Telecommuting or remote work is something that we have had to get used to very quickly and that is here to stay.
Many companies are beginning to adapt their working hours to a blended or completely remote mode . This has many advantages, such as being able to work in a company in another country without having to move or greater family reconciliation.
That is why there are many companies that have gone by leaps and bounds with improvements in their collaborative work platforms, as is the case with Google. Google has released what was previously known as Google Suite or G Suite and allows you to create a free account, although with certain limitations.
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What is Google Workspace
Goolge Workspace, formerly known as G Suite or Google Suite , is a Google service that provides a perfect virtual environment for collaborative work.
This platform has several Google products (Meet, Docs, Chat etc) on which you can create work teams.
Until now, G Suite was paid, although with a Google account you could use these services individually.
So what was the advantage of paying for G Suite if you could use the tools separately for free ?
Well, precisely because of the connectivity between these tools. Google made a strong commitment to creating a platform in which teamwork would be as ” light ” as if you had your partner at the table in front of you (may be teleworking or even in another country).
And what has changed from G Suite to Google Workspace ?
Well, with Google Workspace the aesthetics have been renewed (the Google logos are now more minimalist), that connectivity has increased with functionalities and examples that we will see now and, the most important thing is that we can create a Google Workspace account for free .
What is Google Workspace for?
Google Workspace is used to create a collaborative virtual work environment , and the main difference between this Google platform and its competition (such as Microsoft Office) is the connectivity between its tools.
For example, in Google Workspace you can start a video call from Google Docs to review something specific from that document with a colleague, or the reverse process of being in a meeting and being able to open a Google Docs document in the same Google Meets tab .
This interaction will save us a lot of time and energy , because you don’t have to create a new meeting in Google Meets.
If you already have a Gmail account on your mobile with permissions to the calendar, you will have been able to verify the great utility that when you accept an event from Gmail it is added directly to your calendar and it sends you a reminder.
And there are many more advantages.
Another of the new features offered by Google Workspace is the creation of your professional email . That is, with its own domain and not necessarily with the default Gmail extension.
If you have, for example, a digital marketing consultancy it could be “ @marketingdigital.com ”, instead of “ @gmail.com ”.
At the level of communication we also have the change with virtual meeting rooms , at the height of competitors such as Slack or Teams.
These rooms are virtual spaces , to which certain participants, files and tasks can be added and all the tools of the platform are available. In the image below you can see a Google Room chat in which a document is being reviewed and a meeting is being proposed at that very moment.
As you can see, the strong point as we saw at the beginning is the great connectivity with your work environment.
How to get a free Google Workspace account
The first step to getting a free Google Workspace account is to have a Gmail account.
Once you have it available, access the Gmail mail and click on the settings button that you see at the top right.
In this new window you must click on “ Chat and Meet” that you see in the upper bar and then activate the Google Chat option.
When you are done, click on “ Save changes ”.
When you return to Gmail you will see on both sides of the screen how several options have been activated:
- On the right are the Calendar , Notes ( Keep ), Task (Tasks) and Contacts .
- On the left you have the option for Mail, Chat, Rooms and Meeting . These last three are the new features of Google Workspace that appear integrated in the Gmail window and that we talked about before.
What tools does Google Workspace include?
This virtual work environment we have 14 tools:
- Those focused on communication : Gmail , Meet (video calls), Chat (Instant Messaging).
- Those that are similar to office : Docs (Documents, similar to Word), Sheets (Spreadsheets, like Excel ) and Slides (Presentations, like Power Point).
- Those that help us with the organization of work such as Calendar , Forms (to create forms), App Script (programming language for creating tools), Keep (notes) and Cloud Search (search engine within the Cloud).
- File storage with Drive.
- Website development with Sites.
As you can see, these 14 tools connected to each other from a single interface provide you with a perfect virtual work environment.
Free Google Workspace compared to paid Google Workspace
Let’s compare the free version against the cheapest rate of Google Workspace:
The first difference comparing the free version with the cheapest Google Workspace plan is that with the first you cannot have a personalized company email.
That is, as we saw before, you will not be able to have an email with your own domain , such as “@mymailexample.com”.
In addition, in the free account in video calls you can add many participants, with a maximum of 50, while in the Business Starter plan you have a maximum of 100 participants.
Another difference is that the free version has half the storage in the cloud ( 15 GB compared to 30 GB in the cheapest plan ).
And finally, in all Google Workspace paid plans you have assistance from the Google team if you have any problems or questions.
Google Workspace Tutorials
Finally, if you want to learn how to use Google Workspace, here are two tutorials with which you should learn to master it perfectly.
The first is a video version of this post, although we do go into even more detail:
The second video is a tutorial where we go over all the key tools and explain how each one works:
