3 Tricks to Scaling Onboarding with Google Admin

By Leia Rollag, OrgOrg Resources Lead

​When you’re a lean team, automation can save you lots of time.  And, like most of us know (or find out the hard way!) time is our most valuable resource.  Especially when your startup is scaling.

Here are 3 Google Admin tricks that will save you time when onboarding (and offboarding) team members.
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​Note that I’m making some assumptions here

• You are likely a Google Apps for Business Super Admin
• You geek out on system architecture and system settings
• Your company probably doesn’t yet have a dedicated IT team
• Your company has an [email protected] (or [email protected]) Google Group
• *Your company has team specific Google Groups
• Your company has a Calendar for company and/or team events
• Your company has a company Drive folder and/or team Drive folders
• Your company has G Suite Basic

*The last two tricks can be used without team specific Google Groups!

Today’s onboarding process

• ​A new team member is hired and you create an email address
• Add the email address to a team Google Group, say [email protected]
• Add the email address to a general Google Group, say [email protected]
• Navigate to Google Calendar
• Find team events that the email address should be included in
• Add the email address to each individual event
• Navigate to Google Drive
• Find documents that should be shared with the team member
• Individually share each document (or folder) with that individual

That’s a lot of work for 1 new team member.  Now imagine 10x’ing or 20x’ing that.  Suddenly, onboarding just Google products is a full-time job.  Eek.
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Tomorrow’s onboarding process

• A new team member is hired and you create an email address
• Add the email address to [email protected]
  • (1) The email address is automatically added to [email protected]
  • (2) The email address is automatically added to all team and company Calendar events
  • (3) The email address is automatically added to all relevant Drive folders (and files)

These simple tricks will help you turn that >9 step process into 2.

Here’s how to do it

(1) Automatically update [email protected] by nesting your Google Groups
A Group can be added to another Group a member, just like an email address.

For example:

• Create your team groups, say [email protected] and [email protected]
  • Chose “Team” access level: “Only managers can invite new members, but anyone in your domain can post messages, view the members list, and read the archives.”
  • Do NOT check the box “allow anyone on the internet to post messages”
• Add each team member to their correct group
  • ​1 team member per team group
• Create your company-wide group, say [email protected]
• Add team groups to [email protected]

​It looks like this:

Now, if you add a new team member to [email protected], their email address will automatically be reflected in [email protected] and receive emails sent to [email protected]!
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(2) Automatically update Calendar events by adding Groups to events as guests
A Google Group can be added to a Calendar event as a guest, just like an email address.

Here’s what your all-hands Calendar event could look like:

​Here’s what your team meeting events could look like:

Now, if you add a new team member to [email protected], their email address will automatically become a guest of your All-Hands Weekly Meeting and the Team A Meeting.  Easy.

(3) Automatically update Drive folder viewing and editing permissions with Groups
Last, but not least, a Google Group can be added to a Drive folder to set the level of viewing and editing access for that folder, also just like an email address.

The structure could look like this:

• Company Drive Folder : [email protected] view only access, [email protected] edit access
  • Team A Drive Folder : [email protected] view and edit access
  • Team B Drive Folder : [email protected] view and edit access

This translates to:

• Everyone in [email protected] can VIEW what’s in the Company Drive Folder, including what’s in:
  • Team A Drive Folder
  • Team B Drive Folder
• You can EDIT what’s in the Company Drive Folder, including what’s in:
  • Team A Drive Folder
  • Team B Drive Folder
• Team members in [email protected] can EDIT what’s in the Team A Drive Folder
• Team members in [email protected] can EDIT what’s in the Team B Drive Folder

Here’s what your company drive folder could look like:

This means that if you add a new team member to [email protected], they will automatically have viewing permissions to everything in the Company Drive Folder AND editing permissions to everything in the Team A Drive Folder.  Neat.

As a bonus, this structure gives all and only the right team members editing access to folders.  When a company hits 100 employees, you start to see files and folders go missing because it’s too easy to move things around in Drive without training... and who has time to spend on that?!

Troubleshooting and caveats
Nesting Groups

• Set an alert so you know when someone accidentally removes themself from their group:
  • Reports > Groups > Event Name > Select “User removed from a group” > Hit “Set Alert”
• I don’t recommend nesting non-team groups, e.g. inbound support tickets, inbound bills
  • They should be kept separate since they are for non-team specific communication
  • Plus, it tends to introduce spam into email, which leads individuals to unsubscribe from the group

Groups and Calendar

• When you’re creating a new team group, check to make sure the members update in Calendar
• If they don't, remove and re-add the team group to the parent group in Google Groups and check again

Groups and Drive

• You’ll still need to share the link to the Company Drive Folder with the new team member, ideally in their onboarding email​

More of My Preferred Google Admin Settings
There are so many stories behind each of these.  I’ll save you the read time and give you a list

Enforce 2-step verification

• Security > Advanced security settings > Authentication > 2-step verification > Enforcement > Turn on enforcement now or from date 

Only domain admins can create groups

• Apps > G Suite > Settings for Groups for Business > Sharing Settings > Creating Groups > Only domain admins can create groups

Turn OFF link drive sharing default setting

• Apps > G Suite > Settings for Drive and Docs > Link sharing > OFF - Only the owner has access until they share the file

Setup and set permissions by organizational units

• Home > Directory > Users > Manage Organizational Units > Create a new organizational unit
• Separate full-time, contractors, and non-people email addresses

Be selective when you allow organizational units to automatically forward incoming email to another address

• Apps > G Suite > Settings for Gmail > Advanced Settings > End User Access > Automatic Forwarding > Don’t Check “Allow users to automatically forward incoming email to another address”

Be thoughtful when you allow your team to download Drive File Stream or Backup and Sync applications

• Alls > G Suite > Settings for Drive and Docs > Features and Applications

Turn on Labs everywhere, especially Gmail!

• I LOVE multiple inboxes ;)

And, most of all, search G Suite Administrator Help Center and POKE AROUND!  That's how you can learn anything.

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A big shout-out to Jane Stecyk and Kim for editing!  I couldn't do it without you.  If you have questions or want more information on any of these settings or my reasons for loving them, leave a comment below and I’ll answer.  Thanks for reading!

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Leia Rollag is OrgOrg's Resources Lead.  She recently launched OrgOrg's Annual Compensation and Benchmarking Survey and re-designed the orgorg.co/forum webpage.  She is currently a consultant designing consistent compensation practices that rely on market data and previously was the Director of People Operations at IFTTT.  She specializes in operationalizing Human Resources and Total Rewards for software technology companies.