgraded for a small monthly fee. With advanced search features, Drive can identify objects in images and text in scanned documents to bring you every relevant source of information on your Drive.
You can give specific permission to team members, controlling who can view, edit, and comment on documents so your entire organization can have access without risking your work. With Drive, you don’t even have to remember to save your files. Auto-save ensures that any changes made to a file are saved every few minutes. Even if you lose connection, Drive has offline editing on Chrome to make sure you can always edit your work.
Cloud Search
Designed for organizations, Cloud Search brings Google’s powerful search engine to all of your applications. Machine learning and advanced search capabilities are a couple of reasons why Google is the most popular search engine in the world, and now you can harness that same capability with internal company data. By giving convenient search access to all employees and monitoring individual access, you will prevent information silos that can hinder your business’ productivity and collaboration.
4. Managing
Admin
The Admin Console is the main control room of G Suite. Here, as an administrator only, you can control all aspects of your G Suite services. Some of these features include…
- Add or remove users, organize into units, add an administrator account
- Manage apps like Gmail and Calendar
- Customize company profile, including name, language, time zone, logo and communication preferences
- Manage billing and subscriptions
- Add and manage mobile devices
- Manage security settings like 2-Step Verification, passwords, etc.
- Generate user reports
- Import email, calendar events, and contacts with the migration tool
- Verify your domain, add another domain
Vault
Vault allows you to save, search and export data from sources including Gmail messages, Hangout and Google Talk chats, Google Groups, Drive files, and Hangout Meet recordings. With Vault you can set rules for how long data is retained, hold and preserve legal data infinitely, search domain data, export data, and audit reports on Vault admin actions. All of these features are web-based and included with all paid subscriptions.
Mobile
Whether you use Android, iOs, Windows, or any other smartphone, Mobile Management will keep all your data secure. Mobile device management has customizable settings for screen locks, password strength, and device wiping. All from one dashboard, you can manage all devices connected to your G Suite. Agentless mobile management allows you to set requirements and track mobile uses and trends without requiring software installment. You can review this information from a convenient and simplified reporting dashboard. This important feature is free with all G Suite accounts to make sure every user has the protection they need.
While there are tons of options out there, we feel that Google does the best job of combining the many applications we use on a daily basis into one accessible, user-friendly, online system.
One of the greatest aspects of Google is its commitment to usability and user experience, meaning every product is designed with the user in mind to increase productivity and reduce friction. We recommend our clients utilize G Suite as it simply organizes the many aspects of a company into one convenient service.
