I’ve been put in a position where I have to rebuild my workflows (was made Pastor of our University Parish in Salt Lake City) not only because of the new responsibility but also because the parish is already using Google Workspace as it’s main collaboration tool. So, I figured that I’d ask my questions to this group of experienced Power Users.
First, I’m looking for good training, free is best but I’ll pay if I need to, on the system itself.
Second, I’m looking for the best way to integrate Google Workspace with my existing Apple hardware and software ecosystem.
For context, I had paired my previous workflow down to try and use all the native apps to minimize the cost of third-pary applications, or to leverage apps that have iOS and Mac versions in Setapp. So, I’m open to making other pivots if I need to adjust my software use again.
Any help with effectively integrating these technologies would be greatly appreciated! Thanks.
If Google Workspace is the latest name for Google’s old G-Suite (email, Docs, Sheets, etc. for institutions), then a lot is possible.
I’ve piped events from a third party website to Google Calendar, sent details from specific emails (eg, certain tags set by incoming mail rules) to a Google spreadsheet, among other things, and more.
It took some effort – the Google APIs incorporate 0Auth and other security features, and are more complicated than other APIs I use, but also very powerful.
If you aren’t inclined to code, Make (formerly Integromat) has excellent Google apps integrations as well, and I’m sure IFTTT and Zapier do as well
I use Google Workspace products on all my Apple products (except Apple Watch). The apps are good enough for most uses, may be with the exception of serious spreadsheet with a lot of calculations. There are free training on their own site like this and this
Two of the best features of the products are collaboration and cloud side application, so there is no upgrade or maintenance at all. They are also very secured as nothing is stored locally (if you wish). If you want to get extra security protection, you can opt in for their advanced protection program
Google Sheets is pretty powerful – I’m sure there are things Excel can do that Sheets can’t, but I’d argue a lot of those fall into the territory either of “not really spreadsheet functions” or “you’re better off using a database or something like R or python …” (That said, if you’re used to using it in Excel, I realize it’s annoying not to have it available.)
One thing Sheets can do that Excel can’t (last I checked): provide a Median() in pivot tables and aggregate functions. Always baffled me why that was so hard in Excel.