We’ve recently rolled out one of the most significant updates to Adobe Connect in years. Version 12.11 introduces a completely refreshed user experience, two new pod types, and several improvements for both chat and recordings.
User Interface
The most noticeable difference is a huge update to the user interface in Adobe Connect, brining a visual refresh across pods and core UI elements. You’ll notice rounded corners, updated iconography, and subtle transparency in inactive pods. Active pods become fully opaque to help focus attention where it’s needed.
The Resources Pod
The new Resources pod replaces both the Web Links and Files pods, combining them into a single pod. That means you no longer need two pods on a layout just to share a mix of downloadable files and URL’s. Hosts can now re-order items in the Resources pod, which is great when you want learners to access resources in a specific sequence.
Backwards compatibility is handled automatically. Any existing Files and Web Links pods will automatically be converted into Resources pods, and they’ll retain their content along with their title, size, and position in your rooms.
The Survey Pod
The Survey pod is completely new in the latest release and it’s designed for structured feedback collection – without requiring multiple poll pods.
Surveys support up to 25 questions including multiple choice, multiple answer, and short answer questions. Questions can be set to optional or required. The entire survey can be anonymous or capture respondent names. It is made clear to participants whether or not their names will be associated with the responses.
What makes the new pod incredibly powerful is how easy it is to re-use surveys. Not only can questions can be exported and imported as CSV files, but the entire survey — including all of the relevant options — can be saved to the Adobe Connect content library with a single click. This makes it incredibly easy to use the same set of standard questions across multiple rooms.
Recording Playback Improvements
Recordings also saw a big upgrade in this release along with some great new features. The big change is that viewers watching a recording can now access the same resources that were shared during the live session via a new Resources panel during playback. This needs to be enabled by the host (and is currently off by default), but it brings back some interactivity to Adobe Connect recordings.
Recording settings are now available on the Adobe Connect Central homepage, making it easier to adjust settings such as access, transcript availability, and whether or not the resources are available.
Chat Pod
While the Chat pod is certainly not new with Adobe Connect 12.11, it did get some love from the product team in addition to the UI updates. In a previous release, we added the ability to @ mention users – which highlights their name and notifies them that they’ve been mentioned. 12.11 now supports @everyone to draw attention to a hosts message.
Even more exciting, the Chat pod now supports inline replies. You can reply to a previous message, and that message will be quoted in your reply. It looks fantastic, and if a user clicks on the embedded quote, it will take them to the original message in context.
And More…
While my favorite features are listed above, the team has been hard at work with lots of improvements. Here are a few more updates you’ll see in the latest release:
- Names can be edited in the video cells to include a title (or other text)
- Updated controls for an empty Share pod to make common actions more discoverable
- Updated user interface for Breakout controls in the Attendees pod
- Recordings will now remember where you left off if you return to watch them.