G Suite integrations will help improve workplace collaboration

APPS are meant to help improve productivity. However, a McAfee survey found that the average employee uses 36 cloud services at work, which makes cross-platform collaboration difficult.

Google just announced integrations for Hangouts Meet and Calendar to help improve workplace productivity and reduce hurdles between platforms.

These integrations will allow businesses using different platforms to communicate and share files with each other.

Meetings are often frustrating because compatibility can interrupt workflows and slow down productivity.

With the new updates, users can use Hangouts Meet to call users on other video conferencing platforms like Polycom and Cisco. Microsoft Skype for Business users can also join a Meet directly from Skype.

“We want to make it easier for businesses to use meeting solutions, like Hangouts Meet, without worrying about compatibility with existing equipment,” Google wrote in a statement.

For Google, this makes sense. Many companies still prefer Microsoft’s suite of products due to its offline capabilities. If Google didn’t allow for integration with apps like Skype, they’d be alienating a lot of business users.

Another major functionality used to schedule meetings is the calendar. Many video conferencing apps comes with calendar applications, but they cannot be added automatically to calendar apps that are not supported.

Manually adding calendar invites and installing a separate application for a call is time-consuming and frustrating.

Google is adding support for third-party conferencing natively in Google Calendar. Conference providers can build add-ons that allow users to create, view, and join video conference from a Calendar event.

Currently, Cisco Webex and several other meeting apps are already building add-ons for users to schedule meetings directly from Google Calendar.

In the coming months, Google said there will be additional features for booking and viewing resources like rooms and equipment in Microsoft Exchange and Office 365.

It will also add a guest feature in Hangouts Chat. Guest access will allow people from different companies to communicate and share files on Hangouts Chat.

The new integrations will help users save time and cut down on frustrations when working across different vendor platforms.

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