Gmail and Google Workspace Training
In-Class Training Sessions
Computing and Communications Services is pleased to offer Google Workspace hands-on training sessions open to all employees and graduate students. Google Workspace have been widely adopted across the university for the many ways they facilitate modern work culture and communication.
These interactive training sessions provide participants with the opportunity for hands-on learning, leading to improved efficiency and productivity for both individuals and teams.
Google Drive offers storage space to everyone at TMU to store files online and access them from anywhere, on any device with an internet connection. Google Drive also gives you access to web-based applications for creating documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and more.
This 2 hour Introduction to Google Drive training course includes some demonstrations and hands-on activities to get you started with the following in Google Drive, and Google Docs:
- Uploading and storing files
- Collaboration with Google Docs
- Sharing & Permission settings for files and folders
- Organization and best practices (My Drive vs. Shared With Me)
- Seeing revision history, and all activity on files and folders
- Searching for Files
- Using Microsoft Office files with Google Drive
- Team Drives vs. using Google Drive folders
- Tips for departments and teams using Google Drive for file storage and sharing, and the available offerings at TMU to transition
Gmail and Google Calendar is available to all TMU students, faculty and staff, providing a complete web-based productivity solution including email, calendar, contacts, document editing, file storage, and more. It offers storage for your email and files, and the ability to access all your content from any device with an internet connection.
Since TMU offered Google Workspace for Education in 2012, more and more users and departments are fully utilizing the features Google Workspace has to offer.
This 2 hour Introduction to Gmail and Google Calendar training course focuses heavily on Gmail and Google Calendar, and provides a brief introduction to other Google Workspace applications.
- Sign in to your Google Workspace account
- Google Workspace common interface, accessing apps and account settings
- Overview of Gmail interface
- Compose and send email in Gmail
- Use labels and understand Conversation View in Gmail
- New Gmail features like Snooze, Nudges, and Hover Actions
- Perform advanced search in Gmail
- App integrations: Hangouts, Calendar, Keep, Tasks
- Access Gmail settings
- Create and organize contacts and contact groups
- Overview of Google Calendar interface
- Create calendar events, check free/busy status, and book resources
- Subscribe to a coworker’s calendar
- Access Google Calendar settings
- Introduction to other apps of interest (Drive, Groups, “Even more from Google”)
Google Sheets is available to all TMU students, faculty and staff. It provides a web-based interface for creating, modifying, and sharing spreadsheets. In addition to the core spreadsheet functionality, it offers unparalleled web-based collaboration features making it easier than ever to work as a team. Due to integration with Google Drive, your Google Sheets are always available on any internet-connected device.
This 2 hour training course will demonstrate the key features of Google Sheets, including:
- An overview of Google Sheets and how its features differentiate it from Microsoft Excel
- Converting between the Google Sheets format and Microsoft Excel
- Overview of the interface and basic features necessary to create your own spreadsheets
- Collaboration features:
- Sharing
- Comments
- Version history
- Notification rules
- Protected sheets & ranges
- Importing data from other Google Sheets in real-time
- Basic use of functions and formulas
- Named ranges
- Filtering
- Data validation
- Pivot Tables
- Charts
Prerequisites: This course does not cover some core spreadsheet functionality in depth, such as functions and formulas. Instead, the focus is on features that make Google Sheets unique. For those already familiar with the collaborative features of Google sheets, or those looking to learn more core spreadsheet functionality like functions and formulas, “Google Sheets Functions & Formulas” is the recommended intro course.
Google Sheets provides a web-based interface for creating, modifying, and sharing spreadsheets. In addition to the core spreadsheet functionality, it offers unparalleled web-based collaboration features making it easier than ever to work as a team. Due to integration with Google Drive, your Google Sheets are always available on any internet-connected device.
This 2 hour training course focuses specifically on the core spreadsheet functionality of Google Sheets, perfect for beginners that don’t have past spreadsheet experience:
- Advanced Sheets functions including:
- Text formulas (Left, Right, Mid, Concatenate)
- Statistical formula Rank
- Lookup formulas (VLookup, Match, Index, Offset)
- Logical formulas (If, IfError, And, Or)
- Financial formulas (FV, PMT) for future value & loan payment
- Advanced formulas using nested functions
- Advanced filtering
- Data Validation
- Pivot Tables
- Converting Excel to Google Sheets format
- Convert Google Sheets to other formats
Prerequisites: None. This course is not intended for users that are already familiar with core spreadsheet functionality like functions and formulas. If you already have extensive experience with spreadsheets (e.g. Excel), “Working with Google Sheets” is the recommended course that focuses on the special features that differentiate Google Sheets from Excel.
Google Docs is available to all TMU students, faculty and staff. It provides a web-based interface for creating, modifying, and sharing documents. In addition to the core document production functionality, it offers unparalleled web-based collaboration features making it easier than ever to work as a team. Due to integration with Google Drive, your Google Docs are always available on any internet-connected device.
This 2 hour Google Docs for Advanced Users training course will demonstrate several advanced Google Docs features and functionality.
- Creating documents with newspaper style columns
- Working with styles
- Paint format
- Creating a table of contents
- Document outlines
- Caption photos using single cell tables
- Adding footnotes
- Creating hyperlinks
- Voice typing
- Translate document
- Collaboration features including:
- Sharing
- Working concurrently with multiple users
- Revision history
- Comments
- Suggesting mode
- Converting Word to Google Docs format
- Convert Google Docs to other formats
Google Forms is available to all TMU students, faculty and staff. It provides a web-based interface for creating, modifying, sharing, and publishing forms, offering many flexible options to collect data from your audience. In addition to the core form functionality, it offers unparalleled web-based collaboration features making it easier than ever to work as a team. Due to integration with Google Drive, your Google Forms are always available on any internet-connected device.
This 2 hour Google Forms training course will demonstrate the power of Google Forms and enable you to create effective forms for surveys, quizzes, and other data collection needs.
- Create and design a Google Form with colours and themes
- Types of questions
- Add questions and sections
- Insert images and videos
- Using general settings to collect emails, set sign-in requirements and permissions
- Using presentation settings to show progress, shuffle, and customize confirmation message
- Using Quizz settings to automatically grade answers
- Sending or embedding the form and using pre-filled links
- Viewing responses and setting notifications for responses
- Create a Google Sheet to hold responses
- Collaboration features including:
- Adding collaborators
- Working concurrently with multiple users
Google Slides is available to all TMU students, faculty and staff. It provides a web-based interface for creating, modifying, and sharing visual presentations. In addition to the core presentation functionality, it offers unparalleled web-based collaboration features making it easier than ever to work as a team. Due to integration with Google Drive, your Google Slides are always available on any internet-connected device.
This 2 hour Google Slides training course will demonstrate the power of Google Slides and enable you to create compelling and effective presentations.
- Create a Google Slides presentation including many different slide layouts
- Insert images, videos, and draw shapes
- Insert charts directly and from Google Sheets
- Editing the master slide and layouts to make changes across the whole presentation
- Using Themes
- Import slides from another presentation
- Using transitions
- Using animations
- Creating hyperlinks to other documents and websites
- Presenting with Google Slides
- Cast your presentation to a Hangout or Google Cast device
- Publishing to the web, automatic transitions, and run continuously; using Google Slides as a Dashboard to display real-time data changes
- Collaboration features including:
- Sharing
- Working concurrently with multiple users
- Revision history
- Comments
- Converting PowerPoint presentations to Google Slides format
- Convert Google Slides to other formats
Visit the Learning Events Calendar Technology page to browse current offerings and register for a session.
Online Training through LinkedIn Learning
As of September 21, 2022, the current license will expire and access to LinkedIn Learning through TMU will end. There are currently no plans to renew the license at TMU.
More information ca be found at LinkedIn Learning at TMU page.
LinkedIn Learning (formerly Lynda.com) offers free, unlimited access to high quality, skills focused online learning available to all TMU students, faculty and staff. You can earn a LinkedIn Learning Certificate when you complete a course. Below is a curated list of Google Workspace apps training courses relevant to the apps available at TMU.
For login information and account set up, please see the Get Started page on LinkedIn Learning at Toronto Metropolitan University.
Please note not all features in the training videos are available using your TMU Gmail account (ie. confidential mode, Gmail offline). In addition, some features have updated names such as Google Labs is now referred to as Advanced in the Gmail Settings.
Customizable individual or team workshops
If you have specific training needs that are not covered by the Google Workspace training sessions, you can request a customized workshop for yourself or your team. Please contact the CCS Help Desk at help@torontomu.ca or 416-979-5000, ext. 556806 with the details of your request.