What's new in the Virtual Office Meetings - November 2024?

Visitor capabillities

• Send chat messages during the meeting
• See chat messages exchanged between active participants.
• Raise their hand to become an active participant.
• Toggle tile view.
• View performance settings.
• See the active participant's video, display name, mute/unmute, state, etc.
• Configure Audio and Profile settings.
• Leave the meeting.
• View the start subtitles option.

Active participants capabilities

• Speak in the meeting, show the camera, send audio/video, or share their screens during the meeting.
• Take any actions similar to a regular 8x8 meeting participant.
• Create breakout rooms and meeting polls.
• See distinct counters for active participants and visitors on the active meeting screen, showing the number of active contributors and visitors. Still, they cannot see visitors' names and avatars or their presence on the meeting screen as a tile.
• Have access to post-meeting details (meeting resources such as participants list, recording file, meeting transcript, meeting summary & action items).

Meeting moderator capabilities

• Accept or reject visitor requests to become participants.
• Revoke active participants' rights.
• Mute or unmute a particular participant or everyone else.
• Allow or prevent others from using their cameras.
• Grant moderator rights to a participant.
• Send a private message to a participant.
• Speak, send audio/video, or share your screen during the meeting.
• Take any actions similar to a regular 8x8 meeting participant.

Meeting Lobby

You can secure your meeting by enabling a pre-meeting lobby room to screen incoming participants. Toggle on the Don’t start the meeting without me option in your 8x8 Work app Meetings settings to enable the Meeting Lobby setting by default. You can also enable/disable the lobby during a meeting: go to More Actions > Security Options and toggle on the Enable Lobby. To learn more about how to secure your meeting, see Enable lobby rooms for your meetings.

• If the meeting lobby setting is on:

  • Up to 500 users can join the meeting as active participants. No visitors will be allowed in this meeting.

• If the lobby is enabled during the meeting:

  • Only active participants are allowed in.
  • Up to 500 active participants are allowed in the meeting. No visitors are allowed in this meeting.

• If the meeting lobby setting is disabled:

  • By default, users participate in a VLM. Any participants joining after the meeting reaches 250 will be set as visitors.
  • Moderators can change participant status between active participant and visitor, up to 500 active participants.

• If the meeting lobby setting is disabled, and there is at least one visitor or 501 users in the meeting:

  • The meeting lobby cannot be enabled.
  • Users automatically become participants in a VLM, with a maximum capacity of 10,000.

   

Meeting Breakout Rooms

• Breakout Rooms are only available to active users.
• Visitors will not see the breakout rooms on the interface.
• Visitors cannot be moved to a breakout room.
• To learn more about breakdown rooms, see Use breakout rooms in meetings.

Meeting Polls:

• Polls are only available to active users.
• The poll feature is disabled for visitors who cannot see it on the interface.
• To learn more about meeting polls, see Use polls in meetings.

Post-meeting Details

• Post-meeting details and resources, such as participants list, recording file, meeting transcript, meeting summary and action items, are only available to active users

We have introduced new meeting summarization capabilities, which provide information about the meeting to all meeting participants who have joined the meeting as authenticated users via the 8x8 Work apps.

These summarization capabilities include:

• Meeting summary email offers participants an overview of the discussed topics and the meeting's conclusions via email.
• Late arrival summaries offers a brief overview of the discussion that occurred until they joined the meeting via a private chat message.

Our meeting summaries are well-structured and ensure all participants have access to the same information, keep everyone in the loop, and prevent misunderstandings. Participants can communicate the most critical information quickly and effectively, reducing the time spent on lengthy meetings. They can review essential points without having to rewatch or reread the entire meeting.

Let's imagine this scenario: You join a meeting 10 minutes late and need to catch up on what was discussed earlier. You will receive a private message in the meeting chat with a summary of what you missed. After the meeting ends and everyone leaves, you will receive an email with a brief summary of the topics discussed and the outcomes of the meeting. You will have all the information you need about the meeting, which is easy to find and consult.

Prerequisites: Before starting the meeting, ensure the summarization features are activated in the 8x8 Admin Console.

Meeting summarization configuration - Beta

To take advantage of the summarization features, the meeting moderator must start the recording and activate the recording transcription option.

To generate and send a meeting summary email to participants as a moderator of the meeting:

1. While in a meeting, click More actions > Start recording to start recording the meeting.

   

2. Toggle On the Record transcription option.

   Note: While theStart recording setting is enabled, the Record transcription toggle is On by default. Each time a meeting recording starts, the transcription will automatically be recorded.

   

Meeting summary email feature - Beta

The meeting summary email feature enables all participants who have joined the meeting as authenticated users via the 8x8 Work apps (Desktop, Web, Mobile) to receive an email with the meeting summary.

Note: Before starting the meeting, ensure the summarization features are activated in the 8x8 Admin Console.

Meeting summaries are generated based on the recording of the meeting transcription. If the moderator has enabled the transcription recording, an email is sent after each meeting.

Including all meeting participants in the recipient list of the summary email simplifies communication with them.

Notes:
- Meeting transcription recording must be enabled for the meeting summary to be generated and the meeting summary email to be sent.
- The meeting must conclude, and all participants must leave before the summary email is sent.
- Only authenticated participants joining via 8x8 Work apps will receive the summary email.
Limitation: Opting out of receiving the summary email is impossible.

To learn more about meeting summary email, see Meeting Summarizationn.

The meeting summaries for late joiners feature provides participants who joined the meeting later with a private chat message summarizing the discussion that has occurred up to their arrival.

After transcription starts, there is a warmup period, currently set to 5 minutes, during which no summaries are generated for new participants because there's not much to summarize.

After the warmup period, any new participant who joins will receive a late arrival summary after a 10-second delay. Consecutive participants will delay the time the intermediate summary is sent, as the summary will be generated 10 seconds after the latest participant joins.

Notes:
- Currently, all authenticated meeting participants will automatically receive a summary email since an opt-out option is not available.
- Before starting the meeting, ensure the summarization features are activated in the 8x8 Admin Console.

To learn more about the late arrival summary feature, see Meeting Summarization.

8x8 Meetings Whiteboard is a collaborative canvas that enables you to share and interact on a virtual whiteboard in real-time. The whiteboard allows you to draw, write, add shapes and notes, making it an excellent tool for brainstorming, presentations, and interactive conversations in meetings.

To enable the whiteboard in a meeting:

1. Launch or schedule a meeting in 8x8 Meetings with up to 25 participants.

2. Join the meeting as a moderator in the 8x8 Work for Desktop or Web app.
   Wait for the other participants to join the meeting.

Note: A warning notification appears when the 20th participant joins, and a second one when the user limit is reached and the whiteboard is disabled after the 26th participant joined.

3. Once the meeting starts, click on More actions > Show Whiteboard .
   
4. The whiteboard launches in the meeting window and all participants can collaborate.
   

Note: If the whiteboard is active during a meeting that is being recorded, the whiteboard will be displayed in full until the moderator activates the follow-me feature from Settings > Moderator > Everyone follows me.

Note: As a participant, you can hide the whiteboard without impacting the other participants in the meeting. Go to More actions > Hide whiteboard , and the whiteboard will no longer be visible.

To find out more about 8x8 Meetings whiteboard see the dedicated topic.

Note: Beginning October 2^nd, 2023, you need to log into your 8x8 account to create 8x8 meetings in your calendar.

Note: Beginning October 16^th, 2023, you need to log into your 8x8 account to create meetings through https://8x8.vc/.

The ability to create 8x8 Work meetings in your calendar through 8x8 Work for Google Chrome extension, 8x8 Work for Google Calendar, 8x8 Work for Office 365, 8x8 Work for Outlook add-in, or by typing in your preferred browser: https://8x8.vc/ followed by the name of your meeting room is now available only for 8x8 Work authenticated users.

Note: If you are currently logged in 8x8 Work for Desktop, you are no longer prompted to log in. Similarly, logging into or out of the 8x8 Work for desktop app affects your login status in your browser.

Let’s say you want to join/start a meeting or add a meeting to your calendar through 8x8 Work meetings for 8x8 Work for Google Chrome extension:

1. Click on the 8x8 Work Meetings icon.

2. Click the Log In button.
   
   

3. Enter your 8x8 Work credentials.
   
   

Now you can join the meeting, add it to your preferred calendar or share the meeting link with other participants.

If you try to join a new 8x8 Work meeting from a browser you are prompted for your 8x8 credentials. In case you don’t own an 8x8 account you can wait for an authenticated user to join the meeting first. Once an 8x8 Work for Desktop user joins the meeting space, the meeting becomes accessible to other participants.

To learn more about meetings see Schedule meetings with 8x8 Meet.

As a participant in a meeting, you can select the language in which the meeting subtitle is displayed during a meeting. The translated meeting subtitle displays only locally, if you already enabled subtitle translation.

Important! Only a meeting moderator can enable the meeting transcription and can allow other participants (guest users) to start subtitles locally in their preferred language. The subtitles translation is done locally for each participant. The transcript file is generated in the language set by the moderator and appears in the meeting summary after the session ends.

Note: To access the list of available languages, when in-meeting, click More actions > Subtitles . Choose from the Subtitles list the desired language in which the subtitle will appear .

To select the language in which the subtitle displays during a meeting:

1. While in-meeting, if you have moderator rights, you can enable the meeting transcription by clicking More actions > Subtitles Off .
2. In the Subtitles list, select the language in which the meeting subtitle will display. When the presenter starts to talk, the meeting subtitles displays the text in real-time, in the language set by you.
3. If you or a meeting participant (guest user) doesn’t understand the presenter’s language, you can change the subtitle language at any time, by selecting from the Subtitles list the desired language in which the meeting subtitle displays locally.

.

Note: At the end of the meeting, in the meeting summary, the meeting transcription file displays in the language that has been set by the moderator (by default is the OS or browser language). For more information, click Post-Meeting summary.

While in a meeting and you want to manage the quality of your inbound/outbound meeting video, the label related to the Manage video quality advanced meeting control has been changed. The new label for this meeting video control now appears as Performance settings .

To adjust the quality of your outbound/inbound meeting video, you can now use the Performance settings meeting control window by choosing the appropriate quality level between the Highest quality levels and the Best performance levels, to manage your meeting experience as needed. This control affects the quality of the input video that participants see and the quality of the output video that participants see of you.

Starting with the 8x8 Work for Mobile 10.21 release, you can join an 8x8 meeting using the Voice Assistant (Apple Siri). This feature is designed only for 8x8 Work for Mobile, for Apple users.

You now have the ability to express yourself and have fun in the meeting, by searching and selecting a gif image from the reactions menu.

Note: The selection of a GIF image leads to the appearance of the GIF on the participant’s tile, temporarily, and in the chat for all participants. If you hover over the participant tile, the GIF displays until you change the focus away from the tile.

To send a GIF reaction:

1. While in a meeting, click the small arrow above the Raise hand option to open the reaction menu. If you are joining via mobile, tap More actions first, to see the reaction gallery at the bottom of the screen.

2. From the reaction menu, click Toggle GIPHY menu and choose one of the available GIF from the GIPHY gallery to send it. The GIPHY gallery is visible for a few seconds on your tile, for all participants. 

The Meeting window now can display at the same time, two separate video streams for the same participant, one for the video (or participant avatar if the video is not turned on), and one and one for the content being shared in two separate tiles.

Notes:
- This behavior is more visible in the 'tile’ view, as in the ‘stage’ view, the ‘content share’ tile is in focus.
- For a better visualization of the video or of the screen share, drag the handlebar on the edge of the filmstrip to resize it.

• Layout enhancements

  The following enhancements apply to the layout of your in-meeting screen.

  • Enhanced tile view

    When you have Tile view enabled in a meeting, participant tiles now automatically resize to minimize the blank space that previously showed up around them.

    

  • Support for in-tile face centering

    When you have Tile view enabled in a meeting and your participant tiles are resized to appear more narrow, tiles that show participant video now center on the participant’s face, preventing participants from appearing cut off.

  • Ability to resize tile filmstrip in presenter view

    Let’s say you’re viewing a presentation but also want to see non-presenter participants more clearly; you now have the ability to resize the filmstrip displaying non-presenters at any time! When viewing a presentation or when you have Tile view disabled in a meeting, you can drag a new handlebar on the edge of the filmstrip to resize it.

    

Let’s say you’re looking through several past meetings for a particular meeting, and want to quickly locate the recording you’re looking for; now, still shots of shared on-screen content (such as slide presentations) are captured every few seconds for quick viewing if the app detects changes in the displayed content! When reviewing the details of a past meeting, scroll to the Screen sharing snapshots section to view images automatically generated during a recorded screen sharing session.

Note: Presentation snapshots are only captured while a meeting is being recorded.

While a meeting is being recorded, 8x8 Meet now detects key moments (such as a large number of in-meeting reactions) and generates video snippets around those moments. In addition, if you think a certain part of an ongoing recorded meeting is important, you can manually highlight that part of the meeting in real time (click Highlight moment in the meeting header) to generate a snippet later!

When reviewing the details of a past meeting, scroll to the Recording & highlights section; if you recognize a snippet as a specific part of the recording you want to view, you can open it on its own instead of looking through the entire recording!

Note: Video snippets are only captured while a meeting is being recorded.

Note: This feature applies to 8x8 desktop apps, versions 10.14 and newer of 8x8 Work for Mobile, and all browsers.
Participants joining from the 8x8 Meet mobile app or older versions of 8x8 Work for Mobile are not able to see, join, or be moved to a breakout room.

During a meeting between the Marketing, Sales, and Engineering teams, the three teams need to break out into individual team sessions to chart out their next steps, then return to the main meeting for further discussion; now, a moderator can create breakout rooms within the same meeting, enabling the teams to immediately pick up where they left off without needing to schedule separate meetings!

Use breakout rooms whenever you need to split people into smaller groups and bring them back together when needed:

• Create brainstorming groups so more ideas can be discussed in parallel without people talking over one another.
• Before the end of a meeting with multiple presenters, create a room for each presenter so they can more quickly answer questions specific to them.
• During a virtual training session, create a room for each trainer, enabling them to focus on smaller groups of people to train.
• And much more!

To create breakout rooms as a moderator:

1. As a moderator in a meeting, click Participants . If you are joining via your mobile app, tap More actions first to see this option.
2. In the participant panel that opens, click Add breakout room below the end of the participant list.
   

To join breakout rooms:

1. While in the main room of a meeting, click Participants . If you are joining via your mobile app, tap More actions first to see this option.
2. In the participant panel that opens:
   • On desktop: Hover over the name of a breakout room to show the option to join the room.
   • On mobile: Hold down on the name of a breakout room to show the option to join the room.
3. Click Join.
   

To leave breakout rooms:

1. While in a breakout room during a meeting, click Participants . If you are joining via your mobile app, tap More actions first to see this option.
2. In the participant panel that opens, click Leave breakout room to return to the main meeting room.
   

To close breakout rooms as a moderator:

1. As a moderator in a meeting, click Participants . If you are joining via your mobile app, tap More actions first to see this option.
2. In the participant panel that opens:
   • On desktop:
     1. Hover over the name of a breakout room to show additional options for the room.
     2. Hover over More next to the name of the meeting room, and click Close to return all participants there to the main meeting room.
        
   • On mobile:
     1. Hold down on the name of a breakout room to show additional options for the room.
     2. Tap Remove to return all participants there to the main meeting room.

Note: This feature applies to 8x8 desktop apps, versions 10.14 and newer of 8x8 Work for Mobile, and all browsers.

Your post-meeting summary has a new look, and has been improved for usability! At a glance, see a preview of who participated in the meeting, as well as previews of any recordings, chat logs, and audio transcripts related to the meeting. In addition, instead of needing to download meeting recordings to view them, just click the preview to watch the recording!

1. In 8x8 Work or the 8x8 Meet desktop app, go to Meetings / > Recent meetings.
2. Click a past meeting to view its summary. From a post-meeting summary, you can see any resources related to the meeting, such as:
   • The list of Participants who attended the meeting, sorted in order of speaking time, then alphabetically
   • Any Recording made of the meeting: Click a recording to watch it directly from within the app. While watching the recording, click Share to copy the recording link to your clipboard, which you can share for the next 72 hours with participants without access to the recording.
   • The Chat log of the meeting
   • Any Transcription made from meeting audio
   • Any Polls created during the meeting

Note: This feature applies to 8x8 desktop apps, versions 10.14 and newer of 8x8 Work for Mobile, and all browsers.

Your meeting polls and their results are now recorded in your post-meeting summary alongside existing resources such as recordings and chat logs, enabling you to look back at any important polls and see which meeting they took place in!

Let’s say you joined a meeting on the go via 8x8 Work for Mobile and have just reached a computer without 8x8 Work for Desktop installed, so you open and log in to 8x8 Work for Web instead. Like 8x8 Work for Desktop, 8x8 Work for Web now detects whether you are in a meeting on another device, and lets you flip the meeting to your web app with a single click! Once you click the control to flip your meeting, the meeting on your previous device stops and picks up in your browser where you left off!

Note: This feature applies to all 8x8 apps and browsers.

8x8 Meet now supports even larger meetings than before; rather than 100 participants, now up to 500 participants can join a meeting from desktop or mobile!

Note: This feature applies to meeting moderators on all 8x8 apps and browsers.

Let’s say you are hosting a large meeting in your personal meeting space, and many participants have left their microphones or cameras enabled even though they are not currently speaking, which could be distracting or disruptive during an important meeting.

As a moderator in an 8x8 meeting (such as in your personal meeting space), you were previously able to disable other participants’ microphones and cameras; with this release, you now have the option to let participants re-enable their microphones and cameras later! This new ability shows up as a new toggle when you open the Participants panel, and then click Mute all or More > Stop everyone's video.

Click here for details on how to tell whether you are a moderator in a meeting.

Note: This feature applies to 8x8 desktop and iOS apps, and all browsers.

Let’s say your team is discussing new ideas, and you want to briefly show your reaction to a particularly good idea or a surprising development without talking over the current speaker; now, when you click the small arrow above the Raise hand option during a meeting (on mobile browsers, under More options ), you can choose from in-meeting reactions to share with other participants!

Note: This feature applies to 8x8 desktop apps, 8x8 Work for Mobile, and all browsers.

If you want a quick tally of other participants’ opinions to a simple question, you now have the ability to set up an in-meeting poll! For example, Sam can poll the rest of the team on which day or days of the week work best for an upcoming meeting. Simply open the Chat panel in a meeting, and open the panel’s new Poll tab to get started. Once your poll is set up, all participants (yourself included) can quickly weigh in, selecting one or more of the options offered.

Note: This feature applies to 8x8 Work for Desktop and 8x8 Work for Mobile.

Let’s say you joined a meeting on the go via 8x8 Work for Mobile and have just reached your desktop. 8x8 Work for Desktop now detects whether you are in a meeting on another device, and lets you flip the meeting to your desktop app with a single click! Once you click the control to flip your meeting, the meeting on your mobile device stops and picks up on desktop where you left off!

Similarly, if you joined a meeting on your computer via 8x8 Work for Desktop but need to step away from your desk for a while, 8x8 Work for Mobile also detects whether you are in a meeting on another device! Once you tap the control to flip your meeting, the meeting on your computer stops and picks up on mobile where you left off.

Note: This feature applies to 8x8 Work for Mobile and the 8x8 Meet mobile app.

If you're joining a meeting via 8x8 Work for Mobile or the 8x8 Meet mobile app, you now have the ability to share your on-screen content with other participants! In a meeting, simply tap More actions > Share screen to begin sharing your full screen.

Note:
-If you are sharing your screen via mobile, your full screen is shared automatically, and you cannot limit what portion of the screen is shared; other participants see everything you see on your mobile screen while you are sharing.
-All notifications that show up onscreen are also visible to other participants.

Note: This feature applies to SIP devices, and to 8x8 Work for Desktop and the 8x8 Meet desktop app.

As a SIP device user, you can now use your device to participate in 8x8 meetings! Join by dialing in using a meeting's dedicated SIP number, or (if you are joining via desktop) invite a SIP device user to a meeting by entering their SIP address in 8x8 Meet. A meeting's SIP address takes the form of a non-spaced string of numbers (the digits of the meeting's PIN code) ending with @8x8.vc.

For example, a meeting with a PIN code of 1111 2222 333# would have a SIP address of [email protected].

To find the meeting dial-in SIP address and join a meeting from a SIP device:

From your SIP device, dial the SIP address associated with the meeting you want to join.

• Outside of a meeting: In your meeting invite, click the link with the full list of dial-in numbers. At the bottom of the list, the meeting's SIP address is displayed.
  If the meeting information shared with you does not include the SIP address:
  • If the meeting's default dial-in phone number was shared with you, you can gather the meeting's SIP address from the PIN code shown next to the phone number. Simply enter all the digits of the PIN code without spaces, add @8x8.vc at the end, and dial.
  • If no dial-in information was shared with you, request the SIP address from a meeting organizer.
• In a meeting:
  1. Click Participants and then click Invite Someone to open the meeting invitation panel.
     
  2. In the panel, click More numbers below the dial-in information to open a web page with a list of the meeting's international phone numbers and SIP address.
  3. At the bottom of the list, copy and share the SIP address with a participant who wants to join via SIP device.

To invite a SIP device user by dialing out (desktop apps and browsers only):

1. In a meeting, click Participants and then click Invite Someone to open the meeting invitation panel.
2. In the panel, enter the participant's SIP address in the text entry box, and confirm to bring up the option to invite.
3. Click Invite to dial out to your specified SIP participants. These participants receive a SIP call from an address indicating the name of the 8x8 user inviting them to the meeting, appended with @8x8.vc. For example, a SIP user invited by Robin Shasta would receive a call from [email protected].
   If you have also entered the names of 8x8 Work contacts, they are invited directly, and phone numbers you enter are dialed out to along with SIP addresses.

Note: This feature applies to 8x8 Work users of 8x8 Spaces.

If you are an 8x8 Work user and your organization enhances its in-room systems with 8x8 Spaces, you now pair 8x8 Work for Desktop with 8x8 Spaces by going to Settings > Meetings > Nearby room detection, and enabling the option to automatically detect nearby 8x8 Spaces. This way, you can enter a room enhanced with 8x8 Spaces and have your app pair with the in-room system automatically rather than pairing manually every time!

Note: This feature applies to all 8x8 desktop apps and browsers, and to the 8x8 Meet iOS mobile app.

Enjoy an enhanced in-meeting experience on screens or windows of any size with our new responsive interface, enabling you to better meet from your device of choice! When you meet on a mobile device or on a small web window, your control bar narrows accordingly, and your chat panel switches to fullscreen.

Note: This feature applies to all 8x8 desktop apps and browsers.

Let’s say you’re sharing video from a location where people or objects in the background could prove distracting; you can now use virtual and blurred backgrounds with 8x8 Meet! When you share your video, you have the ability to choose from a preset photo background, add a photo background of your own, or blur the real-world background behind you. Once you select a background, it shows up by default when you share your video until you choose to change it again.

Note: This feature applies to mobile browsers, and was previously available only on 8x8 mobile apps.

Let’s say you join a meeting via mobile and want to show something to other participants via your device camera; rather than turning your device to focus on what you want to show, you can now toggle between the front and back-facing cameras on your mobile device in 8x8 Meet!

Let’s say you join a meeting via mobile browser and want to show something to other participants via your device camera; just as you previously could do from your mobile apps, rather than turning your device to focus on what you want to show, you can now toggle between the front and back-facing cameras on your mobile device while meeting via mobile browser!

Let’s say you’re hosting a confidential meeting, and want to personally make sure that only the intended participants can enter the meeting. You now have the ability to screen who can join your meeting by enabling a lobby room for your meeting; this way, before participants can join your meeting, they must ask to be let in.

In addition, if you want all your organization’s meeting spaces, or all meetings in your personal meeting space, to have lobby rooms enabled by default, contact your administrator to fine-tune your organization’s lobby room behavior.

If you are an 8x8 Work for Desktop or 8x8 Work for Mobile user, your Meetings list is now marked with an updated icon that better reflects your ability to view and share video while in a meeting!

On 8x8 Work for Desktop:

on 8x8 Work for Mobile for iOS and Android/Amazon:

On the 8x8 Meet desktop and mobile apps, your Meetings list continues to be marked with its previous icon.