By: Chad G, Andre T, Jewel J, and Cory T
How well do you know G Suite? The ActioNet team within the Science and Research Business Unit (SRBU) provides support for Google’s G Suite to our Federal customers. Google is continuously expanding its G Suite offerings through upgrades and feature additions on a regular basis. G Suite is making its mark on the cloud industry with no signs of slowing down. We are ready, are you?
What is G Suite?
G Suite is Google’s suite of intelligent, secure, and web-based productivity applications. Formerly known as Google Apps, G Suite consists of much more than just an email service. G Suite includes a variety of handy apps and features that simplify collaboration tasks in the workplace. In fact, you may already have personal experience using some of them.
How does ActioNet support its customers using G Suite?
The ActioNet UMS Team delivers 24/7/365 email, storage, and applications support to 100% of agency staff using G-Suite. In support of the agency mission, the ActioNet UMS Team enables seamless collaboration for over 12,000 agency customers worldwide by providing video conferencing, chat, and email capabilities, as well as the ability to develop and edit documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. To ensure security of the government data in the cloud, and to maintain compliance with federal Digital Loss Prevention (DLP) memorandums, ActioNet has implemented a Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB) solution supporting agency’s instance of Google Drive. Additionally, ActioNet staff are leading projects that apply similar DLP rules to Gmail and Google Apps, extending the enterprise security posture across multiple cloud-based resources.
Features We Support and Use on a Daily Basis
G Suite allows employees to maintain individual Gmail accounts with email addresses that use a business domain name (example: [email protected]). For employees who are more accustomed to the look and feel of Microsoft Outlook, Google also provides integration software called Google Apps Sync for Microsoft Outlook (GASMO). GASMO helps to minimize the learning curve of Gmail and enables 2-way synchronization between Google’s G Suite and the Microsoft Outlook application.
One of the great things about using Google Calendar in G Suite is the ability to create multiple calendars that are accessible to everyone in your domain. For example, you might want to use a group calendar for sharing events like holidays or regular team meetings.
Google Drive allows users to store, access, and share files in one secure place. Users enjoy ease of access to their files from any internet-connected device or location.
One of the best features of Google Drive is the amazing search functionality! Although, this is probably not too surprising since Google also operates the largest search engine in the world. Did you know that users are able perform searches based on the content within a document, regardless of the file name or metadata? Pretty handy. This enables Google Drive users to easily and efficiently find what they’re looking for.
Google Docs and Google Sheets allow users to create and edit text documents and spreadsheets right in the web browser. Simply import your documents to make them instantly editable, including Microsoft Word, Excel, and PDF files (.docx, .doc, .pdf, .rtf, .txt, xlsx, .csv, .html, .ods). As of February 2018, Docs and Sheets users may now collaborate and comment on Microsoft Office files without having to convert to one of Google’s file formats.
One of the best features of Google Docs and Spreadsheets is the real-time collaboration, commenting, and the ability to retain an unlimited set of versions. These features make it super easy to track changes made to a document or undo a mistake. Securely sharing documents with your coworkers or other individuals is also incredibly easy.
Google Keep be an easy way to create to-do lists, notes, and reminders to help you stay on track. Items within Google Keep synchronize across your devices, so your important content is always within reach. Easily share items with your team and archive them when you’re done. And once again, Google’s search works flawlessly with Keep.
Additional Features
Here are some additional features that are available with Google’s G Suite:
● Google Hangouts Chat
● Google Hangouts Meet
● Google Forms
● Google Slides
● Google Sites
● Mobile Management