Top 10 Google Apps for Project Management
Google is an industry leader in GMP software. its G suite is known for its excellence in project management and an inclusive suite of tools. Google App suite has Project Management tools that are some of the top available in the market. In this post we have listed 10 best Google Apps for Project Management.
How We Evaluated Google Project Management Tools
We evaluated Google’s project management tools separately from its other productivity apps, as there are significant differences between the two.
We tested the project management apps for clarity, ease of use, overall bonus features, and their ability to integrate with other Google products and tools. We specifically looked for tools that let you easily collaborate with others: invite them to tasks, share files, and share progress updates.
Many tools require you to have a Google account, but not all of them let you use the account in your Google Drive or websites. Some of the apps rely on Google’s collaboration products, like Gmail, Google Docs, and Google Calendar. Others promise to integrate with Google’s other third-party products, like SugarCRM, Salesforce, Marketo, and Zoho. We focused on apps that offer the most integration points.
We evaluated each tool’s standalone features and functionality and gave extra points for bonus features that provided extra functionality.
The platform’s ability to offer deeper integration with other applications, without requiring you to have a Google account or spend on a plug-in or add-on, was a primary concern.
While some of the apps allow you to use your own account if you prefer, being able to collaborate with others without signing up for a separate account was also a primary consideration.
Google Workspace : Best Google Tool for Project Management
If you are in a team where project management is the norm, then Google workspace is the place to be.
Right from creating the lists to creating the new folders under tasks; everything is done beautifully with a push of a button.
Apart from creating the more ideal timeline, you can also create a bug in which you can add the tasks.
Although Google workspaces feels like it was designed for collaborative editing, it seemed to lack other key elements like visio.
It also seemed incomplete and many people believed that a lot of other tools are missing.
For example, when you want to add a video from your computer, you are given with about four different options to select from.
All of these options stack in the quick links section and when you want to actually open the file, you realize that there must be something able to open a video before gif or a mov.
Apart from that, other than creating lists of tasks, it also has a way to add the color coding and custom drawing for the tasks, but both options feels extremely basic and lacks more in depth options like change font, change size, change header, change font, etc.
Nevertheless, it certainly does great job at keeping the things organized and in one spot.
What Google Workspace Costs
There are multiple Popular project management tools with free trial to use & share data and statistics for better performance. Lets take a look at top 10 Best Google Project Management tools / Apps using which to manage projects that I have selected from various popular tools.
Asana
Asana is a free project management tool designed for teams and freelancers.
It is apparently easier than most project management tools in terms of setup, while also providing greater flexibility in use. Asana is a tool that is intuitive and easy to use. Asana is perfect for small companies and teams. You can also integrate your social media accounts with Asana.
Asana is also great for tracking time. When you use Asana, you can easily track the time spent on tasks and projects, and track how much of a task has been completed. This app is perfect for freelancers who can check their work with freelancers to offer them payments
Jira
JIRA is a free software development tool that integrates with applications to create or manage software projects.
The most popular feature is its use in managing agile projects, which follows a cycle of planning, development, testing, and transitioning work. JIRA provides a platform for managing single projects or systems of projects.
Google Workspace Features
Google Workspace is a tool that allows you search, share, and sync Google apps, documents, and data from your computer. With Workspace, you can also use Google Drive, Gmail, Calendar, Maps, Photos, Play, Blogger and more, without having to log into your Google account every time you use one of these services.
Workspace is a centralized place for you to organize all your Google services. While the tool still requires you to have a Google account, it is not necessary for you to leverage all its capabilities. Once you install it, Google automatically syncs it with your device, and you will be able to access all the apps available on Google Workbench as soon as you log in.
A couple of useful features you can enjoy while using Workspace include:
You can use Google Drive online. With this feature, you can access your files directly in Chrome, Firefox, Safari, or Internet Explorer. Workspace also lets you open Google Slides and Microsoft Office files.
You can set reminders for your contacts, events, and tasks, so you will never miss any important activity.
Gmail and Calendar are now directly accessible in your Workspace, so you can access them without opening your browser.
What Google Workspace is Missing
More often than not, Google tools are the wave of the future (think Gmail, Android, Search). The company is one of the biggest and most influential in the tech industry and it’s efforts to integrate a solution to provide or add to their enterprise users workspaces within the company have been met with much success in recent years. The same could be said internally, where a product like Google’s Google Apps for Work was further developed to create a better, and more integrated experience than currently exists for Project Managers. Given the reputation and been-around-for-ages of Google, it’s not a surprise that this type of tool has finally arrived to Project Managers.
An easy way to illustrate the advantages of this new solution is by comparing it to a product like JIRA Software for Project Management. It’s no secret that something like JIRA has a long-standing relationship with Project Managers and in reality, the two are practically the same thing … aside from a few (obvious) features that are Microsoft-centric.
How Google Workspace Compares to Microsoft Office 365
What Users Think About Google Workspace
How to Access Google Workspace
Google has a lot of great tools and apps to use. But with so many available, it can become confusing which ones to use and which ones to look out for. When you’re creating a product, whether a webpage, a blog post, a recipe, or a video, you want to make sure that you’re delivering it to your audience in the best possible quality.
Project management tools are specifically designed for this purpose and are essential for when you’re working on a team with multiple members. With Google’s project management tools and apps, you get a great overview of all of the information going into your project and can make sure that your company works efficiently.
When you have the right tools, you can be super productive and make sure that you meet deadlines and your deliverables to your client. Check out the following 10 Google tools to keep your project management process on track.
Google Drive : Best Google Tool for Document Management
You probably will not be surprised that the kings of the free world uses Google for all their business needs. This makes the ubiquitous presence of Google in our everyday lives all the more unsurprising. Google Drive is one of the many tools that Google offers to its users. It has become a trusted file sharing and collaboration tool for productivity-hungry professionals around the world.
For those who are not familiar with user management and collaboration features, Google has two tools for this. One is Google Drive and the other one is Google Docs. Google Drive is a service similar to Dropbox, Box, or OneDrive that provides users with cloud storage and synchronization services. However, the uniqueness of Drive lies in the fact that it comes with an added benefit of Google Drive for Business.
An important step for an organization is to have a document management system or document management system software that allows its clients to store, search, and share large volumes of documents.
Google Docs is a tool that that allows users to collaborate on a single document and allow them to share it with the organization’s employees. In addition to this, users can create or open documents from as many devices as they need. They can also prevent organizations from keeping confidential information from entering the wrong hands by creating a secure document sharing system with the help of Google Docs.
What Google Drive Costs
Google Drive is one of the most versatile tools available to Google users today. The free version is provided by Google and allows users to create cloud backups for a total of 5 GB of space. Users can upgrade their account to unlimited storage for a small monthly subscription fee.
There are several services that allow you to access your Google Drive from outside the Google ecosystem. That’s true for both devices and PCs, and some of these services also offer full features for free to those who do not want to pay the subscription fees.
Facilis provides a free and paid app for desktops, Windows Phone, iOS, and Android. With this app, you can access your Google Drive from any device.
On the other hand, BoxWave offers a similar solution for both desktops and mobile devices. Until late 2014, BoxWave was the only company that offered the ability to access Google Drive from a mobile device, but now BoxWave also provides mobile access to Google Docs and Sheets.
The best thing about these apps is that they are absolutely free and work exactly like the desktop version. Users can access Google Drive without having to sign up and pay for any account for free. However, if you do choose to sign up for a free trial, you can still use the free version of these apps.
Google Drive Features
Google Drive is the best online file manager as well as the most popular Google apps in the world. Google Drive offers unlimited storage space (1TB) and searchable access to everything in their Drive.
Google drive is also available in an Office 365 itself but you can use this feature if you don’t have Office. It offers many features such as easy backup, syncing and synchronization, cloud storage for documents, spreadsheets, and presentations, Gmail Add-ons which lets you archive, label, and delete emails, in addition to sharing documents and feedback.
A great way to use Google Drive is to use Drive Apps. You can choose to use a Google Drive App and this is basically the same as a standalone software but available through the web.
Whereas without a Google Drive App, you get the same features of Google Drive. Google Drive App are compatible with android, Microsoft Windows, iOs, and more.
Google Drive is the most popular Google apps like Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides. It offers a lot of features like creating, editing, sharing and collaborating, as well as archiving, versioning and commenting.
More features on this Google apps are available on Google Docs. You can make a text document, track changes and collaborate with others.
What Google Drive is Missing
Every now and then Google will come out with a new, awesome upgrade for their Drive file storage service. The last one was the addition of Google Docs to Drive and if you’re a Google Apps customer, you’re probably going giddy with joy at the savings in disk space and having easy access to your files instead of having to dig through hundreds of thousands of PDF files to find one for your project break down.
But since Drive is more than just a file storage system, Google does have a few more things to tout. Google is certainly not the only cloud based file storage service, with Microsoft and Amazon (and most other top-level-cloud-providers) being ready to step up, as well. If you’re a business owner, Google is probably going to be the tool that you’ll use the most, when it comes to managing your documents.
If you are using Google Apps and you’ve just started using Google Drive as your file storage solution, you’ll probably be wanting to try out HubSpot’s Project and Task management options. From a feature standpoint, using Project Management tools and Spreadsheets for the organization and tracking of company-wide projects is a vital need for any organization that can’t afford to do it in-house.
What Users Think About Google Drive
Sheets and Slides, and Other Cool Google Tools for Project Managers.
As a project manager, you are used to juggling high-level tasks and goals, and you follow steps and procedures to measure and report on all these activities. However, there is no one tool like a Google tool that can help you in your professional tasks. Google projects are the kind of the tools you can use in your work along with other Project Managers.
Here’s a list of the ten best Google tools for project managers. All of them can be easily integrated with each other, which definitely helps you keep all your tasks on track. You’ll see what every type of project managers can benefit from these tools.
Google Sheets … Project Management
Google Spreadsheets is a simple, efficient and free spreadsheet app. It’s one of the first productivity apps that was introduced by Google. One of the great advantages of using Google Sheets is the ease and convenience of sharing your data. Another advantage is the flexibility of creating the spreadsheet according to your needs and requirements. Google Spreadsheets makes it easy to create a simple spreadsheet with minimal effort and technical knowledge.
How to Access Google Drive
One of Google’s software products that hasn’t received enough recognition is Google Drive. With this amazing productivity tool, you can share, store, edit, and backup your documents, photos, and files. You can easily access Google Drive through the web app or on the desktop app. With this tool, you can also create Word, PDF, and Excel files.
But the thing I like the most about Google Drive is that you can access it on various devices, including Android, iOS, Windows, Mac, and Chromebook, and it also supports different languages and has apps in different languages, including English, in by country. You can log into Google Drive on the web, desktop, and mobile apps.
The web app is great to collaborate with others on documents. But if you use Google Drive on your Android device, you can use the app. With the Google Drive Android tablet app, there’s a better user experience with high-quality video stabilization. The tablet app also lets you edit spreadsheets, presentations, and documents while offline. You can also create and share Google Slides presentations directly from your Android tablet.
Google Calendar : Best Google Project Management Tool for Managing Deadlines
As scheduling and planning is a crucial step in any project management, the functionality of the time management tool should also be considered. To make the planning process more personalized, Google Calendar allows you to color code each day with different colors for different purposes. This assists in making sure that you don’t miss your deadline for important tasks. You can even set up multiple calendars for your different projects and then filter the dates to be able to easily view and manage them. It’s also possible to create sub-calendars that divide the calendar for project management into multiple time frames. Each calendar will help you organize and plan to a greater extent than planned over the Internet. Project management is already an essential aspect of any business. For big businesses, it is a necessity to organize the resources as this will help in increasing the efficiency in business. For small businesses, it will assist in managing the workload more efficiently and also provide deadlines for your employees. Therefore, it is important to implement the best project management tools and apps to organize your resources at a right time. Using Google calendar as your project management tool helps you to carry out your project effectively throughout.
What Google Calendar Costs
For a free web-based calendar, Google Calendar is an excellent way to coordinate schedules and keep track of your team. You can share calendars with other organizations, and users can adjust calendars rather than schedule changes.
You can sign up for a Google Calendar without opening your wallet, so it’s a great tool for busy professionals or groups with several people with varied schedules. To get a better look at Google Calendar, check out Google Calendar for Business.
Because it’s web-based, you can access and sign up for Google Calendar from any device. It’s also fully integrated with Google Docs, so you can keep all of your team’s scheduling in the same place.
Google Calendar also works with other Google products, which is convenient when you want to make sure everything lines up perfectly. For example, you can use it to follow the schedule from your Google Calendar with your Google Maps. You can also offer Google Calendar to let your guests to sign up for events within their Google Calendars. You can also share your events on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Google Calendar Features
Google Calendar is a productivity tool that enables business owners to efficiently manage workflow and projects. It invites a group of people to collaborate to maintain the day's schedule and create a plan for the future. For example, if your business is in the biotech industry, holding a Google calendar meeting with other employees involved in the research and development of a new drug could help in reducing expenses and ensuring excellent quality. While you should have a meeting plan with your employees in case there are changes in the schedule, Google calendar can help you with keeping your updated and manage tasks efficiently.
With Google calendar, it is possible to add meeting notes, action items, and more. Whenever you have a Google calendar meeting, you can also invite attendees who are not part of the meeting. Also, it enables business owners to share a calendar publicly or with specific users.To make the sharing process easier, Google calendar offers a bulk invite option. Business owners can drag-and-drop the name of the various attendees then customize the cards. You can unfile or delete a calendar in the calendar event tool, allow only a particular group of members to view a specific event, or block particular individuals from viewing the calendar.
What Google Calendar is Missing
Google’s calendar is pretty nice. You can create tasks, set due dates, and organize events. When I personally started using Google’s GCal for tasks and meetings, my old paper planner no longer seemed necessary.
You can already manage some aspects of your life on Google’s GCal calendar, but with the help of Google Apps, you can do more. There are a number of Google Apps that can come in handy, and we’ll take a look at some of the best ones now.
What Users Think About Google Calendar
Let’s quickly recapitulate all the Google tools with which we’ve already dealt: Google Docs is the ultimate office suite that can be used on mobile devices, Google Voice helps create a one to one communication platform, and Google Drive offers an alternative to Dropbox. All those apps are closely connected to the core of Google’s services: Google Search and Google Maps.
Google Calendar is one of the oldest Google tools, which makes it the perfect starting point to outline the best Google tools. Be sure to download Google Calendar if you don’t want to miss the upcoming features.
Google Calendar enables users to share event calendars with other users. Users can also add extra details about the event or set up reminders. Furthermore, Google Calendar has a couple of features that distinguish it from similar services.
The event synchronization tool syncs scheduled events with any other Google service where you have the option to share your calendar. It even enables you to start your train journey with live information on delays.
Users can upload images and set up reminders for some of them. Google Calendar offers users great flexibility in designing their calendar. You can split the calendar into multiple-day view. This can be handy in case you want to display multiple appointments as an overview.
How to Access Google Calendar
The Google Calendar is a web application that combines the functionality of a time-tracking tool and project management system.
The app, which can be accessed via any web browser, allows users to set up calendar event, store or manage files within Drive (Google—s cloud storage platform), update their spreadsheets, and also manage tasks in the form of “To-do” items.
Additionally, Google Calendar offers the following time-saving features….
The time duration estimates how much time is needed for any given task and helps users determine if they have enough time to finish a specific project.
The priority feature allows users to keep track of their most important tasks by giving them certain privileges over their less important tasks.
The list of available Google Calendar tasks can be accessed directly from the web interface, and users can submit new tasks to the active project.
These are the key features that make the Google Calendar unique. With the detailed nature of this tool, issuing tasks to employees while on the go is now more possible.
Google Contacts : Best Google Project Management App for Sales Teams
Teams at all organizations of all sizes are embracing the use of project management tools for projects from simple daily tasks to complex and involved projects.
It’s amazing to think back to just a few decades ago when the only project management tools were a whiteboard or a piece of paper with scribbles and milestones. (I’m old so I remember them!) Project management tools allow teams to collaborate allowing key stakeholders to become more involved and make decisions along the way.
However, there are times when the management of a project becomes way too detailed. While this could naturally occur with larger teams it also can occur within smaller teams. Typically, this is when the project manager is also the individual handling the finances of the project. This type of complexity brings unnecessary complexity and confusion to an already challenging project management situation.
The good news is that it’s possible to create a project management tool for projects that eliminates a lot of the detail. Such a tool is the Google Contacts. Contacts is a Google Tool some may know as Google Address Book. It’s a simple tool but it doesn’t have to be for simple projects.
As every project manager knows, project management is an ongoing cycle of planning, creating, and reporting. Project managers manage everyone and everything involved in the project. Which makes the thought of any kind of new tool very daunting. What if we told you that there are free tools out there that are extremely useful for project management? In this post, we’ll show you 10 more free Google projects that you can download and use now.
Google Calendar
Not many business managers realize the importance of a calendar. A calendar gives you a visual representation of all your appointments, commitments, and scheduled events.
So why don’t you use Google calendar to manage your project, and events?
Why Google Calendar Is Perfect for Project Management
This is a great resource for managing client meetings and these client meetings often have time constraints.
Google calendar is ideal for managing these time sensitive client meetings. It’s a quick and easy way to manage your time, and it’s a perfect resource for scheduling your work.
You can quickly update this calendar with information about each client meeting and keep track of what needs to be done for a particular client.
You can create things like, a client checklist, a client product specification report, and meeting notes, all using Google calendar.
What Google Contacts Costs
Google carefully keeps tight control over its products to prevent them from being used for a different purpose. You can only export and share your contacts as email messages by using the export option (available under the contacts tab), which will be limited. A limited export only allows users to export the most recent 100 contacts and the total number of export sessions restricted to a maximum of 1000.
That’s why Google Contacts doesn’t make it to the list. You can find a similar service like Amazon SES on this page.
Google Contacts Features
Google Contacts has many features to help you manage a huge number of contacts.
Google Contacts has the ability to securely store your contact’s card information and transcribe their information into a form that’s easier to read and edit. You can add an address to your contact’s card in order to connect to a local business from the address book. In addition, you can record and attach Google Docs and Sheets to their contact’s cards.
Using Google Maps, you can geocode a contact’s location. You can view their locations on a map as well as click on a map pin to get a list of options. These options include calling, linking a contact to a business, emailing, sending text messages, and linking to webpages based on a contact’s location.
Google also enables you to easily create groups of contacts. You can have a group of contacts for your family, your freelance team, or even within your company. When it’s time to send an email, you can set one up with a group of contacts all at once, instead of going through each contact individually. You can also easily add contacts to a group, and remove them from the group as needed.
What Google Contacts is Missing
Google Contacts is really a handy tool that organizes all your contacts, phone numbers, emails, instant messages, and other related information. It’s a wonderful app for organizing and managing your personal records, as well as when you need to find a business contact… you’ll find them with Google Contacts, being one of the best and powerful contacts organization tool available for Google.
However, there are a few things that the official app is missing and can’t be found with the standard app, making it a pretty good idea to have a GTD (Getting Things Done) app like Task Manager on your Android phone. Check out what are the best Google Project Management Tools & apps to get things done.
Create Task The Task Manager comes packed with a very simple a tall task creation feature. Just hit on the plus button on the top of the list, start typing and choose the task name, description and priority. Fill in the contact information if you need to assign or remind any task to particular person.
Attach Document To Task The Task Manager is a very convenient Google app for attaching various types of documents to the tasks. You can attach both the regular images and the PDF in a single click. You can set the image as the background of the task as well.
What Users Think About Google Contacts
Contacts is a feature of Google Apps that has been around for awhile. The concept behind it is relatively simple. It lets users create contact records that include phone numbers, emails, addresses, notes, and photos. You can also share your contacts with colleagues and other users in your network.
Contacts has a number of advantages for businesses looking to do email marketing. You can create a business contact record for each of your customers and send them personalized canned messages. You can also set up auto-responders for managing potential questions from clients.
Over the years, Contacts has gotten better, integrating with other Google Apps (Documents, Calendar, and even Picasa). In the past, you had to come downtown to the Google office to access Contacts. Now, you can access Contacts online wherever you are.
With so many Google Apps and features, it can be tempting to throw your smartphone at the wall when something doesn’t work. But users across the board got to give their feedback on Contacts and rated it highly, indicating that it’s a great feature that’s worth the time and effort.
How to Access Google Contacts
Having a handy contact manager is a must for any mobile device. Google Contacts is the default app on Android, but if you’re not completely satisfied with it, the following apps are the best alternative in the market.
The Best Contacts Manager on Android: Teleport
Teleport is a highly affordable and secure contacts application that is an excellent choice if you want a great contact manager with contacts synchronization between multiple devices.
The app allows you to sync and share contacts between your personal and corporate devices. The contacts you add are automatically stored in your Google account via the built-in Contacts Sync service.
The pop-up Contacts event widget included in most stock launcher apps allows you to view your contact event, making it extremely convenient to search and track attendees, with just one tap.
Teleport
Pop-up Contacts in Immersive Mode
A pop up contacts widget with contact event details makes it easy to stay on top of your schedule, especially when used with a third-party launcher like Action Launcher.
Action Launcher
If you’re running stock Android OS, you can simply enable Immersive Mode in Android to access the Contacts widget (which is a part of the Launcher application). But if you don’t have it enabled, you’ll need to download Action Launcher.
Google Hangouts : Best Google Tool for Remote Communication
With Google Hangouts, you can connect to your team both internally and externally without the need of installing anything in your machine. Yes, I am talking about the best Google tool for remote communication.
This tool further expands upon the ways to get to work, giving the ability to messages, voice and video chat, and more.
Hangouts is also compatible with a variety of devices – which lets you make calls and conference video conferences in just about any way possible. The Hangouts feature has no limits and connects you with other people happening right now.
If you are a business or organization that needs a better way to communicate with your team, Hangouts might be the way to go. Everything can be done right from your browser, and you also get to communicate with people from all over the globe.
What Google Hangouts Costs
The Google Hangouts solution was born out of Google’s vision of making the world a truly unified communications platform. Hangouts is Google’s answer to unified communications tools that allow organizations to communicate efficiently across a variety of platforms, including desktops, mobile devices, and within meetings themselves.
Google Hangouts is offered as a Google Apps for Business version or as a consumer one. While it is a set of different products, all are interconnected and work to provide maximum flexibility and cost effectiveness in your communication needs. Among the most popular products include Google Voice, Google+ Hangouts, Google Apps for Googlers, and Google Plus Communities.
Hangouts can be accessed using any number of devices, including web browsers, mobile devices, and more. It also ensures privacy, so that conversations are not recorded.
Google Hangouts Features
Getting things done is all about managing multiple priorities. Get your projects organized with a tool that helps you turn overwhelming amounts of information from users into actionable items.
Google Hangouts is a video chat/motion capture product that can help you get your projects done and done quickly. This is a chat based product which means you don’t have to switch back and forth between your computer screen and your screen. Google Hangouts Share option and All Secret option (chat with one person who has access to all the chat logs) also saves you a lot of time.
Tag feature on Google Hangouts is a great option to keep track of your "To do", "Doing", "Done", "Deadline", "Late" and other task related information. With Google Hangouts you can even search through all your task logs and make sure that you are up to date and have followed all the steps.
With Google notes and Google hangout combination you can use your mobile devices to collect notes from a user or users, then post it to your hangout session. From the hangout, you can edit those notes (without taking your mobile device out of your pocket. You can also use a two stage invite to invite an individual user or a group of users one by one or all at once.
What Google Hangouts is Missing
In case you’re not familiar with Google Hangouts, it’s an instant messaging service that was first released in 2011 and is now integrated with Google Apps. It’s used to hold group meetings and conference calls and is especially helpful for businesses and organizations that work with lots of people around the world.
Google Hangouts provides a fully-featured interface for moving and managing all of the participants in your group meetings and conferencing. In addition to being able to switch participants easily, you’re provided with various tools that help you to get a better idea of what’s going on, including a screen recorder and a timer to measure time on different topics.
While Hangouts does have a lot of great features, there’s one that’s particularly handy for meetings: you can easily share your screen with all participants.
Share your screen in Google Hangouts.
Whether you want to show a PowerPoint, a presentation, a spreadsheet or anything else that you have created on your computer, it’s really easy to share it with everyone in the meeting.
This is especially convenient if your team needs to learn a new software tool or you need to demonstrate something important.
What Users Think About Google Hangouts
Google Hangouts has achieved a massive amount of success since its launch in 2013, especially considering its popularity for big events (e.g. The Oscars, Google I/O, World Cup) and for its instant-voice-messaging capabilities. What should you know about this tool?
Using Hangouts
As is typically the case with Google tools, Hangouts integrates many of Google’s other services, such as Gmail, Google Drive, Google Voice, and Google+ into a single application. One of the best things about Hangouts are its cloud-based video calls: you can easily use it video calling and sharing photographs with your friends, colleagues, and family members. However, you can easily switch between different video calls (even while in a call) utilizing the different tabs.
Here are some of the many features that users love about Hangouts:
Instant-voice/chatting call with multiple participants.
Integrated video calling.
Integrated Google Drive/Gmail/Google+ sharing.
Google+ Events integration.
Pin a list to the sidebar so you can conveniently access them while in a call.
Available as an extension for Chrome.
Chat Heads (AWESOME!).
Unlike with video phones (say, like Skype), you can easily switch between your video call and multiple chats by clicking on the side menu.
How to Access Google Hangouts
Whether you’re looking for the best Google Analytics to track your site’s traffic or you want to know if you’re getting more traffic from Bing than Google, having access to Google’s best tools is often essential for online success. Unfortunately, you can’t always access these tools from your desk. Many of Google’s tools remain in beta form and are only available to those who have access to Google’s beta testing platform, a.k.a. Google Labs.
When it comes to Google’s tools, most of Google’s best Google Labs are focused on traffic and SEO. This means that unless you happen to be a web developer or a Google specialist, you likely won’t have access to Google’s best online tools. Thankfully, there are other ways you can use Google’s best online tools to build your business in a way that’s easy and accessible. Here’s how to access Google’s best online tools and apps from any browser.
Google Keep : Best Google Tool for Project Note Taking
Technically speaking, Google Keep is actually a cloud-based, simple to use, note-taking app. It is best used for quick little notetaking or information captures. It is a clonetastic storage medium for your information, photographs or reminders.
With Google Keep, you can snippet your information, pin it or collect it together with photographs to share them later. It also lets you put notes in different color labels, further customized by date or project.
What Google Keep Costs
Google Keep is a free and secure note-taking app. You can use it to organize your ideas, photograph song lyrics, or thoughts for when you wake up. Google Keep is designed to help people keep track of ideas, belongings, progress, thoughts, and virtually anything else. It has been downloaded more than 10 million times since its launch in 2013.
Google Keep’s most impressive feature is its ability to share notes with others. Whether you’re working on a group project or simply want to share notes on your life, Google Keep is a great tool that’ll help you get the job done.
One of Google Keep’s best features is its clean and modern interface. The app is easy to navigate and has an intuitive design. Each note consists of a title, an image, and text boxes. You can add photos to a note, and a word or two will make that note stand out.
Creating notes is as simple as swiping right on whatever you want to note. You can also customize your note’s size and color. Keep automatically sizes your notes based on their content and adds beautiful icons to your notes to make them more distinguishable.
Google Keep Features
Managing your to-do lists is much easier now that Google Keep has come out. It's a well organized and free to use help note app with a lot of features that you might not have thought of before.
There are multiple ways to make lists. You can make them from your smartphone or tablet device, via your computer, or with the Google Keep dashboard. These lists are accessible online or offline. Keep your list organized with attachments, colors, date stamps and names.
If you have a team of workers, you can create a team list. Team members can add items and are notified when one of their tasks is updated. If you want to download your lists and share them with someone else, you can easily export and import them to the Google Keep dashboard.
Give your tasks a title and add a note. Each note can have several checklists that make it easier to manage your tasks. You can even take photos using your Android device and easily manage them.
The task that is assigned to you is automatically color-coded with a task icon. It also updates when someone has updated the item, and you can also see the date on the color-coded icon.
Add colors to each task and tag each list. Color is a visual way of separating your priority tasks from your other to-dos. Checklists can also be used to create reminders, so your tasks are more likely to happen.
What Google Keep is Missing
When I was approached by Google to check out Keep, this was one of the things that I had the most reservations about.
Keep is an amazing note taking utility, and it’s one of the more powerful features that the Google ecosystem has to offer. It gives you the ability to create an unlimited number of notes and share them with anyone at any time. But while it’s meant to be a full-featured note taking utility, there’s one feature that it’s currently missing that could make it even more useful.
”We’re fully committed to Keep… but we’d love to hear your feature ideas.…”” said Brian Balfour, the engineer who helped build and launch Keep.
So, if you have any suggestions, Google Would love to hear from you.
”There’s so much more we can do with Google Keep,” says Balfour. ”In fact, some of this could very well be coming to Keep before too long….”
What Users Think About Google Keep
Google Keep is one of the most useful apps Google has developed in recent times. It’s simple to use and offers a lot of features, making it a better option over Google Docs alternatives. You can save word, image, voice memo and video files and access them from any platform where you have a web browser that also supports Google Docs. You can also create check lists, manage lists of to do…s and add additional notes to share with others. You can also use it for note taking as well as entering search queries and bookmarks.
Google Keep might not be as feature rich as Google Docs, but it’s a very useful tool for business users and students. You can easily create lists, add items to a particular list and share specific lists with friends and coworkers. You can also use images, voice notes, checklists and notebooks to store important notes.
The text and formatting of information is supported by Google Keep which is a plus if you are a business user. The list management features are simple yet effective with you being able to add, remove and rearrange items at your will. If you are sick of using Google spreadsheets, learning Google Keep is a smart move as you will enjoy the simplicity of the app. Here’s an example of how you can use Google Keep for business.
How to Access Google Keep
Free project management tools, the de facto standard you must be able to rely on to handle your work assignments or deadlines. Among such web-based applications, Google Keep is apt digital note pad where you can type down your workplace project details in association with your to-do list.
It has the capability to sync your to-dos with your electronic calendar. So if you access it on your computer or mobile android device, it can practically help you manage your work time. It has a URL to access on your computer which is assigned to an extension; it frees you from getting stuck with a web based application and synchronizes it with your desktop computer at ease.
Contrary to the stand, if you do not want to use it as your digital note pad as your smartphone whether it’s Android or iOS comes with the native applications that lets you access Google Keep anytime, anywhere. Use a trick of creating a separate Google account to develop your Keep activity through your smartphone irrespective of your Google account.
If you are up to access your Google Keep account on your computer through your smart phone and can easily sync it with your electronic calendar and helps manage your time then it is one of the best Google project management tools and apps.
Google Jamboard : Best Google Tool for Brainstorming
The tool enables brainstorming sessions the way it’s not been possible till now. It helps with collaboration, global project management, and expert scheduling. It is not just a brainstorming tool but has lots of other functions like the one that lets you collaborate with people on the world stage and increases the productivity of experts.
Once you finish brainstorming on your google jamboard, you can then take all your ideas and make them into a document. The best thing about google jamboard is it helps you write down and present your concepts in an easy way.
It lets you go smart and choose various themes to make it easier for the team members to collaborate and helps you keep track of the overarching ideas during the process.
It combines expert scheduling and collaborative project management. By using google jamboard you will be able to start a groundbreaking project in no time as it lets you make schedules, complete project tasks, and time travel thanks to its google calendar integration.
It is quick and easy to draw out your sketches, and the smart templates and templates which google jamboard provides, enhance the creativity of your team members and let you showcase your ideas.
What Google Jamboard Costs
Google Jamboard Features
Google Jamboard is an exciting new Google tool designed for collaborative communication, boardroom-style meetings, presentations, training, and brainstorming. Our goal is to encourage more effective communication and collaboration among teams, whether within organizations or between business partners.
In this new era of work, just telling people about what needs to happen isn’t enough. Communicating, sharing ideas, and collaborating are some of the most important skills. That’s why we believe Google Jamboard will be one of the most crucial tools for modern teams.
Its interactive surface allows for multi-user collaboration and brainstorming sessions, displaying digital ink, text, and animations and sharing them instantly and with partners. You can promote your ideas and ideas from others using the full-screen mode. Other users can collaborate using their desktop browsers. With it, you get an A3 size large display to share ideas and collaborate with others around the globe. This whiteboard is very useful especially if you’re working in a large team, presentations, brainstorming or if you are a manager.
What Users Think About Google Jamboard
Google Jamboard is basically a cloud based whiteboard. It has nearly all the features you would expect in a SharePoint portal. Jamboard supports the following functionalities: Whiteboard, Screen, Presence, Pages, Social collaboration, Workspace.
Jamboard Integrations with mobile apps include power-ups, favorites, integration with calendar, document uploads etc.
A Day in the Life of a Product Manager ~ Google Jamboard
Being part of the teams that built Google Jamboard, I’ve seen firsthand how powerful the tool can be for people in a wide variety of work settings. Here’s what sets Jamboard apart from existing whiteboards or electronic drawing tools:
Customization: Using the familiar Android client, Jamboard brings back the intuitive user experience that’s a hallmark of Android products. The ability to customize the display and interactions by leveraging the Android platform is an enormous advantage.
Performance and Usability: Jamboard is user-friendly, fast, and has a slick user interface that is easy to use across multiple devicess. High rendering performance allows the use of rich media and design elements.
Business Impact: Jamboard brings instant and real-time collaboration to a diverse set of users. An app for your device transforms the Jamboard experience from linear to linear across time and space.
How to Access Google Jamboard
Chrome Extensions : Best for Project Managers
The Chrome extensions listed in the table above offer project management features for the respective product. For example, if you’re managing a team with Google Apps, the Quick Docs extension will help you store the emails, files, and other content shared in the Google Apps.
Likewise, if you’re sharing content through the GSuite, the Google Drive document viewer will allow you to quickly access files and share them using the GSuite tools.
If you haven’t already, I recommend you read Going Google: The Complete Guide to Google Apps (2nd Ed.) for more up-to-date information on managing your Google cloud computing-based business. When it comes to the subject of the Chrome extensions for managing tasks and projects, the list above is compiled from my experiences, along with the feedback I got from other project managers.
If you want to take your Google Apps to the next level, here’s a comprehensive list of Chrome extensions for Google Services that can help you manage your tasks and projects.
DISCLAIMER: This list is for educational purposes only. The author doesn’t vouch for or represent any of the other products mentioned. Please do your own research before you decide on a combo to use.
What Chrome Extensions for Project Management Cost
If you are a manager, official project manager or a project coordinator, you have hundreds of different meetings, and when you have more than a handful of meetings, it is almost impossible to keep track of all of the tasks that you need to see.
This is where Mavenlink Project Management Chrome Extension enters. With this Chrome Extension, you will be able to manage all your tasks, projects and meetings. You will be able to add new meetings, assign tasks to different people in the group, track your progress of ongoing tasks and will even be able to see all your pending tasks. Mavenlink Project Management API all about enhancements to your existing internet browser.
It works across all devices and platforms so you can access it in your computer, on your smartphone or tablet or even use it in your web browser.
As its first step, you will have to login using your username and password. Then, you can start adding all kinds of tasks. You can either choose to type them in manually or you can import them from your Gmail account.
Depending on the availability of your time, you can select your weekly or monthly timesheet settings. You can also decide which projects or tasks that you want to see at any given point of time.
Chrome Extensions Best for Project Management
Google Chrome’s extension ecosystem is a hotbed for alternative styles of productivity apps. While many of them are no better than the built-in Chrome tools, some can provide a great boost to your current workflow. These solutions are a bit different from what we usually showcase at Frictionless, but we wanted to share them with you because we think they’re very useful.
Quick Note about Chrome Extensions
You’ll notice in these solutions that you don’t actually have to install any apps or browser plugins. Often, these solutions just work with the built-in Chrome features. Chrome extensions may not match the power of dedicated project management software, but they can provide a great solution for some very specific needs.
Project Manager for Google Calendar
You can find a few solutions out there to manage your projects in Google Calendar. However, a bit of "sizzle" goes a long way, and this solution packs a few nifty features that make it a very useful tool for project management.
Upsides.
Schedule projects up to 6 months into the future, and manage the projects and tasks in a calendar view.
Automatically Push Your Projects and Tasks to Google Sheets
Define multiple levels and sections for your projects and tasks to give you even more control.
How to Access Chrome Extensions for Project Management
We know how annoying it is to have to copy and paste the same set of notes on different websites. That is why we suggest purchasing Chrome extensions to help you manage your GTD system(s).
One of my favorite must have tools is the Google Keep extension for Chrome. As you’re probably aware, it allows you to create, edit, and view notes on your Chrome browser. The bonus here is that you can access your notes from any computer with an internet connection.
Not only can you access your notes from a desktop computer, but you can also access them from your Android or iPhone while you are on the go. All you have to do is log in with the same account you use on your Google Chrome browser.
Chrome extensions are another must have tool that we recommend. I personally use the Google Drive and Ubex Google Chrome extensions. The Google Drive extension allows me to share my Google spreadsheet and present my clients with the data they need as easily as I view the data in columns in Google Docs. The Ubex Google Chrome extension gives me the ability to quickly check my scheduling, projects, and client lists from any computer. And by using the Ubex Google Sheets App for my iPhone, I can respond to messages and emails on the go.
We carry these three must haves with us every day when we are on the go.
Chrome Extensions for Project Time Keeping
Project supervisors who need to monitor the progress of their team across different teams, projects or time.
Google Keep for general purposes. You can make notes on the fly and even set reminders.
Tasks force for task management. Easy to create your own team task management without any help.
Sound of Pending for team communication, you can share audio files via email.
Evernote for saving all the notes and take it anywhere that you want to.
Workflow for scheduling a task and follow the progress.
Google spreadsheets for project management and workflow.
Google sheets for creating a project tasks management.
Google calendar and Google docs for project management.
What Chrome Extensions for Time Keeping Cost
Here are a few Chrome extension that I can suggest are of high utility. Few of us have the discipline to monitor time using just a timer, phone, or a wristwatch. The problem is that we don’t have a watch with minutes & hours marked on it. So in that situation, the use of extension to increase the efficiency of time-keeping is useful.
For Students
Timeline
This extension is useful especially for student.This extension provides you:
A. Timer that gives a notification if you spent too much time on a single task.
B. Timeline if you want to see how long have you spent on current task.
C. Freeform allows you to throw in other tasks you plan to do.
D. You can also throw in next few tasks you plan to do.
E. You can note down tasks that are not done yet.
F. You can add tasks to today’s or tomorrow’s date.
G. You can choose to track time for multiple projects simultaneously.
Here’s how to use the extension as a student.
Step 1: Create a project and list all of your tasks for that particular project.
Best Chrome Extensions for Time Keeping
Being organized is a way of life for many productivity-focused people. Google has a head start when it comes to time management and organizing. These extension help you do just that.
GanttProject
Gantt Project offers an easy way to manage your tasks and projects on Chrome.
Features:
- Import PDF
- Upload and manage your tasks
- Export Google documents
- Team Collaboration
- Employee monitoring of their time
- Task Timer
You can add a countdown timer for any task. You can also save material or time costs for your task. As well as time, you can track down the costs if you use either Microsoft Excel or Google spreadsheet.
Features:
- Stopwatch
- Multifunctional timer and stopwatch
- Possibility to save the time
- Stop watch
- PolyVestigator
Manage word density, distraction, and fluency with this extension that changes your cursor into a hand-held stopwatch-style cursor. PolyVestigator helps you manage your time in much more effective way.
Features:
Monitor your time and save it with your bookmarks.
How to Access Chrome Extensions for Time Keeping
Google Chrome has a great tool that will help you stay on top of your work with Project Manager and an added feature that will allow you to post your goals to Google Drive. This is a very good tool and should be considered by anyone who needs help managing their time.
Setting up Your Google Drive Folder
One of the most important things to remember is that you have to first create a folder if you wish to post your goals to your Google Drive. Here’s a quick step by step for how to do that!
In order to set up your own set up, first, you need to create a new folder within the Google Drive drive that is most convenient for you. Once you have created a folder, it’s time to post your goals within it.
While in the newly created folder, go to the Google Drive app and open up the latest Google Drive sheet. From here, go to New > Goals.
Once you’ve done that, you will see a new blank slate for a goals sheet. Copy paste in your goal text. You can go as detailed as you want … the more you put, the better your chances of success.
Once you’ve copied/pasted in your entire goal, your Google Drive sheet now looks like this:
Chrome Extensions Best for Team Member Focus
What Chrome Extensions for Focus Cost
Everything in the Google Chrome browser is free for users, but there are dozens of chrome apps and extensions that are not included in the free user access.
To make Chrome better, power users have created lots of chrome extensions that are not directly tied to the browser itself – but provide various other services that improve performance, efficiency and release the power of the current chrome browser. The technologies and extensions that are created to keep Chrome up and running include:
The most popular chrome extensions that are not in direct correlation with the browser itself include bookmark manager extensions such as organizing tools, URL shorteners, bookmarks manager, startup navigation, and screen capture. And also, extensions that make your life easier for the average user includes the following:
Online and offline storage extensions such as chrome bookmarks in cloud, chrome favorites, and chrome cloud storage. These tools allow you to save your entire site history, bookmarks, open tabs, and create offline storage through your chrome web browser.
Management extensions such as one-click bookmarks and bookmarks dropbox , allowing you to save, view, and remove your web bookmarks with a single click. This convenience is especially helpful if you’re frequently switching between different chrome windows.
Best Chrome Extensions for Focus
Whether you’re an advanced or novice user of Google’s Chrome web browser, you’ll find some of the best extensions here.
These extensions can help you hone in on your most productive habits and streamline your time. If you’re facing tough time management challenges, you’ll be glad you’ve taken a look here.
Note: Choosing between extensions here will depend on your needs. Context is important. So be sure to read each section carefully.
How to Access Chrome Extensions for Focus
The Google Docs suite gives you a great set of features for word processing, spreadsheets, and presentations. However, Google Docs isn’t just for creating documents … it’s also for sharing them with your team and collaborating on projects. Using Google’s Chrome browser extension, you can access all these features from any computer with a Google account. Here’s how to install the extension so you can use the Google Docs tools from any computer.
First, select the Tools tab on any Google Docs window to load Chrome’s extensions.
Click the + Sign to bring up a list of available extensions. Look for Docs and then click it to make it available on your computer.
Click the Add to Chrome button in the bottom left corner. When it’s set-up, you’ll see it in your right-hand menu.
Click it to bring up the Google Docs tools.
Alternatives to Google Apps for Project Management
Project Management is no longer just for –techies.” Project Management is for everyone. It’s important because it helps you handle all the work involved in the execution of a project efficiently. To be successful you need to be able to keep track of all the tasks assigned to various people and the work that needs to be done by them. To do that, you need to use Project Management software.
Project Management software can be a pain to use but you’ll still find yourself relying on it again and again.
For that reason, having alternative Project Management apps and tools to Google Docs will be a fantastic gift to yourself as well as beneficiaries on your tax write offs!
There’s no denying the fact that Google’s productivity suite is a great one for personal use. You’ll find both time tracking and project management tools integrated right into your Google Drive accounts. But to keep yourself from littering up your Google Docs, we’ve got you covered.
Bottom Line
{1}. Timely is a great way to visualize how much time you have in small chunks or an entire day plus you can select them to compile into a single clip. It’s free for two users.
{2}. Productivity Tools is a time management application that is perfect with several different tasks waiting to get done for you.
{3}. Gantt Chart/Project Plotter is an interesting GANTT charting tool that allows you to plot out your projects on a calendar and to organize them based on categories and priorities.
{4}. Gantt Chart Builder software allows you to define your project and manage it using Gantt bars.
{5}. Planner is a project planning and task management tool with the ability to attach notes and use custom filters.
{6}. Project Book is a project management app for multiple team members that handles daily and weekly schedules along with features of Google Drive.
{7}. Themba is the app that allows you to manage your tasks as well as create plans and projects for your own business.
{8}. DoIt is a practical tool that will allow you to develop your own schedule and to organize your daily or weekly tasks.
{9}. Asana is a task management platform that allows you to create teams and assign tasks to them.