Google’s G Suite can take care of many of your business’ needs in one single suite of cloud software. Your own G Suite starts with the branded email that is usually the primary point of interest. However, so many incredibly useful features often go overlooked.
Google Forms
Google Forms allows you to gather information through a very easy to use form building interface. One interesting way that your business could use Google Forms is by creating a vacation booking or time off request form for employees. You could also use it with your favourite support tool to collect information about your customer service experience. You could even create small quizzes to test whether or not your training material was effective in communicating particular points to your trainees. The uses are limitless when it comes imagining different ways these forms can be used.
Google Sites
Google Sites is a tool that allows you to create a very rudimentary “website” that can be available to only your G Suite users, or to the general public.
Sites is actually quite a quick way to create an informational intranet for your business. You can mix and match other tools that are offered in G Suite to make a unique and data-centric site. For example, your Google Sites intranet could house a page with the vacation booking form described above. You could even pair the form with a vacation calendar embedded to show all approved vacation time.
In addition to private sites, you can public pages that may contain marketing materials. It won’t be compatible with many tracking or advertising tools that are available to more custom websites, but it may (or may not) be better than having no website at all. If you’re looking for a quick way to display your information online, this might be the right temporary solution to getting online.
Meet & Hangouts
These tools are game changers. You may be familiar with the simple messaging and video chat application Hangouts, but may not be familiar with the relatively new Meet application.
Hangouts, as I alluded to above, is a messaging application that can make remote or project work a breeze. It’s a great way to get your team talking about work, and is even better for communicating with potentials clients if you’re not able to meet in person. This browser-based video chat application operates very well when joining or starting sessions with multiple chatters that also use Hangouts. The user based communication system can make following up a breeze. You can “call” another user very simply, and connect to their desktop, laptop, tablet, or even phone, depending on what they’re accessing hangouts from at the time.
Meet is a far more deliberate tool that aims to please those of you who want an easy way to invite non-hangouts users into a video chat interface. You could invite them to share their camera, or exclusively offer screen sharing on your device alone. This is a great way to run a web seminar or similar video meeting with one or more viewers. Potential viewers only have to follow a simple link that is generated when you host a Meet. Once they’ve specified their name, you are asked to accept their request, and they’re in! It’s all so simple!
If you’re interested in learning more about what G Suite has to offer, leave a comment in the section below!
