We are thrilled to officially announce the launch of Pronto Meetings! This represents a significant enhancement to our former LIVE functionality while introducing a number of new and exciting features. While we could not be more excited about these enhancements, we'd love to hear from you. After reviewing these new features, we'd love if you could take a brief moment and let us know how we are doing by taking a very short survey regarding this feature release.
For a growing library of documentation on the new Meetings feature, visit here.
Pronto Meetings:
The first thing to note about Pronto Meetings is the change in name, from LIVE to Meetings. Everything about Pronto is designed to drive Human Connection and Communication. We felt this was an important distinction that is present from the first time you hear the new name, to when you see the newly enhanced interface. Pronto Meetings allows contributors to be sharing their camera in beautiful HD in a newly enhanced Grid or Active Speaker View. This allows group members to feel more connected to the other participants while optimizing the use of screen real estate.
In this image, you can see that Active Speaker view has been selected, bringing the screen share to the prominent position and placing larger rectangular images of the participants down below. Additionally, we now allow Pinning which will also put a single screen in the prominent position. Adjacent to that option in the upper corner is the newly available Grid View which would put all the participants in the center of the screen, with their boxes adjusting in size automatically to accommodate additional users. In Grid View, a Pronto Green box will be placed around anyone who is actively speaking.
As part of these enhanced views, multiple participants can be sharing their screens from a desktop at the same time and those screens will occupy another one of the "broadcaster" spaces.
Continuous Chat:
With a completely revamped User Interface (UI) We have added a continuous Chat stream within the meeting, replacing the previous version where only a few messages could be seen briefly while a LIVE session was in progress. Consistent with the idea of a meeting, the chat in the video will appear blank when the Meeting is first opened, but will continue to update the Pronto group and fit in the general thread of the group. Meetings Chat is complete with our regular Translation, File Attachment, Emoji and GIF functions.
Advanced Meeting Controls:
We have added greater controls regarding managing a meeting that are given to all users, but a few specific permissions to the meeting host as well as the Group Owner. From left to right:
Leave the Meeting or as the Host, you can close the meeting for all. This replaces the LIVE function of closing when the last participant left the session.
Switch to Observer allows users to cut their mic and camera and just spectate the Meeting
Share Screen is a Web-only option to share your full screen, a specific browser tab, or an application from your computer.
Audio allows you to drop your mic or as the Host, you can cut the audio for all participants. You cannot turn the audio back on for all participants. Participants must unmute themselves.
Video allows for users to share or turn off their video as well as use other cameras connected to their computer.
A full-screen option allows the meeting to expand to maximize the high res video of the meeting
Record will store the meeting for later download in our cloud and will be accessible through the group thread or in the group settings.
Grid and Active Speaker views to specify how you want to view the Meeting
Chat will contain the ongoing text communication of the meeting
Participants will show all those both participating and a secondary list for those spectating.
**This is an actual image of the team who brought you Meetings, using Meetings, to build Meetings!! We love our Product Team!**
Additional Considerations:
To maintain consistency with our mobile experience, we have moved the Camera Icon used to launch a meeting from the lower text entry bar to the upper-right corner of the screen. This will also be relocated if you are using CanvasLMS chat widget.
The Pronto: Team Communication mobile applications will now support Background Audio capabilities. This means that you can be in the meeting, but if you switch to txt messages or another app on your phone, you will not be disconnected and will be able to continue to participate in the meeting. This was a direct request from several of our clients and we are excited to bring it to you.
We have optimized Meetings in a major way to reduce the amount of battery life on mobile and computing necessary on the web, putting a lot less strain on your device, while also significantly increasing the quality of video resolution.
In this first version of Meetings, the previously established limits are still in place. Namely:
Only 10 "broadcasters" are allowed to be sharing video or audio at the same time. Sharing your screen does not count as an additional "broadcaster".
Up to 400 participants can be in a single meeting. Meaning this could be one "broadcaster" and a further 399 "spectators"
Meetings are secure and limited to the group participants within the group they are started. If you would like to bring in a guest, they would first need to be added to the Pronto group.
Recording is currently limited to 9 "broadcasters".
Screen share is not available on the Mobile Pronto: Team Communication applications at this time.