Getting Started: Google Office Productivity Tools [ Google G-Suite ]

Are you looking for an affordable collaboration tool that can increase team collaboration within your organization? Well, you have come to the right place. Google G-Suite is the name of that tool. Basically, it is a group of multiple google apps combined into a single package to help you collaborate better.

Google G-Suite offers a lot of different tools to make your collaboration easier. G-Suite has every useful application for every need + it is very affordable. In this article, I will talk about some of the advantages of Google G-suite and why it is the best collaboration tool for your organization.

Google G-Suite Applications

Google G-Suite is a collection of multiple cloud-based application capable of sharing data across the entire network in real time. There are different tasks in an organization for which you need different applications. Google G-Suite comes with a lot of different application for a lot of different tasks.

G-Mail

You will be in the less 1% people if you do not use Gmail as your primary email address. Gmail is a web-based email service with over 1 billion active user base. Now, your organization can manage their important official conversation over threaded emails hosted on the cloud. This way you can stay in touch with your team from anywhere.

In my organization, 80% of our collaboration depends upon emails. As we need to maintain continuous contact with our foreign clients, email is the best source of communication between us.

Emails also help you to track your work and maintains a written proof of all your work and conversation. It has become the backbone of our collaboration and every organization needs it. It is a much much better option for your collaboration.

Refer the link for Gmail Tips and Ticks.

G-Drive

One place to store all your documents, files, videos, audios and pretty much everything. It seamlessly connects with other application of your Google Office Productivity Tools. G-Drive is more like a centralized location for all your organization’s data. You can access it anytime and from anywhere. Every other application makes use of G-Drive to store its data.

In comparison, G-Drive is similar to Microsoft’s One Drive but with really fast access time. The speed on G-Drive is very fast and the user interface is very intuitive. I really like working with G-Drive. It is one place where I store and manage all my documents. I’m sure you will fell in love with it.

Refer the link for 15 Tricks that you can do with G-Drive

G-Docs, G-Slides, G-Sheets

These are productive tools directly built over G-Drive that enables the individual to quickly create and edit documents on the go. The best thing about these is that they can be updated from anywhere at anytime. You can be sure that you will be getting the latest information at all times. The auto-saving feature is amazing.

G-Docs

G-Docs is similar to Microsoft’s Word, but with limited features. These features are just enough to create a text document on the cloud which can be shared across the organization’s network. I find it useful whenever I have to create Detailed Documents about the project that I’m working on or whenever I need to create Documentation of the existing or completed task.

G-Docs are pretty lightweight document creation tools that could be accessed directly on the cloud, thus, it does not put weight on your computer’s hardware.

G-Slides

These are used to create powerful presentations on the go. Again, it is similar to Microsoft’s PowerPoint but lightweight. You can directly build a presentation on the cloud simply with the ease of your browser. You do not need powerful hardware system to create a presentation. You can use your smartphone to do it on the go.

Often times in my organization I have to present my ideas or recommendation to the product owner and presentation is what I turn to. This is really simple to use + it smoothly syncs across the entire network.

G-Sheets

Fills in the need of Microsoft Excel. This is one of the most widely used applications in G-Suite. Every organization needs to maintain different processes and G-Sheets is exactly what serves their needs. Again, it is smoothly synchronized across your entire network real time.

Employees can use G-Sheets to keep track of their daily task. They can use it to keep a list of tasks they have already done or tasks that are pending to do. Excel sheet is also used by upper management to keep track of their people and progress. It is perfect in for all level organization

G-Forms

Google forms is a good to have feature when it comes to taking user input regarding something. For Ex- Recently we filled a survey in my company regarding the use of Bus Service. There were series of questions which were needed to be answered by the employee so that they can estimate the overall cost and efficiency of using the bus service for the employees.

Whenever you need inputs from your employees or you need a poll for some new product, feature or just a recommendation, G-Forms will definitely come in handy.

G-Calendar

Host your meetings on the cloud. Send meeting invites to individuals or a team. Book meeting rooms with a few clicks. All this is made possible with Google Calendar App.

I use meetings heavily in my organization. Almost every task requires me to set up a meeting beforehand so that people can take out that time and plan beforehand. I organize meetings for Code Reviews, Training, Casual Meetings, Standups etc ? With G-Calendar it is all very easy. You can also set the reminder to remind you before the meeting. It is very useful in any organization and Google has done a very good job.

G-Sites

This was a recent feature added to the G-Suite especially for the people to bring multiple widgets on a single page. There are times when a single app is not sufficient to express yourself or your state of thinking. That is where G-Sites comes into the picture.

With the help of G-Site, each employee can create a single page website to incorporate multiple widgets on a single page. For Ex- You might need Sheet and Calendar together to explain some topic. Switching context between two apps is not always the right way. In such instance, you can use calendar and sheets on a single web page. Isn’t that amazing 🙂

G-Hangouts

Ever felt a need to video chat?

There are times where simple characters or emails or chats are not enough to fully explain the context of your project. You need to communicate with the person more personal and real-time to explain all your project related tasks or to understand requirements from your client.

All this is made possible with google hangouts. You all can video chat at once. I found a little issue with the video quality at lower bandwidth. Hangouts usually take a lot of bandwidth to provide you with the best quality. I personally think that Google needs to work on this issue.

Another big issue is that G-Hangouts is always compared with Microsoft’s Skype. Skype has been there for a long time now and it has learned a lot in this time. I personally have an affinity towards skype, maybe because I have been using it for a long time without any issue. Also, Hangouts is comparatively very new and it’s still evolving. I’m sure Google is continuously working on it for the improvements.

G-Keep

Keep serves the purpose for quick notes. Often times you find an urgent and official need to save some information. Instead of saving it on the notepad or sticky notes which is visible and accessible to all. You need something more organized and private. That is where Keep comes into the picture. Keep directly runs inside your browser like every other google apps and it is easily accessible with a single click. It is a handy tool to have.

Jam board

This is the most recent addition to the Google G-Suite hardware or you can say it is the first hardware addition to G-Suite. This video will explain it all.

So, how did you find it?

Tell me in the comments below.

Google G-Suite Review And Features

G-Suite is totally cloud-based. This is one of the most important features when it comes to real-time efficient collaboration. Cloud-based collaboration gives an edge to G-Suite over its other competitors such as Microsoft 365.

Faster Collaboration

With the cloud-based application, you are directly editing documents and other data on the cloud. This gives real-time access to the document/information change to other users. On the benchmark, it takes less than 1-2 seconds to reflect the changes made to any document across the entire network. This makes document collaboration very fast, almost real time as if people are sitting in a single room.

Google’s G-Suite Reliability

G-Suite is a Google’s product, that means your data is securely hosted on Google’s server. Google uses MapReduce algorithm to store your data on multiple servers. So, when you request your document, the information is retrieved in the form of chunks from multiple servers located at different location. These chunks of information are sieved together to create your original document.

As information is not stored in the single place, the system becomes more reliable. On top of that, your data is continuously backed up to their backup servers. In case of hazard, you do not have to worry about your data protection as everything is backed up on a continuous basis.

Google’s G-Suite Security

As we all know that Google started on with the cloud and now it is leading with the cloud. There is an ample amount of confidence that people have put on Google and also the fact that Google has always proved them right. Google uses the same infrastructure for their services which they use for themselves, therefore, you can trust them with the security of your data.

Data Protection that can be Tailored

Google offers a robust data protection system and provides ways to customize it based on your needs. G-Suite provides a robust Administrator dashboard from where you can control the data accesses, security and other operational controls.

Google Maintains its Customer Trust

G-Suite data is your organization data. Google understands this fact very well and it does not share your data outside of your network in any way. The layers are very transparent and you can see how your data is moving at any given point of time.

You can 100% trust Google with your organization’s data, after all, it has all the ISO badges that is required for security measures :p

Google’s Analytics

One more reason to choose Google G-Suite is its internationally famous analytics system that is used by each and every person across the globe. You can see the usage trend of G-Suite applications in your organization. The data collected can be used to display usage patterns. These usage patterns can further be analyzed to know the working of your entire unit. You can understand your team’s requirements better simply by monitoring their usage patterns.

Google G-Suite Pricing

Here is the table wise plan comparison of G-Suite. Take a look at the pricing below,

Flexible Plan	Annual Plan
Commitment	None	1 year of service for licenses purchased at the start of the contract.
Billing cycle	Monthly	Monthly
Monthly payment	G Suite Basic: 5 USD per user G Suite Business: 10 USD per user	G Suite Basic: 4.17 USD per license
Yearly total	G Suite Basic: 60 USD per user G Suite Business: 120 USD per user	G Suite Basic: 50 USD per license
Add users	At any time for additional monthly cost	At any time for additional monthly cost
Remove users	At any time (reduces monthly cost)	Only when you renew the annual contract. Until then, you pay for all purchased licenses.
Cancel service	At any time without a penalty	Must pay annual commitment (even if you cancel early).

 

I hope you find it useful.

In case you are intrigued by Google G-Suite and wants to try out. I have 20% discount for all BMA users. Get Started by Google G-Suite now! Sign up with the below link and get 20% discount.

Let me know your views on the Google G-Suite. Please share your valuable insights with me in the comments section below. In case you have any queries than shooting it in the comment below and I will be quick as a fox to solve it.