Introduction 

In this article, you will learn about how to upgrade a personal Gmail account to a business account. Gmail is the only email service operated by Google, and over the years, it has become one of the most popular ones across the globe. Today, you can easily access your Gmail from your personal Google account. For this, you don’t need a Google Workspace account. But, as a business owner or administrator, you need a professional email account. At that time, you need to upgrade your Gmail for business.

However, before upgrading your Gmail for business, you have to create a Google Workspace account. You can create a Google Workspace account from here

Upgrade your Gmail for business workflows

So, after creating a Google Workspace account, you have to complete the following tasks to upgrade your Gmail. 

  • Set a custom email for your organization

To set up a custom email, you need to create a new domain for your organization. You and your team members can use Gmail and other Google Workspace services through this domain. But before using a domain, you need to verify the domain

Then, you will get a custom email with your company’s domain name, such as abc@yourcompany. This will be your professional email. By creating a professional email, you will gain the trust of your customers and improve the company’s reputation.

Several guided instructions exist to set up a custom email, including creating MX records. Configuring MX records is one of the most essential requirements for creating business email. Now, follow the steps to Activate Gmail for Google Workspace

After that, you can create a collaborative inbox for your team. To create a collaborative inbox, you must sign in to Google Groups for business, and then you need to follow the path: inbox – Group settings > Enable additional Google Groups features > Collaborative Inbox.

Also, you can change other email options like subject prefix, conversation mode, email footer, and replies setting for group messages. For this, you should go to Group settings > Email options

Moreover, you can create email aliases for your domain’s users, as they become helpful when an individual needs to receive a message from a different email address. For example, if a person handles both the work of the sales and the IT team, he/she will need different email addresses to keep track of the work in these two departments.

In this regard, he/she can use two different email addresses from your domain: sales@yourcompany and IT@yourcompany. Now, these two email addresses are regarded as email aliases.

  • Manage your team members

It’s essential for an organization to create user accounts for the employees. So, follow these steps to create a new employee account –

  1. First, sign in to Google Admin Console.
  2. After that, go to Menu > Directory > Users.
  3. Then, click Invite new user/Add new user from the top.

Next, you need to fill out a form whether you want to add a new user or invite the user.

You have to repeat these steps each time you create a new employee account. Having said that, it is best to avoid sharing accounts among your users, as it creates issues like temporary account locking, reaching an account threshold, and other challenges. You can learn more about the challenges from here

Furthermore, ensure you’re using a strong and unique password to protect your emails. A strong password is also essential to protect your personal information, files, and folders. Always use a lengthy and complex combination of characters for your password. You can use any letter, symbol, and number to create a password. But the characters should be the ASCII standard. 

Then, you must add recovery information for your Google Workspace account. Recovery info includes an email address and phone number. This information helps you to prohibit unauthorized people from using your users’ accounts. So, learn to Add recovery information for admins & users. Also, learn the other security essentials from here

 Another significant task is managing your organizational devices. So, first, ensure that you have enabled basic mobile security management for the users. Basic security management requires password management, activity alerts for mobile devices, configuring managed apps for Android devices, etc. To manage the iOS apps, you should enable advanced mobile security management. For this, you have to generate an Apple push certificate. Also, learn about managing computer devices

  • Adding delegates

If you add a delegate for your business Gmail, you will get several facilities from it. Here, delegate means the shared inboxes. Also, you can say that delegated accounts and shared inboxes are the same things. Then, you can permit specific people to use the delegated account. Those who are using a delegated account can access your Gmail account. Delegates can read, send, and delete emails from your account. Also, they can sort the emails using filters, track the email status through labels, and keep records using archiving emails. 

Also, you can schedule emails for users working from different time zones. So, you should configure a specific time and date to schedule the emails. Follow the below steps to schedule an email -

  1. Open your Gmail and click Compose.
  2. Then create an email body.
  3. Click the down arrow beside the Send button.
  4. Finally, click Schedule send. 

Additional configurations that will help you

  • Enable video through Gmail

For collaborative work, you can directly join in Google Meet from your Gmail Inbox. The steps are similar to joining Google Meet through personal Gmail. But ensure you have turned on Google Meet services from Google Admin Console. If you turn on this service, you can also enjoy an integrated Gmail experience.

If you want to present a slide through Google Meet, then you must have the specific Google Workspace edition, such as Business Starter, Business Standard, Enterprise Standard, etc. Then, follow the steps to present a slideshow. Moreover, you can record a video meeting if you have Gmail for business or Google Workspace for business. You can do it when your Google Meet presentation has a demand for new employees, virtual training sessions, or conference presentations. Know how to record a video from here

  • Acquire additional space for Gmail

To get additional space in Gmail, you can upgrade it with a Google One membership. So, follow the steps from here –

  1. Visit mail.google.com.
  2. Then scroll down the page. You will find your storage usage at the bottom. 
  3. Next, click Launch.
  4. After that, click Get more storage
  5. Then select your storage upgrade option.
  6. Finally, click Subscribe

Also, you will find other methods to upgrade your Gmail storage.

How does Foresight help you to use Google Workspace?

Foresight is an automation and productivity tool for business. It’s completely integrated with Google Workspace services. It can automate the manual tasks of Google Admin. So, admins can easily handle complex tasks without jolting them for hours. Also, the Google Workspace users can acquire the automated solutions from Foresight. This tool helps to manage the time, effort, and cost of operations. So, it improves the growth and productivity of business. 

You can learn the other use cases like – Bulk Add Email Aliases To User Accounts, etc.

Conclusion

To sum up, hopefully, now you have an idea of the process of upgrading your Gmail to business and the benefits of it. The professional Gmail account creates your identity as an entrepreneur. Also, it helps to maintain your company’s security.

Now, learn about no-code automation with Foresight and know its benefits. Try a 14-day free trial for this automation platform.