Why Google Workspace?

Google Workspace is a web-based messaging and collaboration applications that Google hosts on their servers. Google provides these applications as a "service," rather than as software you have to download and install. To access these applications, you normally use a web browser on any computer that's connected to the Internet. You can also use Google Workspace on mobile devices. Look for Google's Gmail app in your mobile device app store. 

During the consultation process, we looked for an email and collaboration solution that would provide the following benefits:

1. Access to services at anytime — Google Workspace apps are designed to be highly available often exceeding 99.99% availability throughout the year. Google's Gmail, calendar, and other applications provide a rich set of features that are accessible using any modern Web browser. You should be able to access email, contacts, and calendar from any computer or mobile device with an Internet connection, from anywhere in the world.
   
   
2. More collaboration features — It was important to provide everyone in the University with a rich collaboration platform. We wanted to make sure students, faculty, staff, alumni, and others could all easily work together as needed. Google Workspace not only provide email and calendar services but include Google Drive for file storage in the cloud, Google Docs for creating and sharing documents, spreadsheets and presentations, Google Hangouts, and Google Groups.
   
   
3. Better Security and Privacy — Google Workspace apps are provided under a written agreement between TMU and Google that offers more protection for privacy than Google's consumer services. Under the agreement Google makes no claims to own University or personal data hosted by Google and only indexes or scans the data for the purpose of providing the service itself. For example, automated indexing your email so you can search it quickly. There is no data mining. Google's level of investment in securing their services is greater than anything TMU could afford. Security is an essential prerequisite of privacy. For more information please see our FAQ (opens in new window)  and Google's security overview (external link, opens in new window) . TMU has configured Google Workspace to minimize the sharing of information by default. For example only employee information is included in the global address book. Student information is not included by default. 
   
   
4. Lower infrastructure costs — Compared to TMU’s previous email system, the cost of hosting Gmail (and a broad range of collaborative applications like those freely available from Google), is much lower for much more capability.
   
   
5. Ability to consolidate our platforms — Limited capacity in TMU's old email and calendar systems (RMail and GroupWise) led to some departments hosting their own email systems. Google Workspace provides those departments with the option to reduce their costs by migrating to Google Workspace. 
   
   
6. Customized solutions — By spending less time managing locally hosted services TMU can leverage the Google Workspace platform to provide a more customized experience. For example, we have integrated course schedules into faculty and student calendars - something that was not available in the past.
   
   
7. Highly scalable environment — With Google Workspace, our email capacity will grow automatically as TMU grows and we'll avoid the complexity of managing and routinely upgrading internal systems

Your new Google Workspace account will include the following services:

	Gmail
	Google Calendar
	Google Drive
	Google Docs
	Google Groups
	Google Hangouts
	Google Keep
	Google Meet (opens in new window)

• Enhanced message organization and retrieval — With Gmail, you'll spend less time managing folders and searching for messages. For example, you can add one or more tags, or "labels," to your messages to organize and store them more efficiently. And with the Google-powered search feature, you can find any message quickly and easily, whether it's in your Inbox or stored in your message archive.
• Easier calendar sharing — Google Calendar lets you and your team quickly and easily share your calendars with each other and specify the details you want to show. Calendar sharing is a great way to keep each other informed about your schedules. Now it's easier than ever to find out if someone is in a meeting, on a business trip, or on vacation.
• Real-time collaboration — Using Google Docs, you can create documents, spreadsheets, presentations, drawings, and more, that you and your team can view and edit at the same time. You can still use Microsoft Office as needed, but now you'll have more options for storing and collaborating on your documents. 
• Easy-to-build team web sites — With Google Sites, your team has the ability to quickly publish a robust internal web site on which to gather all sorts of shared information, such as documents, spreadsheets, presentations, files, and videos. You can even embed Google calendars, discussion forums, and other gadgets on your site!