What is Hangouts Meet and how does it work

Google Hangouts Meet is a component of a complex corporate platform for holding video-conferences on the go either from a browser, mobile device or desktop application. You can also use Hangouts Meet to send chat messages, share your screen, record video meetings, hold virtual training classes all around the world, arrange remote interviews, schedule events from the calendar, etc. In this FAQ guide, we will describe how to use Google Hangouts Meet on regular basis for corporate or personal purposes.

Hangouts Meet: preconditions

Before we start to use Hangouts Meet, it should be noted that the service requires former installation and deployment the of G Suite platform. G Suite is a corporate suite for middle-sized and large companies, which enhance and facilitate the communication between team members, individual departments and clients outside of the company. G Suite requires setting up of specific domain for your company. The package is a commercial foundation and obliges its users to pay a fee on monthly basis or once per year (in the latter case price is calculated with a discount). Additional payment is taken for registering a domain, which can be executed directly from the G Suite graphical UI. You can find detailed guidelines regarding how to register, set up and deploy the G Suite within your company in the “How to use Google Hangouts Chat” FAQ section in the “G Suite Registration” chapter.

Where to install Hangouts Meet package, what operating systems does it support, and what limitations does it imply?

You can use Meet from a browser as a web-service or install an individual desktop/mobile app on computer, laptop, tablet or smartphone. The features in all of the product builds are nearly the same. The only minor differences are in the user interface. You can find all of the links to download the app for free in the “Hangouts Meet” article. In the download section the setups for Windows, macOS, Android and iOS systems are available.

The owners of the Enterprise version of the G Suite package can host video meetings within the virtual room for up to 100 simultaneous participants, without any time limit. G Suite platform of Business and Basic builds version hosts can invite up to 25 participants at a time.

How to work with Hangouts Meet: creation of a video meeting, joining video meeting, addition or removal of guests to video meetings in progress, how to send chat messages, present your screen and execute other supplementary actions

Before you start to use Hangouts Meet, make sure that your infrastructure strictly corresponds to the requirements. If Google Calendar and Hangouts Chat are not integrated within the Meet suite, contact your system administrator to make sure that you can schedule events on the Calendar timeline and send direct chat messages through the Hangouts Chat suite.

How to schedule video meeting via Hangouts Meet in Calendar?

It’s incredibly simple to schedule a Meet conference in Calendar: you need to generate an event within the Calendar lineup and add your guests to it. You can also add a meeting link to the calendar event by clicking “Add conferencing”, or by adding a single or a few guests to the event. After the event is saved, the URL-reference to the meeting and the number are added to the Calendar event.

Here is a step-by-step instruction:

• Go to the Google Calendar service and generate a new event
• refer to the “Guests” tab and go to “Add guests” list to invite participants from outside or inside of your organization

  

• click “Save”

  

• when the request form appears to send invitation emails to Meet conference participants, click “Send”.

  

How to start a video meeting through Hangouts Meet?

If you require a quick response from the team member on some particular issue, you can start an instant meeting through a web browser. If one of the conference participants is transferring you a meeting URL-link, you can just click on the link in order to join the call.

Note: You can transfer the conference link to contacts outside of your company, but someone from within your company should provide them access to the Meet conference.

Here is how you can start a video meeting via Meet service:

• Go to the Hangouts Meet web-service through your Chrome browser instance
• Click “Start a new meeting” – “Start meeting”

  

• If you want to add a person to a meeting, pick one of the options:
• click “Copy joining info” and transfer the details about the meeting into a particular messenger, an email or other app, and deliver it to the needed person

  

• click “Add people” and pick one of the options:

  
  

  • In the “Invite” category, specify the email address and click “Send invite”

    

  • In the “Call” category, type in the phone number and click the “Call” button

    

How to join a video meeting within Meet?

With Hangouts Meet it’s really easy to organize meetings between team members and colleagues from anywhere and at any time.

In order to join from a Calendar event:

• go to the Calendar service and click on the event you wish to join
• click “Join Hangouts Meet” and in the new opened window click “Join Meeting”

  

In order to join from Meet service directly:

• Go to Hangouts Meet web-service in Chrome
• Pick the needed meeting from the list of available events scheduled formerly

  

• Click “Join meeting”.

  

If you don’t have enough time to book a room or schedule a meeting, with the Meet solution you can join a video meeting impromptu by clicking the URL-link of the particular meeting delivered to you in an email or chat message.

In order to join a meeting with a URL-link:

• make a single click on the meeting web-reference, which is sent to you via email or chat message
• follow the general principles based on the confirmation prompts that appear on the screen to join the meeting.

You can also join a Meet video conference by specifying the meeting code, which serves as a unique code at the end of the meeting link.

In order to join a Meet conversation with a meeting code:

• open Chrome and go to Google Hangouts Meet
• pick the “Use a meeting code” option in the primary service menu

  

• type in the meeting code and click “Continue”

  

• click “Join” in the new displayed window, and you’re in.

  

With Meet service, the customers of G Suite Enterprise platform can create meetings, which include a dial-in option to get access by audio only. Any participant of Meet conference can dial it through a phone number regardless of what edition they’re using.

If you want to hold a conference by phone:

• open the info about the event in Google Calendar or find the invite in your email account
• click the “Join by phone” button (the PIN is entered automatically. In case you are typing in the phone number manually, specify the PIN as well).

  

Collaboration in video conferences

With Hangouts Meet, you can exchange new solutions and ideas, brainstorm with your colleagues and business partners.

You can remove guests and invite new ones during an active video meeting. If you want to invite contacts who do not belong to your organization and who haven’t been added to an event within Google Calendar yet, someone within your enterprise should provide them an access to the video conference first.

Note: Guests who type in manually the phone number should type in the a corresponding conference PIN.

In order to remove participants of active video conferences, which are taking place:

• move the cursor to the list of the active meeting members and click the arrow-down button next to the person you are planning to drop from the active video session

  

• click “Remove”.

  

If you are planning to add a new member to the currently operated video meeting:

• click the meeting title in the bottom-left corner of the active conference window

  

• select the “Copy joining info” option. As a conclusion, the invite link will be copied to the clipboard

  

• paste the info about the meeting into the corresponding email, chat message or other app and transfer it to the needed person.

If you forgot to add new guests to your Meet video conference, you can add them within Calendar.

In order to add different people within a Calendar event:

• go to the Google Calendar service and open a formerly generated event

  

• go to the “Guests” tab, click “Add guests” and add participants to join the video conference session

  

• click “Save” button to save the changes

  

• click “Send” to deliver the invitation emails to the chosen contacts.

  

Due to the integration of Hangouts Meet with Hangouts Chat in scope of the unified G Suite platform, you can send instant messages to other guests while a video conference is in process from a computer or mobile gadget.

Here is how you can send chat messages within Meet:

• open the Meet conference, accept a video meeting invitation or join a video session by request, as described earlier
• in the upper-right part of the visible screen area, click “Chat”

  

• type the text message and click “Send”.

  

Note: while the chat message is being typed and sent, it becomes visible to all meeting participants. When you are leaving the conversation, all of chat messages instantly disappear.

If you are going to show the discussion members a diagram, presentation or a spreadsheet from your local computer, you can do that with a help of the screen sharing ability.

Note: at the moment, you can’t share your screen while presenting from a mobile device.

How to present your screen from PC or Mac?

• open the Meet app and join a video meeting, as it is described specifically in the former article section
• click “Present Now” and decide what part of the screen you are going to share:
• a window
• the entire screen

  

• press the “Share” button to start presenting the selected area

  

• when you have completed your screencast session, click the “Stop sharing” button below.

  

Note: to grant the presentation rights to someone else and start sharing the other person’s screen, click “Present” in the lower-right corner of the visible area and decide what screen area you are going to share specifically on that person’s computer.

How to mute a guest’s microphone

If you are a dedicated host of the video conference, you can mute other participants’ microphones if there is a background noise or a corresponding feedback received.

In order to mute other contact’s microphone:

• run the Meet web-service and join the corresponding video meeting in the way that is precisely described in the former section of this article
• if you want to mute your personal microphone, click the “Mute” button at the bottom part of the screen

  

• to mute other people, click “Mute” next to the name of the contact.

  

Managing the settings of your actual device

Customizing your microphone, web-camera or speakers

In Hangouts Meet you can adjust microphone, camera and more to manage all the settings you need in your current environment.

If you want to customize your speakers, web-camera or microphone:

• open the service and click “More” – “Settings”

  

• on the current tab, choose a setting which you want to change applicable to your speakers, microphone or web-camera
• click “Done”.

  

Adjusting your video quality

If you have encountered with troubles, related to low quality of network connection, audio or video delays, or any other open issues, that affect your video quality, you can need to set up your video resolution within your Hangouts ecosystem.

Here’s the guide, which clarifies the overall procedure:

• open Meet and click the “More” menu (three vertical dots) and after that select “Settings”

  

• go to the “Quality” tab and pick the setting you want to modify:
• in order to personalize the image quality of your device visible to the others, click the “Send resolution (maximum)” tweak
• in order to set up the image quality, which you can receive as an incoming source from the other participants, click “Receive resolution (maximum)”.

  

• click “Done” to save the changes.

  

If you try to use Hangouts Meet in daily practice within your organization, regardless of the size and the area of business, you will discover a variety of advantages and interesting features, which would leverage your final choice to the corporate profit and advancement. Using Google Hangouts Meet for video-conferences and meetings would surely satisfy all of your requirements and demands and won’t require much time to deploy and implement.