Why so silent?Hello, Sametime Design Blog followers! I wanted to let you know that I'm now blogging on the IBM Sametime blog: https://www-304.ibm.com/connections/blogs/SametimeBlog/?lang=en_us Please look for new entries there! - Amy
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Did you know... ?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.
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Details, details...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. Thanks in advance for any comments!
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What should happen when someone leaves a multi-way chat?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? |
Chat history preference settingsHello, Sametime users. I'm curious to know what chat history preference settings you use.
 1. Do you automatically save your chat transcripts? If so, how long do you keep them around? 2. Do you display previous entries from the day (the "Display the saved transcript between two users..." checkbox)? 3. Any comments about these preference settings? Other things you'd like to be able to control?
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Tip for easily pasting your call-in information into chats
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. |
Favorite Sametime features -- a few comments from IBMersI asked a few of my colleagues to tell me what their favorite Sametime feature was... here's what they said:
How about you? What's your favorite Sametime feature?
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New Sametime 8.5.2 video availableThe Sametime documentation group has just produced a new video. It shows how to set up your IBM Sametime 8.5.2 client for conference
calls that use your
computer's audio and video. It also shows how to start a conference call
from within a
Sametime meeting room and gives an overview of some of the call controls that might be available to you. Using your computer's audio and video capabilities for conference calls is a great feature, so we hope that you find this video helpful. It takes about five minutes to view it. Also, if you watch the video in "full screen", you'll be better able to see the table of contents in the left-hand navigator. |
Using your own sounds for alertsHave 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?
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Don't forget to take our Top Tasks survey!
We want your feedback to help us assess the relative importance of
tasks within IBM Sametime. Your input will help us determine what parts of the Sametime UI most need design attention. :-)
Please note: The survey closes this Friday, September 9.
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Using agile process in Sametime designAt IBM, we've been using agile development process for some time now, and that process includes designers being part of project scrums. But we've only lately started using agile methods *within* our design groups -- that is, having design-only scrum meetings, and 2-week sprint schedules to address the design work we have across the projects we work on. As a design lead, I find the scrum process extremely helpful, so I know what all the designers on my team are working on, and can hear what's blocking people. The daily 15-minute meetings take almost no time, and we really hold tight to that meeting time limit. One of the challenges we face is that design is an inherently iterative process, so we've needed to build iteration into our sprints. Also, new requirements crop up each day, as we learn more details from customers, get Beta feedback, or find that a developer has run into a hitch. So we've had to stay very flexible within our scrum process -- updating sprints as priorities shift. Overall, though, I think it's been a great win. Much more productive than our older-style weekly "status meetings". I like the fast-pace of 15-minute meetings -- makes me wonder if more of my meetings could be that short!! |
Knowing when your chat partner closes the chat windowI'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 do you think?
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Removing meeting contentMeetings users -- did you know that you can easily remove content from your room? Here are some tips:
1. For a quick way to remove all content (discussion and library content) from a room, choose the Remove Room Content command from the Room Tools menu. 2. To remove just the discussion content, click the "x" in the bottom of the discussion widget (only room owners and managers have access to this). If you're on the installed client, you can still get back to the chat content later by creating a meeting report:  3. To remove all content just from the library, in the installed client, right-click anywhere in the library and choose Remove All. You'll be prompted before the content is removed.
For future releases, we're looking at giving you a choice when you end a meeting to also clear out the content. Would you like such a choice? Let me know! |
What file details do you want to see?Are you someone who clicks the "Show details" link in the library, when selecting a file, to find out the information about that file? If you haven't done it, here's how you get this information: 1. In the browser meetings client, select the file, click the drop-down, and click View Details:  2. In the installed meetings client, select the file, click the drop-down, and click View Details.  Or right-click the selected file and choose View Details:  Here's what the file details look like:  This dialog shows you: 1. The actual name of the file (as opposed to the name shown in the library, as you can rename library files) 2. Who added it 3. When they added it 4. How large the file is 5. Where the slides were converted (locally or on the server) *** 6. Number of pages Is this the information you want? Is there other information you'd like to see?
*** Ever wonder what the "slide conversion" part means? Converted locally means that the native application on your computer was used to render the slides for the meeting -- this will give you the highest fidelity slides. Converted on the server means that an application running on the Sametime server rendered the slides for the meeting. This will almost always give you lower fidelity than converting locally. So how do you control this? In the Sametime installed client, if you have the native application for the file, the file will be converted locally. If you use the Sametime browser client, the file will always be converted on the server. |
Design Concept interactive getting startedWe are working on a new design concept for getting started. The team has posted a video prototype and other material in the Online UX Lab. We'd love to hear what you think of this approach. Join the community, watch the video, and tell us what you think. |
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