This book shares ideas for school admin staff in how Google Workspace may be used within their role.

Google for Education for Admin Staff

Do you find there are emails that you are writing over and over again? The template function in Gmail is a great way to save time by creating a range of templates you can use again and again. You can create a variety of templates, from long pieces of information, through to a website link you find you have to keep sending people. Using templates take seconds and can save you minutes every time.

Creating templates in Gmail

Labels allow you to organise your emails in Gmail. In many ways they act like folders, where emails can be moved and then later found in a named location. The special thing about labels is that you can have more than one label for an email. For example, imagine your have an email from a parent about a school trip. You could have a label for "Parent correspondence" and "Trip to Dover Castle". You can apply both labels to help you organise and find the email when you need it.

Organising your email using labels in Gmail

If you are a to-do-list type of person, then using the built in feature in Gmail is a great way to stay on top of this. You can create new tasks or create them from emails. When you create a task you can also add a date and time reminder that then links in with your Calendar. When creating tasks from your emails, it will also link the email with task, meaning that all the info you need is right there and the task has all the context it needs.

Creating tasks in Gmail

Collect information for team events and more

If you have been given the responsibility for organising an event in your workplace then creating and sending a Forms survey is a great way to gather information on all the various requirements of your colleagues. This could be something as simple as collating everyone's' order for your Christmas meal, or arranging an online PD event.

Google Forms tutorials

Mail merges are a great way to easily share information with large groups of people using automation. As your collect information in Google Forms it will then transpose this data into Google Sheets. Using an Add-on called Autocrat you can then merge this information with a Google Doc or Email. This could be used to create letters, certificates, or basically anything that you can create that links Forms and Docs. This a great example of app smashing within Google Workspace.

Doing a Mail Merge with Google Forms & Autocrat

Create automated certificates with Google tools

Prepare everyone for meetings with event attachments

When setting up a meeting it is important to ensure all attendees have the relevant information for the meeting. After inviting the necessary guests to a meeting in Google Calendar, ensure that any documents, spreadsheets, presentations, agendas, etc. are attached to the meeting event. If you also give edit access to the files it means your guests can collaborate on the documents and contribute to them.

Adding files to Google Calendar events

When inviting other people from within your organisation to an event in Google Calendar, the Find-a-time feature is a must-use tool to ensure you avoid unnecessary back and forth over scheduling clashes. The Find-a-time feature allows you to choose and time and see whether you guests are free or busy during this time. If there is a clash you can also see other times when your guests are free.

Find a time in Google Calendar

Create filters to automatically delete, star, or forward your mail, and to apply labels to relevant incoming messages. This will help to identify and organise incoming mail. For example, your inbox may be full of irrelevant messages such as event acceptances and declines. Set up a filter to have Gmail automatically archive them so your boss has a clean inbox and can focus on the most important messages.

Setting up filters in Gmail

Create Spaces for sharing information and enabling discussion

Spaces in Google Chat are a great way to either share information with people in your organisation, or to have open discussion in an online forum. Spaces can be as informal or formal as is needed. For example they could facilitate a workplace running club, or you could have one for SLT members. Within spaces you can also share documents, create calendar events, and assign tasks. Spaces are a great collaborative tool for the workplace.

Creating Chat Spaces in Google

When you have the time to send an email, it doesn't necessarily mean it is the right time for the recipient to receive it. By using the schedule send feature you can choose when the email gets sent and therefore received. This is a great way of ensuring your emails have the most impact by scheduling them for when the recipient may be most likely to see and action it. It is also an important way of supporting other people's work-life balance by scheduling the email for when they are due to be working.

Schedule send emails in Gmail

These tips and tricks have been shared by support staff who have found them useful in their role.

Share access to calendars within your team

It can be really useful for team members to have greater insight into their colleagues schedules. By sharing your calendar with your team they would be able to see where you are and what you have planned. This may help them know where you are when not at your desk. You can even make your calendar viewable to all your organisation if this would be of benefit to yourself and your colleagues. The option to give enhanced permissions for other people to manage your calendar is a necessary option if you have responsibility for booking events for another person.

Sharing your Google Calendar

Create additional calendars to manage events or resources

There may be things you don't want to put into your own calendar, so creating additional calendars is a create way of managing different aspects of your role. An example could be to create a calendar to manage room bookings, or to manage a specific event. This means these events do not show in your own calendar and can be differentiated when looking at your overall calendar view.