This year G Suite reached over four million paying users, and its popularity is still growing. However, many small and large-scale businesses complain about G Suite’s insufficient security and customization features, and are now looking for more powerful and intuitive alternatives. What are the limitations of this worldwide brand and is it possible to switch to another platform without having to pay millions for it?
Why do businesses still choose G Suite?
G Suite is a group of collaboration products for teams and businesses. Among other apps, it also includes “the core email suite trio” that is Google Mail, Google Docs and Google Calendar. It’s specifically designed to streamline communication between managers, teams and customers.
At first glance, G Suite would seem like the best choice for any company. Advanced cloud infrastructure, a scheduling network, HD video conferencing and the ability to build a custom website make G Suite attractive for business users. Depending on the plan, G Suite apps come with additional cloud storage capacities, collaboration tools and 24/7 support.
Is it really about advanced document management?
The corporate world now uses a great variety of platforms, tools and advanced features that by comparison, outpace G Suite. Here is a small list of processes for managing digital documents that are not available in G Suite.
E-Signature
G Suite doesn’t provide you with the ability of signing documents online. You’d be surprised that for most cloud-based services on the market, e-signing still isn’t available. This is a noticeable difference because having the option to e-sign gives you the ability to streamline any workflow more efficiently and in just a few clicks. Also, e-signed documents that include a verified audit trail, signer ID and comply with the ESIGN Act as well as the UETA are completely legal. This eliminates the need for printing, sending mail parcels or meeting in person.
Workflow automation
Various features for achieving workflow automation streamline many business processes. Some solutions allow you to create templates and generate pre-filled documents, collect payments electronically, schedule document sending etc. It is also possible to automatically collect and extract data from filled-in forms.
One example of effective workflow automation is the Extract in Bulk option produced by PDFfiller. With just a few clicks, you can export specific content from client forms into a single Excel table. Learn how this can be done without any need to manually type anything:
G Suite’s security limitations
User reviews on G2Crowd and Capterra show that people are dissatisfied with G Suite’s customization features, limitations on actions in their accounts, and lack of tracking and reporting abilities. Users also dislike sharing permissions on Google Docs and complain about inattentive support services. However, the biggest concern is always about security.
It’s rather challenging to personally check whether the file is really protected. G Suite does have an Audit log, but you will need to go through multiple steps to gain access to it. Most users don’t even know about this feature and many others prefer to not use it due to its complexity.
Like many other cloud computing platforms, G Suite can’t prevent access via stolen credentials, poor password security, malicious hacking attacks or access from stolen devices.
And of course, working in the cloud doesn’t eliminate the security risks or malware attacks. But unlike G Suite, more and more digital document management platforms are allowing you to easily and properly track all the activity of your account, which in turn, lets you quickly detect and react to a security breach.
Every document generated, edited, moved or shared has a unique digital audit trail that records specific identifying information such as IP address, geo coordinates, browser, OS information and time stamp. These identifiers make certain that the chain of custody is, and can never be tampered with or altered. PDFfiller’s Audit Trail ensures that each document is technically and legally sound.
G Suite vs online document management platforms
G Suite is an adequate solution for any business when it comes to email hosting and document storage. Most of your employees are probably already familiar with Gmail, which helps reduce the time required to learn new tools. G Suite also has good compatibility on mobile devices.
You may try G Suite for free but be careful. Once you add G Suite to a free account, you will no longer be using the app under the free account, but under G Suite. At the end of the trial, you could lose the whole google profile. Once a subscription is cancelled, it will delete all info in every google product and you will not be able to retrieve it back.
PDFfiller focuses on a fully customizable approach to document management. A manager can work on client PDFs without any help from third-party applications while maintaining the highest level of document security. Using templates created from PDF contracts, a manager can collect customer data and save it in any format such as an Excel Spreadsheet or a new CRM record. Documents can be shared on a website via a link or QR code, directly with clients or made publicly available for the visitors of your blog. Such templates can be electronically signed with no additional applications involved. All signatures added in PDFfiller are legally binding and customers don’t need to create an account to use the platform.
“I like that it’s so much easier to use than standard Word and PDF documents. They’re much easier to edit, fill in, sign, and send. And I love the fact that the client can use the system to send their filled-in form to someone who isn’t yet a client, and that person doesn’t have to pay to access and print the document sent to them”, Diane Dennis, Owner at Monk and DBug LLC, PDFfiller customer
This way of working with documents lays the foundation for prospective customer loyalty that will inspire clients to recommend a service to a friend and stay with a brand for years.
Enhance your digital document management by using PDFfiller.
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