Archived Posts from March 2008
Idea Share was opened up to our members four months ago. We’ve had 24 idea submissions since launching (with another 28 submitted in our beta phase). I anticipated far greater activity but patience isn’t one of my strongest virtues. That said, I invite you to use Idea Share for every pet peeve you may have about a WebEx, and/or every feature/functionality you’d love to see improved. While features may take time to get implemented, don’t let deter you from submitting ideas - we welcome your ideas with open arms and open minds!
By the way, we’re still looking to our customers to help prioritize 5 commonly requested enhancements to the WebEx platform. Voting is open until 3/31/08 on these “Featured Ideas”. Make your vote count and vote today.
Ideas that are on the roadmap – marching ahead to implementation!
Here are some ideas that made the cut and are on the roadmap:
1. Currently, anyone using WebEx to record podcasts, is required to deal with an annoying multi-step process to convert .arf files to .mp3 files. The idea was suggested to create the option to save (or easily convert) .arf files to .mp3 files. Good news – this is on the roadmap.
2. Ability to record audio only meetings without dynametric box. Having the ability to record audio only meetings is also coming soon.
3. The ability in providing cut/paste html for WebEx recordings so recordings can easily be posted into a web site for playback.
Already implemented:
The idea was around scheduling a meeting in using Outlook Integration (OI). Instead of manually checking a box for “Attendees receive a callback" and setting tracking code, these features are now part of the product. You’ll notice there is a checkbox at the lower left of your WebEx Settings screen.
Feature already available with Multipoint Video: Idea geared toward training groups of people each logged in as a meeting participant. We would like to be able to view multiple shared desktops or video feeds at once as the host. Ideally this would operate as multiple icons one per person which you could drag around the screen and stretch each person to fit your monitor, viewing needs.
An improvement has been made Release (T26 SP49): It would be easier to find recordings if there was an option/icon on the left navigation bar under My WebEx. Although it's on the left navigation bar of the "centers" tab, hosts are typically managing their sessions/meetings in My WebEx and it's difficult to find My Recordings in My WebEx. The recordings are still under My Files but My Files is now grouped in two tabs – Files and Recordings. Also, for every recording that the user makes, an email will be sent when the recording is ready which will include links to the recording page on the site.
Ideas under review with our Product Management Team – will keep you apprised of the status.
1. Reassign host role for all services, not just EC. Idea generated to have the ability to reassign the host for MC, TC and $C. Currently in site admin, you can reassign the host role for EC.
2. Whiteboard, text tool, allow paste. The ability to paste (ctrl-V) text in the white board, with text tool selected.
3. Site Admin, hover over, description…why? There are so many settings and the site admin help file is so enormous and lacks screen shots of where to manage the settings information. It would be awesome if you could hover your mouse over the options in site admin and it would give a brief description of the setting. This would help our customers who barely find time to take the product training, therefore do not take the site admin training course. This would also help with a faster new employee ramp up.
4. Add some type of help functionality within the service (ie. click to chat or the equivalent of the Microsoft paperclip). Hosts should be able to click on a function and ask for help as to how to use that function. Some animated WebEx helper would be able to give basic information as to how a user could proceed. The animated helper should only appear for the Host to see.
No plans to implement/Retired Ideas
1. Conversion of wrf recordings to wmv format. I understand having proprietary software and formats, however, many companies use more than one delivery and/or software program to develop e-learning. The ability to convert wrf recordings to wmv format will allow for better editing capabilities as well as being recognized by other vendor software. At this point we are not planning to implement this feature. If you’re using the WRF recording editor that WebEx provides, users can convert the WRF to WMV.
2. Ability to be able to upload WebEx archives to Google Video and/or YouTube for broad distribution. Unfortunately this isn’t feasible. Google/Youtube only accepts standard formats. ARF is WebEx's own proprietary format. The workaround is that you can convert ARF to WMV today, and post it to YouTube/Google.
3. An idea that was posted to get Mac OS to work properly with WebEx. Good news is that the person who posted the idea was working off a down-level WebEx site which did not support Mac. Person has attended a current demo and is moving to a current release of WebEx and this problem is resolved. As a result, this idea was retired.