3-Step Guide to Protecting Data in Google Workspace

With Google Workspace, it’s easy to handle your day-to-day email and schedule, share documents and collaborate with others, and store information. It’s also easy to lose all that information – by deleting something by accident, perhaps, or clicking on a malware link in an email. If so, it’s on you to fix it. Because while Google will protect your data from service and infrastructure failures on their end, it’s your responsibility to keep it safe on your end. Follow this 3-step guide to protect your data in Google Workspace.

Step 1 – Know Your Risks

Be aware of the most common threats to data in Google Workspace, so you can avoid them – or at least know what’s going on if you experience a problem.

Data deletion: Once you permanently delete Google data – by emptying the Gmail trash bin, for example – there’s no easy way to get it back.

Document versioning: Anyone who has access to the same document you do can change it, causing you to lose your latest version.

Metadata changes: Sharing means others can also change metadata – folder structures, for example – and affect your ability to use the data.

Hacking: Changes caused by hacking an individual file can be pushed up to Google Drive and synced to other places, too.

Sync errors: Even simply syncing Drive with your laptop or PC can result in unintentional sync errors that destroy or overwrite your data.

Step 2 – Know Your Google Tools

Get familiar with the native data protection tools Google offers and know how they can – and can’t – help you.

Google Administrative Restore: Restore data that’s been overwritten in Google Drive or permanently deleted from Gmail – but be aware that you may not be able to get it back from a specific point in time, or with metadata like sharing settings in place.

Google Vault: Rely on Google Vault to archive data for legal discovery, but keep in mind it’s not designed to quickly restore production data to keep your business operating efficiently. Additionally, Vault does not allow end users to recover their data and it does not protect all Google Workspace apps.

Step 3 – Know the Alternative: Spanning Backup for Google Workspace

Add Spanning Backup for Google Workspace to your resources for data protection, and count on being able to back up data automatically and restore it quickly after a loss.

Automated daily backup: Don’t worry about having to remember to do backups; Spanning Backup for Google Workspace backs up all Google Workspace data – including metadata – automatically every day.

Point-in-time restore: Restore information from any specific point in time exactly as it was before the loss.

Ease of use: Ease of use means that no training is needed to allow end-users to restore their own data into their accounts with one click; or to enable senior admins to delegate restores to help desk admins.

Cross-user restore: Enable admins to restore data back into Google Workspace directly – to the original account, or from one account to another.

Case in Point

Here’s an example of how Spanning Backup for Google Workspace can restore data back exactly the way it was after a loss.

• Joe, a disgruntled employee, suspects he’s about to get fired, so he decides to permanently delete a key folder from Google Drive before he goes.
• Turns out Joe was right – he loses his job. And two weeks later, someone realizes the folder is gone.
• An admin, let’s call him Jeff, uses Spanning Backup for Google Workspace to click on the date Joe deleted in the account, and sees the folder and all the files in it just as they appeared on that date.
• Jeff clicks restore – and he’s prompted to indicate if he wants to return it to the original owner, or to someone else’s account.
• He elects to restore it to the account now owned by Joe’s replacement, where it goes into an easily identifiable folder that’s exactly the way it was before – with all the sharing settings intact.