As a Google Workspace administrator, you’re responsible for maintaining a secure, scalable, and efficient environment for your organization. In 2026, this role is more strategic than ever. With AI-driven operational insights, automated workflows, and rapidly evolving security threats, admins are expected to deliver seamless user experiences while also strengthening governance, reducing manual workload, and enabling higher productivity across the company.
To meet these expectations, having the right tools is essential.
In this guide, we highlight the must-have Google Workspace admin tools, from core Google capabilities to advanced automation platforms that help you manage identities, workflows, analytics, and cloud infrastructure at scale.
Table of Contents
Our list curation methodology
The methodology behind our list is rooted in comprehensive research and real-world feedback. We reached out to a wide array of users across various industries, from small startups to large enterprises, to understand which tools they found indispensable in their daily operations.
By analyzing the frequency of mentions and the context in which these tools were praised (mentioned by a certain percentage of users), we were able to identify not only the most popular tools but also those that are truly impactful in improving productivity and management efficiency. Additionally, we consulted with industry experts, including Aravinthan Srinivasan, co-founder and CIO at Zenphi, who has over a decade of experience implementing and managing Google Workspace products; and Ryan Duguid, ex VP of technology at Nintex. Both experts provided valuable insights into the effectiveness of each tool and helped validate our findings against industry standards and best practices.
The top basic tools for managing Google Workspace
1. Google Workspace Admin Console
The Admin Console remains the central hub for all Workspace configurations—user provisioning, device management, security controls, domain configurations, billing, and more.
Google continues to add AI-enhanced insights such as automated alerts, recommended security improvements, and anomaly detection to help admins respond proactively.
Learn more: Google Admin Console
CASE STUDY
What Tools Are Being Used By Google Workspace Admins At Google?
Download the Case study to learn more about tools and automations used by the Google Cloud's team when it comes down to performing Google admin tasks.
2. Google Vault
Google Vault is an e-discovery and archiving tool that allows Google Workspace admins to manage and secure their organization’s data. With Google Vault, you can set retention policies, place legal holds on data, conduct e-discovery searches, and generate reports. Google Vault also provides detailed audit logs of all activity in your organization’s Google Workspace account, allowing you to track changes, monitor user activity, and ensure that your organization’s data is being used appropriately. Google Vault integrates with other Google Workspace tools, such as Gmail, Google Drive, and Google Meet to search and manage data from these services within the Vault interface. Overall, Google Vault can be a valuable tool for Google Workspace admins looking to manage and secure their organization’s data.
Learn more: Google Vault
3. Google Cloud Secret Manager
Google Cloud Secret Manager is one of the most useful Google admin tools. It is a secure and centralized solution for storing and managing sensitive information such as API keys, passwords, and certificates in the cloud. It provides encryption at rest and in transit, fine-grained access control policies, and automatic tracking of changes to your secrets. Additionally, Google Cloud Secret Manager integrates with other Google Cloud services like Google Kubernetes Engine and Google Cloud Functions, making it easy to securely manage secrets for your applications and services.
Learn more: Google Secret Manager
The #1 Google Workspace workflow automation platform
We’ve already helped hundreds of companies to enhance Google Workspace user lifecycle management, user access controls and device management. Book a call to learn the best practices from your peers and listen to their honest experience with Zenphi.
4. Google Cloud Shell
A secure, centralized service for storing API keys, credentials, and other sensitive information.
Features include:
- Preconfigured CLI tools
- Integrated code editor
- Secure, ephemeral virtual machines
- Access from any browser
Cloud Shell is ideal for administrators managing multiple projects or performing advanced configurations.
Learn more: Google Cloud Shell
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The top tools for managing Google Workspace as a pro
5. Serverless Computing with Google
Google’s serverless stack—including Cloud Functions, Cloud Run, Firebase, and App Engine—lets admins build automation, event-driven workflows, and internal tools without managing servers.
Key use cases:
- Automated cleanup scripts
- User provisioning extensions
- Custom integrations
- Lightweight internal apps
AI models deployed via Vertex AI can now be plugged into serverless workflows, enhancing capabilities like classification, routing, and compliance checks.
Learn more: Serverless
6. Google Cloud Identity Secure LDAP
Secure LDAP enables Workspace identities to authenticate into traditional LDAP-based applications and on-prem systems, ensuring consistency across hybrid environments.
Key benefits:
- Centralized identity and access management
- Support for password policies and MFA
- Reduced risk of identity drift across systems
Learn more: Google Cloud Identity Secure LDAP
6. Google Cloud Identity Secure LDAP
Google Cloud’s Smart Analytics platform transforms Workspace data into actionable insights.
With BigQuery, Looker, and Vertex AI, organizations can:
- Analyze Workspace adoption and usage patterns
- Identify security risks or anomalous behavior
- Improve decision-making with predictive models
- Automate reporting and data-driven workflows
This toolset powers a transition toward an intelligence-driven Workspace management strategy.
Learn more: Google Smart Analytics
The top tools for managing Google Workspace more efficiently
8. Zenphi
Zenphi is the leading AI-powered automation platform built specifically for Google Workspace and Google Admin environments, offering the most extensive set of workflow triggers available in the ecosystem. Unlike generic automation tools, Zenphi is architected around Google’s services, enabling deep, event-driven automation across IT, HR, finance, and operations.
Zenphi provides the widest range of automated triggers, allowing workflows to run from:
- Directory events (user creation, suspension, OU changes, license changes)
- Google Workspace audit events (Drive, Admin, Gmail, Groups, Login activity)
- Google Groups updates (membership changes, role updates)
- Email arrival in Gmail
- Google Tasks assigned or updated
- Form submissions (Zenphi Forms or Google Forms)
- Schedule-based triggers, webhooks, APIs, and more
- Manual triggers and more
This enables administrators to automate processes the moment something happens—without polling, without delays, and without relying on custom scripts.
Being a great Apps Script alternative, Zenphi delivers the flexibility of Apps Script without the need to write code. However, when coding is required, Zenphi allows you to run your existing Apps Script or custom functions directly inside the platform, giving technical teams complete freedom while enabling non-technical teams to build automation on their own.
Zenphi’s AI capabilities further accelerate development and governance. Admins can:
- Use AI to auto-generate regex , data extraction rules, and transformation patterns
- Use AI to auto-generate regex , data extraction rules, and transformation patterns
- Auto-document flows, summarize workflows, or refactor logic using AI assistance
From user lifecycle management and access reviews to device management, Shared Drive governance, Vault automations, onboarding/offboarding, and incident workflows, Zenphi offers a secure, enterprise-grade environment for end-to-end Google Workspace automation.
It also allows Google Admins to enforce internal policies without being forced into email back-and-force, writing endless reminders and getting alerts fatigue.
CASE STUDY
How Google Workspace Admins Achieved 100% Policy Compliance At A 30K Students School
Read the full case study to learn how Google Workspace admins achieved 100% policy compliance without endless reminders and emails back-and-forth
9. Google Cloud Directory Sync
Google Cloud Directory Sync (GCDS) is a tool that allows Google Workspace admins to synchronize user and group data between an on-premises directory service and Google Workspace. GCDS provides centralized management, automatic synchronization and customization. Using GCDS can help streamline workflows, reduce manual data entry, and ensure that cloud applications have up-to-date and accurate user and group data.
Learn more: GCDS
10. AppSheet
AppSheet is a no-code application development platform that allows users to automate multiple processes within an organization using Google Sheets as a core database. AppSheet allows to automate most of operational flows without the extensive programming knowledge.
System administrators and Google workspace users admire AppSheet for its flexibility. However, there are several aspects that might complicate your usage of AppSheet as a core automation platform. For example, it’s not the best for collaboration and version history tracking. If these aspects are important for you, try Zenphi — it allows you to automate 99.9% of your IT operations, increase productivity and cut Google Workspace associated costs without using App Script.
How To Efficienctly Manage Google Workspace In 2026
Managing Google Workspace in 2026 extends far beyond simple account administration. With AI-powered insights, serverless extensibility, automated workflows, and advanced data analytics, admins have powerful tools to improve security, streamline operations, and elevate user experience.
Whether you’re leveraging Google’s native capabilities or adopting automation platforms like Zenphi, the right toolset enables you to operate more efficiently, reduce risk, and scale confidently.
