Introduction to Google Admin: admin.google.com

Quick and easy-to-follow guide for Google Workspace administrators

What is the Google Workspace Admin Console

  • The Admin console is the Google Workspace administrator’s control panel.
  • It allows admins to perform administrative tasks and manage different aspects of the Google Workspace account.
  • For example, you use it to add and delete managed user accounts, apply settings to them, make payments, update billing information, and much more.

Who can access and use Google Admin

  • Regular users can’t access and use Google Admin – only admins can do that.

How to access the Google Admin site

Introduction To Google Admin 1

To access Google Admin, just type admin.google.com in your browser.

Alternatively, you can use this shortcut. When signed in to your Google account, go to any Google website, and you will see the Google apps icon, which looks like a grid made up of tiny dots in the top right. Click it and then select Admin.

The Google Admin home page

Introduction To Google Admin 2

Google Admin features a bunch of icons on the home page, each one leading to a different section. We’ll quickly go over what kind of section each icon will take you to in a bit. First, let’s take a look at some of the other options.

Google Admin user interface features

Introduction To Google Admin 3

You can click the Main menu icon on the top left to toggle the text next to the icons on the left on/off.

Introduction To Google Admin 4

When on, the Main menu shows shortcuts to all sections that you can go to by clicking the icons on the home page. The cool thing about this menu is that it’s visible from any page.

Introduction To Google Admin 5

The navigation menu on top also features a search bar.

Introduction To Google Admin 6

The search bar is a great way to quickly find users, groups, aliases, and settings. In this example, we typed “admin” and we quickly found a shortcut to our admin user with the [email protected] email address, as well as some settings below.

Introduction To Google Admin 7

Typing Less Secure Apps brings up a shortcut to the Less Secure Apps setting. Over time, you will get to know some settings’ names by heart and be able to find them quickly this way.

Introduction To Google Admin 8

The Alerts icon in the top right shows important alerts and updates.

Introduction To Google Admin 9

The Tasks icon in the top right shows currently ongoing tasks, such as bulk uploading users.

Introduction To Google Admin 10

The Get Help or Contact Support icon launches the Help Assistant, which offers links to Google’s Help Center, as well as the option to Contact support. You can see more about this here.

Introduction To Google Admin 11

Click the little arrow on the top right to show or hide the Tools sidebar. Tools features links to:

Introduction To Google Admin 12

Click your profile picture icon (this may be an image or just your initials) on the top right to see a shortcut that lets you change your profile picture, manage your Google account, add another account (to switch between them faster), or sign out.

What are the different sections in Google Admin and what can admins do there?

Now let’s quickly go over what each icon on the home page is for, and where we cover these features on Workspace123.

Users takes you to the user management section. You can add, delete, suspend, and update info such as email addresses and passwords. You can also export the users list, move users between Organizational Units, and more.

You can see how to do any user-related task in the Users management section of the Users & Data Management training.

Billing is the section for anything related to payments and subscriptions. You can review your past payments, make new ones, upgrade or downgrade Google Workspace, configure billing settings, and more.

You will find anything you need to know about billing in the Billing section of the General Google Workspace Admin Features and Settings training.

Product updates takes you to https://workspaceupdates.googleblog.com/ – Google’s official updates blog.

Domains leads to the domains management section. You can add and delete domains, and more.

You will find anything you need to know about domains in the Domains section of the General Google Workspace Admin Features and Settings training.

Alerts tells you about important alerts and updates concerning your account.

You can learn about alerts in the Alerts & Activity Rules section of the Security Management training.

Groups takes you to the groups management section. ​You can add and delete Google Groups, update their info and settings, add and remove members, and more.

We have the Google Workspace Groups Management training, which will teach you all you need to know about groups in no time.

Apps allows you to enable/disable Google Workspace apps such as Gmail and Google Drive, and configure their settings.

Look for information about Gmail management in the Google Workspace Email Management training.

We cover all other services in the Google Workspace Services Management training.

Devices leads to the device management section. This is where you manage mobile devices using managed Google Workspace accounts. This is also where you manage the Google Chrome browser experience of your users.

You can learn about managing mobile devices in the Google Workspace Mobile Device Management training.

You can learn about managing Google Chrome in the Google Chrome Browser Management training.

Account settings is where you update information about your company and personalize Google Workspace.

The account settings include Personalization, Preferences, and Legal & Compliance settings.

Organizational units is where you create a structure for your users list to sort user accounts more neatly and apply different settings to different sets of users.

Learn about them in the Organizational Units section of the Users & Data Management training.

Security leads to a section containing all the general security features not relating to a particular app, such as 2-step verification, password management policies, and more.

Check out the Google Workspace Security Management training for anything security-related.

The Reports section contains lots of information related to Google Workspace usage in your domain.

Kind of similar to Reports, Dashboard provides metrics on your organization’s Google Workspace usage. However, the Dashboard is for Google Workspace Enterprise accounts only, so we don’t cover it in this guide yet. We don’t deal with any of the Enterprise features for now. Still, we already covered everything Google Workspace Business has to offer.

Learn about reports in the Reports & Audit Logs section of the Users & Data Management training.

Buildings and resources lets you manage buildings, rooms, and resources. These are Google Calendar features.

Go to the Google Calendar section of the Services Management training, and click the Buildings & Resources tab.

Rules lets you set custom alerts to be notified when specific events occur.

You can learn about alerts in the Alerts & Activity Rules section of the Security Management training.

Admin roles is where you add and remove admins, allowing other people to perform tasks in the Google Workspace Admin console. ​You can also create and delete custom admin roles.

You will find anything you need to know about billing in the Admin Roles & Privileges section of the General Google Workspace Admin Features and Settings training.

Data migration allows you to transfer email data from other email hosting providers to Google Workspace, or from one Google Workspace user to another.

We cover this in the Transfer & Import Data section of the Google Workspace Users & Data Management training.

The Support icon lets you contact Google Workspace support.

By now, you are probably beginning to understand why Workspace123 is helpful. If you were to contact support for help with all the above, you’d get to know the support reps better than your mom and dad!

You can see how to contact support here.

This concludes our Google Workspace Admin console walkthrough.

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