3 underrated Adobe Connect 10.5 features

by Jorma Jennings

October 3, 2019

The release of Adobe Connect 10.5 has come with many a great and wondrous improvements. However, there are a few gems that may have been overlooked in excitement of the features now available in the HTML version of Connect Meetings.
There are three new features that stand out to me in 10.5 that didn’t get the shouts and cheers they deserved. These are:

• The Meeting Launch workflow for all browsers
• Mobile browsers: Users are given an option to join through browsers or mobile app (Beta feature)
• New Access setting for Meetings and Seminars

Meeting Launch workflow

In Connect 10.0 to 10.2 the new Meeting Launch workflow was available for users using IE, Edge, and Fire Fox. Individuals joining through Chrome were left with the old experience which didn’t provide the option to join in HTML or the Desktop App containing Flash. 10.5 comes with an update that brings the new Meeting Launch workflow to all browsers and this should be cause to celebrate. Not just because a significant percentage of individuals are using Chrome, but because Connect is back to having a unified experience for joining a Meeting. This also streamlines the support experience, as we no longer have to qualify what browser you are joining from when working through the process of joining a room.

Mobile Browsers

Mobile support for Connect has been a roller coaster over the past few years. While it’s easy to shake our fists at Adobe that the Mobile App never had the full features and functions of the desktop client, many of the shortcomings were due to limitations put on App functionality by Apple and Google. In my humble opinion, the best way to resolve these issues is to drop the Mobile App. Connect 10.5 quietly takes the first step in this direction!

Now, keep in mind that it is being considered a Beta feature. This means you are not likely to get much support if things don’t work 100% of the time, and I wouldn’t expect the HTML version of the room to be mobile optimized. The pods may be small and hard to read, and the room may be hard to interact with when you have joined with your iPhone or Galaxy. But, this is a significant step toward the Adobe Connect product team bringing Connect back to a unified experience across all screens with no download required.

I’d be willing to say that this may be one of the most significant changes to Connect in quite a while, because it really does move us closer to experience of Connect 6 and 7 when Flash was everywhere (98% of all computers connected to the internet had Flash at that time and mobile access wasn’t really a thing). Back then we were able to boast that Connect was the same experience across all screens, which was something that wasn’t matched by any of Connect’s competitors.

New Access setting

The new Access setting for Connect is a setting I never knew I needed. The new setting is Only registered users and account members may enter the room. And if you are like me, you read it and said, “Great! What does that mean?”

What is an Account Member? An Account Member is a person who has a user name and password for the account.

Let’s use plain English to define the old settings first.

• Public Room – Anyone who has the URL for the meeting can enter the room.
  This setting means that anyone who joins the meeting can enter without any waiting for the Host to accept or deny them. Think of a room where there is a table with name tags out front. Fill out a name tag and come on in.
• Private Room with Guest Access – Only registered users and accepted guests may enter the room.

  This setting is like the above setting but now we have a bouncer at the table. The Host can create a list of Registered Users that are pre-approved to join which the bouncer will use to either let people in or will ask the Host if that individual can access the room. Both Account Members who are not on the list and Guests will be stopped at the door by our virtual bouncer.

• Private Room with no Guest Access – Only registered users may enter the room (guest access is blocked)

  This setting is same as the private room with the removal of Guest users being able to access the room. Only Account Members may access, or request access, to the room. A list of Registered Users can be created allowing those individuals direct entry to the room.

And the new setting!

• Semi-public Room – Only Registered Users and account members may enter the room.
• A hybrid of the Public Room setting and Private with no Guest Access setting – This option allows all users who are Account Members to join the room without the Host’s approval. Guests will be blocked from being able to access the room. Think of this new option as a Public, Internal option. The bouncer has been removed from the door, but the door is in a secured building.

The new option creates the ability to have a secure but public room where only users who have accounts within that Connect account can access the room. A Registered User list can still be used to pre-define roles within the room but won’t be a limit for who can access the room.

There are the three features of Connect 10.5 that no one is talking about but are of significant value, at least in my eyes. Have thoughts on other features that are worth talking about? Any features that aren’t yet a part of Connect that you are hoping for? Let us know.