Google Workspace for Education

We use it for everything at our school district: Communication (Gmail, Chat and Meet), collaboration (Docs, Sheets and Slides) and coursework management (Classroom). We use the highest tier, Google Workspace for Education Plus, for our students and faculty and staff. This gives us many powerful features, like originality reports in Classroom, Labels in Drive and many security features.

• The IT department doesn't need to rely on on-premise servers, spending at least 50% less on servers after moving to GWfE from an Exchange and an on-prem backup server.
• Our teaching staff saves an average of 2-3 hours per week using Google Drive, the various Google editors and Classroom, instead of emailing files or managing paper-based workflows.
• Google Meet replaced Zoom for us, saving around $5000 annually.

Microsoft 365

Canva, Figma, Miro, Google Cloud Platform, Follett Destiny Library Manager, Jamf Pro, JumpCloud, Finalsite Composer, BambooHR®, Jotform, AppSheet

Google Workspace for Education is used to manage email accounts, groups, meetings, service accounts, and devices, including Chromebooks and mobile devices. This platform enables us to enforce organizational policies, conduct e-discovery, control allowed extensions and applications, and support theft recovery.

• There has been a steady evolution of new features coming out that reduced the need for third party tools
• We have been able to sign agreements to lock in annual renewal costs for up to 5 years
• It's a ubiquitous platform, finding support is generally pretty easy

Microsoft 365

Lightspeed Classroom Management, Mosyle, CrowdStrike Falcon

It provides a bedrock of tools and apps that our business can use for communication, content creation, and collaboration. It is compatible with our other companies we do business with. It has great support, documentation, and is on the cutting edge of new features and technology. The new AI tools are phenomenal and only getting better.

• Meet regulatory compliance, but at a cost
• Allows us to use new AI tools...but again at a steep cost
• helps teams of dozens meet regularly remotely instead of conference rooms!

Microsoft 365 and Apple iCloud

We use Google Workspace for Education to host our email and file storage. There is major upside to not having to manage a mail server. The scope of our use case is over one thousnad users. The business problems it solves are numerous. Mostly not maintaing an Exchange server. Users are familliar with the interface. This limits the amount of training we have to perform.

• It's far less expensive than comparable competitors.
• We are saving 50% compaed to othere options.
• Users understand how to use it reducing training costs.

Microsoft 365

Microsoft 365, Veeam Data Platform, Avigilon Access Control Manager (ACM)

We use Google Workspace for Education as our default for cloud storage, email back end, and browsing (via Chrome). The school has moved to using the Google Suite for docs, presentations, and spreadsheets. The problem that this solves is that it unifies the way the school manages content. Allowing staff to collaborate on documents saves time in knowledge transfer.

• Unifying document management has saved time for people to find what they need.
• Collaboration abilities across the suite allow for streamlined workflows.
• The ever-expanding toolset within the ecosystem allows for dynamic shifts in the way organisations can manage their digital footprint.

Microsoft 365

SolarWinds Service Desk (SSD), Apache Tomcat, MySQL