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.
Read more7 Bonus Applications That Are Included With G Suite
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 moreHow 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 moreFive 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 moreHow 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.
Updated: December 12, 2018
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 moreHow 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: July 31, 2018
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 moreG 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 & Excel:
– 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.
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.
Updated: December 6, 2018
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.
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 moreG Suite Enterprise Adoption: Slow But Sure Progress
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 moreChrome Enterprise: How Google Will Get More CIOs To Embrace Chromebook
Whether your company is a small local B2C business or a large B2C company, it’s worth paying attention to your Google My Business (GMB) listing.
According to Google, “listings on Google My Business can only be created for businesses that either have a physical location that customers can visit, or that travel to visit customers where they are.”
This means that most businesses can (and probably should) have a GMB listing. A Google My Business listing is a free source that can direct more visitors to a business’s website, almost no matter what type or size of business.
Google rebranded Google Apps to G Suite in September of 2016. According to Google Trends, since the rebranding, “google apps” has continued to be the more dominant search term.
For salespeople who regularly send out long form proposals that contain pricing tables, there has always been a conundrum.
That is, a pricing table within in a document can’t be dynamically updated as easily as a spreadsheet table. The word processing capabilities within a spreadsheet are limited.
Often, a proposal’s pricing table is revised several times before the final version of a proposal is sent to the prospect or customer. This can require manual effort. Either the new bottom line in the document table needs to be hand calculated when line items are changed — or the spreadsheet table must be re-copied/pasted a into the document.
Read moreEmbed a “Live” Google Sheets Pricing Table in a Proposal Doc
Updated: November 15, 2018
The current G Suite pricing is different than it was when G Suite was known as Google Apps for Work.
Prior to December 6, 2012, Google offered a free business version of Google Apps. Businesses that signed up for that version are grandfathered at no cost for up to 10 users.
Google still offers free versions of G Suite to qualified educational and government institutions as well as to qualified nonprofit organizations.
For businesses, G Suite does come at a cost.
Read moreG Suite Pricing: What Your Business Can Expect to Pay
Google has released Jamboard, the first hardware component of G Suite.
Jamboard can be viewed as a digital whiteboard that’s sharable, in real time, across multiple locations. It has a 55-inch 4K touchscreen.
Update: On August 22, 2017, Google announced Chrome Enterprise, an effort to accelerate Chromebook for business use.
Chromebook runs on Google’s lightweight operating system, Chrome OS. Chrome OS is so lightweight that it doesn’t support running traditional locally installed business applications.
This is changing to to some degree, as several recent model Chromebooks support installed Android apps. Example models are the Acer Chromebook R 11 Convertible
Many developers will need to make changes to their Android apps in order to fully support Chrome OS. Even if an app is made compatible with Chrome OS, it may not be as robust as its Windows or macOS counterpart.
Chromebooks ship with under 32GB of local storage. But this is more than enough space to run multiple Chrome extensions.
Chrome OS updates are easy and fast to apply. This makes Chromebook an attractively secure choice in light of recent ransomware attacks, in which older unpatched operating systems were exploited.
Read moreChromebook for Business Use: An Alternative to Windows and macOS?
The adoption of G Suite began with small to mid-sized businesses. However, the shift to G Suite for enterprises is ostensibly underway.
At the March 2017 Google Cloud Next Conference, both Colgate and Verizon talked about their move to G Suite.
Colgate-Palmolive has moved 28,000 users to G Suite from IBM’s legacy Notes and Domino systems. Verizon is planning to move 150,000 users to G Suite.
If your organization uses G Suite, you may have discovered that when you upload a video to Google Drive, it’s not simply a stored file — the video can be played inline.
What’s more, Google Drive uses the YouTube engine to play uploaded videos. When playing a Google Drive video, the interface has the appearance of a slimmed down version of the YouTube player.