More and more, Google is becoming the universal tool for businesses when it comes to productivity and collaboration. But you may be wondering — what exactly is it and how do I set up Google Workspace for my business?

What is Google Workspace?

Google Workspace is a collection of cloud computing, productivity and collaboration tools, software and products developed and marketed by Google. Originally known as G Suite, Google Workspace is a re-branded program due to its evolution as a more integrated experience across Google’s communication and collaboration tools. Similar to G Suite, all Google Workspace plans provide a custom email for your business and include collaboration tools like Gmail, Calendar, Meet, Chat Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides, Forms, Sites and more.

How to get started with Google Workspace

Companies with under 300 employees — like many small businesses — can sign up online. Companies with more than 300 employees can contact Google’s sales team to learn more about their enterprise plans. If you’re a company with under 300 employees and signing up online, follow these steps:

1. Once you’re at the online sign up page, select the plan you would like to set up under Pricing and click Get Started.
2. Fill out the required fields on the Google form:

• Business name
• Number of employees
• Country
• Contact Info
• Business Domain information
• Username and password details for how you’ll sign in

3. Review your details and check out — note that you get a  free 14 day trial before payments begin.
4. Continue setting up your business account by getting your email working with Gmail.
5. Activate your Gmail for the prompted email, or you can choose to create new users who require email accounts within your organization.
6. Sign in to your domain host to activate your Gmail — you may need to wait for up to an hour for the domain to be connected.
7. Click connect for the verification process — this may take a few minutes! At this point, Google needs to know that you own the domain and the domain provider is routing the records to Google.
8. Once this is connected, you’ll be in the Google Admin dashboard. Choose to Create New Users or Skip for Now to come back to this later. From the dashboard, you can open up settings to try Gmail and other apps, set up mobile devices, migrate email, etc. We recommend sending a test email for your Gmail account to make sure everything is working properly.
9. If you ever need to make changes to your account or add users, you can make these in your Google admin dashboard.

Setting Up Google Workspace

Individual Set Up

If you’re a one-person business that doesn’t own a domain and instead use a personal domain for email such as gmail.com, all you need to do is sign up for Google Workspace with that email address. After you have subscribed, be sure to refresh the tab — it may take up to 5 minutes for new features to be available on your account.

But wait — I don’t have a Gmail account!

That’s ok — you can create a Gmail account for free before you get started with Google Workspace.

1. Go to www.gmail.com
2. Click on the button that says “Create Account”
3. Fill out the fields in the sign up form.
4. You’ll be asked to verify your phone number, add your phone number in the field then hit next.
5. You will receive a verification code by text — add this into the verification code field.
6. Once you’ve verified your account, there will be a form asking for personal information like a recovery email, your date of birth and gender then click next
7. You will see a section with an option to add your phone number to your Gmail account —if you’d like, you can skip this.
8. You will need to accept the terms and conditions for Google’s Privacy Policy.
9. Voila — you should now have your new Gmail account
10. When going into Google now you should see an icon for your profile in the top right corner for your Google account

Business Set Up

If you are a one-person business, here is how you set up your Google Workspace:

1. Access your Admin console (your login won’t be an email that ends in gmail.com)
2. Set up your business email. If you didn’t activate Gmail during sign-up, you can do that now. You will need to change your domain’s MX records to direct mail to Google’s mail servers
3. Migrate your emails and other data to your new business email.
4. Manage your new account — here, you can add your business logo, manage billing and payments, or change your profile/email name.

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If you’re a small business (2-9 users), here’s how you set up your Google Workspace:

1. Access your Admin console (your login won’t be an email that ends in gmail.com)
2. Set up your business email — if you didn’t activate Gmail during sign-up, you can do that now. You will need to change your domain’s MX records to direct mail to Google’s mail servers.
3. Migrate you and your team’s data to Google Workspace
4. Set up team member accounts and manage their identities
5. Set up your organization’s account  — add your logo, and Manage billing and payments.

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If you’re a medium-size medium-size business (10-300 users), here is how you set up your Google Workspace.

1. Access your Admin console (your login won’t be an email that ends in gmail.com)
2. Run a pilot (optional) —  try Google Workspace with a small number of users
3. Prepare your communications — very important for changes of any kind! Notify your team about the switch to Google Workspace, and customize your internal communications with Google-branded logos to prepare your users for the transition.
4. Add remaining users to your account.
5. Set up the business email for your domain — you will need to change your domain’s MX records to direct mail to Google’s mail servers.
6. Set up your organization’s account  — add your logo, and Manage billing and payments.
7. Migrate all users’ mail, calendar, & contacts.

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What else should I know about Google Workspace?

Not sure if it’s right for you? Companies can try Google Workspace before committing — all plans feature a free 14-day trial.

Education and nonprofit organizations might be eligible for one of the special editions , which provides some features of Google Workspace for Education for free or at a discounted rate.

Only interested in Google Docs? Unfortunately, individual apps can’t be purchased — when you sign up for Google Workspace you’ll gain access to a set of integrated apps that work together.

It’s possible to sign up for Gmail for personal use at no cost, but for just a low cost, Google Workspace offers Gmail Workspace Individual and Workspace Business accounts. These accounts include upgrades such as increased storage, custom email addresses and professional email layouts .

Another benefit of Google Workspace is that users can have multiple email addresses by creating email aliases such as support@yourcompany.com. This is helpful in the event of employee turnover — your customers or clients will always have a way to contact your business even if someone leaves the company.

Your existing email, calendar events and contacts from your previous platform can also be migrated into Google Workspace, saving you time and effort.

Lastly, you may consider having a Google Workspace partner on your speed dial, especially as you’re starting out — they’re an experienced IT-service provider that can help companies set up their Google Workspace. The Google Workspace Support team is also available 24/7 for any questions or issues you may have.

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And that’s it, in a nutshell! At Nimble, we love using Google Workspace for easy collaboration and communication — and we won’t lie, it makes our lives easier if our clients are on Google as well. The good news is, we’ve become super users of the platform and are here to help if we’re working together on improving your digital presence! Contact us today to learn about what we offer.

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