IBM Sametime design

In Sametime 8.5.2, there are a number of new server configuration settings that you can use to control your deployment:

Whether managed access is required:

meeting.managedAccess.override (default: 0 or off)

How long people are locked out of rooms after ejection:

rtc4web.ejectionTimeout (default: 300 seconds)

Whether meeting rooms will open in a new window or tab:

meetingroomcenter.openRoomInNewWindow (default: true)

Multiple protocol proxy confirmation:

meetingroomcenter.stProxySSLAddress

Whether guests can join meetings on this server:

meetingroom.allowGuestAccess (default: 1 or true)

In addition, there are two new user policies:

• Allow Meeting Room Polls (default: enabled)

• Allow Annotations of Uploaded Content (default: enabled)

 With Sametime 8.5.2, we've made it easy for everyone to see who is the active speaker during a call with multiple people. In the picture below, the orange frame around Amadou Alain's picture shows that currently he is the active speaker on this call:



If multiple people are talking, each speaker's image will be framed.

 With Sametime 8.5.2, there are some new features that will help meeting room owners and managers manage their meetings.

First, we've added a new End Meeting button in the global toolbar so that meeting room owners or managers can simply click the button to close the meeting room. This action ends the meeting for all participants, so they no longer are in the room, and no longer see any room content.  The room owner (or manager, depending on who presses the button) stays in the room, so they can be ready for their next meeting.

Here's what this new button looks like in the toolbar:


We've also added a feature that allows meeting room owners and managers to remove a participant from a meeting. From within a meeting room, a room owner or manager simply right-clicks a participant's name to remove that person from the meeting:



Users who are removed will see a notification that they've been removed, and they will no longer see the content of the meeting room.

When someone is removed from a room, there may be a "lockout" time, during which that person will not be able to re-enter the room. System administrators set this timeout period on a per-server level, using this configuration setting:

rtc4web.ejectionTimeout (default: 300 seconds)

With Sametime 8.5.2, meeting rooms that open in a browser window have significant enhancements, so you can do almost everything you can do when using a meeting room that opens in a Sametime window. These enhancements include:

• Audio/video and telephony capabilities - Depending on the call capabilities available to you, in a meeting room, click the and select to join the audio call using your computer, telephone, or video device (if video is available).  When setting up your own meeting rooms, you can also choose to use audio/video and telephony for your meetings.  See this blog posting for information about the new support for audio and video features in meeting rooms that open in a browser window.
  
• The ability to create and send polls - In the meeting room Library, click the Create a Poll icon to create a new poll, or click Send Poll on an existing poll to send it to meeting participants. After the poll closes, the results are posted to the Discussion area of the meeting room.
• Highlighter and pointer tools when sharing slides - In a meeting room, click Tools to select a color to highlight slides you are presenting.

 

• Jump-to slide navigation - When sharing a document, type in a number to jump directly to that page:

 Wait until you see the new IBM Sametime Unified Telephony (SUT) Lite Client software. SUT Lite Client is a licensing option that is available with Sametime 8.5.2.  For example, with SUT Lite Client you can:

• Make and receive telephone and video calls, even with someone who is offline.

On your Sametime contact list, right-click the name of a person you want to call – even someone who is not online -- and select Call.

You can also click a contact and then click the Call icon or in the toolbar at the top of your contact list.

• Make one-on-one or conference video calls

In the Find a person or number field at the top of the Sametime contact list, type the entire telephone number or the SIP URI of the video conferencing device you want to call. Select the number when it displays. In the open call window, click Video > Start Video.

Starting in release 8.5.2, administrators have an easy way to delete meeting rooms that are not being used anymore.

From the web-based administrative UI in the meeting center, you'll see a Delete icon next to individual meeting rooms:

 

 

In addition, when viewing the rooms for an individual user, you can delete all that user's rooms, if you need to quickly remove a collection of rooms (e.g., if an employee leaves the company):


 

 Now, with Sametime Unified Telephony 8.5.2, you can easily set up a rule to route all your calls to your mobile device, for example, if you're out of the office, but don't want to miss any calls. 

Click File > Preferences > Voice and Video > Routing Calls. For When my IM status is, select “Any mobile status” and then enter your mobile telephone number for your preferred number. When you log on to Sametime from your mobile telephone, all calls will go to the device you specify in the rule.

In 8.5.2, you can now control your audio conversations directly from the system tray, without opening the Call window.  All you need to do is right-click the call icon, to see the options:


 
Left-click the icon, or right-click and choose "Call with <user>" to open the full call window. 

When you mute the call, you see a "muted" icon in the system tray:



 

 We've got some very exciting news on the mobile front!  Sametime 8.5.2 is now available on the Google Android mobile device!  That means you can now have many of the features that you've come to know and expect from Sametime on your desktop or laptop computer on your Android. This includes:

• Using Sametime awareness and chat features.
  
• Tapping and holding a contact or group name to display a list of options.
  
• Adding and removing contacts and groups to and from your contact list.
  
• Reviewing mobile chat histories.
  
• Sending telephone camera photos through Sametime chats.

And, if you have Samtime Unified Telephony on your device, you can place Sametime calls to contacts or people you find using the Sametime search. You can also change your preferred Sametime device to route calls to other devices.

 
There's more exciting mobile news with Sametime 8.5.2 and our new Sametime meetings client for the RIM Blackberry device!

Now from your Blackbery you can:

• Enter, find, and participate in Sametime meeting rooms - Select a Web address (URL) to a meeting room, for example, in an email, calendar entry, or chat, to enter the room.
  

• View shared presentation content - Select the menu button and then Zoom In or Zoom Out; use the scroll or tap and drag on touch screens the pan the presentation into view.
  

• See the meeting room participants - In the meeting room, use the menu button and select "Participants" to see a list of participants.

• View and participate in "live" meeting discussions - In the meeting room, use the menu button and select "Discussion" to see postings made to the "Discussion" area of the meeting room.
  

• Connect to the audio call and the meeting at the same time. (Available only with wifi and some carriers.) - To view the meeting room call information, on a selected meeting room in the room list or search result, or from within a meeting room, use the menu button and select "View room Information."  Then dial in to the meeting room.

Based on customer feedback, we've added a setting for the web meeting client, to indicate whether meetings open in the current window or in a new window or tab.  This capability makes it easier for people to get back to the meeting center if they need to jump from one meeting room to another.

This behavior is controlled at the server level, with this setting:

meetingroomcenter.openRoomInNewWindow (default: true)

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:

Overview

Planning

Installing/Configuring

 Starting in 8.5.2, you can choose different alerting options for new chats and responses to existing chats:


You can use this feature to help you differentiate between new conversations and responses to ongoing conversations.

Does your company use more than one community at a time?  If so, you'll be very happy to see our updated server community icons, which can help you differentiate which users are in which communities.  Based on your feedback, we've designed these icons to have greater contrast with each other, and also rotate through them when you add communities, so that, by default, new communities will have unique icons.

The new icons look like this: