Adobe Connects the Dots--Mostly
June 18, 2018
Adobe Connects the Dots--Mostly
Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with Adobe Connect
Adobe Connect is used for recorded meetings of individuals who are in all parts of the country at the time of the meeting. We also use it to store recorded webinars that we can link viewers too. It supports the regular meetings of the Executive Board, provides recordings for minutes, and allows us to host Live Webinars or archive webinars for distribution.
- Provides a recorded archive of meetings and training webinars. This fact is important as we need a record of the events and redistribute archived training.
- Allows many participants to attend the Live Webinars or meetings without issue. As the number of participants is not the same each time, having the ability to invite as many as possible is a real plus.
- Provides a log in the email with a link and connection information for people to join the meeting or webinar. This step is important as without it, people could not actually enjoy the benefits of the meeting or webinar.
- Although it is a necessity to have the login email information shared with participants, we have had occasions when the link did not work properly or--more often--the Meeting ID did not allow the participant to enter the meeting room. As this is an issue that is only discovered at the meeting time (you cannot "try it" before the meeting time), it is problematic when it does not work.
- Adobe Connect does not have the ability to SHARE SCREENS. There is one presenter who can put up documents for the participants to view, but there is no ability to change the Presenter so that multiple screens could be shared. In a roundtable discussion, it would be helpful if different people could share or trade control during the same meeting.
- There is no ability to see the participants. Although I am sometimes in my lounge clothes when I attend an Adobe Connect meeting, face-to-face contact is helpful for engaging with an audience or for nonverbal communication. Although I think each participant should have control over the ability to use or not use video, I think it should be an option.
- Adobe is a communication platform that has benefited us as it allows us to "transact" our meetings. Without it or a similar platform, we could not host our meetings at all.
- Adobe requires many manual steps to share a webinar or something from the archive. The process is cumbersome for the user and could be improved.
- In our organization, the leadership roles change sometimes annually. There has been an issue with the NAME on the account being "married" to the original user rather than to the organization. This fact is problematic as it reflects a person at login that is no longer with the organization. It is also difficult to change admin settings for leadership changes. In an ever-moving organization, we would like these features improved without compromising security.
Although I have personally attended meetings in ZOOM!, our organization has not subscribed to it. We are actually exploring some other more updated alternatives as Adobe seems CLUNKY and CUMBERSOME compared to the marketing profiles on others. However, we have to explore them and try before we know--Adobe may be our best option since we need the training archives as well as real-time meetings. We have had Adobe since 2004 and back then there were not many options for recording live meetings. Now we do have options. We pay a healthy subscription fee annually for our storage and use and we need to confirm that we are getting our money's worth, considering the hangups we have experienced using Adobe Connect.