TrustRadius Insights for Google Workspace Essentials are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, third party data sources.
Pros
Ease of Scheduling Meetings: Users have appreciated the platform's simplicity in scheduling meetings, making it a seamless process.
Robust Chat Functionality: Reviewers have lauded the robust chat feature for providing a smooth communication experience within the platform.
Efficient File Management: The ease of sharing and storing files in Google Drive has been highlighted by users, enhancing collaboration and file organization.
Google Docs Simplicity: Users value the straightforward nature of creating and editing documents on Google Docs.
Collaborative Features: The collaborative tools in Google Docs and Slides are praised for enabling multiple users to work simultaneously, ideal for remote team collaboration.
Seamless Communication: Users find value in the instant messaging feature for quick communication, enhancing overall team connectivity.
I use it for real-time collab to create documentation, charts, planning sheets, and communication. I use it for secure file sharing, propagating, and publicizing project and personal documentation to drive alignment across different business units and departments. Google Workspace makes it really easy by enabling real-time collaboration and auto-saving data.
Pros
Single Source of Truth" Collaboration - Multiple people can edit the same doc simultaneously, we don't have to maintain email chains with different versions of docs, and the ability to add @ and mention colleagues is really useful.
Works amazingly well on both mobile and web.
Seamless integration with MS Office: we can upload MS Office documents to Google and vice versa. Migration from MS Office to Google Workspace has proven to be very easy.
Cons
The formatting capabilities in Excel and Word are a bit better and better suited to legal use cases. But this is just a personal opinion.
The permissions system is a bit strange; it would be good to have a middle ground between a "viewer" permission and an "Editor" permission. Something like, Edit but not delete.
Not the best for offline collaboration.
Likelihood to Recommend
Well-suited for: Fast-paced drafting ideas, docs, charts, sheets, etc. Love it for client calls as well. Google Meet runs in a web browser; you don't need to download any special software. Shared Drives are great for sharing information; the ability to add a Google Notebook to them is the icing on the cake. It is less appropriate when Wi-Fi or the internet is spotty, or when you need heavy-duty Excel macro data crunching.
Google Workspace Essentials keeps me in the same relative space. I hate clicking here and logging in there to have various functions and programs keep track of my day to day operations. Google Workspace Essentials allows me to stay in one login, one space so to speak, and to simply navigate seamlessly. I have saved so much time and become so very productive. Not tracking down passwords and logins and trying to remember them and then verifying with time consuming clicks on all the spaces with "ladders" or "crosswalks" in them. I lost so much time that way, now I am in one login, one space for so many programs and functions. Freaking epic!
Pros
Layout of Programs/Apps
Accessibility of Programs/Apps
Programs/Apps functionality is awesome
Everything is Intuitive
Cons
I have racked my brain and I really cant think of anything
Likelihood to Recommend
I love being able to create spreadsheets with links and attachments to other documents in Google Workspace Essentials. It all serves to assist the other files. I like managing my employees emails and settings in one space that is conveniently also the space I handle everything else. Once again, thus negating my need to login to a different site and then reset passwords that were forgotten etc. With Google Workspace Essentials it is all under one roof.
We use Google Workspace Essentials for all our daily corporate needs, including email, calendars, documentation, financial processing, virtual meetings, storage, website domain registration and billing, organizational/team groups and structures, contacts and directories, device and end point management, networks management, apps management, security management, data management and compliance, usage reporting, cost reporting, and account management. Google Workspace is the only organizational software that we use.
Pros
Emailing
Domain registrations
Google Meet
Documentation and Storage
User management
Endpoint Security
Cons
Google Voice
Apps management
Likelihood to Recommend
Workspace is very well suited for daily organizational processes such as document authoring, reporting, document storage, billing, secured endpoint access, generative AI (Gemini) embedding into email writing, video conferences, user management, billing, domain registrations, and more. Internal and external data sharing across users and applications is easy. Data and user security are easy to deploy. There are some features that we are just beginning to use, such as Google Classroom, Voice, enhanced security policies, enhanced group management, Notebook, and audit and investigations.
We use Google Workspace Essentials to monitor and administer Google Chrome browser. It allows us to configure the add-ins and extensions our users are installing, to better protect them from malicious extensions. We also are able to create a bookmark folder and have all of the relevant work related sites already saved in there when an employee starts. Every machine that goes out the door for our users is preconfigured with Google Chrome all set up the same way, and provisioned for efficient use.
Pros
Chrome browser configuration
Browser updates
Usage reporting
Cons
There are a LOT of configurable settings, I'd like to see them sorted and grouped better
Likelihood to Recommend
If you are using Google Workspace Essentials for Chrome browser management, there are a multitude of configuations and settings to choose from. Pretty much anything in the browser can be locked down and hardened. We really only use it for that, and it is a cost effective and elegant solutions for what we need it for.
We use Google Workspace Essentials for our corporate email, calendar, documents, sheets, etc. It is used by every employee in the organization in our 14 offices. It makes collaboration easier and makes scheduling meetings very easy. It addresses all of our business collaboration and communication needs for the firm as a whole.
Pros
Easy to schedule meetings.
Chat functionality is robust.
Google Docs are simple to create and edit.
Cons
The calendar tool isn't as easy to learn as Outlook.
Sometimes Gchat notifications can be obtrusive.
Likelihood to Recommend
Google Workspace Essentials is well suited to collaboration, especially on creative teams who are editing documents frequently. It makes scheduling meetings pretty simple, although it can be tough to find meeting times with five or more attendees. Google Sheets are easy to share and gate when working on confidential data or projects in progress.
We use Google Workspace Essentials for team communication and document storage/management. We use Google Docs, Google Sheets, and Google Meet in our business.
Pros
Google Docs & Google Slides are essential to our company as we are remote. Multiple people can work on the documents at one time.
Easy to share and store files in Google Drive.
Google Calendar is amazing, it integrates seamlessly with other Google products and it's our company's primary calendar tool.
Cons
Google Sheets has limited capabilities compared to excel. Such as how you maneuver pivot tables, filtering, etc.
On Google Docs, sometimes if they are multiple people working at one time, you can get shifted around on the doc. For example, if someone made a big edit that took up space, it will shift my content down. I wish you could lock the area you're editing so it doesn't move or get affected by other changes on the doc while you're editing.
Likelihood to Recommend
Google Workspace Essentials is truly the easiest way to collaborate on business items/content. Our company is fully remote, so we rely on Google Workspace Essentials to collaborate on projects and access documents, etc. For proposals, multiple team members can work on the same document simultaneously. There is also an "editing" feature in addition to the "comment" feature that allows you to suggest edits to any text or item on the doc. We leverage this tool a lot when QAing content.
Our business uses Google Workspace for internal and external communications, along with calendaring and managing staff email accounts. We love having the ability to instant message important information fast and secure with our team members. Additionally, having the ability to organize folders and subfolders helps us stay organized and on task.
Pros
Instant Messaging.
Calendaring and calendar integrations.
Ease of organizing important content in folders and subfolders.
The ability to contain multiple emails in one thread.
Cons
The workspace could be less busy - more simplified.
Likelihood to Recommend
We've noticed that more and more companies are using Google Workplace. This is a plus for our company as most of the employees we have hired are familiar with your platform so it makes it easier to onboard a new employee. Our experience with Google Workspace has been very positive and haven't been any scenarios where the platform has been less appropriate.
Google Workspace Essentials is how our company ensures the productivity and visibility of our remote team. Google Workspace Essentials also allows bringing the team together by allowing us to work on and share documents, sheets, and/or presentations in real-time. One of the big issues Google Workspace Essentials has solved for our operations, and the HR department is being able to keep track of where each document goes. Being able to see who manipulated the document and how and when has been a big plus when it comes to making decisions based on what our team has worked on.
Pros
Sharing documents
Visibility on last changes
Document tracking
Google Sheets makes us want to say Excel who?
Cons
Make it easier to configure to desktop
Alerts when shared documents are being deleted
Likelihood to Recommend
If your company team works remotely and you want to simplify team meetings, Google Workspace Essentials will do just that.
Google Workspace Essentials is not suited or rather not necessary for really small in-office teams. However, in general, it solves all issues that Microsoft Office can solve, and I would highly recommend it as it is easy to learn.
It has worked well for us through the years. Recently, in my experience, we have had more and more issues syncing between users and integrating with other products. Now it appears the platform is going to be subscription only. We will not be continuing to use, in my opinion, a lesser product AND pay more. Until the past year or two, I have been a HUGE fan of Google Workspace Essentials. I would have highly recommended it until recently.
Pros
Convivence
Price (until recently)
Cons
Recent price hike
Integration
Email sync time
Likelihood to Recommend
We used it consistently for 12 years, but recent price increase and service decreases mean we will no longer be using it and I cannot in good conscience recommend it to anyone anymore. Two or three years ago, my review would have been glowing, but, in my opinion, the product and price have gone down significantly since then.
