If you are a meeting organizer, Live Meeting provides a number of tools that can help you run a more effective meeting. This topic explains some ways that you can help all participants to get the most out of your meeting:

• Configure the Live Meeting Console
• Interact with Attendees and Manage Participation
• Manage and Respond to Questions
• Chat with Attendees
• Manage Uninvited Attendees
• Monitor Attendees
• Use Annotations

Get Started

Before conducting a meeting, make sure that you have done the following:

• Set all options for your meeting, including audio and meeting lobby settings. For more information, see How to Set Meeting Options.
• Conducted a test meeting to verify that your settings are correct. For more information, see How to Get Started Quickly.
• Sent invitations for the meeting containing the correct meeting information. For more information, see How to Set Meeting Options and How to Schedule a Live Meeting.
• Imported any content that you will present at the meeting. For more information, see How to Import and Share Content.

Configure the Live Meeting Console

The Live Meeting console is made up of multiple panes. You can view or hide panes for any meeting. Many panes have buttons that you use to perform tasks. For example, the Now Presenting pane provides a check box to lock control for content display.

As the organizer of a meeting, you can control which panes you want to enable or disable for other participants at your meeting. For more information, see How to Set Meeting Options.

To hide and show panes in the Live Meeting console

• On the View menu, point to Panes, and then click the pane that you want to show or hide. A check mark indicates that a pane is currently shown.

Interact with Attendees and Manage Participation

The Attendees pane lists participants' names, their "mood," whether chat with them is blocked, and whether they are a presenter or attendee. You can search for a participant, or you can sort the list that appears.

To see who is attending your meeting

1. If the Attendees pane does not already appear in your Live Meeting console, on the View menu, click Panes, and then click Attendees.
2. To sort the list of participants, select an option in the Arrange by list. For example, to sort alphabetically by participant name, click Name in the Arrange by list.
3. To find an attendee, in the Search list for person box, type the first few letters or the name of the person you want to locate. As you type, the Attendees pane updates the list to match your criteria. The more characters of the person's name that you enter, the more precise the match.

To make an attendee a presenter

1. In the Attendees pane, click the name of the attendee you want to make a presenter.
2. Click the right arrow next to the attendee's mood color.
3. In the attendee's information box, click the right arrow, and then click Make a Presenter.

To invite more people to your meeting

1. In the Attendees pane, click Send E-mail Invite.
2. In the Attendees field of the Send E-mail Invite dialog box, type the full e-mail addresses of all those invited as attendees, separated by semicolons. In the Presenters box, type the full e-mail addresses of all those invited as presenters, separated by semicolons.
3. Type a message, if you wish, and then click Send Message.

Manage and Respond to Questions

Presenters can use the Question Manager to review and respond to attendee questions. The Question Manager identifies each question by the person who asked it and the time it was posted. The check box in the Marked column indicates if the question was selected and marked for the next action you take. You can also view and save a log of question and answer activity from your meeting.

Use the Question Manager to view questions from participants and to provide your responses. Attendees can send questions to any presenter, and the presenter can respond either privately or with an answer that appears to all attendees.

Note  The Questions and Answers pane is available only if the presenter allows attendees to ask questions.

To enable questions for a meeting

1. In the Attendees menu, click Attendee Permissions.
2. In the Attendee Permissions dialog box, select the Ask questions check box. The Questions and Answers pane will appear in the Live Meeting console.

To display or hide the Questions and Answers pane

• In the View menu, point to Panes, and then click Questions and Answers. If a check mark appears beside the menu item, the pane is shown. If not, the pane is hidden.

To display the Question Manager

• In the Questions and Answers pane, click Question Manager. The Question Manager appears, listing all questions received from attendees.

To respond to a question, a presenter can do the following:

• Answer the question either by sending a text response to all of the attendees or by sending a private text message to an individual attendee.
• Initiate a 1-on-1 chat with the questioner to discuss the issue.
• Not respond at the current time.
• Dismiss the question.
• Allow the questioner to address the entire audience by taking the floor.

Note  If multiple presenters are working together to monitor questions, each presenter's actions in the Question Manager are automatically reflected in the all presenters' Question Managers. For example, if one presenter dismisses a question, it is also removed from the other presenters' Question Managers.

To respond to a question from an attendee

1. If the Question Manager is not visible, display it as explained earlier in this topic. You can sort the list of questions by whether the question is marked, whether the person asking the question has the floor, alphabetically by either the asker's name or the text of the question, or by the time the question was posted. To do so, click the appropriate column heading. Click the column heading again to toggle between an ascending and descending sort.
2. In the Question Manager, click the question that you want to answer, and then do one of the following:
   • To give the asker the floor, click Give the Floor.
   • To chat one-on-one with the asker, click Chat 1:1.
   • To answer the question publicly, in the Your Answer box, enter your response, and then click Post to All.
   • To answer the question privately, in the Your Answer box, enter your response, and then click Post Privately.

Note  As a Presenter, you can always see who asked each question. When you choose the Post to All option, the question appears anonymously to all participants.

To ask a question

1. In the Questions and Answers pane, type your question in the one-line box at the bottom of the pane, and then click Ask.
2. After asking a question, you can also do the following:
• Edit the question. Click Edit, make your changes, and then click Ask.
• Delete the question. Click Delete.

To view and save a question log for your meeting

1. In Question Manager, click View Log. All of the question and answer activity from your meeting will be displayed in a separate browser window.
2. To save the question log, use your browser to save the HTML page containing the log, or open a text editor, paste the contents of the log to a new file, and then save the file.

Chat with Attendees

Chats are a useful way for presenters to communicate with attendees or presenters during a meeting, such as when a presenter suggests a break-out session to discuss a specific issue with another attendee.

In some circumstances, you might also want to allow attendees to open text chats with one another. Participants can then conduct brief, separate conversations away from the larger group. When chatting is enabled, each participant can have multiple one-on-one chat sessions open simultaneously. Any participant can block individual participants from chatting with them by right-clicking the name of the participant in the Attendees pane and then clicking Block Chat.

As a presenter, you can always chat with meeting participants. You can also control whether participants can chat among themselves.

To control attendees chatting with each other

1. On the Attendees menu, click Attendee Permissions.
2. In the Attendee Permissions dialog box, if the Interact check box is cleared, select it. If the box has a check mark or a green rectangle, select Chat with other attendees.
3. If you selected the Interact check box, verify that the settings for the other interaction options are as you want them, and change them as necessary.
4. Close the Attendee Permissions dialog box.

To chat with another attendee

1. In the Attendees pane, click the name of the person with whom you want to chat.
2. Click the right arrow located to the right of the person's mood color.
3. In the person's information box, click the right arrow, and then click Chat. A Chat window appears on both your computer and the person's computer with whom you choose to chat. The person's name appears in the title.
4. Type your comment or question in the field at the bottom of the window, and then click Send. The chat between you and the other attendee appears in the field at the top of the window. Your chat is private and cannot be seen by other attendees.
5. When you finish chatting, close Chat.

Manage Uninvited Attendees

The meeting lobby is a place where people without an invitation can attempt to join a meeting. It is similar to reservationless audio conferencing, in which attendees can attempt to join a meeting at anytime regardless of invitation status. Attendees who join a meeting by using the meeting lobby use a different URL than the one that is included in Live Meeting invitations.

Organizers can use the meeting lobby to schedule meetings without sending invitations to attendees. Meetings are simply set and joined by attendees who enter the Meeting Lobby and wait for the meeting owner to grant them access. As an organizer, you can request that Live Meeting send you an e-mail notification when the first attendee arrives in your meeting lobby and every thirty minutes thereafter for other attendees who arrive in the meeting lobby. You can then selectively grant or deny access to each attendee in the Meeting Lobby. If you do not respond within thirty minutes, the attendee is denied access. Similarly, Live Meeting can send you an e-mail notification when new attendees join the meeting while a meeting is in progress. You can also "lock the door" to prevent such interruptions.

A common use of the meeting lobby is to provide people with spontaneous access to your Meet Now meeting area at a time that they choose, rather than waiting to receive an invitation from you. For example, you can include the meeting lobby URL for your Meet Now meeting area on your business cards and e-mail signatures. Customers or co-workers who want to request an impromptu meeting with you can visit that URL in their browser, and then wait up to thirty minutes for you to receive an e-mail notification and allow or deny them access to the meeting.

You configure the meeting lobby when you set the meeting options for a Meet Now meeting or a scheduled meeting.

To control meeting access through the meeting lobby

1. In the Attendees menu, click Meeting Lobby.
2. In the Meeting Lobby window, select attendees to whom you want to grant access, and then click Grant Access.
3. In the Meeting Lobby window, select attendees to whom you want to deny access, and then click Deny Access.

Monitor Attendees

The Seating Chart pane provides a view of the number of attendees and their ongoing feedback. Each participant in the meeting is represented by a colored rectangle, the color of which indicates the participant's current perception of the meeting. This perception is referred to as the participant's mood.

Depending on the number of attendees, the configuration of the seating chart changes. A large meeting is represented by a row of presenters and many rows of attendees. A smaller meeting is represented by a round table surrounded by several participants surrounding it.

Seating charts can help you gather rapid feedback from your audience as participants change their chart colors to indicate their mood throughout the meeting.

One use of the Seating Chart is to allow participants to respond to information you request during your presentation. For example, you might start your meeting by having everyone change their seat color to “Yellow” if they can hear your voice and are ready to begin. This gives you a visual representation that your audience can hear you and is paying attention. It also gets them using the Live Meeting user interface, which keeps them engaged.

You can use the colors of the attendee icons to:

• Check on the pace of your presentation
• Get a quick "snapshot" of your audience
• Let attendees tell you they have a question or concern
• Indicate when an attendee temporarily steps away from the meeting

By default, the colors in the seating chart include the following descriptions:

• Green: Proceed (this color is shown by default for all attendees)
• Red: Slow down
• Blue: Speed up
• Yellow: Need help
• Purple: Question

To view the seating chart for your meeting

• In the View menu, point to Panes, and then click Seating Chart.

Use Annotations

You can allow attendees and other presenters to attach annotations to resources during your meeting. If you imported the resource, all annotations stay in Live Meeting, and they do not affect the original document or presentation.

To allow attendees to interact and edit documents within a presentation

1. From the Attendees menu, select Attendee Permissions.
2. Under Allow Attendees to, select Annotate/Edit current page/slide.
3. Close the Attendee Permissions window.