Remote work requires a lot of tools and apps to aid team members in delivering the desired productivity. Therefore, many IT companies have brought comprehensive suits that cater to various needs like communication, collaboration, file storage, and data security.
Google and Facebook are offering some of the most advanced features to attract remote workers. In this article, you'll learn which of these two workplace suits is best for you.
1. To-Do List Management
Google Workspace has a set of tools that you can use to manage your to-do list. These tools are Calendar, Docs, Sheets, Forms, and Keep. Among these, Google Keep is a popular note-taking app that organizes your to-do lists and notes in one place.
All the above tools from Google are also free-to-use for commercial and personal use. Google Forms and Sheets will be helpful to collect to-do lists and tasks from clients or team members.
Facebook Workplace doesn’t come with a dedicated tool for to-do list organization. You’ll need to improvise by organizing to-do lists yourself using the Chats, Notes, or Knowledge Library feature.
2. Project Management
Efficient and productive management of the project calls for specialized tools. Though Google Workspace doesn’t offer a dedicated project management software, its tools like Contacts, Tasks, Keep, and Calendar are truly efficient in managing projects.
Moreover, you can manage tasks and projects directly from Gmail. Create new tasks on Google Tasks by importing data from Keep. Tasks automatically export schedule to your Google Calendar app. For groups, you can create, assign, and complete tasks in Gmail spaces.
Workplace from Facebook also doesn’t provide a project management app, but its groups has features that’ll help you with the project management. Within groups, there are features like Posts, Chat, Files, Members, Events, Media, and Learning. You can also make Closed Groups for confidential projects.
3. Discussion Forum
Currents from Google Workspace is an ideal tool that helps remote and hybrid teams to discuss or brainstorm during projects. You and your team can stay productive by focusing on a common goal and stay updated all the time. Furthermore, Currents allow your team to interact with external entities through secure channels.
In Workplace from Facebook, features like News Feed, Groups, and Chats enable you to host productive brainstorming or discussion sessions with your team. News Feed is more like an overall place that shows real-time updates from the entire team. However, Groups and Chats allow you to host closed or private discussion sessions.
4. Workplace Communication
A set of apps like Meet, Chat, and Gmail makes team communication effortless in Google Workspace. You can use them for free whether you’re working on a client or personal project. You get advanced features if you subscribe. For example, you can call a team member’s phone to connect them to Google Meet in low bandwidth areas.
You can easily share your screen during video calls on Google Meet. This feature is helpful when you need to monitor your team member’s work or present project data to the client.
Workplace from Facebook comes with robust team communication features on a familiar interface, Facebook. Your team has now come closer than ever through Facebook like Chats and Groups.
You can initiate video calls or text messaging sessions in the Chats section of Workplace. However, screen sharing in Workplace needs a Workplace Screen Sharing extension for Google Chrome.
5. Calendar & Contacts Sharing
Google Workspace is for effortless collaboration on projects. You can share your calendars and contacts with a few clicks.
On the Settings section of Google Calendar, you’ll find Access permissions for events and Share with specific people options for event sharing. To share contacts with collaborators, you need to subscribe to Google Workspace using a work account.
Event and schedule sharing is somewhat better in Workplace from Facebook. You don’t need to add invitees separately. All you need to do is create an event within a group. Workplace will automatically send invites to all the group members.
6. Collaborative Work
Google Jamboard is a digital whiteboard tool. It's essential for teams dealing with designing like UI/UX, websites, marketing materials, products, images, workflows, etc.
You can securely share a Jamboard canvas with external or internal collaborators. You can also present Jamboard during client calls. Moreover, the tool is free for both commercial and personal projects.
There is no Jamboard-like app in Workplace from Facebook. You can pretty much collaborate in real-time using Workplace features like Groups, Chat, and Knowledge Library. You can also integrate it with Microsoft 365 for better collaborative work.
7. File Sharing and Version Control
File sharing is convenient on Google Workspace. Multiple members can work on the same file through Google Drive and synced apps like Docs, Slides, and Sheets. You can share a document securely by choosing different access options like Viewer, Commenter, or Editor.
Google Drive also comes with a sleek design and up to 15GB of free cloud storage space. It's truly ideal for remote teams from the point of file organization, file size limit, and upload speed. Google Drive saves all edits within a file so that you can revert to any previous version whenever you want.
Workplace from Facebook allows you to store and share files from within the Groups and Knowledge Library sections. In the Groups, you can add a note, topic, and collaborator for any uploaded files. However, there are specific file upload limits like 50MB for any file and less than 4GB for videos.
8. Slideshows for Client Presentations
Slideshows are highly instrumental in visualizing workflows or presenting work-related data to clients. Google Slides is a slideshow creating tool that comes at no cost with Google Workspace.
You can quickly create professional slideshows in Google Slides through the drag-and-drop editor. You’ll also find high-quality templates on Google Slides. It offers features like downloading slideshows as PDF, presenting slides in a meeting, and shareable links.
As of now, Workplace from Facebook doesn’t have a tool to create slideshows. However, it can integrate with Microsoft 365 apps. Therefore, you can use PowerPoint to create slideshows and then share it using Workplace tools.
It’s All About Being Inclusive
The comparison of the above-mentioned features clearly shows that Google is an all-in-one workplace suite that can help you manage projects, communications, clients, and a lot more. Moreover, essential features are also free.
Though Facebook is also a comprehensive workspace communications suite, however, you’ll need a few third-party apps as well. Google Workspace should be ideal if you just need to get going with your freelance gigs or side hustles.