Startup Guide - Host Zoom-like Meetings on Flow
Video Chat for 20 Users
Tharinda Lasika
Last Update месяц назад
Not Just a Webinar Platform
We launched Flow as a webinar platform. When we identified the potential requirements of our clients, we introduced a whole new conference mode, a.k.a. the Meeting Mode. This eliminates the need for the user to find a different platform to organize conferences and quick/ad hoc meetings. You get the meeting mode options with all the webinar mode options!
Meeting Mode allows a maximum of twenty (20) participants in the room with microphone audio and webcam footage.
How to Create a Meeting
- Log in to your Flow Admin page then click the plus (+) button to start creating an event. The following is the General page.
- Fill-up the necessary fields and on the Event Type click the drop-down button and select Meeting as the event type
- Next, on the Presenters page, add more hosts and presenters. In the meeting mode, there are hosts and attendees. Here, the terms attendee and presenter are interchangeable. We will look into what a host can and attendee can do in the meeting mode later in this article
On the Settings page, there are only 2 options available, unlike in the webinar mode. Those are,
- Record Webinar
- Crop Webcam PortraitOn the Customize page, you can add the same items when you add to create the webinar mode.
Publish the event to see changes in effect.
Meeting Mode in Action
Meeting Mode - Controls
A host without using any media device - if no one is sharing audio/video the Flow animation in the middle appears
Meeting Mode - Gallery View and Smart Pinning
Presenter View
Presenter View while Sharing the Screen
💡Pro Tip
If pinned as soon as the presenter shares the screen, it changes to the above screen and shows the screen for the others automatically.
How do I start the Meeting?
You don't need to start the meeting mode, unlike the Webinar mode. You only need to click the Recording or Capture Analytics button to start recording with analytics or analytics only.
Features List
- Record: Record the meeting
- Capture Analytics: Starts capturing the data for report generation
- Gallery view: Shows up to 20 webcam footages in a grid-like arrangement
- Presenter View: Focused presenter in the middle and the rest of the webcams in the upper row. The upper row is scrollable horizontally
- Switching between views: You can change between these 2 views on the fly
- The default view is the gallery view. When you hover the mouse over the button, you see "Switch to Presenter View"
- As soon as you click the above, you get to the presenter's view
- To get back to the gallery view, click the button again. You will see "Switch to Gallery View"
Smart Pinning: Pin on the fly using the pin icon on the webcam footage/portrait
- Chat Options
- Download Chat: Save the chat transcript as a text file locally
- Raise Hand: The ability to raise the hand is here! It appears in the participant panel to the host/presenter and is also displayed next to your name in the presenter/gallery view. Here is an example
- Share File: Share any file with the audience - previews of the image files are available.
Participant Panel Options (Host)
- Remove Attendee: The Leftmost button must be used with caution. The user cannot join the ongoing webinar if you ban an attendee
- Send Private Message: Sends a private message to another user
- Prevent Chat: When enabled on any attendee, the person won't be able to chat until the ban is lifted
- Pin User: This is an important option. Pinning a user is useful in several situations
- In the presenter view, when you want to set or change the main presenter in the middle
- Screen share automatic switching. For more details, read the Screen Sharing section.
Participant Panel Options (Attendee)
- Send Private Message
Audio/Video Options
- A presenter or a host turns on the screen sharing
- If this user is already the Pinned user, as soon as the screen sharing starts, meeting mode switches to the Presenter View and the shared screen appears in the middle
- If the user is not pinned, as soon as a host pins the user, the view changes to the Presenter View and screen sharing appears for everyone. In this way, you can manage multiple users who are willing to share the screen one by one. It is also possible to utilize the "Raise hand" feature to manage the queue
Attendees get limited options in the left panel such as the participant panel (private messaging only). But once an attendee gets assigned to a storyboard item and when the host plays it, the attendee can interact with the storyboard item. For instance, if it is a slideshow, the attendee can use the available controls just like a presenter in the webinar mode.
Recording and Analytics
The Meeting mode comes with two types of recording. One is the entire meeting mode recording and another is recording only the statistics for report generation.
- Recording: The regular recording; is the same as with the webinar mode. If you click this, both the recording and analytics capturing begin. Once you end the meeting, it is available in the Past Events section (Dashboard > Past Events)
- Capture Analytics: You can click this button to record the following
- Participant details
- Survey report
- Chat Transcript
You can record only up to 4 hours.
Ending the Meeting Mode
To end a meeting mode, click the CLOSE ROOM button. The recording and analytics appear in the same way as the webinar mode and can be accessed using the event card. Login links can be used to access the recordings.