Some businesses need to stream a large meeting to thousands of employees, and others might need to record a video for people who are unable to attend a training session. Google recently launched G Suite Essentials, a new G Suite package including video conferencing with Google Meet and document collaboration tools like Google Drive, Docs, Slides & Sheets. G Suite Essentials is designed to help your team and organisation to be more productive, working seamlessly with your existing email and calendar system. In this article we will take a look at what G Suite Essentials is and what it includes. We will also analyse a couple of uses cases in which G Suite Essentials is a great opportunity!
Remote workers need to be able to work with their team in real-time. Not all remote work tools are created to collaborate in real-time. There exist some applications that just offer a quick fix, like Zoom, but this video conferencing tool isn’t always secure. The problem with having so many different tools is that you often have a lack of integration and a lot of siloing going on.
G Suite Essentials gives teams everything they need to work together in the cloud more efficiently in one easy-to-adopt and easy-to-use bundle. G Suite Essentials is built on top of Google’s Apps that billions of people know how to use and love. That’s why G Suite Essentials includes, apart from the video conferencing app Google Meet, the professional-grade versions of Google Drive, Docs, Sheets, and Slides.
What is G Suite Essentials?
G Suite Essentials is a new collaboration suite from Google which allows teams within an organisation to use Google Drive and Google Meet without a need to verify domain ownership. Like the broader G Suite service, Essentials has an entry-level tier that includes Meet features like up to 150 participants and the ability to schedule/join meetings from Outlook’s calendar.
You can use Essentials with your existing productivity solution. And it’s free through Sept. 30, so you can try it risk-free. Signing up is simple, you just need your work email address to get started. You will receive a confirmation code, once you verify that you are all set to use Essentials.
What does it include?
In addition to enterprise-grade security, Essentials includes business-specific features like shared drives, advanced video conferencing (recording, live streaming, 250 participants), and enhanced Office integrations. It also includes Drive File Stream, which gives you access to large amounts of content with minimal hard drive space. All these G Suite Apps are tightly integrated, so when you need to present a Slide to a video conferencing meeting it’s very easy.
G Suite Essentials helps teams accomplish more with:
Secure video conferencing
Google Meet is easy to use and a secure video conferencing tool that is built on Google’s robust and secure global infrastructure. Organise your meetings with your team whether they’re across the office or working from home. No plug-ins needed, just join from any modern browser.
Take a look at the new Google Meet video meeting functionalities here.
Modern collaboration tools
G Suite Essentials includes Google Docs, Sheets, Keep, Sites, Forms, and Slides. These collaboration tools make it easy for teams to work together from anywhere. Different persons can work on the same web-based file without having to interrupt each other. Changes to any file are synced automatically, so you always have the latest version. Google Drive makes it simple to store, open, share, and edit content.
Integration with other Productivity tools
Finally, G Suite Essentials is integrated with some of the tools you already use, like the Office 365 Suite, Slack, and Salesforce. For example, if you send a link from your Outlook to a Google Drive file, Drive will automatically check if the recipient has access to that file.
You will also be notified when a coworker is about to make conflicting changes to a Word, PowerPoint, or Excel file.
What if you want to use Gmail & Google Calendar for the whole organisation?
If you are ready to start leveraging Gmail and Google Calendar for your whole organisation, there is an easy defined path to upgrade from G Suite Essentials to G Suite. If you have verified your domain ownership, then it is very simple to upgrade to G Suite Enterprise.
Security
G Suite Essentials is designed to operate on a secure foundation. It provides the protection needed to help keep your business safe with secure data and private information.
After creating a lot of business-related content and collaborating on it with your team, it’s essential to have a secure place to store it. Google Drive is part of G Suite Essentials and provides easy to use cloud storage.
Cost savings
Switching from Zoom and Box can result in greater than 60% monthly savings. You can save on implementation and adoption costs. So if you are switching from a one thousand employees organisation on Zoom or Box, you will save 180.000 dollars a year if you have 1.000 employees in your organisation.
Should I sign up for G Suite Essentials?
There are different cases where you may consider signing up for G Suite Essentials. Let’s take a look at these five cases :
- You are happy with your existing email and calendar provider but you want to use Google’s collaboration applications like Google Drive and Google Meet for your organisation.
- You are a functional team within an organisation, but your organisation doesn’t (yet) use G Suite but uses some other system like Office 365, but you really want to use Google’s collaboration apps for your team.
- You’re a small or medium business and you don’t have the budget yet to use G Suite but you would love to use some of the collaborations tools of G Suite. Take a look at why small and medium businesses choose for G Suite in this article.
- You love to use Google’s productivity Apps in your personal lives for example Gmail, Google Drive and even Google Meet. Before making the move to the G Suite Enterprise, you will test some other business features you didn’t use before.
- You are already a Google Cloud Platform customer, you prefer to start with some of the G Suite collaboration tools, and may consider switching to G Suite after.
Let’s take a closer look at the decision tree flow chart, which might be helpful to understand whether you should sign up for G Suite Essentials or G Suite.
Conclusion
G Suite Essentials makes it possible to keep teams connected and productive no matter where they are. You will work with tools that are built on the user-friendly consumer versions of Google Apps plus the serious business benefits that come with upgrading to a paid professional version. If your organisation currently has a collaboration suite, such as Office 365 and you’re interested in trying G Suite tools, you could sign up for Essentials and test Meet, Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides, and more for about four months for free.
However, if you need a collaboration solution that includes email, calendar, and collaboration tools, you might want to look at G Suite Basic, Business, or Enterprise editions.
As you can see, getting started with G Suite Essentials in your business is rather easy.
Need any help? Contact our G Suite experts!
