Classic Hangouts Shutdown Date July 15th

This is a friendly reminder that as of July 15th, the classic Hangouts chat will no longer be available. This is because the college is now using the brand new Google Chat for direct and group messaging!

The sunsetting of the classics Hangouts app is solely to reduce any confusion and make sure that we are using the most up to date applications to ensure quality, experience and reliability.


There is no action needed unless you are still using the classic Hangouts app for a group chat. All group chats created in classic Hangouts should be recreated in Google Chat. For more information on how to do so, please refer to this link. If you would like to know more about the switch to Google Chat and how to access your classic Hangouts group chat transcripts please check out our blog post.

Note that on July 15th you will no longer be able to use hangouts.google.com and the old mobile chat app will no longer work. You will only be able to view the old group chats in the Gmail chat label.

Hangouts Meet Update: New Adaptive Meeting Layouts Available

What’s changing 

Hangouts Meet is launching adaptive layouts that automatically adjust to give you the best view of the people and presentations in your meeting:

Spotlight 
The spotlight layout keeps the focus on the presentation or a single speaker. It’s used when you’re in a meeting with just one other participant, when you pin someone, and when there’s a presentation but no active speakers with video on.

Tiled 
The tiled layout shows up to four participants on the screen to make your meetings feel more inclusive. This will be the default for smaller meetings when there is no presentation.

Side by side 
The side by side layout shows up to three speakers in a larger format next to the presentation. This allows you to continue to see the presenter as they speak. This is the default when there’s a presentation and there are active speakers with video on.

Sidebar 
The sidebar layout improves on the existing Meet layout by showing several additional participants in the same vertical space and using rectangular feeds to avoid participants on the edge being cropped out. This will be the default for larger meetings when there is no presentation.

In addition to seeing these layouts automatically used depending on the meeting needs, users can select a preferred layout from the Change layout dialog.

Why you’d use it 

These new layouts provide the user with a more inclusive and collaborative view of the meeting, allowing for easier interaction with remote participants while still maintaining focus on the content being presented.

Additional details 

The new layouts are coming soon on Hangouts Meet web clients and Hangouts Meet hardware.

Helpful links 

To learn more about layouts in Hangout Meets, see our Help Center. 

To learn more information see: Google Hangouts.

To learn more about adding participants with dial in numbers see: Hangouts Meet meetings with dial-in phone numbers.

Partially reposted from: New adaptive meetings layouts in Hangouts Meet

Invite people to an ongoing Hangouts Meet meeting

Google is adding a new way to invite people to an ongoing meeting directly within Hangouts Meet. When you’re in a Meet meeting, you’ll now see an option to “Add people” at the top of the participant list.

Add people directly from the call

Clicking on this option will open a dialog box to send them an email invite to join as a full participant or call them into the meeting by phone.

To invite someone into your meeting, simply input their email address or lookup by name from the company directory.The invited participant will receive an email with instructions to join your meeting.

Enter the person's name, email address, or phone number

As always, inviting someone using their phone number will immediately call the phone number to to add them to the meeting. They will join as an audio only participant and will not see any video or the screenshare.

For more information on inviting people to Meet meetings, check out the Help Center.

Manhattan College has video conferencing set up with Google Hangouts Meet in the following rooms:
De La Salle Hall:    Room 209
Memorial Hall:       Charter Room

Please consult 25Live to book these rooms for your video conference.

Note you don't have to be in these rooms to hold or participate in a video meeting. You can initiate or participate in a video meeting  from your desktop/laptop/mobile device meet app.(Hangouts Meet.)



More Information:
Help Center: Invite people, Best Practices for Video Conferences, Google Hangouts

Partially reposted from:  Invite people to an ongoing Hangouts Meet meeting

Create a Hangouts Meet Meeting with a Dial-In Phone Number

Hangouts Meet has just added a new feature which allows you to connect to a meeting using a phone number as an alternative to the meeting code. This includes when you’re away from your computer, like if you're commuting or don't have a data connection, and you need to call into your Meetings while on the go.

This feature will automatically be selected when you select the Hangouts Meet conferencing option while creating a calendar event in Google Calendar. 

Note that this dial-in feature uses an international phone number, which allows meeting participants in other countries to join the meeting.

For more details review this KBA Hangouts Meet Meetings with Dial-in Phone Numbers

Partially reposted from the https://gsuiteupdates.googleblog.com/2018/04/g-suite-basic-and-business-customers-dial-into-Hangouts-Meet.html

Introducing the new Hangouts Meet.

It's easier than ever before to join a video meeting through Google Hangouts.  Not only do you have more options, but a simpler and cleaner interface.  Google Hangouts Meet is now the default video meeting option when creating a meeting in Google Calendar.  

With Google Hangouts Meet, you can hold impromptu video meetings on the go, virtual training classes around the world, remote interviews, and much more. If you have G Suite Enterprise you can host a Hangouts Meet video meeting for up to 30 people at a time, with no time limit. For G Suite Basic and Business, a video meeting may have up to 25 participants.

Get started with
Hangouts Meet

Reposted from Google Meet support:

https://support.google.com/meet/answer/7290445?hl=en

Google Hangouts temporarily won’t support phone and video calls on Mozilla Firefox

Last October, Mozilla Corporation announced that it would end support for browser plugins in its Firefox 52 release in order to ensure better browser performance, security and improved user experience. Because Google Hangouts in Firefox currently relies on browser plugins to enable video and audio calls, users of Hangouts will not be able to make audio or video calls in the upcoming Firefox 52 release. Google is actively working to develop a solution that will enable Hangouts to work in Firefox without a plugin. In the meantime, we recommend you take the following steps to minimize any future impact before the Firefox 52 release scheduled for March 7.

Recommended next steps
Using chat on Hangouts will continue to work for Firefox users; however, if you need to make phone or video calls from Hangouts, we encourage you and your employees to temporarily switch to one of the supported browsers below:

• Mozilla Firefox ESR: Download
• Google Chrome: Download
• Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE): Download
• Safari: Download

We will publish a follow-up announcement once we have a fix in place that will support Hangouts on Firefox again.

partially reposted from https://gsuiteupdates.googleblog.com/2017/02/google-hangouts-temporary-issues-with-firefox.html