Integration · Google Workspace

Gmail, Calendar and Drive, working with your system.

Emails filed against the right client, bookings that appear in the right diary, documents saved to the right Drive folder, and staff who sign in with the Google account they already have.

Get a quote What it can do

If your business runs on Google Workspace, much of your working life already sits in Gmail, Google Calendar, Drive and Sheets. They have public APIs, which means a custom system can read and write to them instead of asking staff to copy between tabs.

The goal is not to replace them. Staff keep their inbox and diary. The system watches for the relevant mail and calendar events, files them against the client, and writes back what it creates: a booking becomes a calendar event, a signed quote becomes a PDF in the client’s Drive folder. It is the bridge in a custom CRM for anyone who lives in Gmail.

What you can automate

Google Workspace, wired into your system.

Email filed against the client

Mail to and from a client appears on their record, so the next person who picks up the account sees the whole conversation. You choose which mailboxes and labels are included.

Sending from the system

Quotes, invoices and reminders are sent from your own domain, using templates, and the sent copy lands on the client’s record. Proper domain authentication (SPF, DKIM and DMARC) is set up so they reach inboxes.

Bookings in Google Calendar

A booking made in the system appears in the right person’s calendar, and a change in either place is reflected in the other. It is the usual companion to a booking system.

Documents in Drive

Contracts, photos and signed quotes are saved to a folder per client or job, and uploads from a form go straight to a folder you can open. Nobody renames files at the end of the day.

Sheets as an input or an export

Import an existing spreadsheet of stock or clients once, or keep a live Sheet that the finance person can filter. Sheets are handy as a bridge, but I wouldn’t run the business on one.

Sign in with Google

Staff and customers sign in with a Google account, so there are fewer passwords to reset and a leaver’s access ends when their Google account does.

How it’s built

Connected, then watched.

01
Decide what is connected
Which mailboxes, calendars and folders, and which staff can see what. Connecting a whole mailbox is a bigger decision than connecting one shared inbox, and I would rather you made it deliberately.
02
Authorise through Google
Staff or your Workspace administrator grant access using Google’s own consent screens, with the narrowest permissions that work. Google treats full mailbox access as a restricted permission, and apps that use restricted permissions can need extra review and a security assessment. I tell you before the build whether your setup triggers that.
03
Keep it in step
Gmail and Calendar can notify an endpoint when something changes, but those notifications expire if they aren’t renewed (Gmail’s must be renewed regularly, and Calendar’s channels must be replaced before they lapse) and can occasionally be delayed or dropped. The system renews them on a schedule and runs a catch-up sync as a safety net.
04
Monitor it
Expired authorisations, failed syncs and a calendar that has stopped updating raise an alert. A leaver, or a changed password, shouldn’t silently stop the mail sync for a week.

Worth knowing

Google’s API quotas and permission rules are Google’s, and they change. The build is designed to be patient with them, and the first version of a mail sync often starts with one shared mailbox before widening.
Syncing a mailbox puts a copy of mail into your system. That is personal data, so the retention and access rules need to be agreed, and the system should not be the only copy of anything important.
Workspace is licensed per user by Google. That bill is between you and Google, and it exists whether or not you build anything. If your team uses Outlook instead, see the Microsoft 365 page.

Proof

Built before, running now.

Storage & logistics · Live · in daily useStorex

Gmail, Google Calendar and Google Drive connected to the system the whole business runs on, with Google sign-in and a logistics calendar synced to Google Calendar.

Read the case study Education · LiveMCMA

Schedule sync with Google Calendar, applicant uploads straight to Google Drive, and Google sign-in for a music academy’s portals.

Read the case study

FAQ

Questions, answered.

Can emails sync into the CRM without staff doing anything?

Yes, for the mailboxes you choose. Mail is matched to a contact by address and filed on their record. Anything that can’t be matched goes to a short review list instead of being guessed.

Will it work with Google Calendar and Outlook calendars?

Google Calendar is straightforward. Outlook is a separate connection with its own rules; see the Microsoft 365 page. Mixed teams are possible but cost more.

Can customers sign in with Google?

Yes. It saves them a password, and the system still holds its own record of who they are and what they can see. Some customers prefer email and password, so I usually offer both.

How long does it take to build?

The quote builder puts Gmail or Outlook at roughly 20 to 40 build hours and Google Calendar at 10 to 20, on top of the 30 to 50 hours of shared groundwork. The range depends on how many mailboxes and how clean the matching needs to be.

Is this better than a Zapier link?

For one-way jobs, such as a form creating a calendar event, a no-code tool is fine. For two-way sync, shared inboxes and anything that must not fail quietly, see custom integrations versus Zapier.

Go deeper

Get a fixed quote.

The quote builder opens with Google Workspace already selected. Add the rest of your system and I reply with a fixed quote.

Start the quote builder Or talk to me first