#1 2011-11-14 13:20:23

**_jonobu_**

Improvements for Disabling/Enabling Participant Microphone Rights

Currently, using the "disable microphone rights for participants" feature works effectively and intuitively  - VOIP participant's ability to speak is immediately and consistently cut off.  However, this effectiveness is not matched by its reciprocal feature, "enable microphone rights for participants".  There are some problems with the way "enable microphone rights for participants" works currently:

1. Unless a user is joining a webinar where microphone rights are already enabled for participants, they are not prompted to connect their audio - they have to be prompted by the meeting host to do so, including explaining the location of the controls and how to use them.  This is very difficult to do on-the-fly with new users - for example during a (verbal) Q&A following a general presentation.  Frankly, there are too many steps involved for new users to be guided through on-the-fly.

2. If a VOIP participant had previously set up their microphone to speak to the webinar (i.e. participant microphone rights were disabled mid-webinar), re-enabling microphone rights only allows the participant to re-connect their audio; it does not go ahead and re-connect the (previously-connected) user's audio for them.

This a real problem because restoration (re-enabling AND re-connection) is the expected behavior - consider for example the corresponding telephony behavior of "mute all"/"unmute all" - unmuting immediately restores the ability to talk to the group; Adobe Connect, however, forces users to go through additional steps to get to this same point.

This confusion is compounded by the attendee listing display, which shows microphone icons adjacent to the names of VOIP users whose microphones have been re-enabled (but NOT YET reconnected) - this behavior is confusing, and had understandably misled our VOIP participants to believe that their microphones have been re-connected when this is not the case; this obv. makes it harder to get participants to go ahead and re-connect.

3. There is actually a issue specific to MeetingOne-hosted webinars that occurs upon disabling participants' microphone rights (either by using the feature directly or by using the MeetingOne-specific "Enable Lecture Mode" feature, which implicitly disables participants' microphone rights): VOIP participants hear the message "You have been muted and your microphone has been turned on", which is confusing to say the least. 

On the "re-enabling" end, there is no corresponding audio message (which would be helpful if AND ONLY if the feature actually worked to restore VOIP speaking to the group).  According to MeetingOne support I have been in communications with, this item appears to be related to issues with Adobe's integration of their Universal Voice feature (which bridges telephone and VOIP user's audio).

I already find Adobe Connect to be a very strong product with a good track record of improving its UI over time by simplifying features and removing unnecessary steps in existing features.  I feel that addressing the above issues fits in well with this history, and would improve the product for both hosts (who would have less user education to handle) and participants (who will be able to participate with fewer barriers).

Thanks!

**_jcrow_**

Re: Improvements for Disabling/Enabling Participant Microphone Rights

I am running into the same problem. We just started our subscription with AdobeConnect and I am considering not using it unless this gets fixed.