Google Vault Reviews

We use this solution for the storage and retention of emails and other data. We are a construction company and we store past emails as part of our security process. This is important because we don't always know what an employee is going to send. So, we keep everything backed up in the vault and it stays there for as long as we need it, to do any type of forensics work if needed.

Another use case that I was looking at is the storage of videos posted inside G Suite or Google Workspace. However, I have not yet started to work on that.

We had a rogue employee sending out emails. He was upset with the company and he was sending emails out with pricing. This may have been possible because he was allowed to have one of the devices by the owner, although we are not one hundred percent sure. In any case, he was still able to send out emails, and because of Vault, he wasn't able to remove them, or proof that he had sent them. This meant that we were able to catch sim sending them out and trying to sabotage our company.

He had been high up on the pole, so he had access to information. With his sending of emails, we were able to narrow it down to him and not someone else who was working there. It was a lot easier to do the forensics and track down to see what was going on, because of the Vault search feature.

The most valuable features are automatic document and email retention. If these are accidentally deleted then they are held in the vault.

The search feature is very helpful when you are trying to dive into the information. It's Google's search feature, so it's very good and I recommend using it.

The knowledge base is not as in-depth as it should be. The product offers a lot of functionality, but not a lot of people know about what it can do.

I have been using Google Vault personally for a few years. My company has been using it for six or seven months.

This product has been working consecutively for the entire time. There has never really been any downtime or outage or anything, except for the other week, when Gmail had an issue. That is something that affected all of Google.

This product is very scalable, for what it is intended to do. It is not used directly by the users because they don't understand it. However, the people that it's activated for range from the owner to the president, finance, HR, and the foreman. It is used pretty much across the board because of its retention policy.

We have about 100 users in total and we will increase our usage as the company grows. At this point, there are no users without an account, and as new people come on board, we add a new account with Vault.

I have not been in touch with Google support for this product. However, for other products, they have not been spectacular. When we needed assistance with Gmail or documents, they have been less than productive in their responses outside of just sending you a knowledge base.

Prior to Google Vault, we were on GoDaddy 365, which would have been Microsoft Outlook archive. They both operate the same for the intention that we have.

GoDaddy is a service that I am unhappy with, and they should never have had an Office 365 offering. It is terrible from an administrative standpoint.

To be clear, Office 365 is really good, but GoDaddy's implementation is not.

That said, Office 365 Archive is pretty much comparable to Google Vault. This is not the same as GoDaddy 365 Archive, as there are software limitations.

The initial configuration involved setting up all of the emails and because the people were aware of Vault, I set up the auto-retention. From that point, whenever a user email was set up, Vault was already activated for them to do the backup. Using Google PowerShell, I was able to automate part of that. Whenever a new user was made, it would go ahead and set everything else up.

The deployment took approximately three days for full, wide usage. 

Once it has been set up, it is good to go. There has not really been any maintenance outside of needed to do research or look into a specific email.

I deployed Vault for the company, as I was the only one with the knowledge.

Outside of risk mitigation and liability mitigation, there really isn't much that is a return on investment. However, those hold their own value, but it depends on the situation.

Google Vault comes as part of a package deal for us.

My advice is that if you have G Suite, then use Google Vault. It will certainly save you a headache. On the other handle, if you do not have the Google Suite then I would not recommend using it.

Early on, when I started using Google Vault, it taught me that it allows for risk mitigation and liability mitigation because you have exact copies of emails sent or documents that are sent out, and you have a paper trail that can be used if need be.

I would rate this solution a ten out of ten.

Our company mainly provides engineering support for customers using Google Vault. We are based in Mexico but also service other countries. Our work is all remote. We are vendors and I'm a software analyst engineer. 

I think the most valuable features are Gmail and Drive. The solution is also very helpful with Google Chat messages, because sometimes you might be missing some information and you can search for it in Google Vault, a very helpful feature for our customers. The solution enables you to indefinitely retain data. It's a great feature. As a technical engineer, I find the solution user friendly. 

eDiscovery could be improved. It's used for searching, holding, and exporting data for Vault and I believe it should be updated. They could maybe provide a little bit more information and an easier way to retain that information. I'd like to see something more friendly for our customers. As a technical engineer, I can understand some of the things that Google Vault shows, but if a customer doesn't have a technical background, it would be difficult for them to actually know what it does. 

The solution is stable although I think that when it comes to big companies, there are some issues because it's difficult to know the magnitude; how many exports, imports, or queries the customer wants to run. I'd say it's close to 90% stable. It requires monthly internal maintenance and a quarterly maintenance that Google updates. It notifies you when you need to implement updates. 

We haven't tried scaling the solution. We're dealing with 20 to 30 companies including Twitter, Spotify, Snapchat, and also Netflix. So those are the big companies that use it. Basically the people using it are the administrators of the control panel for Google. Those customers will be employers within the company.

Because I'm the first and second level of support, I contact our product team and let them know if there are any technical issues. They will try to solve the issue. I haven't had contact with Google Vault's technical support. 

The initial setup can be quite complex, depending on the customer's configuration in the cloud. Deployment usually takes around 24 hours. Sometimes there are delays and it takes longer, but usually about 24 hours. We ask in advance for documentation with regard to the customer's configuration so we can get an idea of what will be involved in the implementation. After that, we make some exceptions and maybe some reproduction steps from our end. At that point we try to run it into production mode.

I'm not sure how the licensing works for customers. I know that you can buy a Vault license that includes a business, education and enterprise for education. Normally those are the customers that we support. There is another area that's a Vault add on and that's for essentials only. And those would only have to be verified within the domain.

One of our recommendations to customers is to really take a look into the articles that Google provides publicly. They can also get access to videos that are really user friendly and helpful. I think right now Google Vault is well structured. It's important to read the requirements because even though the customers may think they have all the requirements, they have to really take a look that the version in their system is always updated. My most important advice is to save all your information, including what's been deleted because once it's gone, it's gone.

I would rate this solution a nine out of 10. 

The most valuable feature of Google Vault is its reliability.

The price of the solution could improve and the search could be easier.

I have been using Google Vault for approximately six months.

Google Vault is stable.

We have approximately 500 people using this solution.

I have not used the vendor's support.

The initial setup of Google Vault is easy.

The solution is expensive.

I rate Google Vault a ten out of ten.

I use Google Vault for data retention. For example, say I have my Google respite services and I want to retain data from Gmail, Google Drive, Google Chat — that's where Google Vault comes in. Whenever I want to back up or archive all the data that I have, I export it and save it in Google Vault. 

My company employs a lot of people and they all support Google Vault. Not just Google Vault, but all of the Google services — Google Vault is just one of our supporting products —   it's one of the services that we troubleshoot. 

Google Vault retains all deleted data from the previous four years. This function acts as backup security. This vital information can be made available to anyone who needs it. With Google Vault, we can improve our storage within the data that we no longer need. We can just delete everything on Google Vault on a specific number of days. No one will get this information in their inbox or their drive file. We can just simply remove it directly from Google Vault. It's much easier than removing it, user by user.

Google Vault acts as a great method for retrieving files from Google Drive and Gmail.

Searching could be improved. There's a lot of limitations when searching with Google Vault.

I have been serving customers with Google Vault, or Google Workspace rather, for the past three years.

Stability-wise, it's pretty good. I don't see any more room for improvement aside from the search tool. It's also very scalable, too.

I would give the technical support a rating of nine. Most of the technical support is very knowledgeable about this product and its services: how it works, how to work around issues, how to fix any problems you may encounter including how to manage tension, search and export. Their support is not just limited to Google Vault either. Most problems can be resolved within a few minutes or even with a simple email. 

I've used too many solutions to mention. 

The initial setup was pretty straightforward. On the first page of Google Vault, you're already in the retention rule. All you have to do is click on the left side of which one you want to obtain. After you have created the retention rule, then you can create your Vault. It's pretty straight forward when you're configuring Google Vault. 

An experienced person can configure Google Vault in roughly two to three minutes. That's all the time it takes to create a retention rule for your organization.

As I am a trained implementer, I do it the only way I know how. There's a lot of implementation support available on google.com — you can search for Google Vault, and they will tell you how to set it up for your organization. Personally, I just play around with the settings — there's an easy setup option there that you can find.

We work closely with a Google Vault engineer who takes care of all maintenance-related issues.

Whoever performs the maintenance should be familiar with retention and searching capabilities.

Before your organization starts using Google Vault Services, make sure that the person that will handle the retention and the solution is very knowledgeable about the product. You need to understand the settings — some are straightforward, others are not. The person who is in charge should be knowledgeable about Google Services as a whole, not just Google Vault. An organization needs retention rules because they apply to every organization. Someone with an IT background would make a good fit. 

Overall, on a scale from one to ten, I would give Google Vault a rating of ten.
It's a very useful solution for a large organization, but it's not very necessary for smaller organizations. If you have a business of 10 to 20 employees, then you definitely need Google Vault. That way, you can restore any lost or deleted information easily.