What's New in Adobe Connect

The Adobe Connect 12.7 release introduces a new events analytics dashboard, custom virtual video backgrounds, multiple updates to simplify the in-room controls, revamped room customization UI for admins, accessibility improvements and fixes for various issues.

Event Analytics (Hosted Only)

A new dashboard with a consolidated view of participant activities, interactions, and engagement during the event, will now be available. The dashboard will also allow hosts to download various reports without having to enter the room after the session. The dashboard can be accessed from the Reports tab of any event.

Custom Virtual Video Backgrounds

Account admins can upload up to 9 custom virtual backgrounds which will then be available inside the room for selection. Admins can also control the availability of the default Adobe Connect virtual background images. The option will be available under the Customization settings within the Admin tab in Connect Central.

Revamped Customization UI for Admins

• The UI for Customization settings under the Admin tab in Connect Central has been redesigned for an updated and fresher look.
• The logos and background images will support SVG vector images.
• A new alternate text field has also been added for the logo shown inside the room.
  

Simplification of in-room controls

Adobe Connect rooms provide hosts with multiple settings to customize the experience for participants. Over time some of these settings have become redundant, use non-standard terms, or have been duplicated across multiple places. With the 12.7 release we have removed redundant and duplicate settings, renamed them using industry-standard terms, and have reorganized them along with UI touchups to improve navigation across the room. 

• Room name
  The room name has been removed from the desktop client menu bar and has been replaced with a hamburger menu icon. The room name can be viewed in the browser tab title and the desktop application title bar.

• Room Menu
  • Host and Presenter area has been renamed to Backstage.
  • The Layouts Panel option to toggle the availability of the Layouts Panel has been moved to a new checkbox setting under General Preferences.
  • Switch to prepare mode option has been removed. The prepare made will continue to be accessible from the Prepare mode icon in the Layouts Panel.
  • Speaker & Microphone setup option has been removed. Speakers and microphones can be setup and tested from the respective options menu in the menu bar.
  • Manage meeting information option has been renamed to View room information.
  • Manage access & entry
    • The Invite participants option has been removed. This option will be replaced with Copy room URL option (as mentioned in #7 below).
    • The Block guest access option has been removed. Guest access can be disabled by unchecking the option Accepted guests may enter the room from the Edit Information page for the room on Connect Central.
    • Block incoming attendees option has been renamed to Block incoming participants.
    • Tooltips have been added for the three remaining options.
  • A new option Copy room URL has been added under the room menu which can be used to copy the room URL to share it with participants.
  • A new icon has been added to View room information option. This icon indicates that the option will launch a link in a new browser window.

• PODs menu
  • The PODs Menu has been updated to add icons for the different pods and group pods into cohorts for easier identification. Tooltips have also been added for the various pods.
  • The Move and Resize pods option has been removed. This option will continue to be accessible through its duplicate Lock layouts option under the Layouts Panel menu.
  • The Custom pods option under the Help menu has been moved to the PODs menu as Explore custom pods.

• Speaker options menu
  • The Adjust volume option has been removed. The speaker volume can be controlled from the Windows/Mac OS volume controls.
  • The Hear attendee audio option will be visible only in rooms using telephony for audio.

• Microphone options menu
  • The Adjust volume option has been removed. The microphone volume can be controlled from the Windows/Mac OS microphone device control settings.
  • A tooltip has been added for Single speaker mode.
  • The state of the Allow participants to use microphone option will now persist across sessions in the room.

• Camera options menu
  • Enable webcam for participants has been renamed to Allow participants to use camera.

• Pod three dot menus
  • The pod menus have been re-organized, and options have been grouped under headings.
  • Maximize option has been renamed to Maximize for all. A tooltip has also been added for this.

• Share Pod
  • The Sync navigation icon has been removed from Share pod title bar. It will continue to be accessible from the Share pod options menu.
  • The Limit video scaling option available when sharing MP4 videos has been removed. The MP4 videos will always be scaled to fit the share pod.

• Notes Pod
  • The icons for Bold, Italics and Underline have been replaced with the industry standard icons.

• Attendees Pod
  • The Edit information option in Attendee menu has been renamed to Edit display name.
    

• The settings within the Preferences modal have been reorganized. 
  • General Preferences
    • A new setting Show layouts panel to hosts (relocated from the room menu) to control the availability of the Layouts Panel has been added.
  • Menu bar Preferences
    • Show activity ticker setting has been renamed to Show activity monitor.
    • The notification settings for the Raise hands feature (shown when screen sharing) have been reorganized.
      

• Audio Conference Preferences
  • The Audio Conference tab in Preferences will now only be shown for accounts which have at least one active audio profiles available in Connect Central. This will ensure accounts which only use VoIP for audio will not see the telephony audio related settings inside the room.
  • The Allow participants to use microphone setting has been removed. The state of Allow participants to use microphone option present under the microphone options menu will now persist across sessions in the room.
• Attendees pod Preferences
  • The attendee pod sorting options have been moved to the Display name tab.
  •  The Mask telephone numbers option has been moved to the Audio Conference tab as this option is only relevant when using telephony audio.
  •  The Attendees pod Preferences tab has been removed as it did not have any setting left under it.

• Video Preferences
  
  • The default aspect ratio for camera videos has been changed to Wide screen (16:9) from Standard (4:3).
  • The Disable webcam preview option has been removed. The webcam preview will always be shown when trying to turn on the camera for the first time during a session. From the next instance during the session, the camera will turn on with a single click without a preview. The preview if needed will be accessible from the camera options menu.
  • The Highlight active speaker option has been removed. The active speaker will always be highlighted in the video pod if more than one active video is being shared.

• Share pod Preferences
  • The low and medium screen share quality options have been removed.
  • The standard quality setting will be the default share quality.
  • The high screen share quality setting was used to increase the frame rate of the share. This led to higher network bandwidth requirements but is particularly useful when screen sharing videos or any other such fast-moving content. This option has been removed from Share pod preferences and moved to the screen share modal of the Share pod.
  • The Show application cursor has been removed from the UI and has been enabled by default.
  • The Start buffering videos automatically for participants has been removed from the UI and has been enabled by default.

Improved discovery of share system audio feature

The option to include system audio has been moved to the Start sharing popup shown on selecting the Screen sharing option in share pod. This was earlier available as a menu option in the drop-down menu next to the Screen button.

Optimize screen sharing for video clips

A new option checkbox Optimize for video clips will be available when sharing screen via the desktop applications (Refer image for desktop app sharing above). This option increases the frame rate of the screen share. Use this option when screen sharing video clips (like a video clip on YouTube). A higher frame rate will ensure the screen share appears smooth and less jerky to participants.

Request to unmute

To improve the privacy for attendees, the Unmute option shown against attendee names in the Attendees pod has been removed and has been replaced with Request to unmute option. When a host selects this option, the participant will receive a notification informing about the request. The microphone will be unmuted only if the participant accepts to do so. The host will be informed if the participant declines the request.

Miscellaneous changes and fixes

• The camera video will be mirrored by default. The mirroring state can be toggled using the mirror option located in the Video pod title bar.
• The toast message informing participants that the session is being recorded and transcribed, will be shown now to participants who join after the recording had started.
• The new Mac OS uses a nonbreaking space character in the filename when saving screenshots. An issue, where uploading such files in Share pod failed, has been fixed.
• A confirmation popup will now be shown when attempting to revert edits made to transcripts.
• Recordings can be made to start playback from a specific timestamp by affixing the url parameter "archiveOffset=timeInMilliSeconds" to the recording URL.
  Example: To start the playback of the recording "https://my.adobeconnect.com/ph4e68pd7kvz/" from the 2nd minute onwards, share the url as "https://my.adobeconnect.com/ph4e68pd7kvz/?archiveOffset=12000"
• Multiple fixes to aria-labels, and roles to improve accessibility of in-room options.
• Third-party library updates:
  • JDK will be updated to ver 1.8.0_411
  • Tomcat will be updated to ver 9.0.87

The Adobe Connect 12.6 release introduces a new broadcast control for sessions, short answer type questions in quiz pod and diarized transcripts (beta). The release adds support for import/export of quiz questions, closed captions in breakout rooms, mixed audio in breakout rooms. The release also brings in improvements to simplify closed caption workflow, PDF document sharing, and room accessibility.

BROADCAST CONTROL for Adobe Connect sessions 

The Broadcast control provides an explicit button for the host to start broadcasting to the entire audience. Until then the presentation team can confer amongst themselves without being heard by the audience and test their audio/video feeds. Even when the session is not live, participants will be able to enter the room and see the active layout, but they will not be able to see or hear the hosts and presenters till the broadcast is started. In effect, the broadcast control results in creating a “virtual green room” for the presentation team.

• To activate the feature, turn ON the toggle for Enable broadcast control under the Broadcast control tab of the room Preferences dialog. 

• The virtual green room will come into effect and a Broadcast Control pod will be available in the Host & Presenter area
  

• The broadcast can be started for participants by clicking the Start broadcast button in Broadcast Control pod and selecting Confirm in the subsequent popup.
  

• The session can be paused to briefly enter the virtual green room again by selecting Pause from the Broadcast Control pod. Session can be resumed from a paused state by selecting Resume from the Broadcast Control pod. 
• To end the broadcast at the conclusion of the session, select End from the Broadcast Control pod. Participants will not be able to hear or see the presentation team and can start exiting the room. The presentation team can use this time to review the session, thank any co-hosts, guest speakers etc.
• To exit the room and close the meeting room, select End session for all from the Exit menu on top right.

Short answer question type in Quiz pod

A new question type, Short answer will be added to the Quiz pod. A short answer type question only has question text and there are no answer options. The response to short answer questions will not be evaluated when computing scores. The responses to the short answer type questions will be included in the current quiz pod reports available in Connect Central.

Evaluation example: If a quiz has 10 questions and 2 of them are short answer type questions, then only the 8 non-short answer type questions will be counted towards scores (and score percentages). The score for someone who gets all 8 questions correct will be 8 out of 8 (100%).

Quiz pod import/ export questions

Controls to import / export quiz questions have been introduced to make is easier it to setup up the quiz pod. The feature supports GIFT and CSV file formats for both import and export.

Diarized Transcripts for recordings (beta)

Transcripts will be generated for all meeting recordings if transcription is enabled from the room preferences. The transcripts will be diarized i.e., it will show the speaker’s name.

• To enable transcription, enable the toggle against Enable automated closed captioning and transcription.

• Transcription will start automatically whenever the session recording is initiated.
• To make the transcripts available during recording playback
  1. Open the Recording Information page for the recording in Connect Central. This can be done by clicking the name of the recording in the Recordings widget on Connect Central Home Page. Alternatively, visit the Recordings tab for the room and click on the recording name.
  2.  Click on Actions and select Edit Information from the dropdown menu.
• Check the Show transcript viewer (Beta) option and select Save.

• The transcripts can now be displayed and hidden by selecting the Show Transcript icon from the bottom right corner during the recording playback.

• Clicking on any line in the transcript will navigate the video to that timestamp. The search bar can be used to search the transcript for keywords and then jump to the relevant point in the recording.

Editing automatically generated transcripts

The hosts will be able to edit the automatically generated transcripts.

• To enable editing of the transcripts, check the Show transcript viewer (Beta) option for the recording.
• Launch the Recording Editor for the recording. This can be done by clicking Edit Recording (pencil) icon for the recording from the Recordings widget on Connect Central Home Page. 
• The Transcript Editor can be displayed by selecting the Show Transcript icon from the bottom right corner of the window.
• Double click on any line of text to start editing it. Click the blue tick to submit changes. 
• Click on Save edits button in the top right corner to save all the edits and generate the updated transcript.
• The Revert to original icon, can be selected to revert to the originally generated transcript file.

NOTE: Any edits made to the transcript will automatically reflect in the closed captions also.

Closed captions inside Breakout Rooms

Closed captions will be available inside breakout rooms. Since breakout rooms are not recorded, these captions will also not be available with recordings.

Privacy improvements and Simplification OF Automated Closed Caption workflow

• To improve the privacy, Closed Caption workflow has been improved to make closed captions available only for the live audio - last couple of sentences. Participants will not be able to scroll and view past captions.  Presently, participants were able to scroll and view past captions.
• Since captions will only be for live audio and to ensure privacy, Closed caption will not be available for download. Transcript (Beta) downloads will be available with an upcoming release.
• The Stop automated captions option has been removed, from the Closed Caption dropdown menu, to reduce the ambiguity with Hide captions.  The host can disable the toggle for Enable automated closed captioning and transcription in room preference to make the captions unavailable to participants
• Attendees on browser or the desktop app, who join the session after the closed captions are enabled in the room, will now be notified about the captions being available. This notification was already available for participants joining sessions on mobile apps.

Mixed Audio in Breakout Rooms

Universal Voice/Mixed Audio will be available within Breakout Rooms. Universal Voice/Mixed Audio is a way to build a bridge between telephony communication and VoIP communication so that users connected from VoIP can communicate with users connected from telephony and vice versa. Presently, the UV functionality is limited to the Main room only.

Engagement Dashboard to report data for participants by default

The Engagement Dashboard will only report the participant engagement by default. The roles to be used for engagement calculation can be customized by visiting the Tracking option from the Engagement Dashboard pod menu.

Recording playback speed control

A setting to control the playback speed of recordings will be available. The setting will offer different speed options to slow down or fasten the playback speed.

PDF document sharing zoom enhancement

PDF documents sharing in share pods has been improved to optimize the use of the space available. Earlier the documents did not scale up to occupy the maximum possible space available and this hindered the sharing of documents especially presentations in PDF format.

Classic Mobile Applications Decommissioned

Adobe Connect classic mobile applications (‘Adobe Connect Classic’ on Android and ‘Adobe Connect’ on iOS) are being retired, and going forward only the new and enhanced versions of the mobile applications (‘Adobe Connect’ on Android and ‘Adobe Connect New’ on iOS) will be supported.  Users can no longer enter sessions held on Adobe Connect 12.6 version, from the classic mobile applications. Any user accessing Adobe Connect 12.6 rooms from classic mobile applications will be prompted to install the new application. 

For more information, see Upgrade from classic to new Adobe Connect mobile application

Miscellaneous changes and fixes

• Adobe Connect will remember the speaker & mic device preferences and will intelligently switch to the right device.
• The icon for unread private chat messages has been updated to improve the discoverability of unread messages.
• Multiple fixes to aria-labels, and roles to improve accessibility of in-room options.
• Storage quota alert notifications will be available for admins to setup in Connect Central.
  
• A meeting room will be created automatically for new users provisioned with named host license. This will ease their onboarding to Connect.
• Third-party library updates:
  • JDK will be updated to ver 1.8.0_391
  • Tomcat will be updated to ver 9.0.84

SIMPLIfication of microphone and camera controls

• Microphone controls have been simplified to only show muted or unmuted states, in place of the current disconnected, connected, muted, or unmuted states.
• Camera controls in main room menu have been simplified to show ‘Turn camera on' or ‘Turn camera off’.

• Pause camera option is now available only on individual video cells.
  

Clear content from all pods

• A new action has been added in Pods menu to allow hosts to clear all in-room session specific data in a single click (chat history, poll results, etc.)
• This will clear content history from all pods present in various layouts (does not close pods or affects pods which are not present in any layout).

POD switcher

• A new easier way to switch pods has been introduced which allow hosts to change/switch pods easily.
• This option will be available on all pods which support multiple instances - Chat, Notes, Poll, Share, File share, Weblinks, Quiz.

CHAT PANEL

This release introduces Chat Panel — an in-room chat for more collaborative experience within room.

• Chat Panel will be present in a fixed location in a room and will not be tied to different layouts.
• Hosts will have option to enable/disable Chat Panel from room preferences. This will be turned off by default for all rooms.
• When enabled, each individual attendee will be able to open/close it as per their convenience without affecting the view of other attendees.

• Chat Panel will not be recorded and will not be present for playback in recordings.
• It will have same capabilities as a chat pod (including accessibility features like increasing font size)
• It will be supported in breakouts. However, the Chat Panel content will not be available outside breakouts.
• In case a host wants they can ‘Force presenter view’ in Chat Panel for making sure that each attendee has the same view.

• Chat Panel can also be turned off for the entire account by account administrators from Adobe Connect Central.

recording view stats

• Recording view stats will be available for Enhanced Audio/Video recordings.
• This will available only for recordings moved to content folder.
• The ‘Time viewed’ is actual time the recording was played/viewed (not skipped or fast forwarded).
• The ‘Time viewed’ It could be more than the recording duration if viewed multiple times in single session.

accessibility fixes

Multiple accessibility issues mostly related to keyboard access and a few related to contrast ratio have been fixed.

MISCALLANEOUS IMPROVEMENTS AND FIXES

• Various Adobe Connect Central home page fixes
• New Training and Webinar room templates added.
• Upload for .flv and .f4v files is now blocked in Adobe Connect Central pages.
• Fixes for latency/lag issues introduced in edited recordings
• In-Room menu labels have been updated to have capitalization consistency.
• Library upgrades:
  • Tomcat has been updated to ver 9.0.76.

UPDATED INSTALLER FOR ON-PREMISE CUSTOMERS

An installer will be available for on-premise customers to upgrade to 12.5.

NATIVE QUIZZING

Live quizzes are an important element of a virtual instructor led training.  In this release, a new Quiz pod is being introduced which will allow trainers (hosts) to conduct and monitor quizzes natively in Adobe Connect virtual classrooms, seminar rooms and meeting rooms. 

• The quiz pod supports up to 10 questions in a single pod. Multiple quiz pods can be opened in a single room.
• Four types of questions are supported by the Quiz Pod - multiple choice, multiple answer, fill in the blank and yes/no questions.

• Hosts and Presenters will be able to monitor the live progress for each participant when a quiz is in progress.
• Various configurations options are supported like quiz time, allowing participants to review their quiz submissions and more.
• Gamification option is also present by showing a live leaderboard to attendees.
• Multiple quiz reports like quiz summary, question level summary, learner transcript are available after the session in Adobe Connect Central pages. These reports are available also via webservice apis or exportable in csv format.

ENHANCED EVENT TEMPLATES AND CATALOG 

With the increasing usage of Internet browsing on mobile devices, there are more chances that a visitor discovers an event while using a phone. Therefore, it becomes important to allow users to register for events easily, even if they are on a smaller screen.

To address this need, the Events Module of Connect has now been enhanced to enable creation of responsive event registration pages and event catalog.

The event templates and event catalog have now been enhanced to take advantage of the responsive design features supported by Adobe Experience Manager 6.5. In addition, we are making additional fonts available for users to design their event microsites.

• When editing a template in the authoring view, the user can customize the design for mobile devices as well as desktop.

• A new default event template and event catalog are now available, which are responsive by design.

• User can clone these new responsive templates to customize it for their organizations, as before.

Note that the old components and the old templates in an account will still be available. The event administrator has been provided two options to plan on when they want to introduce the new responsive templates.

• A new option has been provided to Event Administrators to choose whether they want new events to be created only based on the new default event template. 

• Similarly, another option has been added to allow Event Administrator to use the new catalog, when they are ready

Note: On Premise customers will have to upgrade to AEM 6.5 to use this feature

RECORDING EDITOR

Hosts will be able to edit recordings for Enhanced Audio Video enabled rooms. The new recording capability works from browsers and allows hosts to edit out sections of recording without needing to download the desktop application. 

• The new recording editor will have various usability enhancements to allow the host to easily navigate to a specific point in time on the seek bar for granular editing. 

• The recording editor playbar will also show thumbnail preview allowing the host to edit at the right frames.

• The recording url will not change after edits have been done. The recording URL will always point to the most updated edited version of the recording. 

• The host can revert to the original recording at any point in time.

SUPPORT FOR 1080P SCREEN RESOLUTION IN RECORDINGS

• Hosts will now have the option in Adobe Connect room preferences to increase the resolution of recordings to 1080p from 720p. 

AUTOMATIC CLOSED CAPTIONS (BETA)

Automated closed captions are now available withing all Adobe Connect rooms. The host will have an option to enable it for the room. Once enabled by the host, participants will be able to turn on closed captions display. Hosts will also be able to email the generated closed captions to themselves or download it as a text file. The automated closed captions will also be visible in the recordings (if the closed captions was turned on for the room when recording was started).

MODERNIZED ADOBE CONNECT CENTRAL HOME PAGE AND NAVIGATION

• The Adobe Connect Central home page has been modernized and simplified.  The modernized home page will have the dashboard view for hosts which provide them a quick glance of their sessions – upcoming webinars or trainings, recently completed webinars or trainings, recently used rooms and recent recordings. In addition, the host can also see a calendar view. 

• For first time users a ‘Quick Overview Widget’ has also been introduced to provide contextual help guides for Adobe Connect Webinar and Training workflows.

• The host and learner views have been segregated to give de-cluttered experience for the host.

NEW LICENSING STRUCTURE FOR HOSTED DEPLOYMENTS 

• With this release, we are introducing more flexible and competitive licensing for hosted deployments.

• The existing customers can move to the new structure at the time of their license renewal.

• For more details, please reach out to your respective partner or sales contact.

VIRTUAL VIDEO BACKGROUND

This 12.2 beta feature is now fully supported. Please check the system requirements for the publisher sharing video with virtual backgrounds at Adobe Connect technical specifications and system requirements.

ACCESSIBILITY FIXES

Multiple accessibility issues mostly related to keyboard access and a few related to contrast ratio have been fixed.

UPDATED INSTALLER FOR ON-PREMISE CUSTOMERS

An installer will be available for on-premise customers to upgrade to 12.4.

SELF SELECTION in BREAKOUT ROOMS

With this new feature, we are extending the capability of Breakout Rooms, by allowing hosts to specify if participants would be able to self-select the rooms that they wish to participate in.

Until now, the Breakout Room functionality was available by clicking on the Breakouts icon in the application bar. In this release we have replaced this icon with a Breakout Bar just below the application bar.

A new option has been added in the Preferences that allows host to indicate whether participants should have this flexibility of choosing the breakout room they want to join.

When a host enables this option and starts the breakout rooms, participants are notified that breakouts have started, and they will also see the new Breakout Bar below the application bar. 

At the centre of this bar, the current room of the participant is displayed; and the participant can also select another breakout room they want to enter from the dropdown list. A participant can switch rooms at any time, and as often as needed.

Once the host ends the breakout session, the participants are notified and brought back to the main room.

NEW OPTION TO DISABLE HYPERLINKS IN CHAT, Q&A, POLLS AND NOTES PODS

Some hosts consider live URL’s in some pods like the Chat Pod as a security risk and would like to mitigate the same by disabling participants from clicking on them.

A new option has been introduced in Compliance and Control under Pods Management that provides hosts the option to disable participants from clicking on hyperlinks shared in Chat, Q&A, Notes and Poll pods.  If disabled, URL’s will be displayed just like any other string.

redesigned entry screen

The Room Entry Screen where Attendees select the audio and video devices they want to use before joining the session has been redesigned and following improvements have been made:

• The microphone, camera, and speaker buttons have been replaced with switches for better visible indication of On or Off state improving accessibility.
• The Test Speaker and Test Microphone buttons have been replaced with icon buttons for preventing mis-interpration of Entry screen as a test screen.
• The button to join the room has been moved into the dialog to make it more obvious and easier to click.
  
• The Top bar has been added to indicate the profile the user has used to join the Adobe Connect room.
• After clicking the ‘Join Room’ button, a new loading screen is shown indicating the status of user's selected audio and video devices.
  
• A new administrator and room level option has been added to disable the Entry Screen for the entire account or for individual rooms.  

PAUSE CHAT

• A new option is available to the hosts for pausing the chat in a chat pod. While a chat is paused all attendees will continue to see the chat but they will not be able to add a new message.

VIRTUAL VIDEO BACKGROUND (BETA)

• Users will be able to select a virtual video background from the Entry screen or from within the room (if they have camera rights). 
  
• Users will be able to blur their background or use one of the 9 preset images as their background.
• This feature is available for the users joining from either the desktop applications or from one of the supported desktop browsers.

MISCELLANEOUS IMPROVEMENTS AND CHANGES

• Support for a new .pod extension for Custom Pods.
  
• Additional columns in Meeting Reports to summarize time spent in a room – even if users come and go.
  
• Improved instructions in empty Share pods.
  
• Changes to the 'Rate your experience' dialog shown after exiting a room.
  
• The in-room menus and labels have been standardized to sentence case capitalization.
• The account update in-room notifications will now be shown only to hosts and not to all attendees.
• Registered users will re-join in the assigned Breakout room after re-connection (if they are disconnected while the session is live).
• The browser re-direct message shown after the room opens in the desktop app has been improved.
• Host created chat pod in the breakout room will now be editable from the main room as well.
  
• Sharing system audio from a browser tab while screen sharing will now be available when sharing Google Chrome/Chromium or Microsoft Edge browser tabs (Mac,  Windows, ChromeOS, and Linux).
  
• A new account and room level option has been added to open the Adobe Connect room in browsers by default (even if the user has the desktop applications installed).
• For Enhanced Audio/Video enabled rooms the telephone conference audio will now be present in the recordings even if the broadcast has been turned off.
• The following 12.1.5 beta features are now fully supported:
  • Enhanced Noise Suppression
  • Share system audio while screen sharing from Windows desktop application
  • Prompt shown while speaking with muted microphone
• LoopUp conferencing has been added as a supported audio conferencing provider.
• Mac OS 13 (Ventura) has now been added as a supported operating system for Adobe Connect.
• A new XML-api has been added to programatically shutdown a room.
  
• Upgraded the JDK security baseline to 1.8.0_351.
  
• Tomcat version has been upgraded to 9.0.68.
  

POOR NETWORK QUALITY DETECTION

• A new prompt to pause incoming cameras will be shown to the users when poor network quality is detected on their end. The prompt will be shown in Enhanced Audio/Video Experience enabled rooms only.

CHROME OS SUPPORT

• Chromebook users will be able to join Adobe Connect sessions through supported browsers and share their screen if allowed.

BETA FEATURES

• Enhanced Noise Suppression: Hosts will be able to enable 'Noise Suppression' for their rooms from Adobe Connect Central room information screens.
  • Noise Suppression is only available for Enhanced Audio/Video Experience enabled rooms and is disabled by default.
    
  • Individual attendees will be able to turn it on/off for themselves from the microphone menu if the host has enabled beta features for the room.
  • Noise Suppression will work for users joining from browsers or desktop applications only. Currently not available for mobile application users.
• Share system audio while screen sharing: Users will be able to screen share with system audio. 
  • This beta feature will be available only for Enhanced Audio/Video Experience enabled rooms.
  • This will be available only for Windows desktop application users and visible
    when beta features are enabled for the room.
• Speaking while muted prompt: Users will see a new prompt when they are trying to speak but their microphone is muted.
  • This beta feature will be available only for Enhanced Audio/Video Experience enabled rooms and visible
    when beta features are enabled for the room.

MISCELLANEOUS IMPROVEMENTS AND CHANGES

• Added support for conversion of ink shapes in uploaded PowerPoint files.
• 'HTML Client Settings' section in Adobe Connect Central administration section has been changed to 'Client Settings'.
• Added 'Accessbility' menu item to room Help menu and Adobe Connect Central Help menu linking to accessibility help documentation.
• Mini-control panel will not appear as a black box to attendees viewing the shared screen.

Enhanced Audio/Video Recordings

• Enhanced Audio/Video recordings now support Closed Captions including:
  • Moving and resizing the caption display while viewing the recording
  • Choosing font size and text/background color combination
• A new account-wide option has been added to anonymize all recordings by default. This option will not impact existing rooms but only newly created rooms. Also, hosts will still be able to override this option for their rooms. 
• A new setting is now available to hosts to prevent recording downloads by viewers. This setting can be set for each recording separately.

DIAGNOSTIC TEST PAGE

• The Adobe Connect diagnostic test page has been updated to allow users to test connectivity to Standard and Enhanced Audio/Video enabled rooms.
  • The diagnostic test page will check user's browser, operating system, reachability to Adobe Connect servers and data connectivity with Adobe Connect servers.
  • A successful test will indicate that the user will be able to join rooms with either Enhanced Audio/Video enabled or disabled.

MISCELLANEOUS IMPROVEMENTS AND CHANGES

• Search in Attendee Pod: Ability to search and filter names has been added in Attendee Pod.
  
• A new room URL parameter ?html-view=true allows users to force open a room in a browser instead of the desktop application.
• The selection icon in the Whiteboard menu has been changed to differentiate it from the pointer icon in the Share pod.
• Enhanced Audio/Video Experience option has been reworded as Enhanced Audio/Video in room setup screens and administration settings screens.
• Email address is now pre-populated when exporting Q&A via email.
• 'Disable SWF uploads' has been removed from account settings in Adobe Connect Central administration section.
• Accessibility: 
  • Screen readers will now read only the last chat message instead of the last 10 messages.
  • Table headers in Adobe Connect Central pages updated to be more screen reader friendly.
  • While scheduling a meeting, users can now enter time as HH:MM instead of selecting from a dropdown list to prevent excessing tabbing.

• Library upgrades:
  • Tomcat has been updated to ver 9.0.65.
  • JRE has been updated to ver 1.8.0_341.

Adobe Connect 12.0 introduces an entirely new Enhanced Audio/Video Experience. Adobe Connect’s backend media server infrastructure has been upgraded to a modern cloud-native technology stack which is optimized for delivering a highly scalable and reliable high-quality audio & video experience for users joining from any device

The Enhanced Audio/Video experience is now the default experience for all existing and newly created rooms. Here are the various new capabilities and improvements available in Enhanced Audio/Video Experience.

Enhanced audio/video experience new capabilities

• Richer Audio: Enhanced Audio/Video Experience brings significant improvements in audio clarity, speed, and reliability with reduced latency.
  
• 1080p webcam resolution support: For a single video turned on in the Video pod the maximum supported resolution with Enhanced Audio/Video experience is 1080p. Hosts will be able to select a new ‘Full HD (1080p)’ option from the Video preferences in their Adobe Connect rooms.  

• Support for up to three high-resolution (720p) webcams in the Video pod: If more than three videos are turned on, then the display will auto-adjust to a lower resolution.
• Single Speaker View: A new video layout option has been added to the Video pod to display a single video at a time. When selected, a host has the option to choose the video to be displayed in Single Speaker view from the Attendees who have turned on their webcams.
• Spotlight Speaker: A new Spotlight Speaker mode is now available when using ‘Filmstrip view’ and ‘Single Speaker view’ in the Video pod. When enabled, the main video will automatically switch to show the video of the person currently speaking.
• Video limit and Pagination Support: The Video pod can now show upto a maximum 50 videos in a room. If the number of active videos in the Video pod goes beyond 25 then additional pages of 25 videos each will be created (upto a total of 50 videos).
• Screen share support from browsers: Hosts and Presenters joining from browsers in Enhanced Audio/Video Experience enabled rooms will be able to share their screen without requiring the Adobe Connect desktop application. The mini-control panel will not be available when screen sharing from a browser. Account Administrators can disable screen sharing from a browser from the Compliance and Control settings in Adobe Connect Central.
• Server-based MP4 recordings: When a session is recorded in Enhanced Audio/Video Experience enabled room, an MP4 version of the recording is automatically created and is available shortly after the meeting recording is stopped. The recordings created are not available in interactive format. For more information on see Mp4 recordings vs Interactive recordings.
• Anonymization in Recordings: Hosts can choose to anonymize attendee names in the Attendee, Chat, and Q&A pods and have them replaced with anonymous labels in a recording. Hosts can select the anonymization option for all recordings of a room or for can select this option for each time a recording is started in a room. For more information, see Anonymize recordings.
• New exit survey: When the host ends a meeting, all participants can rate their audio/video experience in the session via a feedback survey. This survey can be turned off by administrators, if required. For more information, see Starting and attending meetings.

For more information on Enhanced Audio/Video Experience vs Standard View capabilities, see Capabilities and Limitations.

ENFORCE ENHANCED AUDIO/VIDEO EXPERIENCE OR STANDARD VIEW

Account administrators have the option to either force Enhanced Audio/Video Experience for all rooms or force Standard View for all rooms or let hosts decide for each room (default option).

Switch existing rooms

Account administrators can also choose to Switch all existing rooms to the Enhanced Audio/Video Experience or the Standard View. This option is only visible when the 'Application and browser interface settings' is set to Let the hosts decide for their room.

Choose view

When the Account administrator has set the Application and browser interface settings to Let the hosts decide for their room, then the hosts can choose between the Enhanced Audio/Video Experience or the Standard view for each room.

Adobe Connect 12.0 introduces improvements to many commonly used workflows to enhance ease of use for all users. Here are the workflows which have been improved in this release:

Login and Joining

• The login page has been redesigned to improve joining as a registered user or as a guest user.
• The preferred mode of joining an Adobe Connect room is via the Adobe Connect desktop application. If the Adobe Connect desktop application is installed on user’s device, then the login screen will open in desktop application (if the user is not already logged in). If the user is already logged in the desktop application, then user is directly taken to the Adobe Connect room (without having to login again). If the desktop application is not installed on user’s device, then the login screen and the meeting room launches in the browser.
• The new login and joining experience is available for both Enhanced Audio/Video Experience enabled rooms as well as Standard View enabled rooms. For more information, see Login and joining experience.

New SETUP screen on entry for Speaker, Microphone, and Camera selection

• After a user has successfully logged in they are taken to a new setup screen before joining the Adobe Connect room. From the setup screen the user can see the current selected speaker, microphone, and camera. Users can change the selection, mute/unmute, and test their speaker, microphone, and camera choice before joining the Adobe Connect room.
• New setup screen for speaker, microphone and camera selection is available only for Enhanced Audio/Video Experience enabled rooms. For more information, see Mic, speaker and Camera selection experience.

In-meeting Speaker, Microphone, and Camera selection

• The in-meeting speaker, microphone, and camera menus are more powerful and easier to use.
• New in-meeting speaker, microphone, and camera selection is available only for Enhanced Audio/Video Experience enabled rooms. For more information, see Mic, speaker and Camera selection experience.

Video Pod Improvements

• The design and layout of the Video pod has been optimized to support up to 50 cameras (25-per-page).
• The 'start camera' and 'camera preview' options have been moved from Video pod to the webcam menu in the room menu bar.
• The design of the Video pod has been overhauled to give more space to video. Camera actions (pause camera, stop sharing, etc.) have been moved to the video menu.
• In full screen mode a black background color is used instead of gray.
• The new Video pod improvements are available only in Enhanced Audio/Video Experience enabled rooms.

Exit room

• Hosts now have two options in the room menu bar for exiting an Adobe Connect room – ‘Exit Room’ and ‘End session for all’.
• Participants and Presenters now see an icon to ‘Exit Room’ in the menu bar.
• The new room exiting options are available only for Enhanced Audio/Video Experience enabled rooms.

Raise Hand Improvements

• Raised hand notifications shown to hosts have been improved to let them grant or deny microphone rights to participants who have raised their hands.
• New raise hand notification improvements are available for both Enhanced Audio/Video Experience enabled rooms as well as Standard View enabled rooms.

Mobile access

• Hosts can now restrict mobile users from joining Adobe Connect meeting rooms. This option is available in both Enhanced Audio/Video Experience enabled rooms as well as Standard View enabled rooms. For more information, see Enable mobile access.

The option to access an Adobe Connect room with Classic View has been removed from all room launch workflows. With the release of Adobe Connect 12.0, users will not be able to join any Adobe Connect rooms with the Classic View.

For more information, see Adobe Connect Classic View End of Life (EOL).

• To improve audio and video performance for large sessions (with more than 200 attendees), a new High-performance option is present in the Room setup screen for Concurrent User license customers who have purchased more than 200 concurrent seats.
• To improve the overall experience these limits have been introduced in Enhanced A/V rooms (these could be relaxed in upcoming releases). The limit is based on the number of attendees present in the room and the number of attendees with a connected mic or camera. Hosts will see notifications when 80% or 100% of the limit is reached. Once the limit is reached any new attendees will not be able to enter the room and existing attendees (who have not connected their mic or camera) will not be able to connect their mic or camera unless hosts disconnect mic/camera of one or more attendees who have already presented from the Attendee pod.
  • For rooms with 100 attendees present, up to 100 simultaneous mic/camera connections are allowed.
  • For rooms with 200 attendees present, up to 110 simultaneous mic/camera connections are allowed.
  • For rooms with 500 attendees present, up to 44 simultaneous mic/camera connections are allowed.
  • For rooms with 1000 attendees present, up to 22 simultaneous mic/camera connections are allowed.
  • For rooms with 1500 attendees present, up to 15 simultaneous mic/camera connections are allowed.
• A new room preference option is available to disable the 'User has stepped away' notification.
• VoIP is now the default audio conferencing option for any newly created room.
• Improved highlighting of private replies sent in Q&A pod.    
• Accessibility: When a user navigates to a chat pod, screen readers will now read only the last chat message in the chat pod.
• Library upgrades:
  • Tomcat has been updated to ver 9.0.62.
  • JRE has been updated to ver 1.8.0_331.

Play MP4 files embedded on slides

• Meeting hosts and presenters can now upload PowerPoint presentations with MP4 files placed on slides. The MP4 files will play for all participants when the slides are advanced.
• Hosts and presenters can enable the Presentation Playbar for greater control over play/pause and playback scrubbing.

New Compliance and Control settings for greater security

Account Administrators can now remove the public access options for rooms and recordings to ensure greater security.

• New option to remove the access choice of "Anyone who has the URL may enter the room" for all meeting rooms, seminar rooms, and virtual classrooms in the account.
• New option to remove the ‘public’ access choice for all recordings in the account.

Limited Beta for improved Audio/Video Experience^{BETA}

Adobe Connect 11.4 introduces an entirely new audio/video delivery experience as a beta feature. The new audio/video beta feature is available to customers upon request by the account administrator.

• Ability to turn on the new Audio/Video Experience per room.
• Support for one full-resolution (1080p) webcam in the Video pod. Hosts will be able to select a new Full HD (1080p) option from the Video preferences in their meeting rooms.  

• Support for up to three high-resolution (720p) webcams in the Video pod - if more than three videos are visible then the display will auto-adjust to a lower resolution.
• Focus View - a new view option has been added to the Video pod to display a single video at a time. When selected, a host would have the option to choose the person to be displayed in Focus view from the Attendees who have turned on their webcams, or they can choose the new ‘Active Speaker’ mode.
• A new ‘Active Speaker’ mode is now available when using ‘Filmstrip view’ and ‘Focus view’ in the Video pod. When enabled, the main video will automatically switch to show the person speaking.
• Pagination Support – if the number of active videos in the Video pod goes beyond 20 then additional pages of 20 videos each will be created.
• Server-based MP4 meeting recordings - when a session is recorded, an MP4 version of the recording is automatically created and is available shortly after the meeting recording is stopped.
• Screen share support from browsers - hosts and presenters joining from browsers in new A/V experience enabled rooms will be able to share their screen without requiring the Adobe Connect desktop application. The mini-control panel will not be available when screen sharing from a browser. Administrators can disable screen sharing from a browser from the Compliance and Control settings in Adobe Connect Central.
• Entering meetings: new A/V enabled rooms will currently launch in a browser by default. However, a user can choose to open these rooms in the desktop application by entering the meeting URL in the application home screen (Supported application version 2021.9.28.64, posted on 4-Oct-2021).
• Reporting a problem - Users will now be able to report a problem regarding audio or video quality from within the meeting room. The ‘Report a problem’ option is available in room menu bar.
  
• New exit survey - when the host ends a meeting, all users will be shown a feedback survey to rate their audio/video experience in the session. 

Some of the existing features like telephone-based audio integration, mobile app support, and the creation of interactive recordings, are not yet available when the new audio/video experience is enabled in a room. For more information see Capabilities and Limitations.

Greater Accessibility - Improvements to Closed Captioning

New Closed Caption providers (1CapApp, Ai-Live, and VITAC) are now built-in, persistent provider tokens can be created, and we've improved the provider integration workflow. For more information, see Closed Captioning in HTML client.

Focus on Accessibility - Chat and Polls

Chat and Poll pods have had significant updates to better support screen readers, numerous UI elements have been fixed, and keyboard navigation has been enhanced. 

Adobe Connect 11.2 is available for all server deployment environments - hosted, managed services, private clouds, and on-premise servers. This document describes what’s new for all customers 

New Meeting Application for Mac 

Enhanced Audio

Greater Accessibility - Native Closed Captioning

Standard View and Classic View Segregation

Miscellaneous Improvements

New Meeting Application for Mac

The new Adobe Connect Mac application allows hosts, presenters and participants to enjoy the new user interface across all meeting types, including virtual classrooms and seminar rooms. Presenters can access all features, including HD cameras and screen sharing, with superior meeting performance. Improvements include a new launch experience, greater ease of entry, and an updated screen sharing palette.

Enhanced Audio

With Adobe Connect 11.2, hosts and administators can choose to enable the Enhanced Audio experience for all users in their rooms using Voice over IP, Universal Voice, and Integrated Telephony. The Enhanced Audio experience will be delivered using modern audio codec (Opus) for rooms set to Standard view only. The Enhanced audio is supported in the latest versions of Adobe Connect applications for Windows and Mac and HTML client. It is not supported in the Classic Adobe Connect applications. It is also not supported in the mobile applications yet.

For more information, see Create meetings.

Greater Accessibility - Native Closed Captioning

Adobe Connect 11.2 now includes a built-in Closed Caption display option in every meeting room. Meeting hosts can either integrate professional captioning services from third-party captioning providers, or they can choose anyone in the meeting to be a captioner. Meeting participants can choose to view or hide the captions and can customize the caption font size and color for better readability. Each participant can change the size and placement of the floating caption window to best meet their needs. Multiple simultaneous captions can be provided to support multiple languages, or to provide separate captions during breakout sessions. Captions from live meetings can also be displayed in recordings.

For more information, see Closed captioning in HTML client.

Standard View and Classic View Segregation

From Adobe Connect 11.2 onwards, meetings will need to be in either Standard view or in Classic view only.  The option to have a mix of views within a single meeting room will not be available.

This will allow the hosts to better prepare and deliver meetings – knowing that the content will display consistently for all users, that each user will have the same user interface and experience, and that the capabilities will be the same for everyone. This will also remove the potential problems introduced by the need to support ‘hybrid’ content.

A new set of configuration options will be available at the account level and at room level allowing Account admins or Hosts to choose from amongst the below options. 

• Standard View: In this mode, the meeting room will allow users to join from the HTML client in browsers or new desktop applications only. Users joining from browsers are taken to the HTML client (if the desktop applications are not installed). Users coming from old browsers (for example,  Internet Explorer 11) or older desktop application are asked to either join from a modern browser (Chrome, Firefox, Safari or Edge) or upgrade to the latest version of the desktop application. Mobile users can also join using the current mobile apps.
• Standard View with Enhanced Audio: In this mode, Opus audio codec will be used in the meeting room to give Enhanced audio experience to all the attendees. Only users joining from modern browsers in HTML client and new desktop applications are able to join this mode. Mobile users will not be able to join using the current mobile apps.
  
• Classic View:  In this mode, the meeting room will allow the users to join from old desktop application only. The users coming from browser are asked to install/join using desktop application. Mobile users can also join using the current mobile apps.

For more details see Key changes in Meeting Launch & Recording Playback workflows with upcoming Adobe Connect 11.2 release

Miscellaneous Improvements and Changes

Additional Improvements

• Hosts can now use 'Select All' and 'Clear All' when selecting users in the Attendees Pod and Breakout Room View.
• While editing recordings, the start and end 'cut' points can now be snapped to the playhead location.
• The Ellipsis (•••) and Help (?) menus have been combined and updated into a single Help (?) menu.
  
• All users can enlarge both the UI and text content in Standard view using CTRL (or CMD) +/-.
• Adobe Connect application for Mac now supports silent installation for enterprise deployments.
• Tomcat version has been upgraded to 9.0.37.