Google Drive is well known as a consumer product. 1.5+ billion Gmail users each have access to 15 GB of free cloud storage on Google Drive (consumers can always buy more storage).
What many people don’t know is that Google Drive is also a business product. It is a part of G Suite, the business version of Gmail.
[Read more…]Google Drive: 10 Ways Drive Saves Businesses Time & Money
If you’ve taken yourself off Twitter and Facebook, a good way to get to get regular G Suite tips is via LinkedIn.
Here are some recent tips that we curated from the G Suite Showcase page.
Many people have multiple Gmail logins.
An example is someone who has a personal Gmail account and one or more business Gmail (G Suite) accounts.
In fact, independent contractors such as marketers can have many business Gmail accounts—one for each of their customers.
The good news is that an individual can login to Gmail as different users within the same browser.
[Read more…]Login to Gmail as Different Users in the Same Browser
When someone uses a free service such as Gmail, Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn, they are not a customer of the service provider.
For free services such as these, the customers of the service provider are the advertisers.
The product offered by the service provider to advertisers is a combination of the service itself and the users of the service. In other words, free users are a part of a product offering for advertisers.
[Read more…]Why Become a Google Customer Instead of Just a Gmail User?
One of the key advantages that Google Docs has over the competition is that a document (or spreadsheet or presentation, etc.) can be shared for editing or commenting with any G Suite or consumer Gmail user outside of one’s own organization.
But what if a G Suite user needs to share a document with someone outside their organization who does not have a Gmail account?
[Read more…]Sharing Google Docs Outside of an Organization: A Major Barrier Removed
The core applications of office productivity suites such as G Suite are: email, documents, spreadsheets and presentations. These are the basic software tools most people use at work.
In addition to these core applications, there are a number of G Suite extras that are included in the monthly per user price. Not everyone is aware of these bonus applications.
Salesforce Files Connect for Google Drive allows specified users to add Google Drive files to the Files section or a Lightning Page component of any record.
The Salesforce Files tab will show Google Drive as a Connected Source. A custom tab called Google Drive can be created. This tab can have list views like any other tab.
Setting up Files Connect for Google Drive requires administrative access to both Salesforce and the Google Cloud Platform console (the same admin login as G Suite).
It’s best that the same username is used for logging into both. This may mean temporarily making a G Suite admin a Salesforce System Administrator or visa versa.
While the following may seem like a lot of steps, the ability to set up secure server-to-server integration in about 30 minutes represents a tiny sliver of time compared to setting up other types of system integrations.
If your organization is not yet using G Suite, you can try this setup yourself with a free trial of G Suite.
[Read more…]How To Set Up Salesforce Files Connect for Google Drive
At Salesforce’s annual Dreamforce conference in 2017, a strategic partnership with Google was announced.
Often, these alliances come and go. However, the Salesforce/Google partnership has gained momentum. Google had a noticeable presence at the 2018 Dreamforce conference.
Among a wide range of facets to the partnership are the following five Salesforce to G Suite integrations.
[Read more…]Five G Suite to Salesforce Integrations and How They Benefit Businesses
Many small businesses do not have the in-house resources needed to fully implement and properly manage G Suite. These companies often seek help from a G Suite Partner.
There are a lot of companies that advertise G Suite services, but not are all official Google partners.
In 2017, Google launched its Cloud Partner directory, which is a searchable listing of all companies that have been accepted into the Google Cloud Partner Program.
[Read more…]How To Find a G Suite Partner To Help With Your Implementation
There are a variety of add-ons and built-in functions for seamlessly and automatically pulling business data into Google Sheets from external sources.
Once business data is in Sheets, it can be manipulated an analyzed in a number of ways.
Here are six functions and add-ons for importing information into Google Sheets. All six are free of charge.
[Read more…]6 Business Data Sources To Feed Into Google Sheets
Updated: March 14, 2019
If you’re using G Suite or considering G Suite for your organization, there may be questions about G Suite security in your mind.
After all company email and business documents (if you are leveraging Google Drive for cloud backup of local files) are stored in Google’s data centers.
G Suite, as you’d expect, has multiple levels of built-in security.
[Read more…]How Admins & Users Can Make G Suite Security Even Stronger
Google has introduced native Gmail Offline for business (G Suite) and consumer users of Gmail.
This means that Gmail users can now read, reply to and compose emails while not connected to the internet. What’s more, no Chrome extension is needed.
It also means that people who current use a local email client in conjunction with G Suite, mainly for offline access, may find that the local client is no longer needed.
Updated: March 8, 2019
G Suite and Microsoft Office 365 are the two most popular cloud-based suites of business productivity applications on the market. Among the best known applications within these suites are email, calendar, documents, spreadsheets, presentations and online storage.
Google and Microsoft continue to add their own flavors of additional components to their respective suites. For example, G Suite includes Forms, Drawings and My Maps and new Google Sites. Google Jamboard is a paid extra. Included extras at no additional charge are Hangouts Chat and Hangouts Meet.
Microsoft Office 365 plans variously include Sway, Yammer, Skype for Business, Office 365 Video and Microsoft Teams.
[Read more…]G Suite vs Office 365: What’s Best For Your Company?
Updated: November 30, 2018
In March 2017, Google introduced a new online meeting experience called Hangouts Meet.
This capability is a major differentiator between consumer Gmail and business G Suite.
Almost all the component functionality (Docs, Sheets, Slides, Maps) that is available to a G Suite user is also available to a consumer Gmail user.
However, a Hangouts Meet meeting can only be initiated by someone who is part of an organization that is using G Suite and for which the Meet capability has been enabled for the G Suite organization.
Let’s begin with a distinction between Google Sheets & Microsoft Excel:
– Microsoft Excel is a spreadsheet application that is a part of Microsoft Office 365.
– Google Sheets a spreadsheet app that is available with free consumer Gmail and also with G Suite (GMail for organizations).
Some people use only one or the other. Other people use both.
If a Google user who does not have Excel installed receives an Excel spreadsheet via email, the user can preview the spreadsheet within Gmail and then convert the spreadsheet to Google Sheets.
There are several ways to move spreadsheets and spreadsheet data between Google Sheets and Microsoft Excel. Here are examples of Google Excel information exchange.
[Read more…]Google Sheets and Microsoft Excel: Moving Data Between Them
There are many aspects to G Suite that can add energy to a business. Most of them are not available with standard web host email. Some are available with consumer Gmail.
Through continuous improvement, Google regularly adds new productivity features and functionality to G Suite.
Unless noted, all of the functionality below is included with G Suite at no extra cost. Google packs a lot of business value into G Suite beyond email, documents, spreadsheets and presentations. Here are 25 ways your business can use G Suite to increase productivity.
[Read more…]25 Ways G Suite Can Increase Business Productivity
Updated: January 22, 2019
It’s a bit difficult to keep with Google’s various iterations of chat and Hangouts products.
However, Google has been honing its strategy and has come up with two well-thought-out business productivity offerings that complement G Suite’s core offerings.
Here is a roundup of the current Google Hangouts and Chat products, including the newest kid on the block.
[Read more…]Hangouts Chat vs Hangouts Meet vs Classic Hangouts
Gmail and G Suite use the same global data storage as Google’s search engine.
Google currently has 15 data global data centers. The first data center was built on the Oregon side of the Columbia River in 2006.
Google stores subscriber data (email, documents, spreadsheets, etc.) in small pieces. Each of those pieces is copied several times and stored in multiple geographic locations.
Updated: August 27, 2018
Google has made significant inroads into the small business market with G Suite. For business owners and employees who have been using consumer Gmail, moving to G Suite is an easy transition.
However, Google has faced several barriers to widespread G Suite enterprise adoption. Here are some of those blockers and what Google has been doing to address them.
[Read more…]G Suite Enterprise Adoption: Slow But Sure Progress
For anyone who is in sales and who uses either G Suite or Gmail, there’s a new sales productivity platform from Cirrus Insight that’s worth taking on a test drive.
Cirrus Insight’s flagship product was a Chrome extension for Gmail to Salesforce integration. Recently, the company expanded its offering to become a a broad and useful feature set for any user of Gmail or G Suite — regardless of whether they are using a specific CRM application.
Through a combination of internal inventions and acquisitions, Cirrus has assembled a “dream suite” of tools that most salespeople will appreciate.
Here is an overview of a few of the ways that salespeople can benefit from the Cirrus platform.
[Read more…]A Sales Productivity Tool for G Suite and Gmail Users
Gmail is the second most popular email client in the world after the iPhone email client. Gmail has over 1 billion users.
Some small businesses use the free version of Gmail for business communications. Other organizations make the move to G Suite, which includes Gmail for Business.
FeedBurner is a web feed tool that was launched in 2004. The best know web feed format is RSS (Really Simple Syndication).
FeedBurner was acquired by Google in June of 2007.
Several years later, Google’s inattention to FeedBurner made it clear that FeedBurner did not have any direct or even indirect monetization potential.
Because of Google’s lack of attention to the app, bloggers began to predict its demise.
The GOOGLEFINANCE function is part of Google Sheets. Google Sheets is available in both consumer Gmail and organization-wide G Suite. The function allows users to create trend charts and comparisons for any assets that have a valid Google Finance ticker symbol.
Here are several examples of how the GOOGLEFINANCE function can be used in Google Sheets to compare the performance of stocks and indexes against one another.
Below are several California wine country maps that we created in Google My Maps. Included wine country maps are: Napa Valley; Sonoma Valley; Alexander Valley; Lodi; and Paso Robles.
Google My Maps is available to both users of consumer Gmail accounts and to G Suite users.
Google My Maps allows for mass importing winery locations from a spreadsheet. My Maps also allows for manually adding each winery.
Since Google introduced Chromebook in 2011, the adoption of Chromebooks by businesses has been more of an interesting idea than a widespread reality.
We first wrote about the business potential for Chromebooks soon after they hit the market.
Our contention was that with so many applications moving to the cloud, that many employees would no longer need a heavyweight local operating system such as Windows or macOS. Technologies such as Citrix could be used to access Windows applications from the Chrome browser.
[Read more…]Chrome Enterprise: How Google Will Get More CIOs To Embrace Chromebook