Top 5 Collaboration Features in Google Workspace

Google Workspace is a collection of tools to help businesses work together and collaborate more efficiently.

You might know it as G Suite, or if you’re really old school, Google Apps.

Google Workspace is a cloud-based platform that allows people to collaborate from anywhere in the world. You can make and share files, documents and folders, display your calendars, instant message or video chat with friends and co-workers, and it’s all updated and saved in real-time in the Cloud!

Workspace brings together a host of things to help you organize your work life, including email, calendar, storage drives, and instant messaging.

We’ve picked out our top five Google Workspace tools to help you collaborate with your co-workers, or failing that, make your own life easier!

Anyone with a Gmail account has a Google Drive, but when it comes to a work environment, Google Drive is something else altogether.

Drive also comes with a suite of office tools rivaling the heavyweights from Microsoft 365, including:

• Docs - Google’s word processor comparable to Microsoft Word
• Sheets - Google’s answer to Excel
• Slides - the Google version of PowerPoint

With these tools, collaboration with work colleagues is easy. Anyone (or group) you share a document with can make real-time changes, allowing teamwork to flow without the need for constant back and forth communication.

These up-to-date changes also eliminate the need to constantly save documents, or new versions of documents. All changes and revisions are saved automatically, so if you ever need to go back, it’s there waiting for you, easily accessed and restored.

Google Meet was built for enterprise as a way to host weekly staff meetings and host company-wide briefings, and it certainly hasn’t let us down.

Unlike other video conferencing options, Meet doesn’t need you to download and install an app or a browser extension.

Setting up a face-to-face meeting is straightforward and stress-free. You can schedule and start video meetings from your computer or mobile device, invite people through their calendar, email, or instant messaging.

Real-time collaboration is easy, with screen presentations, recording the meeting, and live chat messages to the group or individuals all available and simple to use. Google Meet even automatically filters out background noise, so you don’t have to worry about your neighbour’s lawnmower interrupting the meeting. And if you’re worried your house is a mess from the kids, there are plenty of backgrounds to choose from so you don’t have to worry about your co-workers judging you!

Google Calendar is designed for teamwork, making it easy to create events, share calendars, and manage tasks.

It allows you to share your schedule with others and create multiple calendars that you and your team can use together, or create a personal calendar for kids’ doctor appointments and social events.

The great thing about Google Calendar is how simple it is to make a meeting with someone. You can not only see their calendar and when they’re free, but also add in a suggested time. If it doesn’t work, then no problem, they can do the same with you. This cuts out half a dozen emails back and forth, trying to find when suits you both.

Calendar can be synced across multiple devices and be integrated into your work Gmail account, so you can create events and respond to event invitations right from your email.

Google Forms is a great tool to improve communication and collaboration within your team.

You can use Google Forms to create surveys to gather information, build team-building quizzes, tailored job applications, team RSVP forms, order forms, time off requests, and much more.

As with all Google products, Forms is user-friendly, coming with plenty of templates to help you if you’re just starting out.

And, of course, Forms is linked to other Google tools. For example, if you did create a survey in Forms, you can have the responses automatically collected in Google Sheets ready for analysis.

No matter where you want to share the form, be it in an email, a website, social media, etc, there are tailored options for you to choose from.

Google Groups is a way for people to stay in the loop and work together, relevant to their department or project.

The group has a single email address, notifying everyone who is in the group when something is shared.

You can use the group to set up chat rooms, invite all users to a Google Meet and share documents for collaboration.

For example, if the Sales Team have their own group, they can share info amongst themselves without the need to notify other departments or each Sales member individually.

Permissions are tied to the group rather than the individual members, so if someone leaves, they no longer have access to the information within the group.

The same goes for someone who joins; they will automatically get permission to view all items that the group has access to.

If you would like to make the switch to Google Workspace, then you’ll need to migrate all your data over first.

We can help.

Talk to us about migrating your emails, files and archives, safe and securely. We have performed over 68 million migrations across 107 countries worldwide, with a 99.8% success rate.

Our award-winning migration tool is fast, secure, and easy to use, or if you’d rather simply do without the hassle, let us do everything for you with a Serviced Migration.

If you’re thinking about migrating from a physical server to the Cloud, we have created a free eBook detailing everything you need to know, and how moving to the cloud can save you millions (literally).

Contact us today for a friendly chat if you would like to know more about Google Workspace or other Cloud Migrations.