Up until recently, Google has made use of Hangouts as its all-in-one application used for both video and text chats. However, in an attempt to streamline its G Suite, that will soon be changing. Hopes are that the changes implemented will be a help to the evolving needs of enterprising teams.
Two apps, which are new, will soon reach the consumer with a collaborating feature focus. Hangout Meets, which will have the primary focus of video meetings, and Hangouts Chat, which will focus on text chats as well as document sharing, but the classic Hangouts app will remain in place for its dedicated users.
Hangouts Chat will be geared primarily to give teams “rooms” in which to hold group conversations, share Drive docs and interact with other apps that will be connected to the service. It’s an important factor, as it allows the entire team to collaborate, meet and discuss ongoing projects using G Suite all within a Google Doc.
The people who will gain the most from the new Google Hangouts Chat feature are the ones that work in teams amongst the G Suite. They will gaining a hub of their own from which to work and share, and reduces the teams need to make use of other tools such as Slack or email.
March of 2017 saw the implementation of the Early Adopter Program, which gave G Suite customers the opportunity to apply the changes and try the program. At that time, any organization that was already using G Suite had access to the program.
Within Google Hangouts Chat, new items can be viewed from the bottom of the page, where all unread items can be reviewed. Even if you didn’t join the team when the conversations began, you still have the opportunity to go back and review all the information available to the room.
Conversations are also now keyword searchable and can be filtered according to file type or the person sending the note. As for notifications, you gain a great deal of control of that factor as well. If you like, you can choose to receive all notifications, so as not to miss anything important, or you can opt only to be notified when you are specifically mentioned. If you decide you no longer need access to a particular thread, you also have the option to mute the whole thing, much like you can do with a thread inside of Gmail.
