I love emoticons -- as any of my co-workers will confirm. :-) When I find icons that I like, I add them to an emoticon palette. When I run into a situation that feels like it needs an emoticon (someone going on a vacation to the beach, for example), I find an emoticon that I can use, and add it to the chat.
One preference you can set that makes it super easy to use emoticons is to set a short-cut key for your emoticon. Here's how this works.
1. Add the emoticon to an emoticon palette. You can do this in Preferences - Emoticon Palettes - Add Picture:
2. Now, with the picture added, enter shortcut text that you can use to bring that up. For example, suppose I add this picture to my emoticon palette:
To make it easy to insert this emoticon into my chats, I just specify a shortcut that will cause this emoticon to display. For example, let's say I want this emoticon added whenever I type "/wh". I can specify this in that same Preferences page, as the keyboard text:
Now this emoticon will display in my chat whenever I type "/wh".
I'm curious how many of you use the Chat Window preference setting "Display when my partner closes the chat window"?
When we first created that preference, the goal was to make it easier to not have never-ending good-bye's in chats, where each person continues to feel obligated to respond:
But we've had that preference for a while now, and I'm wondering, given the prevalence of chat today, if perhaps that setting is no longer needed. I've had some people say they truly don't like it, because they always close windows automatically, and then they're afraid people feel dismissed. But others like to know, so they don't cause the chat window to pop open again when their chat partner is done.
What are your thoughts about the Sametime status icons for contacts who are logged into Sametime on a mobile device? Does this effect your decision to start a chat with them? Do you need to know they are on a mobile device?
Have you ever wanted to customize the sounds used for your chat (and other) alerts? You can do so with the Notifications preferences:
Below each preference that has a "play sound" setting, you can choose the sound to use. Or choose a single sound for all notifications, to make your notifications stand out from other people's.
Just out of curiosity -- how many of you use sound for Sametime notifications?
A great tip from a couple of my coworkers -- if you need a quick way to easily paste your call-in information in a chat message, create an image file with the information, and set it up as a custom emoticon with a text shortcut (e.g., ":d" for dial-in). Then just type the text shortcut and your call-in information will go right into the chat.
UPDATE -- An even better approach!
As Gareth Cook pointed out in his comment below, you can do the same with the "Add Text" button -- enter the call-in information into the text field, and then assign it a shortcut key.
A colleague of mine in the documentation group told me that many people are not aware that when using the Sametime Meeting room that launches from the installed Sametime client, you can move the components around on the screen.
Did you know about this already? If not, check this out!
1. First click the title bar of the component you want to move, and drag:
2. Next, release your mouse where you want the component to go -- including outside of the Sametime meeting window if you want to open it in a separate window:
3. To put it back, either drag and drop the title bar of the component again, or click Room Tools - Restore Room Layout.
When you are in a Sametime meeting, how important is it to see Sametime presence icons for the people in the meeting? For example, we currently don't show those icons in the photo view -- do you wish they were there? If you use third-party extensions that display additional icons, do you want to see those icons in the meeting room participant list? Or would that just clutter the list?
Please post comments -- I'd like to hear from you!
I'm thinking about status settings and how they affect behavior.
Do
you find the "In a meeting" status helpful? Does it change how you
interact with other people, when you see that status by their name? For example, are you less (or more!) likely to IM someone if they have that status?
We
currently support 4 settings: Available, Away, In a Meeting, and Do Not
Disturb. Do you ever wish we had more settings? If so, what would you
want to have available?
In Sametime 8.5 and later releases, you can designate one or more managers of your meeting room. Managers have the same capabilities as room owners -- setting permissions, changing room settings, ending meetings, and so on:
I'm curious to know how many of you out there are using this feature? If so, under what circumstances? Are you finding that you want to share "ownership" of some rooms with other people -- for example, a meeting with a co-chair? Or do you have one person who creates rooms for other people, using the room management feature as a way of passing the room to the person who will actually chair it?
When a participant leaves a meeting room, their name drops off the participant list. The same occurs in a persistent chat room. However, when a participant leaves a multi-way chat, their name stays in the participant list, but becomes italicized and grey, which is how it looks before they enter the chat, as well:
What do you think of this? Should the name drop out of the multi-way chat list as it does in meetings and chat rooms? Do you like seeing the names of people who were in the chat, but have since left?
Using the new Sametime Bandwidth Manager, you can centrally configure and monitor bandwidth for Sametime audio and video calls. With the manager, you place constraints on how bandwidth is used in your network, to ensure that as many users as possible can use audio and video features and that high-priority audio and video usage gets network when needed.
For information about the new Bandwidth Manager, see these documents:
When you are in a meeting, would it ever be helpful to know what type of client (web, installed, or mobile) a user has joined the meeting with? I'd love to hear some examples of when this might be useful.
I asked a few of my colleagues to tell me what their favorite Sametime feature was... here's what they said:
My favorite Sametime feature is the ability to take a quick screenshot and send that to the person I'm chatting with or share it in a meeting room. -- Ben Gold, Sametime Developer
The ability to glance through my open Sametime chats and see the picture of the person I'm chatting with. -- Rob Corell, Business Operations Manager
My favorite feature is to set the Meeting "shelf" in the Connect client to show all the meetings scheduled in my Notes calendar. That way, I can simply click on the entry in the list and very quickly enter the Sametime meeting room that the chair had included in the calendar entry. -- Barry O'Nan, Senior Engineering Manager
Having Sametime automatically change my status when I'm in a meeting because I would always forget to do that myself. -- Dave Cohen, Software Engineer
My favorite Sametime feature is being able to see the context of the person I'm chatting with (e.g. phone Icon when they are on a call). -- Pat O'Sullivan, Senior Architect and Master Inventor
My favorite feature is being able to see who is available, and to get an idea of whether they are currently busy, or if it's okay to bother them. -- Michael Muller, Researcher
Video conferencing with people from other geos, especially those that I have been working with for many years without ever meeting face to face. -- Orit Yaron-Duzy, Sametime Deployment on Messaging and Greenhouse
My favorite Sametime feature is the ability to log all my chats into easily searchable html files. -- John E Newman, IBM Real Time Collaboration Services Support
Being able to see ALL my primary contacts in one visual panel, and know at a glance who is online right now -- Ian McNairn, Program Director, Social Collaboration and Innovation
My favorite Sametime feature is being able to have an Audio/Video
call by just clicking a "green" person. -- Lilach Ofek, Project Manager
My favorite feature is Alerts - Alert me when available. -- Kerry Thompson, Information Developer.
I love how easy it is to start an instant meeting from the chat list - Sara Weber, Development Manager CIOLab Analytics
Being able to send a file right from the chat window. -- Sheri Branco, Usability Specialist
How about you? What's your favorite Sametime feature?
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