Hangouts Chat will replace traditional Hangouts in G Suite

As Google did announced since 2017, Hangouts Chat and Hangouts Meet is the next generation version of Traditional Hangouts (Classic Hangouts) aims to focus on group communication. At the end of this year, Google will officially transition users from traditional Hangouts to Chat and Meet for all businesses using G Suite (Workspace Google). First, there will be some changes made on April 16, 2019 related to Chat and Google Vault. This notice will list upcoming changes and precautions to take.

What changes will be made on April 16, 2019?

If your domain name has traditional Hangouts enabled, Chat will also appear on both the Web and mobile apps. Users can still continue to use traditional Hangouts on Gmail, mobile devices, web or Chrome extension. Hangouts Chat and Meet will replace traditional Hangouts later this year, so Admins may have to notify their end users about this change. See more details about compatibility between Chat and traditional Hangouts.

The upcoming changes that Admin will have to face on April 16, 2019:

• For customers using Google Vault, the Mail retention rule & hold will no longer protect messages in traditional Hangouts. Instead, the Chat retention rule & hold determines the protection of messages on both traditional Hangouts and Chat.

• Settings in Chat will be able to control messaging on both traditional Hangouts and Chat.

• A new setting in the Admin console in the . section Apps > G Suite > Hangouts Chat will be added, allowing admins to turn off the user's traditional Hangouts interface, depending on the transition progress of the business.

• The “Google Hangouts” settings page in the Admin console will be renamed “Hangouts Meet”. This customization will control both traditional Hangouts and Hangouts meet video conferencing features.

Please note that some of these changes may take up to 4 weeks to take effect for your domain name.

Requirements for businesses using Google Vault before April 16, 2019

From March 16 to April 16, 2019, Vault users who have any Mail Archive/Keep Rule, the system will automatically create an indefinite storage rule for Chat. Admin will receive a different message when this rule is set up for business {DomainName}. This rule is intended to protect all messages in traditional Hangouts while Chat rules will begin protecting messages on April 16, 2019. Before April 16, 2019, admin is required to:

• Test and set new storage rules for Chats in Google Vault.

• Create a copy of any existing Mail hold for Chat rules in the Google Vault.

• Set any new hold rules for chat messages from Chat in Google Vault.

• Once you've set up your desired archive/hold rules for Chat, for them to take effect, delete the indefinite archive rule which may overwrite the ones you've set.

If you do not set the necessary archiving/retention rules in Chat and do not delete the indefinite retention rules by April 16, 2019, all messages in traditional Hangouts and direct messages in Chat will be retained indefinitely. Refer to this Help Center tutorial to learn more about how to complete these actions.

Gimasys is always ready to support you

To help your company master this transition, Google will post additional change updates on the G Suite Update Blog. If you have any other questions or need assistance, please refer to the Help Center or contact us.

Thank you very much!

Update: Gimasys