Enhance virtual experiences with Adobe Connect 12.5

Hot on the heels of the giant 12.4 release, the Adobe Connect team is delighted to bring more exciting product developments to their customers. Version 12.5 is rolling out to all their hosted accounts – it includes several new, exciting features. Read further to find out more about the details of this release.

Chat Panel

Chat is nothing new in Adobe Connect. You’re able to add one or more chat pods to any layout to provide participants with the option to chat. The Q&A pod also enables moderated chat for situations where you want to review messages before making them public.

The new Chat Panel, by design, is not captured as part of the recording. You can now create layouts that feature only the pods you want in your recordings, while still enabling chat during your session.

The Chat Panel, by default, is controlled independently by each attendee in a session. One person opening the Chat Panel will not open it for everyone else. Each individual can decide whether or not they want to see the chat. Although that’s the default, Adobe has added the option to Force Presenter View. When this option is enabled, only a presenter or host can open and close the Chat Panel, and whatever they decide is synchronised with everyone in the room. Existing customers can enable the new Chat Panel by selecting the option in the Meeting Preferences menu.

Pod Switcher

One of the features that not many people knew about was the ability to swap the contents of a note pod with the contents of another note pod. In other words, instead of hiding your note pod, then going up to the pods menu and selecting a new pod, you could simply click on the option menu, and choose a new note. The same was true for polls.

That feature wasn’t easy to find though, and it was limited to polls and notes. In Version 12.5, Adobe is introducing a new pod switching capability that expands the usage and makes it much easier and more discoverable.

The title bar of most pods – including Share, Notes, Chat, Files, Web Links, Poll, and Quiz – will now include a subtle drop-down arrow in the top-right corner. Clicking this arrow will enable you to quickly switch from one instance of that type of pod to another. For example, you can switch from one quiz to a different quiz, or one poll to another poll.

You can also use it to quickly add a new pod of the same type with the same dimensions in place of the pod you’re replacing. This new feature makes it incredibly fast and easy to swap pods on your layout.

Clear Pod Content

This feature is like a robot vacuum for your virtual room. Adobe Connect rooms are persistent – you can re-use them over and over again and all of the content you’ve uploaded to your room (PowerPoint decks, files, weblinks, custom pods, layouts, etc…) also all persist.

There are some things we don’t necessarily want from a previous session showing up in a new session though. When re-using a room you have previously used, make sure to visit each layout to ensure that the chat history has been cleared, that your polls are reset, and that you have cleared out the Q&A from your previous session.

A new option in the pods menu will automatically clear this content for you. It will clear the chat from Chat pods (and the new Chat Panel), the Q&A, as well as any polls across all layouts.