Phenquestions
Outlook.com now supports Google Talk. This feature has rolled out to many. I this tutorial, we will see step-by-step how to set up chat with Google Contacts in Outlook.com. In last few months since Outlook.com came out of the preview, we have been regularly seeing feature that make the Outlook experience better, personal and more productive. Outlook.com has been helping people to connect with others who are on different services. We have already seen this in People experience where we connect to contact lists from Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other services. We can also chat with Facebook and Skype friends.
Based on feedback from many who shifted from Gmail to Outlook.com, Microsoft decided to introduce this feature. This will help you chat with your friends who are still stuck with Gmail. While reading mail from your friend who still use Gmail, you can start chatting right from your Outlook.com Inbox. If you are working together on an Office document using SkyDrive, you can send an instant message.
Set up chat in Outlook.com
Let us see how to set up chat with your Google contacts from Outlook.com.
Once you sign-in to Outlook.com, click on the Messaging icon to open the Messaging pane. There you'll see the Google Contacts listed under Add people to chat with. If you don't see this, maybe this feature has not been rolled for your account yet.
Clicking on Google Contacts will open this window.
Click on Connect and enter your Gmail ID and password, Click on Sign-in.
This is all part of Google's authorization flow. This is how Google controls which services can access your Google info. Click on Allow access
Once you allow access, Microsoft's chat and contacts services will be allowed to connect to Google and set up chat.
Click Done. Once you are connected, you'll also get a mail 'You've connected Google to your Microsoft Account' informing about the same. That's it.
Now you are ready as Google Contacts also appear in your contact list or just click on Start new conversation in the messaging pane to list out the contacts including the newly added Google contacts. And start chatting with your Google contacts.
I also noted that if you simultaneously open your Gmail, Google Talk will also show the same conversation. If you have set your mode as Invisible in Google talk, you'll be turned visible and this message is shown in Google talk.
I was not able to set mode as Invisible in Outlook.com. May be since its rolling out, we may find some quirks in it presently.
Google chat on SkyDrive
As this rolls out, Google chat integration appear first in SkyDrive and then in your inbox and People page. The messaging experience works across your Outlook.com inbox, calendar and People contact list, as well as SkyDrive.com.
If you're working together on a document with a Google friend, you can be chatting with them at the same time without leaving SkyDrive. You can even share a link to the document and edit it together in real-time!
This doesn't just work for your contacts on Outlook.com and SkyDrive. The same model is used in the People app for Windows and the People hub for Windows Phone. Your contacts are synched with the secure, industry-standard OAuth protocol used by partners like Google, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Once you have set up, you are in control of this connection and can change it at any time by going to your Settings > Manage your accounts, and from here select whichever service you want to edit. Or you can click on Google icon at bottom of Messaging pane.
On clicking the 'g' icon, you'll get this window -
Google Chat integration will be available to everyone worldwide in the next few days. While it's rolling out, you might notice some quirks though, but that will be resolved as soon as the rollout is complete. If you are still not one of the 400 million who are already using Outlook.com, give it a try. Its easier to switch from Gmail to Outlook.com and now that you can talk to your Google friends without leaving Outlook.com Inbox, that can be another reason for switching to Outlook.com!
