Google Workspace, set up for a small team.
Accounts, email routing, calendars, shared drives and permissions, done once at the start so you're not unpicking it later when somebody joins or leaves.
Based in Bridgend, working with small businesses across South Wales and remotely UK-wide.
Why it's worth doing deliberately
Workspace is easy to sign up for and easy to get subtly wrong. The common version is that one person creates it, everything ends up owned by their account, shared addresses get forwarded to a personal inbox, and permissions are whatever the defaults were. It works until somebody leaves, and then it doesn't.
Setting it up deliberately takes a bit longer at the start and saves the awkward conversation later, when the files somebody needs belong to an account you've just turned off.
The parts that matter
These are the ones that cause problems when they're left at the defaults.
Accounts and email
Addresses on your own domain rather than a gmail.com one, set up so mail goes where it should, including the shared addresses like info@ and accounts@ that need to reach more than one person.
Calendars and shared drives
Files that live with the business rather than in one person's personal account, and calendars people can actually see. This is the bit that saves arguments when somebody leaves.
Permissions
Who can see what, who can share things outside the company, and who has admin. Left at the defaults this tends to be either far too open or annoying enough that people work around it.
Then I show you how to run it
Adding and removing people is the thing you'll do most often, so I'll walk you through it before I finish rather than leaving you with an admin console and good luck.
Workspace on its own doesn't decide whether your mail reaches people. If your quotes and invoices have been landing in spam, that's a separate problem on your domain and worth sorting at the same time.
Questions people ask first
Do I actually need Workspace, or is free Gmail fine?
If it's just you and you're happy using a gmail.com address, free Gmail is fine and I'll say so. Once you want addresses on your own domain, shared files that don't belong to one person, or more than a couple of people, Workspace starts making sense.
Will this stop my email going to spam?
Not on its own. Workspace gives you the pieces to switch on, but the records that decide whether you get delivered live on your domain and still need setting up. That is a separate job and I cover it on the email deliverability page.
Can I add someone to the team myself afterwards?
Yes, and I'll show you how before I finish. Adding and removing people is the thing you'll need most often, so it shouldn't need a phone call to me every time somebody joins.
What happens to the files when somebody leaves?
If the setup is right, nothing dramatic: the work sits in shared drives owned by the business, so you turn off their account and carry on. If everything lives in personal drives, this is the moment it hurts, which is why it's worth doing properly at the start.
Tell me who needs an account.
How many of you there are and what you're using now is enough to start with. If free Gmail would do the job, I'll tell you that instead. I aim to reply within a working day.
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