The new office

Working with Google Apps

To use Apps for Work, you need to log on to your company portal. After logging on for the first time, you need to accept the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Depending on what link you used to log in (whether Mail, Docs, Drive, or another), you will see the selected app in the browser window. If you want to switch to another application (e.g., from Mail to Docs), you will find a symbol with nine squares at the top right, to the left of your name. Click this, and you get a list of the allowed apps. Select Google Docs , for example, to get to the Office application. Here you can create a new document, enter a title, and start working.

If you want to discuss your text with a colleague, go to File and Share , enter your colleague's name, and confirm by pressing Done . If the colleague also has Docs open, he or she will now see the shared document and can open it. Depending on what permission are granted, you can edit the document together and see changes made by your colleague in real time.

Conclusions

Google Apps for Work can be managed centrally and are to be operated consistently. Importing users via CSV file and connecting to an existing LDAP directory makes setup and continued administration easier. It is also possible to log on to the connected network thanks to the support of OpenID. Google Apps can access data on the local network using the secure data connector, and integration in an existing network succeeds very well.

Anyone who has no qualms about trusting Google with their company data and doesn't want to provide their own infrastructure for helping employees work in collaboration should definitely take a good look at Google Apps for Work.