COVID-19 created an overwhelming need for secure, reliable video calling and conferencing, and in response, Google recently made Meet free for everyone who has a Google account. While the free version of Google Meet is a terrific option for individuals to communicate with friends and family, organizations have more complex needs than consumers. They require administrative tools, integration with business productivity apps for collaboration, and advanced features such as the ability to live stream to very large audiences, or to record and save meetings for later playback.
Google has introduced the new G Suite Essentials tier, which was designed specifically for organizations that already have other email and calendar solutions but want to use the enterprise versions of Google Meet, Drive, Docs, Sheets, and Slides to connect and collaborate.
Is G Suite Essentials the right fit for your organization or team? Here are 5 things to know about the newest G Suite subscription tier:
1. Choose From Two G Suite Essentials Options
G Suite Essentials and G Suite Enterprise Essentials both include access to Google Meet, Drive, Docs, Sheets, and Slides, including individual Drive storage for each user and shared team drives, as well as 24/7 customer support.
The Enterprise tier includes more Drive storage than the basic Essentials tier; individual storage increases from 100GB to 1TB per user, and pooled storage goes from 2TB to 25TB. Essentials Enterprise also includes additional features such as the ability to record Meet calls and save them to Drive, stream meetings to an internal domain, enable data loss prevention (DLP) in Drive, and access Google Vault to retain, archive, and search employee data.
2. Seamless Integration With Existing Tools
G Suite Essentials lets organizations enjoy the best of both worlds. It seamlessly integrates and peacefully coexists with existing business email, calendaring, and other productivity tools, including Microsoft Office, Slack, and Salesforce. Both versions of Essentials include an add-in that enables Microsoft users to schedule and join meetings from their Outlook calendars.
3. Present & Collaborate in Real Time
G Suite Essentials includes Google Drive, Docs, Sheets, and Slides, enabling organizations and teams to transform video conferences into real-time collaboration sessions.
Using shared team drives, participants can quickly locate and access the files they need to work on. Then, they can collaborate on and edit the same document, spreadsheet, or presentation slides simultaneously while viewing other participants’ edits and comments in real-time. Changes are synced instantly and automatically, so collaborators can rest assured knowing they are always viewing the latest version of a document.
4. Great for Individual Teams as Well as Entire Organizations
All you need to sign up for G Suite Essentials is a business email address; there’s no need for organizational IT administrators to do a thing. This makes Essentials ideal in situations where an individual team or department wants to use Meet and other G Suite Essentials tools, but the rest of the organization prefers to stick with their current solutions. Get the flexibility you need and the right tools for your teams to thrive.
5. Try Essentials for Free Through September 30, 2020
Signing up for G Suite Essentials isn’t just easy; right now, it’s risk-free. Users can try Essentials at no charge through September 30, 2020.
