Digital spring cleaning: How to stay organized with G Suite

Learn how to manage data in vital apps like Docs, Slides and Sheets to increase efficiency and save money 

Google G Suite has become a staple for many companies, used ubiquitously among staff to create, share and collaborate on documents, manage projects, and communicate both inside and outside the office. It's yesteryear's paper documents, files and filing cabinets rolled up into a single digital solution accessible from any device, wherever you happen to be.  

If you want to ensure your teams maintain and increase productivity levels, and continue to efficiently collaborate with G Suite, a little housekeeping may be necessary. By implementing company policies to keep data tidy you'll make it easier for staff to find what they're looking for when they need it and save money on cloud storage. 

Here are a few quick tips for getting started on a little digital spring cleaning. And remember: you can get G Suite by Google Cloud delivered by Rogers, which simplifies billing and comes with the added bonus of assistance with initial setup and full support, making migration a snap and ensuring help is always just a phone call away. It's a cost-effective way to keep your office running smoothly.

Remember: Google Drive is the key

Chances are, your team uses G Suite apps such as Sheets, Docs, Slides, Gmail and Forms to collaborate with each other, manage projects and enhance productivity. Many of these apps end up generating documents, and Google makes it easy to manage them all by keeping them in a single place: Google Drive. Unless you signed up for unlimited storage, each staff member has 30GB of Drive space. You can buy more for individual users, which might be necessary for certain data intensive roles, such as graphic designers, but keeping a cap on storage limits for most staff is a good way to keep cloud storage costs down and enforce regular tidying habits. 

Identify what's being used and what isn't

You can use Drive's Audit Log in the Administrative Controls to see what your team members are regularly accessing and what they haven't touched in a while. These logs can be customized and filtered however you like, letting you quickly drill down to the specific data you're looking for. Arming yourself with this information helps when reminding staff they might need to do a little Drive cleaning. As an added perk, you might also learn more about how your team is using, or failing to take advantage of, G Suite tools ranging from Docs and Sheets to Hangouts and Jamboard.

Don't worry: You can restore mistakenly deleted data

A potential risk of doing regular data tidying is deleting important files by mistake. Thankfully, Google's thought of this. You can restore deleted files – even entire Drives – from the Google Admin console by searching a date range of deleted data. Note, though, that Google keeps deleted data only for a limited time before permanently erasing it. Make sure your teams know not to sit on their mistakes for too long.

Need to archive rather than delete? Google Vault is the answer

While keeping your teams' Drives clean can improve staff efficiency and reduce costs by keeping cloud storage at manageable levels, some companies have legal or corporate obligations to hang on to older documents and data for the long haul. That's where Google Vault comes in. Vault will archive your old data – including not just documents generated in traditional apps, but also email messages and Hangouts conversations – in the cloud for however long you need while keeping it easily searchable. You can set your own policies, and even set up alerts for when data is accessed. It's a cost-effective way to ensure older data remains out of the way but still readily available.

They say an organized desk reflects an organized mind, and the same is true of your digital workspace. A bit of time spent keeping assets in proper order using G Suite will eventually pay dividends in staff efficiency and cloud storage costs. All it takes is a little self-discipline.

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