Getting started with Google Workspace

This article will give a short guide on what you need to do to configure your web hosting account to use Google Workspace (previously Google Apps).

Contents:

• What is Google Workspace? Is it free?
• Configuring Service Web URLs
  
• Configuring GMail MX Records
  

What is Google Workspace? Is it free?

Google Workspace is a service provided by Google that offers consumers and businesses a powerful suite of e-mail and collaboration tools. New Google Workspace services start at $6/month with a 14-day free trial available.

This article will guide you through configuring your web hosting account to integrate with some of the Google Workspace services. We will only be covering the Google Workspace services where some form of configuration within your web hosting account may be necessary.

Configuring Service Web URLs

These steps can be followed to configure any Google Workspace service URL. To configure a Web URL (for example calendar.yourdomain.com to access your Google Calendar), you will need to complete the following steps:

• Login to the Google Admin console (https://admin.google.com/)
• Navigate to Menu > Account > Account Settings > Custom URLs.
  
• Select your domain (if necessary) to manage from your list of domains.
• Under the service URLs, enter your desired prefix (for example: calendar would be the prefix if you want to use calendar.yourdomain.com for Google Calendar)
• Click Save.
• Next, login to your web hosting account cPanel and then navigate to Zone Editor and click the CNAME Record link.
  
  
• On the form pop up:
  
• Input the Name of your record, in this example we used "calendar" for the address prefix.
• Input the CNAME of your record which should be: "ghs.googlehosted.com".
  
• Click Add A CNAME Record
• Setup is complete. Note some time may be required for DNS propagation.

Configuring GMail MX Records

To configure your MX records so GMail can work with your domain name, you will need to complete the following steps:

• First we will need to remove any existing MX entries for your domain and then add new MX entries pointing to Google services.
• Login to your web hosting account cPanel and then navigate to Zone Editor and click the Manage link next to your domain name.
  
• Near the top, select the "MX" filter so only MX entries are displayed.
  
• Delete any MX entries already configured. These will be replaced with the Google MX entries in the next step.
• For each of the Google MX entries in the table below, use the "Add MX Record" option from the top right of the interface to add each entry to your domain name. An example is provided below for the first entry - note a record needs to be added for each of the Google MX entries in the table below. The TTL value will be inherited from the zone's default TTL and can be left as-is in each new entry.
  
  

  Name/Host/Alias	Record Type	Priority	Value/Answer/Destination
  domain.com.	MX	1	ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM
  domain.com.	MX	5	ALT1.ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM
  domain.com.	MX	5	ALT2.ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM
  domain.com.	MX	10	ALT3.ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM
  domain.com.	MX	10	ALT4.ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM

  
  
  Click Add "MX" Record to begin adding each new MX entry.
  
  
  Click Save Record to save each new MX entry.
  
  
• Once all MX entries are added, the DNS setup for mail service is complete. You may also want to add DKIM, SPF, and DMARC entries which Google provides additional information on in their support article here: https://support.google.com/a/answer/10583557

Have any questions?

If you have any questions or need assistance, please contact Geek Support.