TIAA-Forum HOME
Hot Topics

Google Workspace for Alcoholics Anonymous Service Groups

Many of our service organizations have begun utilizing or considering Google Workspace under its free non-profit license for eligible entities. The Google Workspace suite, when strategically implemented, can enhance our support for service organizations and those in recovery.  The following is an overview of Google Workspace for Alcoholics Anonymous Service Groups.

The Google Workspace applications included in the non-profit license include:

  • Gmail: Secure, ad-free email with a custom domain for communication.
  • Calendar: Organize meetings, events, and deadlines to keep everyone aligned.
  • Docs, Sheets, and Slides: Collaboratively create and edit documents, spreadsheets, and presentations in real time.
  • Meet: Video conferencing for meetings, training, and webinars.
  • Forms: Simple data collection and surveys for feedback or event registrations.
  • Keep: note-taking service to quickly capture ideas, create checklists, and set reminders.
  • Chat: Instant messaging for quick team communications and project discussions.
  • Sites: Create a user-friendly website for sharing information without coding.
  • Drive: Cloud storage for centralized secured storage, easy file access, and sharing.
  • Admin: Centralized management of Google Workspace (for workspace Admins only)

Together, these applications can allow us to maximize our support of service work through streamlined operations and enhanced collaboration without undue financial burden. The widespread use of Google, especially Gmail, means many of our members are already familiar with Google applications. Google also provides extensive user documentation for the workspace applications.

The implementation and maintenance of Google Workspace may pose certain challenges. Thoughtful planning during the design and implementation phase can reduce and simplify ongoing maintenance. This task can be challenging due to the varied technical expertise of our volunteer IT admins. Google’s Workspace Admin Help Center has information on starting a Google Workspace, and the Google Workspace community forum can be helpful with administration and configuration.

More importantly, the TIAA forum is a central platform for acquiring knowledge, guidance, and the opportunity to exchange ideas, experiences, and insights with other recovery-based Google Workspace administrators.

This is especially important within the context of recovery environments, where the traditions of our program distinctively shape our needs. For our forum members, here are links to some conversations in the forum:

Back to Hot Topics

Instructions for Completing this Form

Name:

The name you use here is not verified and only used to control for spam and bot submissions. It will not be tied to your account. You can create and edit a profile disclosing the account name and information you wish to expose to the community (not publicly visible outside the forum) when and after you join.

Email:

Email where the invitation to join will be sent. This will also become a secondary way of logging in or recovering your password. We recommend a personal email address (e.g. your_name@example.com) instead of a “positional” email address (e.g. webmaster@your_intergroup.org) unless you intend for you membership to rotate with the person holding the position in the future. This email address can be changed after you join if you wish to change it by editing your profile information.

Affirmation:

By the group conscience of the members, this forum is only open to members of AA and those non-members of AA supporting AA services (e.g. Intergroup offices, AA service structure, etc.).

Topic interests:

If you are interested in conversations in more than one  technical topic area (e.g. web sites, answering services, virtual meetings, etc.) or have a general curiosity about AA discussions in general (e.g. topics above and beyond technology like committees and group dynamics), you would probably want to select the default “General” option.

If your primary interest is in Archives only, you probably want to select the “Archives” option. Note that with either option, you will still have access to all topics on the forum but with the “Archives” option, your “home screen” will automatically place you in the “Archives” category where most of those conversations happen.