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A Brief Overview of Google Workspace

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Productivity suites are a dime a dozen, with Microsoft Office being perhaps the most well-known. However, there are plenty of other options out there, such as Google Workspace. How does Google Workspace hold up as a solution for productivity compared to its competition? Let’s take a look!

First, we should mention that Google Drive and Google Workspace provide a similar, if slimmed down, experience on just about any compatible device. There are also collaboration features built right into the software and anytime-anywhere access, and it’s all thanks to the cloud-based nature of these tools.

Google Docs

There can be no denying that Microsoft Word is the more functional solution of the two word processors, but for most businesses, Google Docs’ user-friendly interface will more than suffice. Docs features all of the tools that you might need for your word processing needs, and Google is adding new functionality all the time. Longtime users of Word might still prefer to use it over its competition, though.

Google Sheets

In much the same way Docs is a simplified version of Word, you’ll find that Google Sheets is similar to Microsoft Excel in a lot of ways. It retains much of the functionality, so you can expect a similar experience, but it’s more minimalistic compared to Excel. Anyone who has tried to use Excel for more than simple spreadsheet functionality might appreciate the simplicity that Sheets provides.

Google Slides

Google Slides continues the trend of offering similar experiences and functionality to Microsoft PowerPoint, but in the Google Workspace suite. While it doesn’t boast as dynamic features as its Office counterpart, its simplicity and ease-of-use should serve the same purpose.

Google Forms

You can use Google Forms to create surveys. You can use these forms to build surveys, create quizzes to test the knowledge of participants, or to collect information from users. It’s one of the more interesting features of Google Workspace.

Other Notable Google Applications

There are various other Google applications you might be able to leverage to your advantage, including Google Drawings (diagram creation software), Google My Maps (map and location tracking software), Google Sites (a wiki and web-page creation tool), Google Apps Script (scripting platform to create other add-ons for your Google Apps), and Google Jamboard (an interactive whiteboard platform).

Google Workspace might not be for everyone, but that’s why you have us to contact if you want to know more about it. We can help you make an educated decision about your business’ productivity suite. To learn more, reach out to us at 810.230.9455.

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Building a Reliable Remote Workforce with Managed IT Services

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Remote work has been a popular topic for a few years, but over the past year, with so many people forced into working from home, a lot has been written about it. Today, we wanted to briefly talk about some of the technology that is suggested for the remote business, and what we can do to help you support remote workers. 

What Tools Do You Need for Remote Work?

If your business is going to effectively (and securely) support remote workers, your IT infrastructure needs to include:

  • Secure, encrypted access to your office network (via a VPN, or Virtual Private Network).
  • Communication tools, such as Voice over IP, video conferencing, and instant messaging.
  • Employees need devices at home that can reliably perform the tasks required of them.
  • Security awareness is still a critical piece, even when working remotely.

What About IT Support? 

Heading into last March the prevailing sentiment around the business world was that businesses were better off operating from a brick and mortar location than having a truly remote workforce. The loss of productivity was the major consideration, but there were (and are) questions about how to support a remote workforce; especially one that is effectively BYOD (Bring Your Own Device). 

Once the pandemic hit, many businesses, afraid as the realities of the time started to kick in, jumped into the remote workforce pool with both feet. Many of these businesses were not prepared to do so. While it is true that a remote workforce demands that a business leans on the IT, many businesses simply weren’t set up for this eventuality and it hindered their ability to do business.

At NuTech Services, our professional technicians were ready to help businesses transition from on-site to remote and we’ll be here to help transition back when our clients decide it’s time. We prioritize flexible and scalable solutions that promote productivity, operational efficiency, and most of all, security.  Without a plan to promote those three ideals, you just have pieces of technology that are constantly in jeopardy of corruption, failure, and misuse. 

Our comprehensive support strategy is deployed in three ways. They are:

  • We Get You the Tools – Not only do we use cutting-edge tools to monitor your existing hardware and remote connections, we also can procure the necessary tools that your business would need to get the most out of its human resources.
  • We Thoroughly Monitor and Manage – Using those cutting-edge tools, we are able to completely monitor and manage your business’ network and infrastructure, ensuring that if something were to gain access to your network, that it is removed before it becomes an operational problem for your business. 
  • We Follow Through – In our business, we realize there is absolutely no room for error. Our team, that is made up of technicians and business consultants, can help put you in the position to actually fit your IT management and support, to your business’ current needs; and, while keeping an eye on the future IT needs of your business. 

Sure, our main purpose is to keep your IT working as intended and eliminate downtime, but we can also provide you with powerful consulting tools, best-in-area technology procurement, and professional installation of IT tools that can absolutely transform your business. If you would like to talk to one of our consultants about getting the IT and the IT support your business needs right now, give us a call today at 810.230.9455. 

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Understanding the Benefits of Data Automation

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Businesses of all sizes rely on data to operate, which means that this data needs to be collected somehow. Let’s consider how the concept of data automation has assisted these businesses to successfully accomplish more.

What is Data Automation?

In so many words, data automation is the collection and transcription of data using software, rather than the outdated and time-consuming manual processes that were once necessary.

Rather than one of your valuable employees being committed to data entry instead of the other tasks that are better suited to their talents and abilities, data automation utilizes technology to attend to it. As a result, your team can focus on their other responsibilities, while your data is managed more efficiently and accurately.

How Does Data Automation Assist Businesses?

There are many ways that your business could directly benefit from data automation processes. For instance:

  • Time (and thereby, money) is saved
  • Your team is free to focus on other responsibilities
  • Data can be entered more accurately and efficiently

Consider the checkout aisle of the grocery store, and the barcodes that are scanned to identify a shopper’s intended purposes. Think about how long it would take to ring up a cartful of groceries if each item must be manually looked up, and how many mistakes will be made in the process. The modern checkout line is a prime example of the basic benefits of data automation in this way.

Want to Learn More?

Reach out to NuTech Services at 810.230.9455! We can discuss the many ways that technology can be used to boost your business, including through data automation and other solutions. Give us a call today to learn more.

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Chrome Adds Color Coded Tabs and We’re So Thankful

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Google Chrome is adding a cool feature over the next week or so (it may already have been released for you). The next feature is sure to make a big difference for some and will be non-descript for others. Let’s unpack colorful tabs in Google Chrome.

Adding More Organization Into Your Chrome Browser

Admit it, you have a tendency to use too many browser tabs. At any given time, you may have 5-10-20 browser tabs open. If you use more than one screen, it could be more. Way more. Most users use their Chrome browser for so much of your online life that you hardly pay attention. Then you wonder why your PC is running slow. The truth is people use a lot of browser tabs, and they are better off for it. 

Google, knowing their users’ behavior better than most companies has come up with a new feature that will allow you to assign a certain color to a browser tab and then group them together with like-colored tabs. This feature will be rolled out to users in this update

The update should be coming this week, but it will hit everyone at different times (Google is deliberate about their updates). You may already have the feature in your Chrome browser. When it does come it will be as a default browser update, and will be a change for all Chrome users. All you will need to do is right-click on tabs, group them together, and assign a color.

Are you a tab-hoarder, or a tab-minimalist? Is this feature going to help you? Leave your comments below and be sure to return to our blog for more great information about technology.