Likelihood to Recommend Well suited for businesses of all sizes. HOWEVER, I would say keep the chat groups limited at the departmental level, ensure that your moderator or the individual responsible for the group keeps it on topic, and have your IT team monitor it from time to time. Google Chat gets used so much in our organization that we have rules and regs in our Employee Handbook regarding its proper use (and when used PROPERLY, it can be very effective).
Read full review If you are sharing private information like contracts for designs and designs that aren't meant to be shared only with one client, the platform is very secure
Read full review Pros Google Hangouts Chat allows you to send and receive messages real time with emoticons that can help you express your mood. You can download and upload image file that can be use for business process and more. Google Hangouts Chat also allows you to make a calls to reach other users.What I like the most is the awesome screen sharing while on call. Read full review Huddle allows users to use the native document file types. For example, Word files are still in a Word, not a "Huddle" file version. Huddle workspaces are invitation-only. If someone should not be in the workspace, they will not be invited and provided access to the documents. Or, they can be removed from the workspace if needed. Communication about documents is located with the documents in a discussion thread under the document preview. Thus, email inbox clutter can be limited. Read full review Cons I wish it was easier to turn the sound off, I hate being in meetings and my chat is blowing up. Needing to "accept" a chat invite from someone within my org seems counter-intuitive. Some people have trouble getting their notifications before midnight, somehow? Prior to downloading the app, group messages didn't come up for me on my computer. Read full review More pricing options would have been nicer. Read full review Likelihood to Renew The updates, support, general reviews on Google Chat are great everywhere. The development of the features is ongoing and this adds a great value to Google as a big company in the market. Other applications are limiting communication while Google Chat is allowing communication to grow. It is very easy to use it and teach others how to use Google Chat.
Read full review Usability It's not perfect. There are occasional glitches, drop-outs, and it takes a bit to get everything loaded and working. But it is significantly better than Zoom or
GoToMeeting when you're in instructional settings. I know my teacher friends here like it and the administrators and parents seem to be satisfied too.
Read full review Support Rating I have not needed to contact the support folks for Google Hangouts Chat, so I can't speak to this with any accuracy. The online instructions are fairly clearly written, so it is fairly intuitive to start with. I did not feel the need to use the support people anyway.
Read full review Alternatives Considered Prior to Google Hangouts, our company used Spark. Spark was not integrated into our email, therefore it couldn't be easily accessed in the same browser. With Spark we also couldn't search our emails for keywords in a conversation, searching had to be done manually. The one feature I enjoyed about Spark was a request to get a user's attention: If I had an urgent question and I wanted to ensure the recipient saw my message/question, I would request their attention and the message screen would pop up on their screen.
Read full review Sharepoint is very flexible, but very clunky and slow when all one needs is a quick document management solution.
M-Files is a great, rich document management system, but until recently focussed less on the collaboration piece.
Read full review Return on Investment In my work it allows us to report troubles that may cost loss of investment thru Google Hangouts Chat we were able to communicate on how to fix it. I hope we can make it on our own choice of colors to heightened workers vibe It is connected to your email Read full review This has made it a lot easier for remote workers to access important documents without needing to use the VPN at home (which does not always work). It clearly shows who updated the last document and when so it is clear who you need to ask if you have questions or something. We have used it in client settings, so this saves money as we do not need to request a separate client laptop or VPN token. Read full review ScreenShots Ideagen Huddle Screenshots