Hangouts Group Conversations to Appear in Google Chat Soon

Google has announced that it is bringing three changes to how group conversations work in Google Chat starting from December 3. One of these significant changes is the compatibility of Group Chats with classic Hangouts, which essentially means that group conversations in Hangouts will begin to appear in Google Chat over the coming weeks. New members can be added to group conversations and they will have access to the entire chat history. The tech giant also says that updated group conversations will also follow the set Vault retention policy.

As per an official blog, Google will bring these three changes to Google Workspace from December 3 that will gradually roll out in about 15 days. These changes are a part of transitioning users from Google Hangouts to Google Chat in the first half of next year. The changes will help automatically migrate users' Hangouts conversations and saved history.

The first significant change in Google Chat is the updated group conversations. When a new member is added into a group conversation, all other members will see a message announcing the new member. Furthermore, the new member will be able to see the entire conversation, including the messages that were sent before the user entered the group. A group conversation can be easily created by using the “Start a new chat” option in the conversation settings menu.

The second change in Google Chat is about chat history. End users can toggle history on/ off at the conversation level, and admins can control whether to keep chat history for users in their organisation.

The third change in Google Chat is related to the Google Vault retention policy. Google says that the updated group conversations will also respect a different retention policy in Vault. “If you set custom Chat retention rules in Google Vault, the scope of coverage will change. Rules set for ‘All Chat Spaces' will apply to existing chat rooms, plus updated group messages and group messages,” the company explains.

The new Google Workspace is only available for business customers right now, and Google will bring it to the rest of the users next year. Google Chat is said to retain some Hangout features, such as direct and group messaging, and discard some others.

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