Google Hangouts to be Agency’s Chatting App of Choice

Note: If your Hangout chat boxes do not look similar to the images below, read these instructions to update from gChat to Hangouts. 



In early August, the Heartland AEA Internal Technology Department shared the news that iChat will be phased out of support as of Dec. 31, 2015. We are encouraging agency employees to transition to using Google Hangouts instead of iChat. Think of Hangouts as Google’s one-stop messaging app for both mobile and desktop devices. One does not need to download or sign-in to anything additional, as Hangouts is automatically turned on in Gmail. You might’ve noticed something similar to this on the left side of your email:



To use Hangouts to chat with others, here are the steps to get the conversation started: 

1.    Click the finder icon next to your name. A sidebar should appear with a search box at the top. In that box, type in the name of the person you want to chat with. Their information should appear underneath.

2.    Click on the appropriate person you want to chat with and a chat box should pop-up in the lower right side of the Gmail window:

Note: If it is the first time you are chatting with a person in Hangout, the message will be sent as an invitation to the recipient.