Using Google Products and Apps with Insightly CRM

Best Practices | Business & tech

by   Val Riley

Google Workspace vs. Microsoft Office 365. It’s the battle royale of the business world and there is no clear, dominant winner. 

Globally, it’s nearly a tie.  According to NinjaOne, “Google Workspace tends to be more popular among businesses, holding 50% of the market compared to Microsoft 365’s 45% market share.”

If you are using Insightly, you don’t need to worry either way. Read on for the many ways your Google products play nicely with Insightly. In fact, Insightly was born in the Google Marketplace and has since added significant functionality to become a full featured platform serving sales (Insightly CRM), marketing (Insightly Marketing) and customer success (Insightly Service) teams, along with an integration building tool (AppConnect) to make your entire tech stack function better. 

Microsoft fans, do not fret! You can find out about all the ways Insightly CRM works with Microsoft products and apps in a similar article. 

What Google integrations are available in Insightly?

There are several ways you can sync Google features to Insightly. These integrations are available for all users, though some require a paid Insightly plan. (Psst – get the details on the Insightly Free Plan.) Read on for ways to get more from Insightly plus Google apps like Gmail, Google Calendar, Google contacts, and Google Workspace SSO (single sign on).

Insightly Email Sidebar for Gmail 

With the Insightly Gmail Sidebar for Chrome Browsers you can build stronger relationships right from your inbox. Insightly knows that sales reps spend a ton of time in their email inboxes as well as in Insightly CRM. With this sidebar, you don’t have to choose. You get the convenience of both at the same time so the CRM stays up to date. 

To access the sidebar, search for it in the Google Workspace Marketplace and then download/install it. (Note: Be sure to sign into the Gmail account you use for Insightly.) Next time you load Gmail,  you’ll see the Insightly Gmail sidebar on the right of your screen.

With the sidebar, you view customer information and save emails to Insightly CRM right from your Gmail inbox. Select your recipients from Insightly, use a template, and even schedule an email to send later. You’re doing this all from Gmail, so it’s super convenient. The email you send appears as a sent item in both Gmail and in Insightly CRM. 

If you’re in Gmail and you’d like to send a message to someone who is not yet in Insightly CRM, no worries. You can use the sidebar to create the contact in Insightly and then go ahead and send that person a message. 

Ready to start using it? Great! You can install the sidebar. This feature is available with all Insightly plans.

Learn more in this video:

Google Calendar Sync   

Maintaining multiple calendars is a sales rep’s worst nightmare. The odds of missing a super important meeting go up exponentially when you don’t have your business in one place. Your Insightly calendar is just as important as your Google calendar, but the good news is that you don’t have to choose.

Set up a two-way sync of your Insightly CRM calendar with your Gmail calendar and you’re all set. Once you’ve established this two-way sync, Insightly will display your Google calendar items on your Insightly calendar and copy Insightly items from the last two months and into the future to your Google calendar. 

What about milestones and tasks? No worries – you can also choose to sync Insightly milestones and tasks if that additional data is helpful for your daily operations. When you enable either of these options, Insightly will add two new calendars to your external calendar called Insightly-Tasks and Insightly-Milestones. Heads up: this feature is only available on paid Insightly plans. Learn more. 

Insightly Calendar Feed 

If you’re on the Insightly Free Plan, you still have options! You can display your Insightly calendar in your Google Calendar via a link. The link can be found at the bottom of your Insightly calendar page, and you can add it in Google Calendar under ….Other calendars > Add by URL.

Save Files in Insightly CRM to Google Drive 

You’ve likely got a lot of data – docs, spreadsheets and more – saved on Google Drive. Saving to the cloud is a much better option than saving to a local drive. Local drives can get damaged, lost, or even corrupted, leaving users in a tough spot. 

So it just makes sense that Google Drive users can link to files in Google Drive directly from Insightly. 

Files stored in Google Drive — including Google Docs and Google Sheets — can be linked directly to your Insightly records from the Files section on the Related subtab.

This section is available in contacts, organizations, opportunities, and projects. The first time you click the Google Drive icon, you will be prompted to log in to Google. Click Allow to grant Insightly permission to access your Google Drive. (Heads up: make sure you select the account associated with your Insightly login.)

Learn more in this Help Center Article. 

Sync your Google Contacts with Insightly CRM

You’ve likely got a lot of contacts in your CRM and you may also want to access them in your Google Contacts. No worries! Insightly syncs them for you. You can utilize a one-way sync from Insightly to Google in which you can sync all of your Insightly contacts to your Google Contacts list. Your contacts will appear in a group called “Insightly-Contacts” in Google Contacts. They can optionally be added to your “My Contacts” group, too. Anytime you make changes to these contacts in Insightly, those updates will be reflected in Google. Heads up: This feature is only available on paid Insightly plans.

SSO for Insightly CRM with Google Workspace

Make it easy to log in to Insightly for your whole team when you enable single sign on (SSO). Your Google Workspace Super Amin can access the External Directory Sharing toggle and enable it to allow for single sign on with Google. 

The sharing toggle must be enabled to allow public data and authenticated users basic profile fields to ensure that Insightly’s API will have access to the Super Admin’s profile. Then, all users can log in to Insightly directly from the Google Workspace app grid. Please note that all users must have the Google Workspace for Insightly account type. Visit this help article to see if you have that account type. 

Get to work fast with Insightly CRM and Google applications

Insightly and Google make up a winning combination for workplace efficiency. This article covered ways to get more from using both, including opportunities in Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Drive, Google Contacts, and enabling single sign on with Google Workspace.

Want to get a closer look at any of these features? Schedule a personalized demo with a member of the Insightly team today.

 

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