Based on materials from Google Blog
Over the past year, an important challenge has been to double the focus on Hangouts – delivering on the promise of building teamwork tools anywhere, anytime. More than half of all people will work remotely by 2020, so businesses need specially designed tools for employees to be able to do this successfully. In their feedback, users noted that they value seamless video and great collaboration, so Hangouts is focused on two tools to help teams get things done efficiently. These are Hangouts Meet and Hangouts Chat.
One-click video conferencing: Hangouts Meet
Hangouts Meet is a new video conferencing experience with a specific goal: to make the experience effortless, so people are as productive as when they see each other face to face. User feedback is important to see how Hangouts can be improved. For example, making it easier to work with third-party clients or being able to minimize the preparations for the start of a meeting. Therefore, Hangouts Meet is distinguished by its simple, fast interface and smart conference participation management.
Meet is easy to organize video conferences with up to 30 participants. You can simply start the meeting by sharing a link – no accounts, plugins, downloads, and no fuss. Meet invites everyone to join using a Calendar, an email invitation, or a special promotion. It doesn't matter how you connect – from a conference room, from a laptop or using a mobile app – it can be done with just a few clicks.
For example, Braintree, a PayPal service, has been using Hangouts Meet for the past three months to connect with employees in different meeting rooms, break rooms, and offices. “Based on initial experience, Hangouts Meet is one of the most hassle-free video conferencing systems I've ever encountered,” said Jerome Knapp, System Administration Manager at Braintree. – Just a click is required to start a meeting, share a document from the network, an invitation from a calendar or an application. It is the antidote to video conferencing fatigue that has prevented my users and employees from taking full advantage of other systems. '
With Meet's own full-screen presentations, it's easy to showcase your team's projects. And because Meet integrates directly with G Suite, the information you need for each meeting is automatically pulled from Calendar. For G Suite Enterprise users, each meeting has a separate dial-in phone number, so participants on the road can stay connected and productive from Wi-Fi or data issues.
Projects Bringing People Together: Hangouts Chat
Hangouts Chat is a smart communication app for teams that takes Hangouts direct messaging as a foundation and evolves in the direction of how modern teams think about business.
Working on a project means joint activities of teams with different tasks, discussion of tasks, which implies the ability to share results. It was with the expectation of this that Chat was created.
Dedicated virtual spaces create a long-term space for each project, keeping all the discussion alive, so it's easy to keep track of project progress. The deep integration of Chat with G Suite means the ability to share content from Google Drive and Docs, photos and videos can be viewed right in the conversation. And the convenient, filter-adjustable Chat search makes it easy to find any content, from the beginning of a project to the present.
But Chat isn't just built for teamwork, it provides a platform to provide users with tools. The Hangouts Chat platform supports a wide range of capabilities – from bots to simple scripts using Google App Script – and integrates with third-party applications so you can do more in your team work without leaving the conversation. Companies we have worked with to create the platform include Asana, Box, Prosperworks, and Zendesk. And to make your workflow even easier, Chat has @meet, a smart bot built on top of the Hangouts platform that uses natural language processing and machine learning to automatically schedule meetings for your team using Hangouts Meet and Google Calendar.
Hangouts Meet is available now and will roll out gradually to all G Suite users over the next few weeks. G Suite users can try Hangouts Chat with the Early Adopter Program.