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Project management with Google Workspace: Productivity guide for SMB

When you’re running a small business, the first steps are likely to be taken on your own. However, time passes, and every business owner comes to the point of cooperation with the first freelancer, and then with the first employee. In the blink of an eye, you have quite a few people who are working together with you on the project, so managing all the tasks, and deadlines becomes a bit more complicated. Thoughtful management is the key here and it starts with a fundamental step – organising most work processes in one place. 

Looking for an option that is convenient and cost-effective, small and medium-sized businesses often turn to Google Workspace. 

Visit https://masterintegrator.ch/products/workspace/ to learn more.

How to use Google Workspace for project management?

Google Workspace is a cloud-based suite of business versions of Google productivity and collaboration tools such as Gmail, Drive, Calendar, Meet, Chat, Docs, Sheets, Slides, Forms, Sites, Keep, and Apps Script. Since this cloud-based suite includes quite a lot of vital apps, it enables you to opt out of other generic tools and centralise all your activity in Workspace. Here are a few points on the features you should definitely try. 

Create business emails for you and your team members

To keep your communication professional and secure, it’s better to supply each team member with a business email. Such emails come with enhanced security, spam filters, and client-side encryption, so you can be sure that all the details are protected. 

Additionally, business emails make you look more credible and professional in the eyes of your clients and partners. 

Organise team communication in Chat

As for internal communication, Google Chat can be used to send direct messages as well as to chat in groups. Here we encourage you to think of the people or departments that often communicate with each other, and create dedicated groups where they can ask questions, share updates, etc. Through such chats, your employees can easily find past discussions and shared files as all communication is from one place. 

Collaborate on tasks in Docs, Slides, and Sheets

During the work on a project, there might be tasks on which your team members should cooperate simultaneously. For this purpose, Google Workspace has Docs, Slides, and Sheets. Using them, you can work on one document together, edit it, and leave comments. Every change is saved automatically and is shown in the document’s version history, so if a mistake is made or any information should be reverted, team members can restore a previous version. 

Schedule meetings in Calendar

Thanks to the feature of shared calendars, it’s possible to see the time when your colleagues are available or busy. Knowing this, it’s easier to schedule meetings at a convenient time for everyone. Before the meeting, Google Calendar will also send reminders to you and your team members, so that all of you join it on time. 

Gather in Meet

When it comes to the meeting itself, you can enjoy up to 1080p video quality, noise cancellation, and live captions. If you need to hold an online gathering with a lot of participants, that isn’t a problem, as Google Meet allows video meetings with up to 500 attendees. In addition to this, it’s possible to record your gatherings and send them to members who were absent. 

Add tasks to Keep

For sure, each project requires giving tasks and working on them. For this, you can use Google Keep. With this tool, it’s possible to create different types of notes and colour them based on their importance. For example, for urgent tasks you can make your to-do lists on red notes; low-priority tasks can be written on yellow notes; and tasks that can be delegated might be noted in green. These lists are also shared with other team members, so everyone stays informed about the task priorities and deadlines. 

Tips for project management in Google Workspace

The use of Google Workspace isn’t limited to its basic functionality for project management. Once you want to get even more benefits from this suite, consider applying these four tips.

Streamline your workflow with Gemini

Working on any type of text, whether in Gmail, Docs, or Sheets, can be more efficient with Gemini – the AI-powered assistant from Google. While you’re typing any information, Gemini offers you real-time suggestions, rephrasing, and contextual responses. Additionally, this AI assistant helps to analyse data trends as well as to create summaries. 

Attach Google Docs to Google Calendar

Whenever you schedule a team meeting in Google Calendar, you can add a document with the information that’s going to be discussed. That’s how you can ensure that all participants have access to the necessary details. Consequently, the discussion might be more productive. 

Use ‘Studio look’ to improve video

For those who have poor camera quality, or problems with lighting, there’s a possibility of benefiting from the ‘Studio look’ feature. With its help, you can adjust the lighting position, brightness, and colour to create a more professional look. Together with this, you can ask the AI assistant to generate a background that enhances the overall aesthetic of a video call. 

Send automatic replies 

If you’re on a business trip, vacation, or in any situation where you aren’t able to respond right away, you can set up an auto-response in Gmail. This feature allows you to type the information about your absence in advance and set specific start and end dates for auto-response. Then this reply will be sent to everyone who messages you during the defined time.

Set up Google Workspace with MasterIntegrator

Even though Google Workspace is designed to be a user-friendly solution, sometimes small and medium-sized businesses find its setup quite complicated. That’s why we encourage you to use a simplified Google Workspace setup by MasterIntegrator. The company has eliminated all the unnecessary steps, enabling everyone to start the use of Google Workspace in just a few minutes. 

So, if you want to make project management with Google Workspace even easier and faster, take advantage of MasterIntegrator’s streamlined services. Don’t let complicated setups hold you back – get started today!

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