Tag Archives: Hangouts Meet

Host Hangouts Meet meetings with up to 250 participants

What’s changing

G Suite Enterprise domains can now host meetings with up to 250 participants. We are also increasing the participant limits for all other G Suite editions.

New maximum participant limits:

  • Enterprise: 250
  • Business: 150
  • Basic: 100


Who’s impacted

End users

Why you’d use it

Meeting with teammates, clients, or customers around the globe is critical to getting your job done. For those times when you need to meet with a larger group, Hangouts Meet now allows G Suite Enterprise users to organize meetings with up to 250 participants, G Suite Business users to host up to 150 participants, and G Suite Basic users to host up to 100 participants.

How to get started


  • Admins: No action required.
  • End users: No action required. These new participant limits will occur automatically for all Hangouts Meet meetings hosted by your domain.

Additional details

This new extended participant limit supports people joining from any mixture of video and dial-in entry points so you can can bring together even more people from all over the world.

If you need to host an even larger meeting, you can enable live streaming, allowing up to 100,000 viewers to watch at once.

Helpful links



Availability

Rollout details


G Suite editions

  • 250-person meetings available to G Suite Enterprise and G Suite Enterprise for Education editions only
  • 150-person meetings available to G Suite Business edition only
  • 100-person meetings available to G Suite Basic and G Suite for Education editions only

On/off by default?

  • This feature will be ON by default.


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Material Design for Hangouts Meet on the web

Quick launch summary

Meet will be getting a new look and feel on the web. While there are no functionality changes, users will notice some visual improvements, including:

  • Updated fonts that uses Google’s custom-designed and highly-legible typefaces
  • Controls (like buttons, dialogs, and sidebars) that are updated and consistent
  • Iconography and color changes that are more legible


Availability

Rollout details


G Suite editions

  • Available to all G Suite editions

On/off by default?

  • These changes will take place by default.

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Dial into a Hangouts Meet video call with an international phone number for G Suite Business and Basic

Quick launch summary

In October 2017, we announced the rollout of international Hangouts Meet dial-in phone numbers for G Suite Enterprise domains. We’re now extending this functionality to new meetings organized by G Suite Business, G Suite Enterprise for Education and G Suite Basic domains.

See the list of the supported dial-in countries in the Help Center. Please note, Cyprus (CY) and Turkey (TR) are not supported for G Suite Business, G Suite Enterprise for Education and G Suite Basic.

Availability

Rollout details


G Suite editions

  • Available to G Suite Basic and G Suite Business, G Suite Enterprise and, G Suite Enterprise for Education in supported languages.
  • Not available to G Suite for Education

On/off by default?
This feature will be ON by default.

Stay up to date with G Suite launches

Live captions in Hangouts Meet, now available on Android

What's changing

Support for live captions on Hangouts Meet was announced at Google Cloud Next ‘19 in San Francisco. We’re continuing to invest in this area with the addition of captions support on the Meet Android app.

Additionally, you can now more easily turn on live captions on web and in rooms with a button that’s one click away.

Who’s impacted

End users

Why you’d use it

Live captions help make your meetings more accessible by reducing barriers to holding meetings between users of different hearing abilities, regardless of whether they are participating remotely or in person.

How to get started


  • Admins: No action required.
  • End users:
    • On Android: Tap the closed captions button on the top right of the Meet app when you are in a meeting. (Note that this button is only shown here for English language users. It can be found in the triple-dot menu for all other languages.
    • On the web and on Chromebase for meetings touchscreen devices: Tap the captions button at the bottom right of your screen. (Note that this button is only shown here for English language users. It can be found in the triple-dot menu for all other languages.)
    • On devices with a Mimo touchscreen: Tap the captions option in the right-hand panel. (Note that this is only shown here for English language users. It can be found under Settings for all other languages.)

Additional details

Live captions are not yet available on the Meet iOS app but we are working on making it available soon.

When you turn on captions, they will be visible on that particular device. In order for other participants in the meeting to see captions, they’ll have to turn it on for their devices as well.

Currently, live captions is only available in English. Additionally, captions will not appear in a recording of a meeting.

Helpful links



Availability

Rollout details

  • Rapid Release domains: Extended rollout (potentially longer than 15 days for feature visibility) starting on September 16, 2019
  • Scheduled Release domains: Extended rollout (potentially longer than 15 days for feature visibility) starting on September 16, 2019

G Suite editions

  • Available to all G Suite editions

On/off by default?

  • This feature will be ON by default.

Stay up to date with G Suite launches

Bulk-export Hangouts Meet hardware fleet information

What’s changing

We’ve added the ability to export detailed information about all Hangouts Meet hardware devices in a domain to a Google Sheet or CSV file in a single action.

Who’s impacted

Admins only

Why you’d use it

Having access to up-to-date information about all Meet devices allows G Suite admins to better understand usage across their entire organization by:

  • Populating data for reports/dashboards
  • Auditing organization-wide peripherals usage
  • Analyzing data for external systems such as ticket/support system or financial functions such as asset tracking or inventory management

How to get started


Depending on the selected format the information can then be viewed in Google Sheets, or downloaded as a CSV file.
  • End users: No action required

Additional information

There are 36 fields exported for each device, each into its own column.

Helpful links



Availability

Fully rolled out to all domains

G Suite editions

  • Available to all G Suite Editions

On/off by default?

  • This feature will be OFF by default

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New adaptive meeting layouts in Hangouts Meet

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.

Who’s impacted 

End users

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.

How to get started 


  • Admins: No action required. 
  • End users: You’ll see the new layouts in your next Hangouts Meet meeting once the feature has rolled out to you. 

Additional details 

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

Helpful links 

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

Availability 

Rollout details 

  • Rapid Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on April 30, 2019 
  • Scheduled Release domains: Extended rollout (potentially longer than 15 days for feature visibility) starting no earlier than May 14, 2019. 

G Suite editions 

  • Available to all G Suite editions. 

On/off by default? 

  • The new layouts are replacing the existing layout and will be enabled by default. 


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Live captions in Hangouts Meet

This announcement was made at Google Cloud Next ‘19 in San Francisco. Check out Next OnAir to tune into the livestream or watch session recordings following the event.


What’s changing

We’re making meetings more accessible for deaf and hard-of-hearing users by launching live captions in Hangouts Meet.

Who’s impacted

End users

Why you’d use it

Live captions help make your meetings more accessible by reducing barriers to holding meetings between users of different hearing abilities, regardless of whether they are participating remotely or in person.

How to get started


  • Admins: No action required.
  • End users:
    • On the web and on Chromebase for meetings touchscreen devices, navigate to the triple-dot menu at the bottom right corner of your screen and select the option to turn on captions.
    • On devices with a Mimo touchscreen and Chromebox for meetings with the remote, you can find the toggle to turn on captions in the Settings menu.

Additional details

Live captions is available across different Hangouts Meet-compatible platforms, such as on the web, devices with a Mimo touchscreen, Chromebox for meetings with the remote, and on Chromebase for meetings touchscreen devices.

When you turn on captions, they will be visible on that particular device. In order for other participants in the meeting to see captions, they’ll have to turn it on for their devices as well.

Currently, live captions is only available in English. Additionally, captions will not appear in a recording of a meeting.

Helpful links



Availability

Rollout details

  • Rapid Release domains: Extended rollout (potentially longer than 15 days for feature visibility) starting on April 10, 2019
  • Scheduled Release domains: Extended rollout (potentially longer than 15 days for feature visibility) starting on April 10, 2019

G Suite editions
Available to all G Suite editions

On/off by default?
This feature will be ON by default.

Stay up to date with G Suite launches

Transition your organization to use only Hangouts Meet for video calls

What’s changing

As part of the migration from classic Hangouts to Hangouts Meet that we announced last year, G Suite admins can now turn off classic Hangouts video calling for your organization. This means that all video calls in your organization will use Meet and any classic Hangouts video calls saved in Google Calendar will be removed.

Who’s impacted

Admins and end users

Why you’d use it

Enabling this setting expedites the transition of your organization to Hangouts Meet.

If you take no action, Calendar migration can continue to run and we'll automatically transition your organization to be Meet-only on our recommended schedule.

How to get started


  • Admins: Admins can turn off classic Hangouts video calling in the Admin console by:
    • Navigating to Apps > G Suite > Google Hangouts
    • Click Global settings
    • Next to Hangouts Meet, check All Meetings use Meet
    • Click Save
  • End users: No action required. If your admin decides to enable this setting, classic Hangout video calls will no longer be joinable. Please note, if you’d like to add Hangouts Meet video calls to replace removed classic Hangouts video calls, you must manually add one back into the Calendar event.

Additional details

When this option is turned on:

  • All video calls scheduled in Calendar will use Meet. This does not impact events scheduled by someone outside of your organization.
  • Any classic Hangouts video call URLs scheduled in Calendar will be hidden.
  • Classic Hangouts video calls scheduled within your organization will no longer be joinable and users will see an error message. Classic Hangouts video calls scheduled by someone outside of your organization will still be joinable.
  • You can use a custom meeting name to start an ad-hoc Meet call. Simply agree on a meeting name with all of the meeting participants and type it into the “Enter meeting code” field in Meet. Note that all participants must be in the same domain to use the name.

Please note, this change does not impact video calling from Hangouts Chat or classic Hangouts chat. This will continue to behave the same. Additionally, this change will not impact domains who do not have Meet turned on.

Admins should only enable this option if your organization is primarily on Meet with limited to no classic Hangout video calls scheduled in Calendar. You can check the usage stats for scheduled Calendar events using classic Hangouts video calling by using the Hangouts Meet audit log. To do so, query the number of calls containing a “Calendar Event Id” with “Product type” equal to classic Hangouts.

Finally, this setting is reversible. Unselecting this in the Admin console means that classic Hangouts video calls will again be shown in Calendar.


Helpful links

Help Center: Migration FAQs

Availability

Rollout details
Rapid Release domains and Scheduled Release domains: Admin console setting is currently available.

G Suite editions
Available to all G Suite editions

On/off by default?
This setting will be OFF by default for existing customers and ON by default for new customers

Stay up to date with G Suite launches

New Hangouts Meet peripheral issue alerts and improved connectivity alerts

What’s changing

To provide admins better tools to improve the overall performance of their Hangouts Meet devices, we’ve introduced a new set of actionable alerts when issues with peripherals are detected. We’ve also made the alerts for detected connectivity/network issues actionable with richer information and direct access to the device information page. New information in the alerts include:


  • Device name
  • Location
  • Alert id (identical for open and close alerts)
  • Issue type (Connectivity or Peripheral)
  • Issue (Offline, Missing microphone, Missing camera, etc)
  • Issue opened timestamp
  • Issue closed timestamp (if closed)
  • Asset location (from the assigned calendar)
  • Annotated location (if set for the device)
  • Asset id (if set for the device)
  • Serial number
  • Direct link to the device page in Google Admin console


Example alerts — email
Open alert



Close alert



Example alert — text message
Open alert


For text message, alerting is only sent out when an issue is detected, not on close.

Who’s impacted

Admins only

Why you’d use it

The improved alerts provide additional information to help admins proactively manage their network and devices for improved availability and end-user experience.

How to get started


  • Admins: To enable the Hangouts Meet hardware alerts:
  1. In the Admin console, go to Devices > Google meeting room hardware > Settings and policies
  2. Select the organization for which you want to change the settings for alerts
  3. Enter contact details — email(s) and/or mobile phone number(s)
  4. Select delivery methods for connectivity status alerts and peripheral alerts: Click Save to apply the settings
  • End users: No action required

Additional information

Both alert types are optional and delivery can be enabled individually by email and/or text message (SMS) (US/Canada numbers only). The email format is intended for easy integration with automated ticketing systems.

Helpful links



Availability


G Suite editions

  • Available to all G Suite Editions.

On/off by default?

  • This feature will be OFF by default.

Stay up to date with G Suite launches

Simultaneously present and be seen with Hangouts Meet

Quick launch summary

Now, when you present your screen in a Hangouts Meet meeting, your camera’s video feed will remain visible. This allows other meeting participants to continue to see you while you present.

Availability

Rollout details

G Suite editions

  • Available to all G Suite editions


On/off by default?

  • This feature will be ON by default.


Stay up to date with G Suite launches