What is G Suite, Really?

There is no question that Google is an absolute giant in computing, having moved from web search functionality to a much wider variety of applications. These applications now make up the G Suite, and are used by many, many businesses to accomplish their goals. Here, we’ll go over some of these features and how they can benefit your operations.

Understanding G Suite

G Suite is effectively Google’s collection of applications that businesses can leverage to assist their operations. Originally released as “Google Apps for Your Domain” about 12 years before the time of this writing, this solution was slowly added to over the years - eventually being rebranded to “G Suite” in September 2016. Today, the solution is kept free of any advertisements, and even better, none of the data stored within is used to inform advertisements, either.

What’s Included in G Suite?

G Suite includes a wide variety of solutions under its blanket, so this will not be a comprehensive list. Instead, we will focus on the commonly known highlights, as these are the ones that can clearly deliver value for you and your users.

Gmail

Gmail is Google’s email software, first released in 2004. As a part of a G Suite plan, it offers each user 30GB of storage and assorted email options. For instance, not only can you have unlimited Google Group email addresses (so instead of listing everyone in your customer service department as an email’s recipient, you can send one email to your entire customer service department), you can also customize your email addresses to match your business’ domain. This looks much more professional than having “@gmail” at the end of a business email.

Docs, Sheets, and Slides

Added to the platform in 2006, these solutions make up Google’s answer to the word processing, spreadsheet generating, and presentation building programs that have a useful place in just about any business. Featuring full collaborative capabilities, these solutions encourage your team to work together to accomplish their objectives by giving them the tools to do so simply. With all progress automatically saved - including a complete, restorable revision history - working on tasks as part of a larger, collaborative group becomes that much easier to pull off successfully.

Drive

Launched in 2012, Google Drive is the cloud storage platform included with G Suite. With this platform, your business users can have access to all of the content and files that they need to fulfill their responsibilities. It is also compatible with assorted file formats, eliminating the need to install plugins or additional pieces of software to view its contents. Thanks to Drive, collaboration is much more simple to accomplish, and different plans offer different storage options based on your business’ specific needs.

Calendar

Integrating with Gmail, Google Calendar is an easy way for your team to keep their schedules and responsibilities straight. Let’s say a user has to arrange a meeting with a few coworkers. Google Calendar permits them to see their coworkers’ availability, preventing the productivity-killing, “No, that time doesn’t work for me… how about...” discussions.

Other Capabilities

With a Business account, you are able to access your own G Suite Admin Panel. Essentially your control room, the Admin Panel allows you to manage each and every setting. Here’s a brief overview of just a few of the options available on the Admin Panel:

Users

This is where you add new users to your account. From here, you can also manage what attributes your users have (or essentially, the details about them that you have recorded - like start date, location, job titles, et cetera) and when they last signed in.

Groups

You can organize your users in this section into mailing lists and, well, groups. These groups make it easier to schedule meetings and manage events, as they allow you to bundle users together as a means of communicating with them en masse. 

Company Profile

This section allows an admin to brand their company’s G Suite solution with the company logo and update other information pertaining to the business. It also allows you to set up custom, branded URLs for your company’s Drive, Calendar, and Gmail accounts.

Admin Roles

As the lead admin, you can add additional roles and grant permissions, as well as set permissions for particular groups, devices, and services. This section also allows you to review what admins you have, and the permissions that these admins have as well.

Billing

Any charges that your G Suite account and its licenses have incurred can be reviewed and managed here. This section should also display the G Suite plan you have subscribed to.

Reports

Here, you can track how your G Suite services and apps are being used, and what your users have been doing on G Suite. Within this section, you can review a general overview of your applications under Highlights, while Reports allows you to run reports and audits on specific services, devices, and users.

Other functions include the capability to manage device permissions, enable security features, manage other locations your business may operate out of, and many more.

Want to learn more about how you can leverage G Suite as a business tool? Reach out to Heart of Texas Network Consultants! Our professionals can help implement and integrate its functions into your processes. Call today at (254) 848-7100 to learn more, or to get started!