Kevin's Blog

Jan 2011 Office Live Meeting 2007 Console Update

Kevin_R — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 15:28:39 GMT

Last week a minor update to the Office Live Meeting 2007 Console was released. The fix addressed two issues:

2482428 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2482428/ ) You cannot create or join a Live Meeting conference from an external network by using a Live Meeting 2007 client
2491589 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2491589/ ) A Lync Online user in domain A cannot join a Live Meeting conference hosted in an OCS 2007 R2 pool in domain B when the two domains are not federated

The update takes the Windows-based version of the Live Meeting 2007 client to version 8.0.6362.200.

Click Here to Download the January 2011 Update for the Live Meeting 2007 Windows Console

Free Instructor led training: Microsoft Lync Online- Focus on Conferencing

Kevin_R — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 13:37:59 GMT

Microsoft offers a free instructor-led session that introduces the robust conferencing and collaboration features available with Microsoft Lync Online. This interactive sessions will show usage scenarios through live demonstrations and hands-on activities. This live course is held in a virtual classroom via Office Live Meeting. It will allow you hands-on experience to build knowledge, skills, and confidence to use Lync Online more effectively.

In this high-level overview, we will explore the following features:

· What's new in Lync Online?

Collaborating from a Lync Conversation.
Scheduling Online Meetings from Outlook.
Best Practices for managing Online Meetings.

Additional Lync resources will also be shared. Click here to register. Feel free to bring your Lync Online questions to be answered by our expert instructor.

We hope to see you at an upcoming session!

Take part in Free Instructor led UC Training!

Kevin_R — Sat, 11 Sep 2010 13:03:37 GMT

Deploying Office Live Meeting or Communications Server to your organization? Don’t stop at the desktop, drive users to adopt!

Microsoft now offers a free instructor-led session entitled : ‘6 steps to a successful UC Rollout: Best Practices for readiness planning and driving adoption of UC Solutions’. This class is a great first stop for IT Pros and rollout teams implementing Unified Communications solutions within their organization. The session will offer recommendations to promote a successful UC launch and reinforce ongoing user adoption. Presented in a virtual classroom via Office Live Meeting, this interactive session introduces the Unified Communications Adoption Methodology using detailed examples and hands-on activities.

Topics discussed include:

· How to develop a successful Readiness Plan.

· Why pilot program prior to deployment is beneficial.

· How to establish meaningful success metrics.

· How to design effective training and awareness strategies

Click here to register: https://events.livemeeting.com/967/15171/reg.aspx?=pc5

April 2010 Update for Office Live Meeting client and Outlook Add-In

Kevin_R — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 12:51:00 GMT

The April update for the Office Live Meeting client and Outlook Add-In is now available for download.

Client updates include:

Users will no longer view a white window at the top of the screen when sharing an application in the Office Live Meeting client localized in Finnish.
Improved exception handling to address an issue in which some uploaded Word documents resulted in the client closing for all meeting participants.
When a user (User 1) with administrator privileges on his machine allows another meeting participant (User 2) to have control of application sharing, User 2 is able to respond to user access control prompts when launching applications that require elevated privileges to run.
- NOTE: The client must be installed under Program Files using LMSetup.exe, and User 1 must have the appropriate rights (such as administrator) required to run the application. If the client is installed in user mode using LMConsole.msi or User 1 does not have the appropriate rights to the machine, User 2 will not be able to respond to the user access control prompt based on Windows Vista or Windows 7 security design.
Select localization enhancements.

Outlook Add-in updates include:

When you remove an attendee from an Office Live Meeting invitation and send an update only to that individual, the meeting scheduled on the Office Live Meeting service will continue to exist on the conference centre.
After converting a recurring meeting series to use Office Live Meeting, the Organizer will be able to view updated tracking information based on the invitees' accept/tentative/decline responses to the updated invitation.
The text under Meeting Options > Expiration will be updated to reflect Content Expiration, instead of Meeting Expiration.

Improved background remote procedures calls will reduce delays when opening meetings.

Use Live Meeting video to enhance your next meeting

Kevin_R — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 21:04:48 GMT

Why add video to your Live Meeting?

The video component of any Live Meeting presentation or event can be the key that keeps the attendees involved and participating in a session.

Use video as part of your Live Meeting to:

Immediately enhance virtual team collaboration and decision making through improved engagement and communication.
Increase personal and cross-team connection by simulating a face-to-face conference experience, regardless of the number of participants who are based remotely
Keep all participants invested and attentive during the meeting by bringing video, voice, and meeting content together into one seamless interactive session.
Put a “face” to your recorded demos and training presentations, as Live Meeting’s High Fidelity Recording Playback displays webcam or RoundTable video in synch with audio and meeting content.

Office Live Meeting supports both traditional webcams and the Microsoft RoundTable video camera, which allows for a 360 degree view of a physical conference room – alone, or in combination with remote participant webcam display.

Would you like to learn more about how to use Live Meeting video? Join an upcoming instructor led course ‘Best Practices for Office Live Meeting Audio, Video, and Recording’. Click here to register.

Choosing the Right Microsoft® Office Live Meeting Audio Conferencing Partner (ACP)

Kevin_R — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 14:40:23 GMT

To ensure your Microsoft® Office Live Meeting sessions can accommodate users connecting via their PC or users who only have a telephone (PSTN) connection you will need a Office Live Meeting Audio Conferencing Partner (ACP).

The ACP is a partner organisation that has worked with Microsoft to ensure their audio conferencing service is compatible with Office Live Meeting. You may already be using an audio conferencing service, but does it work with Office Live Meeting (or Office Communications Server R2)?

Once you sign-up with your chosen ACP, you can then enjoy the ease of joining your VoIP users and PSTN users into the Live meeting session.

With a recent update to the list of Audio Conferencing Partners you can now see all the organisations that could offer you a solution in your geographical area. Each partner will offer a core set of features and some will offer more unique features such as support for Break out rooms in Office Live Meeting.

Common features of the PSTN audio integration:

Audio conference call controls

Speaker indicator (active talker)

Call Me

Local dial-out

Virtual Breakout rooms

Mute/Unmute

Integrated PSTN and VoIP

Follow this link that will take you to the updated page showing you the list of features and the list of ACP’s.

Effectively Deploy Live Meeting with the Live Meeting Online Adoption Resource

Kevin_R — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 13:11:24 GMT

Are you a new customer looking to rollout Live Meeting?

Are you an existing Live Meeting customer who is looking to maximize your ROI?

If you answered yes to either question, the Live Meeting Online Adoption Resource can help.

A comprehensive on-boarding strategy is a critical piece to the overall success of both your initial rollout as well as ongoing adoption of your Live Meeting service. Designed to facilitate this strategy, the Live Meeting Online Adoption Resource targets the five key rollout areas, including

· Configuring your Live Meeting Conference Centre

· Completing the technical deployment

· Defining your end-user support strategy

· Designing an end-user training plan

· Driving awareness of Live Meeting across your organization

Following a proven methodology, The Live Meeting Online Adoption Resource provides IT Pros/Live Meeting Administrators step-by-step instructions on how to rollout the Live Meeting service optimally. In addition, this tool includes tips and best practices, checklists, links to whitepapers, training, user guides and templates, and much more - everything needed to rollout your Live Meeting service as well as help maximize your ROI.

Access the Live Meeting Online Adoption Resource here and get started with Live Meeting today.

Free Instructor-Led Office Live Meeting Training

Kevin_R — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 14:22:10 GMT

Microsoft offers free instructor-led session that introduces key Live Meeting usage scenarios through live demonstrations and hands-on activities.

Classes are held in a virtual classroom and allow hands-on experience to build knowledge, skills, and confidence to use Office Live Meeting more effectively. Students are able to ask questions of the instructor in these highly interactive trainings. On demand courses are also available.

Courses include:

Introducing Office Live Meeting: This course introduces the features and functionality available within Live Meeting through live demonstrations and hands-on activities.

Office Live Meeting Quick Start A first step for all Office Live Meeting users, this 30-minute introduction covers the fundamentals of scheduling and presenting.

Best Practices for Presenting in Office Live Meeting: Valuable for anyone presenting in Office Live Meeting, this course explores best practices for presenting in a virtual environment.

Office Live Meeting 2007 Administrator Training: Designed for the Office Live Meeting Administrator, this course introduces basic skills for deploying and managing the latest release of the Office Live Meeting service for your organization.

Visit for a complete course catalogue: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/livemeeting/HA102429721033.aspx

Latest Live Meeting 2007 Console & Outlook Add-In Available for Download – JAN 2010 Release

Kevin_R — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 11:53:46 GMT

Last week the latest Microsoft Office Live Meeting console and Outlook add-in were made available for download.

Version 8.0.6362.149 of the console and add-in brings improvements and fixes that include:

Ability to limit sharing (and control) to a single application rather than the whole desktop of the presenter.
Support for Office 2010 with the Outlook Add-in
Improvements for PowerPoint slide support when using Office 2010

Here are the links to the two KB’s that will give you more information about what has changed with the Console and Outlook Add-In respectively. From the KB articles follow the link to download the new versions

KB 976128 : Description of the Windows-based Live Meeting 2007 client update package: Jan 2010

KB 976129 : Description of the update for Live Meeting Conferencing Add-in for Outlook: Jan 2010

Unified Conferencing at Tech-Ed, Europe - Berlin

Kevin_R — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 16:06:00 GMT

Just a quick post to let you know that I’ll be in Berlin for Tech-Ed EMEA from November 8 - 13 and I hope to see some of you there. I’ll be providing a broad overview of our web conferencing solutions, both on-premise and in the cloud.

I’ll be delivering one breakout session:-

UNC101-SUN - Using Microsoft Web Conferencing to Save Money
- As part of Microsoft’s Unified Communications strategy, Microsoft offers two Web Conferencing solutions: Microsoft Office Live Meeting and Office Communications Server. Correctly deployed these solutions can and have saved organisations a significant amount of money by providing efficient virtual face-to-face meetings, thus reducing travel and telephony costs. This session introduces the solutions and shows how they can be used to run efficient meetings. With live demonstrations we explore the differences between the solutions and identify, with reference to actual deployments, best practices ...

Other sessions running in the UC track about or related to web conferencing include:-

UNC203 Implementing and Administering Microsoft Online Services
- In this session we provide a status on the MS Online Services solution (which include Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, Office Live Meeting, and Office Communications Online), explain the different migration scenarios, and give you information on real customer scenarios.

UNC205 Tips and Tricks for Planning, Deploying, and Troubleshooting the Microsoft Office Live Meeting Service
- Office Live Meeting 2007 can save organisations significant amounts of money by reducing travel times and providing efficient virtual meeting environments. For organisations to make the most of Live Meeting, it must be configured correctly and so must the organisation's network. This session provides a deep dive into planning, installing, and troubleshooting Live Meeting 2007, the Office Outlook Add-in and the Live Meeting Portal. This session provides IT Pros with best practices and tips for successfully deploying Live Meeting to realise the full potential of this powerful Web conferencing and virtual meeting tool.

More information on Tech-Ed EMEA can be found at http://www.microsoft.com/europe/teched/. Tech-Ed is a good venue for any and all technology professionals interested in exploring a broad set of current and upcoming Microsoft technologies, tools, platforms, and services.

Apart from my breakout session you should be able to find me on the Unified Communications stand in the Technical Learning Centre on Tuesday afternoon.

Whether you can make it to the conferencing sessions or not, I’m looking forward to seeing you in Berlin. Feel free to tap me on the shoulder and say hello.

Thanks!

Kevin Rockall