How to share calendar, contacts and documents in G Suite?

Have you ever experienced the need to share information with people inside and outside your organization?

Often when you are busy with your work you will be sharing your work schedule, contact information of customers and suppliers, and important documents with your team members to collaborate on a project.

If you are not sharing information with others it may lead to problems caused by unclear instructions or lack of collaboration which will affect the growth of your business.

By sharing information you can work faster and smarter and increase the productivity of your organization.

Like most other organizations you may also be using G Suite and you would want to boost productivity by sharing calendar, contacts, and documents in G Suite.

By sharing a calendar you can schedule and manage events, coordinate meetings, and set reminders and due dates for project completion.

By looking at your team members calendars you will get to know what they are doing and plan tasks and discussions at a time which is convenient for everyone.

You must always share updated contact information of all people, both inside and outside your organization, with your employees to facilitate quick communication while working on a project.

When you share the contact details with everyone you are helping them to stay in touch with each other easily. You also avoid wasting time due to miscommunication and maintain a smooth relationship with your employees and customers.

The biggest benefit of G Suite is the document sharing feature. You can just have one main document and share it with others to edit, put their ideas and comments. And the most amazing thing is you can track all the changes made by each team member.

Here are the most common ways in which you can share your calendar, contacts, and documents in G Suite

How to share a calendar in G Suite

Each member in your organization will be having their own calendar and when you are a part of a team you will have a common calendar for your team.

Your organization may have its own calendar to inform about important events and meetings to all employees and the public.

Your organization will have a control on the calendar details that can be shared both internally and externally.

You have to be the G Suite admin to have control over the calendar information that your employees share externally, with people outside your organization, and internally.

You should sign in to your G Suite admin console and click on Apps. You must select G Suite and from G Suite apps click on Calendar.

Now click on 'Sharing settings' and you will find External sharing options and Internal sharing options.

External sharing options

In 'External sharing options' you can control how your employees share their calendar with people outside your organization.

You can control the setting according to the needs of your organization.

See only free/busy information(hide details)

• People outside your organization can view only the free/busy details of your employees.
• All event details and private addresses will be hidden from the viewers.

Share all information, but outsiders cannot change calendars

• Your employees can share their calendar information with people outside your organization.
• All the event details like the guest list, location, and description can be viewed but viewers cannot view those events which your employees have marked as private.
• Viewers cannot make any changes to the calendar and all private addresses will be hidden from them.

Share all information, and outsiders can change calendars

• Your employees can share all the information on their calendar with people outside your organization.
• The viewers will be able to view event details including those which you have marked as private and also the private addresses.
• Viewers will be able to add or delete events in calendars.
• They will be able to restore or permanently delete events from the calendar's trash.

Share all information, and allow managing of calendar

• Your employees can share all the information on their calendar with people outside your organization.
• Viewers will be able to view all events including the private events.
• Viewers can also add or edit events and restore or permanently delete events from the calendar's trash.
• All the private addresses will be visible to the viewers.
• Your employees can add someone as a delegate and manage events on their calendar, on behalf of them.
• Delegates can schedule and edit events for your employees and they can also change the sharing settings or permanently delete a calendar.

Once you have set the external sharing options your employees cannot exceed it.

Must Read:

• 7 Reasons Why Choose G Suite For your Business
• The best 10 g-suite apps to improve productivity

Internal sharing options

In 'Internal sharing options' you can set the default sharing options for your employees to share their calendar with other employees in your organization.

No sharing

When you, as a G Suite admin, select this as the default option your employees cannot share their calendar with anyone in your organization. But at any time they can change the settings for their personal calendar and share it with others.

Only free/busy information(hide details)

All employees will be able to view only the free/busy details (of work) of other employees working in your organization.

Share all information

All information in an employee's calendar will be visible to everyone but they can change the settings and choose what they want to share with others.

After you have set the external and internal sharing options click on 'Save'.

You should know that each employee in the G Suite team can change the setting of their personal calendar according to their preference.

If the employees do not customize their calendar settings then the internal sharing options which you have set for your organization will apply for them automatically.

If your employee wants to share a calendar which is not their calendar then they must ask the owner of that calendar to turn on the 'Make changes and manage sharing permission'.

As a G Suite admin, you can create a calendar and share it with specific people in your organization by selecting 'Share with specific people' in Share settings and clicking on 'Add people'.

You can add the email addresses of those people or groups with whom you want to share and they get notifications when you share the calendar..

How to share contacts in G Suite

Your G Suite Directory has all the contact information of each employee in your organization and all the shared external contacts.

You should turn on 'Contact sharing' in the G Suite Directory and you should be a G Suite admin to do this.

Only after you do this all G Suite members will be able to view the contact details of each other and also those group addresses which have the viewing options turned on.

Important: If contact sharing is not enabled then people in your organization will not be able to view any contact information of their coworkers and the shared external contacts.

After enabling the contact sharing you can choose which email addresses of your employees will be shown in the Directory.

You can select one of the available options to display the email addresses in the Directory.

Show all email addresses

All primary email addresses of the employees and any other alias addresses will be shown.

Show only secondary and alias email addresses

• All the secondary email addresses of the employees and their email aliases will be shown.
• All the primary email addresses will not be shown.

Show only primary email address

• Only the primary email addresses will be shown.
• All the secondary email addresses and the email aliases will not be shown.

Show only email addresses in the users primary domain

• If your employees have email addresses in the domain aliases it will not be shown.
• Only the email address in the primary domain will be shown.

If your organization has more than one domain in G Suite then you can also select the domains which will appear in the G Suite Directory

Show only domain profiles

• All the employees will be able to view only those email addresses that exist in your organization's domain.
• Employees will not be able to view any shared external contacts.

Show only domain shared contacts

Employees can view only the shared external contacts in the Directory

Show both domain profiles and domain shared contacts

All employees can view the addresses of all the other employees in your organization and also the shared external contacts in the Directory

After setting the sharing options click on 'Save'.

Share contacts with specific people

If you want to share your contacts only with specific people then you must use the Google Contacts Delegation feature in G Suite

To use this feature you have to go to Settings in Google Contacts and click on 'Delegate access'. Then select the people with whom you want to share your contacts and they will be able to access your contact list.

Before enabling this you should know the disadvantages of using the 'Delegate access' feature.

• You can not share your contacts with people outside your domain.
• You must share the entire contact list and not just a few contacts from your contact list.
• You can not share your contact list with groups.
• Once you have shared your contacts with someone they will be able to make changes or even delete your contact list.

Import/export contacts as CSV file

Another way in which you can share contacts is by creating an Excel file with the contacts you want to share.

You can export this as a CSV file and send it to the person with whom you want to share the contacts. The person receiving it should upload the file into their own Google Contacts manager.

This is a manual process and when there is a change in the contact details you have to update it manually. You will also face a greater risk due to human error.

Sharing contacts using a third-party app

The best and easiest way to share contacts is to organize your contacts into groups under a label and share the label using a third-party app.

You can create several labels in Google contacts and give them appropriate names. You can quickly share a label having a group of contacts and also save time by using a contact sharing app.

Contactbook is a great app for sharing contacts with G Suite users and it is very easy to use. It is a powerful and very useful chrome extension which helps you to share contacts in a few seconds.

You can share a group of contacts by creating a label in Google Contacts. You can create any number of labels and add any number of contacts to each label.

To enable contact sharing you should always keep your Google contacts synced with Contactbook. You must login to Contactbook and click on the Google Label which you want to share and all the contacts in the label will be shared with your G Suite team members immediately.

The biggest advantage of using Contactbook is you can share contacts without opening Google Contacts. It helps you in sharing a bulk of contacts or just a single contact.

Contactbook offers you free unlimited contact sharing with 5 domain users. You can have control over the people who can view or edit your shared contacts.

How to share a document in G Suite

Before you share a document in G Suite you must decide from which location you want to share the document. If you want to share it with only a few people you can just share it from your Drive.

You can add it to a shared drive if you are using the G Suite Business or Enterprise plan. It will be shared with anyone who has access to the shared drive.

You should remember that any document you add to the shared drive is owned by your team. Even if you leave your organization your documents will remain in the shared drive.

If you want to share a document publicly or with your entire organization you can create a website using Google Sites.

After creating a website you should select the page where you want to share the document and click on 'Insert'.

Anyone who views the website will be able to view the document you inserted in it.

Sharing a document from Drive

When you are sharing a document from Drive select the file you want to share click on 'More' and select 'Share'. In 'Share with people' you have to add the email addresses of people with whom you want to share.

If you want to share multiple files then you can add all the files to a folder and share the folder.

You should know that if the email address, of the person with whom you share, is not a Google account then they can only view the document.

When you share a document you can specify what people viewing it can do with it. You can specify whether they can view, comment, or edit on a document.

Sharing a link to a file

You can share documents by copying the link and pasting it in an email or wherever you want to share it. If needed you can set access limits for people to view, comment, or edit the document.

When you share a link to a file your name will be shown as the owner of the file.

You must remember that you can share only the documents that you own or have permission to edit.

Things you should know before sharing

While sharing a document you can set an expiration date to access the document and after the expiration date, access to the document is denied and it cannot be viewed.

When you are sharing a file and would not want it to be reshared by others after editing it you have to uncheck 'Editors can change permissions and share' in the Share settings in Drive.

You may want to prevent the viewers from downloading, printing, or copying the file. To do this you have to uncheck 'Viewers and commenters can see the option to download, print, and copy' in the Share settings in Drive

After you share a document

Once the document has been viewed and all edits made you should rename the document to mark it as final. After this, you would not want anyone to make any unnecessary changes to it.

You must go to the Share settings and make changes to it so that people accessing the document can only view it.

Conclusion

You must understand that in any organization sharing is absolutely necessary to complete tasks quickly and also accurately. The sharing features of G Suite remain unparalleled and you will find it to be extremely user friendly.

G Suite has everything you need to collaborate and complete tasks efficiently. It may take some time for you to choose the right settings but once you complete the settings you can work smoothly.

G Suite enables teamwork and soon you will feel that it is the best place to share, collaborate and work together.

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