FAQ

Adobe Connect is a market-leading enterprise web conferencing solution used by leading corporations and government agencies to improve collaboration and get work done faster. Based on Adobe Flash technology, it enables you to provide rich interactions, while ensuring easy meeting entry. The solution consists of the following three components:

• Adobe Connect for Web Meetings addresses a full range of online meeting needs, from simple screen sharing to mission-critical, real-time collaboration, and allows your teams to work more efficiently, increasing productivity and helping reduce costs.
• Adobe Connect for eLearning provides novices and experts alike with the capability to create and deliver compelling, self-paced online courses, conduct highly interactive virtual classes, and efficiently manage training programs.
• Adobe Connect for Webinars enables organizations to increase attendance, boost response rates, and generate more interest through rich, engaging, highly interactive online events.

You have a choice of three deployment options when you purchase an Adobe Connect solution. You can have the solution hosted by Adobe, you can license your own version to install inside your organization's firewall, or you can choose a managed service with which IT management is outsourced to a FISMA-compliant environment.

The hosted deployment option enables you to start collaborating immediately with just a Web browser, Flash and an internet connection. Adobe manages everything for you so there’s no hardware or software to install, setup and maintain.

An Adobe hosted solution offers:

• Immediate account access
• Low initial investment
• Reliable, redundant system architecture
• High-bandwidth Tier 1 hosting center
• Annual subscription contract including maintenance and support

See the Adobe Connect Buying Guide for more information.

An Adobe Connect on premise solution is one that is deployed behind your firewall and integrates with your existing IT infrastructure. This option gives you complete control over how you set up your environment.

A on-premise deployment offers:

• Choice of the network topology that meets your organization's reliability and scalability needs
• Integration with your organization's existing servers and applications, such as VoIP, LDAP directory server, Jabber, and Microsoft SQL Server
• Ability to customize and extend your Adobe Connect solution capabilities
• Control over usage and maintenance costs
• Ability to optimize performance with edge servers

See the Adobe Connect Buying Guide for more information.

A managed services deployment allows you to outsource your IT management to one of our partners who will take care of installation, upgrading and management of your Adobe Connect implementation while you retain the benefit of control, enhanced security, and customizability of an on-premise deployment.

A managed services deployment offers:

• A single-tenant hosted environment, which is especially attractive for organizations in regulated industries, such as financial services and government
• Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA)-compliant services
• Failover between geographically distributed data centers
• Application monitoring

See the Adobe Connect Buying Guide for more information.

Yes. Adobe Connect Server offers support for single-server or clustered environments, providing reliable, redundant deployment for organizations small and large. Adobe Connect Edge servers help reduce bandwidth and improve delivery for groups of users in remote locations.

All communications between Adobe Connect servers and client systems can be protected using SSL encryption. This enables more secure delivery of data, voice, and video between Adobe Connect applications and end users. Adobe Connect has additional security capabilities including passcode-protected rooms and enhanced session management, along with improved support for virtualization and meeting resiliency.

Yes, Adobe Connect enables IT professionals and developers to support and extend the functionality and core capabilities via the following:

• Directory service integration: Adobe Connect Server supports out-of-the-box integration with an organization's existing user management system directory (Active Directory, LDAP), reducing application management costs by enabling users and groups to be managed in a single location.
• Single sign-on: Adobe Connect Server supports single sign-on, enabling direct integration with corporate authentication systems to provide a virtually seamless experience for end users by eliminating the need for multiple usernames and password prompts.
• Comprehensive APIs and SDKs: Organizations can use the comprehensive web services framework in Adobe Connect Server to integrate with existing enterprise applications and systems such as enterprise portals and CRM or ERP systems. Developers can also extend the capabilities of Adobe Connect through the Collaboration Builder software development kit (SDK), which enables them to enhance web communication experiences through interactive applications.

In addition, IT professionals and developers can find a host of extensions for Adobe Connect through the Adobe Connect Exchange.

You can upload any of these content types: Microsoft PowerPoint slides (PPT and PPTX), video for Flash (FLV), interactive Flash Player compatible content (SWF), audio (MP3), PDF, Adobe Captivate® demonstrations and simulations (SWF), prerecorded Adobe Presenter courses, images (JPG and PNG), and compressed packages (ZIP) containing valid content.

In addition, live screen sharing allows you to share any content you have on your screen regardless of file type.

Yes. Adobe Connect natively supports streaming audio and video for live camera and voice, video files (FLV), audio files (MP3), screen sharing, and whiteboarding. Adobe Connect also offers progressive preloading of slide and rich media content for a great viewing experience during the course of a meeting regardless of bandwidth connectivity.

• New user interface: Meeting participants can enjoy simplified navigation and a new look and feel; the interface has been optimized for accessibility by disabled users.
• Enhanced video quality: Video streaming has been optimized for greater fidelity.
• Video/VTC integration: On-premise customers can easily broadcast the feeds from their SIP-based videoconferencing systems into Adobe Connect.
• Two-way Universal Voice: Audio streams from VoIP and traditional telephony are now mixed to support bidirectional conversations among users.
• Enhanced security features: The set of access control options has been expanded with new functionality, such as room passcode protection.
• SDK: A new coding framework based on ActionScript® 3.0 enables easier creation of Connect meeting extensions by Flex developers.
• Support for Ubuntu: Hosts and presenters can now share contents from Linux® workstations.
• Revamped Outlook Add-in: Managing Adobe Connect meeting invites from Outlook has been dramatically improved.
• Adobe Connect Desktop: A new desktop tool facilitates the management of rooms and recordings; recordings can be downloaded for offline playback.

The user interface has been redesigned to significantly improve discoverability through better organization and prominent display of available functionality. Some of the key enhancements include:

• Screen use has been optimized to enable focus on the meeting content, and it scales intelligently with various screen resolutions.
• Options have been rearranged to better surface key meeting controls, such as audio and video.
• All participant management functionality is now integrated in the attendee pod, and it is now possible to change participant roles using drag and drop.
• Public and private chats are more effective as they take place in different tabs.
• The meeting interface has been rebuilt to support greater accessibility for users with impairments (for example, keyboard shortcuts, compatibility with screen readers).

Advanced audio integration with Adobe Connect is available through Avaya, InterCall, MeetingOne, and PGi.

For more information on our partner ecosystem please click here.

Universal Voice works with any audio conference service but only supports recordings and audio bridging between microphones and audio conferencing services. Advanced audio integration works with a number of specific audio conferencing platforms and hosted services and provides advanced call control, real-time participant status, audio recording, and more.

Yes, Adobe Connect offers a unique approach to recording meetings through its archived meeting index. Adobe Connect records meetings at the content and event levels, rather than capturing the entire meeting as one long, unsearchable video. Viewers can use the meeting index to navigate to the most relevant content quickly — so they don't have to waste valuable time watching content that may not be relevant to them. Meeting recordings include synchronized audio and video for either VoIP or telephone audio conferencing.

Yes, recordings can easily be edited and played back offline for easy viewing anywhere, anytime. End users will need the Adobe Connect Desktop application to access these recordings while offline.

Yes. With screen reader support, closed captioning support, menu navigation, keyboard shortcuts, and tab navigation, your organization can enable key workflows for disabled people attending meetings or delivering presentations over Adobe Connect. Review the Voluntary Product Accessibility Template for more information.

Adobe Connect for eLearning enables organizations to quickly deploy and manage online courses and curriculums. It provides complete curriculum management capabilities, including the ability to incorporate live meetings, virtual classrooms, external events, and self-paced courses into a single curriculum. With Adobe Connect for eLearning, organizations can deploy, measure, and track their training and compliance initiatives.

Anyone who needs to communicate with or train people online should use Adobe Connect for eLearning. This typically includes departments such as training, human resources, marketing, sales, and IT.

The Adobe Connect servers provide a rich set of permissions, access controls, and learner management features to restrict access to courses and curriculums.

Yes. Adobe Connect for eLearning assigns a unique certification number to validate and reference that a student has completed a specific course.

Adobe Connect for eLearning provides an intuitive, web-based user interface that enables you to generate reports and analyze the effectiveness of each course or curriculum. For example, training managers can see how a particular user scored on a test, how all learners scored on a test, or even how users responded to a particular survey question. Similarly, instructional designers can view the trends in performance for specific questions or courses to determine whether course material updates would be beneficial.

Adobe Connect for eLearning enables trainers to use an easy, wizard-based approach to create progressive learning tracks by combining related training courses, content, and classes into a single curriculum. Blended learning offerings are easy to set up with the ability to create learning paths that include both on-demand and synchronous training requirements. Trainers can easily assign prerequisites, optional or required elements, and completion requirements.

Yes, Adobe Connect for eLearning courses, both on demand and real time, can be created in a variety of formats. Individual training courses can be combined within and/or reused across Adobe Connect for eLearning curriculums to build effective blended learning training programs. A variety of formats can be used to create and deliver training activities, including self-paced Adobe Presenter courses, Adobe Captivate content, and PDF and video content, as well as courses created with third-party offerings. Live, instructor-led training is engaging and effective in Adobe Connect virtual classrooms, which can easily be included within a training curriculum.

Adobe Presenter creates AICC- and SCORM-compliant content, supported by the Adobe Connect for eLearning system. This also enables straightforward integration with existing Learning Management Systems.

A virtual classroom is an engaging synchronous meeting room that can be customized to include the tools and content needed for your course, and that persists over time for reuse without the need for redundant setup. Beyond a standard meeting, virtual classrooms provide attendance tracking for training credit, including the ability to assign a grade to the learner's overall attendance. In addition, Adobe Presenter courses can be run with the class, allowing for moderated testing at a specific "place" and time, if desired.

Adobe Connect for Webinars provides tools to successfully manage the full lifecycle of an event, from registration and qualification of attendees through post-event follow-up. Adobe Connect for Webinars capabilities can be applied to all Adobe Connect modules, including online seminars, on-demand presentations, and training programs.

Anyone who needs to communicate with or train large groups of people online should use Adobe Connect for Webinars. This typically includes sales and marketing, corporate training, partner relations, and human resources managers.

Yes. Organizations can now create custom online registration forms, complete with required fields and custom questions, to enable attendee self-registration. The Adobe Connect for Webinars module automatically tracks responses and enables event managers to authorize participation individually.

Adobe Connect for Webinars provides dashboard reports that include attendee demographic information, registration, and attendance tracking at the individual level; answers to registration survey questions and in-session polling; and quiz and survey responses. Adobe Connect for Webinars generates files in CSV format for import into CRM and other systems.

Yes. Adobe Connect for Webinars enables branding of all attendee-facing pages, including registration and event listing pages. Users also have the option to edit these pages using Adobe Contribute® software. Adobe Connect for Webinars and Contribute enable users to create professional-looking webinar pages without any knowledge of HTML.

Yes. The Adobe Event Services team can provide online assistance during an event from an Adobe Connect support coordinator. The support coordinator manages user entry, granting of permissions, responses, and collection of questions through chat and technical support for meeting management.

Yes. The Adobe Connect Webcast option is Adobe's large events solution designed to support the one-to-many or few-to-many requirements for Adobe Connect customers. The offering includes all elements of an online event, including bundled event management services, registration, registrant communications, and online reporting.

The Adobe Connect Webcast option is available as a hosted service only. If you deployed Adobe Connect as an on-premise or managed service, you can purchase the Adobe Connect Webcast option separately as a hosted service.

Yes, the Adobe Connect Webcast option includes customization options that include the ability to incorporate your organization's brand throughout the webcast experience.

The Adobe Event Services manager will engage you directly during a kickoff call to determine your branding and logo requirements and will help ensure they are reflected in the audience interface components, including registration, webcast launch, and player interface.

The Adobe Connect Webcast option also offers a rich degree of interactivity, including attendee Q&A, polling, and web surveys. The platform provides complete web-based reporting for hosts and moderators to measure attendee engagement post-event.

Yes. The Adobe Connect Webcast option is based on an audio-streaming delivery model. Generally, attendees listen to the audio or view streaming video entirely over the desktop, with no need to dial out to a conference bridge.

Yes. Event Services management is included as part of the standard base package for the Adobe Connect Webcast option. Event Services includes a kickoff call with event consultation, event setup, rehearsal, live event management services, and help with post-event reporting.

Yes. The Adobe Connect Webcast option runs on a highly redundant network architecture optimized for large events. This means you can easily support and scale up to 80,000 concurrent attendees.