Google Hangouts website button

Billy picture Billy · Jan 25, 2014 · Viewed 7.8k times · Source

Is it possible to add a Google Hangouts button to my business site that when clicked on initiates a call to me? I have a business website and I would like for anyone to be able to call be like the Skype button that you can embed on your website page does. Problem that I have is I went to https://developers.google.com/+/hangouts/button and read and then went to the Google API Console at https://code.google.com/apis/console/ and turned on the Google+ Hangouts API and then added my Google+ profile and my Project ID (app_id) and entered it into the html markup example(s) and embeded the code into my page and it does show the button, however, when the button is clicked, it launches the Google Hangouts program and asks to invites someone.

I need to this to actually start call me because the customer at my webpage, when they click the button and the Hangouts program launches, they are not going to know what to enter here. Needs to work like the Skype call button does and actually call me.

As always, any help is greatly appreciated!!

-Billy

Answer

airtonix picture airtonix · May 16, 2014

@Billy I'm not sure what's changed since the other answers here, but I'm actually having some success with this approach :

script(type="text/javascript" src="https://apis.google.com/js/platform.js")
.g-hangout(data-render="createhangout",
           data-invites="[{id: 'YOUR_GOOGLE_PLUS_ID', invite_type: 'PROFILE'}]")

Where YOUR_GOOGLE_PLUS_ID is the number (not your vanity id) found in your profile url. Since my google plus url contains my vanity id, I obtained my YOUR_GOOGLE_PLUS_ID easily from the 'profile' link in the left sidebar.

Once clicked, the workflow goes like this :

  1. Visitor clicks the "start hangout" button
  2. the hangout app launches (chrome, android, etc)
  3. they are prompted to join, they click join
  4. they are prompted to invite you to the hangout. they do so.
  5. you are notified to join.

The next problem I'm experiencing is that step five only seems to occur on the Google Chrome hangout Extension and roughly five minutes later in an email. Meaning no notifications on: Google+ Website, Android Hangout App, Android Google Plus App.

So it seems that this particular situation is as solved as it could be from the "integrate into a website" point of view, the remaining issue is most likely a bug with the google-plus/hangout ecosystem itself.

By the way, instead of using a YOUR_GOOGLE_PLUS_ID you can use the email address of that google-plus user :

script(type="text/javascript" src="https://apis.google.com/js/platform.js")
.g-hangout(data-render="createhangout",
           data-invites="[{id: '[email protected]', invite_type: 'EMAIL'}]")

Although I'm not sure if this means that notification is via email only.