Adobe Connect

We probably don't use 30% of the features during any given meeting, but it's nice to have the flexibility of breakout sessions, whiteboards, video conferencing, etc. Most of our sessions are simple PowerPoints uploaded into the room, utilizing integrated telephony and chat for communication. But the system is robust, offering just about anything you could imagine doing in an online meeting. We record most of our sessions, and Adobe offers good tools for editing the recordings, which can then be shared right from Adobe's platform. The pods available in the room allow for document sharing during the meeting, the playing of audio and video files, polling and surveys, and of course screen sharing. The new HTML client means participants don't have to leave the browser to engage in meetings any more, and there is a mobile client for joining meetings via Android or iOS. The admin interface offers branding so you can ensure all the meetings have your company's logo and colors. All in all, it's a pretty slick package.

My biggest gripe with Adobe Connect is the necessity of engaging a third party in order to achieve integrated telephony. This should be included. To be clear, VOIP is included. I'm simply talking about the ability of participants to call in to a meeting using a regular phone requires a third party. While it's not enough to make me seek a different webinar platform, it is shocking that Adobe has not addressed this glaring issue. The only issue I have with the platform is playing long videos during meetings never seem to work, and it has forced us to all but exclude video from our presentations.

My institute had a license for Adobe Connect for several years. I began to use Adobe Connect around 2016 to facilitate lecture delivery in a large classroom. In my case, I had a room where students had a poor viewing angle of the screens and whiteboard. Initially used the software to solely screen share. As I became more comfortable, I also began to share audio when students could not attend a lecture. This was a help with being prepared for the Covid-19 online transition. As it turned out, I used another software en lieu of Adobe Connect (Zoom) as it was better setup to facilitate captioning and cloud recording. Nonetheless, Connect was a good software package.

I found that the UI was not plug and play. Every time I setup a new course/lecture it was moderately involved to get it to a situation in which I could screen share with the students. It did work but ultimately in comparison with Zoom or Blue Jean it was more involved on the setup end. Setting up a recurring meeting was not an option that I ever found. This meant that I was using a single link for the class. Prior to Covid-19, I doubt this was a big issue, but post-Covid-19 and Zoom bombing, I'm certain this would potentially have been a significant issue. Additionally it was not directly integrated in my university's course management unlike Zoom. This meant there were a few steps of "abstraction" I had to follow in order to get the notifications out to students vs. having a link automatically appear in the learning management system.

The features are most impactful are video conferencing, presentation feature and real-time chat. These features offer the opportunity for participants to feel more connected with co-workers and students.

The pricing is the least favorite part about this software.