Google Workspace for Education is used to manage email accounts, groups, meetings, service accounts, and devices, including Chromebooks and mobile devices. This platform enables us to enforce organizational policies, conduct e-discovery, control allowed extensions and applications, and support theft recovery.
Pros
Integrates their apps across their ecosystem very well
Regularly debuts new, useful features
Granular control of devices
Excellent security policies
Cons
The admin console regularly feel sluggish
Require third party tools to make changes to bulk devices
Support could be a little better
Likelihood to Recommend
In K-12 education, it's very well suited. Having a fleet of over 8,000 Chromebooks, it's very easy to push app/extensions out, review inventory and remotely deprovision devices. The platform is scalable and well suited for any organization requiring email. It's straightforward to set up, it might not be well suited for those using O365 as files can't be easily shared between platforms.
VU
Verified User
Administrator in Information Technology (501-1000 employees)
We use it for everything at our school district: Communication (Gmail, Chat and Meet), collaboration (Docs, Sheets and Slides) and coursework management (Classroom). We use the highest tier, Google Workspace for Education Plus, for our students and faculty and staff. This gives us many powerful features, like originality reports in Classroom, Labels in Drive and many security features.
Pros
Email: The best email experience, period. It's fast, has the best mobile apps and tons of addons that extend it.
Office suite: The Google editors might not have all the features of their MS Office counterparts, but they have most of them and the apps are surprisingly performant.
Domain management: The Google Admin Console, coupled with the GAM command line tool, is very powerful, easy to use and simplifies any admin's work.
Cons
The core Google Classroom experience can always be more powerful. They've added many features over the years, but it's still not on par with dedicated LMSs.
Plus customers should be getting at least some of the premium Gemini features. Getting both a Plus license and a Gemini subscription for all staff is very expensive for a school.
I often encounter issues when force-installing Android apps on Chrome devices using the Admin Console.
Likelihood to Recommend
Any K-12 school will benefit from having Google Workspace for Education as their productivity suite. It's an especially good choice if Chrome or Android device management is needed. A school will be able to use GWfE even if they use Microsoft products, as many of the Google tools and editors have interoperability with Microsoft's equivalent services.
We use Google Workspace for Education to host our email and file storage. There is major upside to not having to manage a mail server. The scope of our use case is over one thousnad users. The business problems it solves are numerous. Mostly not maintaing an Exchange server. Users are familliar with the interface. This limits the amount of training we have to perform.
Pros
Ease of mailbox managemnt.
Easy for users to adapt to.
Simple from an administrative standpoint.
Cons
Better management if spam.
Imporved recognition of phishing scams
Admin dashboard can be somewhat confusing.
Likelihood to Recommend
Educators use Google Workspace for Education as it facilitates enhanced collaboration, accessibility, security, and classroom management. Plus, schools like it for its cost-effectiveness.
Migrating all of our file stoare to Google Drive has been a major security improvement for us.
The AI integratin is helpful to us at times. We are looking forward to improvements in this area.
VU
Verified User
Administrator in Information Technology (201-500 employees)
It provides a bedrock of tools and apps that our business can use for communication, content creation, and collaboration. It is compatible with our other companies we do business with. It has great support, documentation, and is on the cutting edge of new features and technology. The new AI tools are phenomenal and only getting better.
Pros
security
support
cutting edge
collaboration
uptime
Cons
better regulatory compliance
better training videos and tutorials
better price for new AI features
Likelihood to Recommend
It does a great job of being a communication and productivity tool. Google Meets has gotten so much better, and its integration with Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides work seamlessly. Since things are cloud based there's no issue with what type of hardware is being used. This is huge in a mixed OS environment.
VU
Verified User
Administrator in Information Technology (201-500 employees)
We use Google Workspace for Education as our default for cloud storage, email back end, and browsing (via Chrome). The school has moved to using the Google Suite for docs, presentations, and spreadsheets. The problem that this solves is that it unifies the way the school manages content. Allowing staff to collaborate on documents saves time in knowledge transfer.
Pros
Collaboration
Toolset
Reliability
Cons
Integrations
Removal of tools
Support
Likelihood to Recommend
Google Workspace is great for organisations that have a need to unify their digital foot print. Google offers so many tools that the ecosystem supports any type of business. Apps like Docs are simple, but paid with collaboration can change an organisation. Where it is less appropriate, is if you have staff that are not self sufficient. Things like setting up an out of office response. In other systems, ICT can do this for you. Under Google they empower the user to do this. If they forget, there is no way for an ICT Admin to do this.
As a public school district, we use Workspace across the entire organization. Every student and staff member has a Google Workspace for Education [(formerly G Suite for Education)] account allowing for smooth and seamless sharing of documents. With email, calendaring, and document creation behind one system, we are more efficient. While we currently use the free version of Workspace, we are considering upgrading due to the increased features being offered.
The Administrative features for the education market are terrific. Google makes it easy to manage your fleet of computers and users. One platform to manage for the bulk of things that are needed in our district. And, since so many other providers support Google Single Sign On (SSO), it makes it easy to integrate with other educational service providers.
Also, with so many school districts across the country and world using Workspace, it makes it very easy to connect and collaborate with others.
Pros
The Admin controls are splendid. They make it easy to manage your computer fleet and user database.
Google quickly adapts to needed changes and pushes those out with minimum disruption to services. Just update your Chrome browser and you are on your way. No need to download and update numerous patches that take extensive time to install.
From the education side, having access to Google Vault is extremely valuable. Vault gives us the ability to retrieve any document ever created by an account user. That is incredibly necessary in the education world.
Cons
Google does a good job of providing great admin resources, but they could do better by incorporating what others have developed into the basic platform. For example, there is a command line open-source program called GAM that allows admins to dig much deeper into the back end. More of those resources should be part of the basic offerings.
It is hard to be critical of something that is free and has been free for so long.
I wish there was a better way to connect with Google to be able to talk to someone. So much communication is via chat and that is not always the best way to get answers.
I would recommend that for paying customers in the education market, we get a dedicated phone line to call for support.
Likelihood to Recommend
Google [Workspace for Education (formerly G Suite for Education)] is pretty darn good [at] meeting the needs for educators and students. It is not designed to run your business office, transportation group, or lunch services. It doesn't need to be good at those. Focus on teachers and students. They do that really, really well.
The Google folks continue to add features that help serve teacher and students. For example, they have really done a good job of adding Google Meet features such as polling and breakout rooms. Those features required a paid subscription to Workspace, but it makes sense since those features compete with Zoom, which requires a subscription for those services.
VU
Verified User
Director in Information Technology (201-500 employees)
