Google groups service comes along with a Google Workspace subscription and it can be used in different ways. You can create a Google group quite easily by following the setup instructions. While creating a Google group, you are provided with options to choose the basic settings.
Below are the most important settings in Google groups to know, configure and understand
- Posting policies:
You can allow or disallow email posting from web clients like Gmail or Outlook with this setting. For easier communication, leaving this option checked would mean users in your organization can reply to emails from this group. Allowing web posting would mean allowing users on the web to send emails to post to this group.
2. Member management:
These settings define who can manage the members inside the group or modify any custom roles you have apart from Owners, Editors and Managers.
3. Who can post:
This is an important setting where you need to choose, who can contact the group i.e, send emails or post into the group. If you want the group only for internal communication within a team, it is best to restrict it to “group member” communication. Otherwise, you can leave it to “Entire organization” if its meant for use across the organization.
4. Member Privacy:
If you want the group to be visible to your customers across the web and you want them to contact you or the owners of the group, you can use the below settings:
5. Collaborative Inbox:
You can use a group as a collaborative inbox. With collaborative inbox, you can unlock some additional functionality that are very usable for teams in customer support. After you create the google group, browse to Group settings and click on “Enable additional Google Groups features, select Collaborative Inbox” to activate this feature. You can always remove the feature if you dont want to use it.
All these settings are accessible on Google groups console by the owner or manager of the group. You can see the list of groups you are part of by visiting https://groups.google.com/my-groups
Google groups have a different user interface but the biggest advantage is that it doesn’t consume a license like a regular Gmail inbox.