Talk to people outside of your domain in Google Chat

What is Google Chat?

Hangouts Chat has been changed to Google Chat where you can chat with parties who are outside your domain. This could be done either by sending a direct message or by adding to the rooms.

If you're communicating with clients, collaborating with a merchant, or attempting to keep in touch with parents of your students, with your fellow members, you'll now be able to use Google Chat. Through this move you will hold the whole contact in one centralized location. People who are outside the domain will have an indicator which says “External”. So that you know with whom you are sharing information.

Additionally, before you create it you would need to label a space as "External" and  you will not be allowed to alter the configuration after the room is formed. This implies that you will not be able to add external users to any rooms that were generated before this launch, since they will remain "internal." Although you may add external users to a Chat room, you can not include external users in a group chat.

This functionality will support your current "Chat Externally" setting, which will extend in future to both classic Hangouts and Google Chat. This can be regulated at the level of the organizational unit (OU) or the domain level. For more information about how to turn off or on the "Chat externally" setting in the Admin console visit the Support Center.

You’ll also be able to control whether users can create and join external Rooms within your organization through the “External Rooms” setting in the Admin console.