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In today's digital era, efficient collaboration and productivity tools are essential for businesses to thrive. G Suite, developed by Google, offers a comprehensive suite of cloud-based applications and services designed to enhance communication, productivity, and teamwork within organizations. Behind the scenes, G Suite administrators play a crucial role in managing and maintaining these powerful tools.
This article aims to explore the responsibilities and expectations associated with being a G Suite admin and shed light on their vital role as professionals.
The Role of a G Suite Admin: Expectations and Responsibilities
Firstly, What is a G-Suite Admin?
G-Suite admin is the administrator that has been granted access to manage the G-suite of a business or company. Such access includes; Easily adding users, managing devices, and configuring security and settings so your data stays safe. A G-Suite Administrator can see a dashboard with details such as the total number of emails sent and received, and the last time you accessed the account via a web browser or email program. It also shows the number of files created, edited, and shared in Google Drive.
In other words, a G Suite admin is an individual entrusted with the responsibility of managing, configuring, and maintaining a G Suite environment within an organization. They serve as the primary point of contact for all G Suite-related matters and play a pivotal role in ensuring the smooth operation and security of the organization's digital workspace.
Today, businesses are progressing at a quicker technical speed than ever before these days.
Today, businesses are progressing at a quicker technical speed than ever before these days.
This is mainly because organizations have access to cloud infrastructure constructed on top of the world's strong technology firms, including Amazon, Microsoft, and Google.
Google's G-Suite environment today offers companies with very solid and strong infrastructure and software skills as a service (SaaS) that would be very hard if not impossible to construct on their own.
However, by using Google's strong infrastructure and software stack, (G suite) companies today can rapidly access the same strong infrastructure operating Google's services.
As a G Suite administrator, keeping a grip on day-to-day challenges can be very difficult although there are obligations that you must always bear in mind.
Responsibilities of a G Suite Admin:
User Management: G Suite admins are responsible for managing user accounts, including creating, modifying, and deleting accounts as per the organization's requirements. They oversee user permissions, group settings, and organizational units, ensuring that each user has the appropriate access levels and settings tailored to their role.
Security and Data Privacy: G Suite admins play a critical role in maintaining the security and integrity of an organization's data. They configure security settings, implement two-factor authentication, and enforce strong password policies. Additionally, they monitor and manage access controls, handle data backup and recovery processes, and stay updated with the latest security features and vulnerabilities.
Application Deployment and Configuration: G Suite admins oversee the deployment and configuration of various G Suite applications based on organizational needs. They customize settings, define policies, and manage application-level controls such as email routing, calendar sharing, and document collaboration. They are also responsible for managing third-party applications integrated with G Suite.
Troubleshooting and Technical Support: As the go-to resource for all G Suite-related queries, admins provide technical support and troubleshooting assistance to users. They address issues promptly, diagnose problems, and offer effective solutions to ensure uninterrupted productivity. They collaborate with Google Support when necessary to resolve complex technical challenges.
Training and Documentation: G Suite admins develop training materials and documentation to educate users on the features and functionality of G Suite applications. They conduct training sessions, and workshops, and create knowledge bases to empower users to maximize their efficiency and proficiency within the G Suite environment.
Collaboration and Change Management: G Suite admins facilitate collaboration among users and departments, encouraging best practices and fostering a culture of innovation. They guide users through change management processes, ensuring smooth transitions during updates, new feature rollouts, and organizational changes.
What you need to always keep in mind as G Suite Administrator
- Enforce 2-Factor Authentication
- Onboard the New Users Efficiently
- Off-board Users Promptly (as the need arouses)
- Perform Annual Audits on Integrations
- Audit Users on an Annual Basis
- Perform Regular Security Checks
- Incorporate Early Phishing Detection Mechanisms
- Limit External Sharing
- Incorporate Internal Sharing Among Employees
- Mark a Clear Difference Between Contractors and Employees
Enforce 2-factor Authentication
Out of all the security conventions to receive, two-factor verification presumably gives you the most security for a minimal measure of exertion. As the G Suite administrator, you have the ability to necessitate that all G Suite clients utilize two-factor validation on their records.
I like to compel two-factor confirmation over the organization. I've taken a stab at making it discretionary before and, sadly, such a large number of individuals neglect to do it even after I ask and argue on various occasions. The main genuine approach to getting two-factor verification received is to require it on each login. Best of all, you only do it once. When it's set up, you never need to reconsider it.
Off-board Users Promptly (as the need arouses)
As a G Suite Administrator, this is likely the most critical job. When people leave your team, they need to shut down accounts immediately. If the accounts are open longer than needed, there are too many safety dangers. Depending on how the worker leaves, there are a few best practices to manage situations like these:
If the worker leaves willingly and provides notice, their G Suite login will be shut down at the end of their last day on the job. It's ideal from around 4 pm or 5 pm.
Shut down the G Suite login for each employee at the end of the last day if there are layoffs. Be very cautious before the announcement to shut down access, otherwise, rumors will begin to circulate rapidly.
If due to performance reasons the worker is being let go, the login will also be shut down at the end of the day. If that occurs a little sooner, that's all right. Nevertheless, don't let it occur later, some staff get upset. And if you suspect that there will be problems or if the position of that person poses a considerable security risk, you can close access as the fresh one is provided.
Coordinate timing to ensure that this occurs smoothly with the hiring manager and HR. Be more paranoid than any other about this assignment.
There are two choices for shutting down logins to the G Suite:
Substitute a user: This keeps all files and emails accessible, but on your G Suite account, you will still be charged to the customer. If a worker leaves and you need to move a lot of delicate papers, this is a nice temporary way to close the account while you're migrating everything.
Suppress a user: This removes everything permanently from the account of that user. Documents, email, everything. Remember that by default, new documents in Google Drive are not added to the Team Drive, so deleting a user destroys every document they have created unless they have placed it in the Team Drive.
It takes them out of your G Suite bill as well. There are only 20 days to reverse the deletion, so make sure you have transmitted all you want before you delete your account. When deleting a user, G Suite does not automatically transfer email or records, you must use the information transfer characteristics in G Suite to do so yourself.
I also suggest taking the deleted user's email and adding it to their hiring manager as an alias. Any major email sent to the deleted customer will end up in the inbox of their manager. You can always attribute the alias to HR or the CEO if something is more delicate.
Perform Annual Audits on Integrations
I probably wanted to check the applications I used my personal Facebook access to after listening to a lot of Facebook privacy scandals. I hadn't checked the applications that had access to them for years. What I found was a bit embarrassing. I need to have licenses if I get bored, strange quiz apps, some contest apps I've never used for ages, and a whole host of other apps that don't really want to have privacy data on my Facebook.
I shut all those inclusions down, of course. G Suite does just the same for a business. It is also a serious safety responsibility. It is also available to everyone who attacks the companies you involve, not only because of your safety weaknesses. Internally, security is hard to maintain. There is no reason why integrations that you don't use are available. It's harder still.
Audit Users on an Annual Basis
Some customers will still slip through the cracks even in close procedures for onboarding and off-boarding. Someone goes from a worker to a contractor and still has an email, an integration developer account was left active longer than necessary, and assistance was transferred to Zendesk.
You can't defend yourself from every edge case. You will want to audit all your registrations once a year. Schedule a recurring recall simultaneously. Please list the customers of the G Suite and enter them in a table during an audit. Please note that I think that all logins can be sorted into two classifications: individuals and multi-user accounts. The workflow will be somewhat distinct to verify each.
Go line by line to ensure that every individual still is an employee for every individual who logs in. If you do not meet the email access requirements already established, you will disable the login for any who are not.
I always make it a habit to make sure that the accounts still in use are utilized for multi-user logins such as press or developer. I go for the account to the main stakeholder in the business once I have all of them on my list. I will check with the marketing vice president, for instance, that the press login still has value. I label the login as active if you say "yes" for any reason. I’ll mark the login as active and leave it be.
I also like to check twice to confirm the shutdown of multi-user accounts. While the primary stakeholder might not need the account anymore, someone else in the company might be using it. Once I have the complete list of all the multi-user accounts that are planned to get shut down, I compile them into a list. Then I go to a core group of stakeholders at the company (use your best judgment on who to include) and tell them this:
“I’ve hand-picked the following accounts in G Suite as not in use. Unless otherwise, I’m going to shut them down in 30 days' time. Please go through the list and let me know if you’d like to keep the account active for any reason. The date picked for shutting down these accounts will be on [Month, Date, Year]. The full list is here.”
Rarely have I ever had someone raise an eyebrow at this stage, at most times I end up removing all the accounts that I originally identified. It’s a good “last check” and it gives the rest of the team visibility into what’s about to happen.
Perform Regular Security Checks
As common data violations have become nowadays, none of us wishes to be the final one responsible for a violation of our own company these days. As a G Suite admin, you are ultimately responsible for any breach of G Suite apps.
You have to regularly check for suspicious spikes in the file store, share file volumes and log in. You are looking for behavior that breaks trends and does not follow previous patterns. You'll get an intuitive feeling of normal behavior after a few months of checking. Then when it happens, you are able to discover odd activities. This may be a sign of a breach of security.
Obviously, before taking action, if you suspect some sort of unfair behavior, get your HR, IT, and legal teams involved. Personally, I will advise you to make these checks once a month. And you might want to do them weekly for a larger company.
Incorporate Early Phishing Detection Mechanisms
The most frequent carrier of phishing attacks is still email. Generally, these e-mails contain a connection leading to a site that is known to be confidential, but which is a mere picture of zero privacy.
You don't want to have Phishing difficulties with your users. If you would like to add an additional layer of safety to incoming emails as a Gmail administrator G Suite provides you ' Prompt Phishing Detection.
You may be warned by Gmail or transfer your email to spam instantly. If Gmail detects suspect material in the incoming e-mails it introduces the delivery period and can carry out a thorough phishing assessment. You can visit this thread to get early phishing detection measures.
Limit External Sharing.
Once external sharing is restricted, users cannot exceed this limit when sharing individual events. For example, only under Free/Busy are public visibility events shared if you limit the external sharing of your organization to Free/Busy. Any additional data on this situation is still concealed.
Free/Busy restriction protects consumers against assaults by social engineering based on the collection of data from conference titles and participants.
Instead, you can enable externals to view all calendar data and then choose whether outside parties can alter calendar items or handle a calendar completely. G-Suite safety.
Incorporate Internal Sharing Among Employees
Users can choose how to share with teammates their calendars. If a user does not customize their own calendar settings, the internal sharing options that you set for your organization automatically apply.
You would like to note that even if the calendar of a user is internally visible to all, they may want to keep specific events private. Go to this Google support page to set options for calendar visibility and sharing.
Mark a Clear Difference between Contractors and Employees
For any business, it's extremely essential to keep the qualification among representatives and contractual workers simply clear. The IRS has monstrous punishments for organizations that misclassify workers as contractual workers.
One of the manners in which this qualification can get obscured is through G Suite logins. On the off chance that a contractual worker has an email account at your organization, would they say they are really a temporary worker? You may even now have a solid case contingent upon the conditions however it adds more vulnerability.
When in doubt, I like to just give representatives an email address. I'll possibly give contractual workers an email if there's a convincing reason.
The greater the organization gets, the more significant it is to keep up a totally clear line between workers and temporary workers. As the G Suite administrator, the entrance that you provide for clients can affect how individuals are characterized at your organization.
Heaps of new businesses will use temporary workers in the good old days. Without acknowledging it, the extent of job and obligations ventures into a hazy area among representative and contractual workers. Or on the other hand, individuals move from worker to contractual worker without having their G Suite login expelled.
It's amazingly simple to obscure the jobs. Before you know it, you could have a lot of temporary workers with G Suite accounts that truly shouldn't surface.
Plunk down with your HR and official groups to characterize a sealed-shut approach on who gets a G Suite account and under what conditions. Abstain from making special cases if at all conceivable. The less that is up for elucidation later, the better.
Final thought
Google G Suite is a powerful, agile, and robust platform for businesses today who are looking to scale into the cloud. As a G Suite admin in an organization, you can significantly change the efficiency and safety position by assessing and applying some of these suggested recommendations.
In the realm of G Suite, the role of a G Suite admin is indispensable. Their responsibilities encompass user management, security, application configuration, troubleshooting, training, and change management. They act as a bridge between technology and users, ensuring a seamless and productive experience for all.
A competent G Suite admin possesses technical expertise, problem-solving skills, and strong communication abilities. By effectively fulfilling their role, these professionals empower organizations to leverage the full potential of G Suite, fostering collaboration, productivity, and success.