#1 2009-01-16 11:08:47

**_mhuntley_**

Fatal flaw in telephone conferencing?

We have a hosted Connect account and a MeetingOne account.

For many of the sessions we host, the phone conferencing is our only viable option for audio.

Apart from the problems with Connect VOIP that others have experienced, we are often doing open invitation sessions (webinars) where we want all participants to have the opportunity for voice input but cannot assume they have a mic with their computer (let alone a headset or echo canceling USB speakerphone...).

But there seems to me to be a fatal flaw in the way Connect establishes linkage between named screen identities and phone call-in identities. Unless I'm missing something, there are two ways to do this:

1. Give participants the MeetingOne call-in number and participant code. When they call in, their call-in identity is one item in the participant list and their named screen identity is another, and as host you have to select both and merge them.

Apart from the fact the merging doesn't always work, this approach is only viable when there are just a few participants and they join the meeting at intervals, so you're able to determine which phone identity goes with which screen identity. It's not viable when you've got 30+ participants.

2. When participants log in, they get a dialog requesting that they enter their phone number. When this number is entered, the system calls them at that number and establishes the linkage between phone identity and screen identity.

The problem is that there does not appear to be any way to get this to work when the person is at an extension, and many of our school-based participants are in that situation - as are we in our own office. (At least this is true with MeetingOne. I don't know if Premiere provides any way to handle it.)

I haven't seen this addressed anywhere. Has anyone got a solution?

[By way of contrast, WebEx provides the following method:
1. Participant logs in.
2. Participant gets dialog listing teleconference call-in phone number, meeting code, and attendee ID which is unique to them.
3. When they call in, automated attendant requires them, first, to enter meeting code and then enter attendee ID.
This works well, except when you give out the phone number ahead of time, and (despite your instructions) they call in before logging in.]

Martin Huntley
The Education Alliance at Brown University

**_Terry_at_RefinedData_com_**

Re: Fatal flaw in telephone conferencing?

Hi Martin,

You have all of the options exactly right. The same system is in place with Premiere so there's no difference between the two vendors.

The other annoyance is that users who have dialled in to the conference are often confused when they see the dial-in form after they enter the meeting room since they are already in the phone conference at that stage.

It would seem to be a fairly trivial thing to allow users to enter pauses and extension numbers in these days of automated telephony but unless your attendee has a direct-dial number or cell phone, they are forced to dial in manually.

Sorry I don't have better news for you.

Terry

**_mhuntley_**

Re: Fatal flaw in telephone conferencing?

Thanks for your response, Terry - even though it's a discouraging one!!

Adobe Connect has so many things about it that make it superior to other similar services I've used (WebEx, Elluminate, Horizon Wimba, Marratech...), that it's very frustrating that there is this audio weakness.

Off topic, but the other main weakness is the lack of native support for display of filetypes other than  Powerpoint, especially PDF (c'mon Adobe!) but also Office docs. While I have installed and can use Flashpaper for creating read-only Office docs, it's something many of the folks I work with aren't up to (or can't use, because, for example, they're Mac-only users). Sometimes, you just want to show a document without incurring the bandwidth overhead of screen sharing.

Do Adobe Developers monitor these forums? Are they listening?

Martin

**_Terry_at_RefinedData_com_**

Re: Fatal flaw in telephone conferencing?

I believe that PDF support is coming (if someone at Adobe can provide a timeframe for this it would be amazing) but you would think that this product could convert these types of input files natively.

Hopefully it will come sooner rather than later. Even with the drawbacks, I still think it's the best solution available.

**_dyun_**

Re: Fatal flaw in telephone conferencing?

Hi Martin,

We at Adobe do actively monitor these forums, and part of my job as Community Manager is to aggregate up customer requests and forward them on to the Product Management/Development team.  The best way to make sure your voice gets heard is to post to the Suggestion Box Forums.  your request for native support for other file types as well as support for users with telephone extensions for the dial me option have been duly noted and forwarded on to the team.

Best,
David

**_roysdenc_**

Re: Fatal flaw in telephone conferencing?

David,
    One question I have based on your post is when you see people talk about problems here on the board, do you provide any feedback to Adobe?  I have had a number of issues that I have found other members on this board have, but when I call in and talk to Adobe Support, they say that no one has ever reported a problem like that before.  My typical response is to send them links to all the forum discussions about the same problem. 
    That being said, you provide great information and are very helpful in many cases, but there are on going problems that Adobe tech support claims to know nothing about or never hearing before that are discussed here on the board.  If these topics and issues don't make it back to Adobe support, how is that a service to us (your customers)?  I am not necessarily expecting support to take care of the problem because someone on the forums had it, but I have issues that do not move forward because "I am the only one who has had the problem" even though it has been discussed a number of times on the forums and is often a familiar issue to regular participants.
    The members on the board are great and I love how helpful everyone is.  Adobe and improve the product by leaps and bounds by looking at the problems we discuss.  Just seems like every time I talk to Adobe no cares what problems we have because they have never heard about it.

-Chris

**_dyun_**

Re: Fatal flaw in telephone conferencing?

Hi Chris,

Thank you for your post.  I appreciate your candor and I agree that the feedback loops are not as tight as they should be.  While the Forums are a great resource for helping people troubleshoot, they are not a replacement for Support so if you or any other user are experiencing a mission critical issue, filing an offical support case is definitely the first step that should be taken to ensure it gets tracked to resolution. 

That being said, it disappoints me that it feels like no one at Adobe cares about problems our customers are having.  Furthermore, the fact that you are experiencing pushback from Support because no one has ever heard of your issue is not good.  I agree that this is something that needs to be addressed and I will start to look for solutions on how tighten the relationship between Support and what happens here on the Forums. 

Best,
David

**_roysdenc_**

Re: Fatal flaw in telephone conferencing?

David,
     Anything you can do is appreciated.  As a point of reference, I found the forums after getting no where with Adobe Support.  I have a regular guy that I talk to now and have between 3 and 5 cases open at any given time.  We pay for support, so I do use it.  I just get better support and more timely support from these forums.  The usual answer from Adobe is that they will have to test it and get back to me, which typically ends up with them not being able to reproduce my issue (which they again state is something they have never seen). 
     I recently heard that Adobe was taking a larger interest in support and helping customers, kind of indicated by improvements to this forum, but I see very little action from Adobe Support to indicate they are serious about it.  I personally think a great place to start is by paying attention to the forums because this is where people are ending up when they have questions.  If they can get us a little happier, then Adobe is on the right path.  Anything you can do to facilitate this is appreciated.

Again, you have been great, but Adobe support leaves much to be desired.

-Chris