To all Administrators,

On June 1, 2021, we will start upgrading your users who have the “Chat and classic Hangouts” service setting selected to “Chat preferred,” unless you explicitly opt out. As a reminder, the “Chat preferred” setting was launched last year in the Google Workspace Admin console.

After June 1, 2021, we will upgrade any “Chat and classic Hangouts” setting users in your domain to “Chat preferred.” The “Chat and classic Hangouts” setting will be removed unless you opt out of the upgrade. Users who already have “Chat only,” “Chat preferred,” or “Classic only” selected, or users who have both services turned off, won’t be affected.

What does this mean for my organization?

Google Chat will replace classic Hangouts as the default chat application for your affected users. This automatic upgrade will start rolling out on June 1, 2021, and may take up to 2 weeks to complete. The “Chat and classic Hangouts” setting will later be removed.

What do I need to do?

• If you don’t have users in your domain with the “Chat and classic Hangouts” service setting selected, no action is required on your part.
• If users in your domain have the “Chat and classic Hangouts” service setting selected, you have the following options:

• If you’d like to choose the date to upgrade all your users to “Chat preferred,” you should select the “Chat preferred” setting in the Service settings tab on your desired date before June 1, 2021, by taking the following steps:From the Admin console Home page, go to Apps > Google Workspace > Google Chat and classic Hangouts.
  • Click Service Status.
  • You can choose to apply this setting to your entire organization or to selected organizational units only. Note: We recommend you upgrade everyone at the same time to mitigate potential issues related to splitting capabilities across your network.
  • Select Chat preferred.
  • Click Save.
• If you aren’t ready to migrate your domain to “Chat preferred” by June 1, 2021, and would like to preserve your current service settings, you can opt out from the Admin Console by taking the following steps:Sign into your Admin account.
  • Go to http://admin.google.com/ac/apps/gmail/migrationtochatsettings
  • Select “Don’t migrate to Chat preferred as part of this migration opt out launch”
  • Click Save.

If you don’t take any action, all users in your organization who have the “Chat and classic Hangouts” setting selected will be automatically upgraded to “Chat preferred” over the course of 2 weeks. The “Chat and classic Hangouts” setting will also be hidden and no longer accessible.

Additional details

• Users in your domain with the “Chat preferred” or “Chat only” setting selected will also have the “Chat and classic Hangouts” setting removed.
• Conversation History: With the exception of a few special cases, messages sent in classic Hangouts 1:1 and group conversations will be available in Chat. Learn more about Chat and classic Hangouts interoperability.
• Direct calling: Chat doesn’t yet support direct calling in the same way as classic Hangouts. Direct calling is expected to roll out to Chat in Q3 2021.
• Admin features: We’re able to provide special permissions to customers for the following functionalities upon request*:
  1. Admin disable file upload
  2. Third party archiving
• *Note: These features are still in beta and not yet generally available (GA). Please reach out to your Support contact or account manager if you wish to get early access to these features.

We’re here to help

For more details about this launch, see this article in the help center.

For more details on the Chat transition experience and other known limitations, please review the Chat Transition Help Center.

If you have questions or need assistance, please contact Google Workspace support. When you call or submit your support case, reference issue number 183514280.

Or use your S&E Support : support@secloud.ca