PlanetNTF

HCL Software is pleased to announce the general availability of our latest release, HCL Sametime Premium v12.

This is a major release of Sametime Premium that’s focused on enhancing your data security, delivering lower TCO and a customized meeting experience for every meeting owner and participant.  It is now available for download on FlexNet, HCL’s License & Delivery Portal.

Here are the highlights of Sametime Premium v12: 

Make good security decisions every time: We ensure your privacy is protected with pre-defined meeting modes: Collaboration, Confidential, Lecture Mode, plus new member management capabilities.

Customize your Meeting experience: We provide personalized and branded experiences, plus powerful meeting reports for those managing meetings.

Administrators get up and running faster with lower TCO with a fully containerized deployment on-prem or private cloud. 

As an end-user and a meeting owner, you can take advantage of:    

• The ability to tailor your meetings to the level of security needed with meeting modes to protect your company’s confidentiality. 
• Reporting so you can keep records of who attended and what was presented in your meetings. 
• Restrict your meetings to only those you invite and are included in your member access list. 
• Make Sametime your preferred meeting solution with our easy-to-use Outlook integration and our unique personal, custom, and instant meeting options. 
• And finally, our new click to call feature that enables you to carry on an important conversation after the meeting has finished. 

HCL strongly encourages all Sametime Premium customers and business partners to upgrade to this release and leverage the new features above and much more. 

For a complete view of what’s new in this release, please click here.

Lastly, we want to hear from you, please submit for your ideas for future enhancements here. 

Thank you.
Ginni Saini,   
Sametime Product Manager   
HCL Software    

HCL is pleased to announce the general availability of HCL Sametime 11.6 IF1, our latest interim fix release for Meetings. It is now available for download on FlexNet, HCL’s License & Delivery Portal. 

Why is this IF release important to all Sametime v11.X customers using Meetings?

Chrome M93 support and a lot of other critical fixes, including UX enhancements, UI improvements and multiple bug fixes to improve your overall Sametime Meetings and Chat experience. For more details, please check out the full fix list published here.

Support for Chrome WebRTC Unified Plan: 

Google has completely transitioned Chrome’s WebRTC implementation from the Plan B SDP format to the Unified Plan, starting with Chrome M93 version. See Google’s announcement here. 

What does this mean for Sametime Premium customers using Meetings?

• Prior to HCL Sametime 11.6 IF1, Chrome browser support (for Meetings) is based on the Plan B SDP format.  
• By upgrading Sametime to 11.6 IF1, Meetings now uses the WebRTC Unified Plan SDP format.  

For information on how this impacts HCL Sametime 11.5 and 11.6 deployments, please read this article.

Therefore, HCL strongly encourages all Sametime v11.X customers and business partners using Meetings to upgrade their Sametime Meeting servers to continue to enjoy a great Video Meetings and Chat experience on the latest Chrome browser.

The details of how to upgrade your HCL Sametime environments to our latest release can be found here.

Ginni Saini,
Sametime Product Manager,
HCL Software 

Disclaimer – HCL’s statements regarding its plans, directions, and intent are subject to change or withdrawal without notice at HCL’s sole discretion. Information regarding potential future products is intended to outline our general product direction and it should not be relied on in making a purchasing decision. The information mentioned regarding potential future products is not a commitment, promise, or legal obligation to deliver any material, code or functionality. Information about potential future products may not be incorporated into any contract. The development, release, and timing of any future features or functionality described for our products remains at our sole discretion. Performance is based on measurements and projections using standard HCL benchmarks in a controlled environment. The actual throughput or performance that any user will experience will vary depending upon many factors, including considerations such as the amount of multi programming in the user’s job stream, the I/O configuration, the storage configuration, and the workload processed. Therefore, no assurance can be given that an individual user will achieve results similar to those stated here.

The HCL Sametime team wants everyone to be aware of the pending Chrome change related to conformance with the WebRTC standard that will impact Sametime Meetings. This change is scheduled to take affect with the M93 update of the Chrome browser, currently targeted for Aug 31, 2021. 

We are actively working on putting finishing touches to our next interim release to support the Unified Plan for Sametime Meetings. We plan to release it in the upcoming weeks, after we have finished testing the changes across all supported browsers listed here. 

In the meantime, please plan to upgrade your Sametime 11.5 and 11.6 Meetings deployments using our documentation found here. 

For information on how this impacts HCL Sametime 11.5 and 11.6 deployments, please read this article. 

If you have any questions or need further details, don’t hesitate to reach out to our support team! 

HCL Sametime Product Team

Disclaimer – HCL’s statements regarding its plans, directions, and intent are subject to change or withdrawal without notice at HCL’s sole discretion. Information regarding potential future products is intended to outline our general product direction and it should not be relied on in making a purchasing decision. The information mentioned regarding potential future products is not a commitment, promise, or legal obligation to deliver any material, code or functionality. Information about potential future products may not be incorporated into any contract. The development, release, and timing of any future features or functionality described for our products remains at our sole discretion. Performance is based on measurements and projections using standard HCL benchmarks in a controlled environment. The actual throughput or performance that any user will experience will vary depending upon many factors, including considerations such as the amount of multi programming in the user’s job stream, the I/O configuration, the storage configuration, and the workload processed. Therefore, no assurance can be given that an individual user will achieve results similar to those stated here.

Today marks a major milestone in our commitment to helping create the digital office our teams need to get work done, be more efficient, and collaborate effectively with colleagues. We are thrilled to announce 6 new features for your favorite meetings and chat solution:

• New filters in video settings: Animations will make it appear as if you are focusing intently, even if you are checking your phone or surfing the web 
• Awards show mode: Music will automatically fade in when the meeting goes past the scheduled end time — or attendees can activate it manually to drown out someone who is being dominating and annoying 
• Picture-in-picture pet mode: A new setting allows for you to have your camera display one window for you, and one window for your pet (who only seems to wander around or bark when you have meetings with management) 
• Social media security settings: A custom notification will display if you are sharing your screen and distractedly attempt to go over to the browser tab that has Facebook open 
• New AI integrations: When you suddenly are asked a question in a meeting when you weren’t paying attention, you can summon Siri or Alexa to answer it for you — run through a special Sametime voice-matching filter set up to sound like you 
• New audio settings: Less embarrassing, pre-set sounds, such as water running or a carn horn honking, will be auto played to drown out toilets flushing or family members yelling in the background.  

 Happy April Fool’s Day. Of course, this was a joke!

But you know what’s no joke? The upcoming global premiere of the newest version of HCL Sametime on June 7. Register here. And, the fact that Sametime beats the competition — hands-down. Let us show you how.  

HCL Software is pleased to announce the tech preview of an installable HCL Sametime meetings desktop client. This desktop client is available for both Windows and macOS and works with any Sametime Premium v11.5 deployment. It provides the same UI features as our browser experience and can be pinned to the taskbar (screenshot below).  

Once installed, simply clicking a meeting URL will automatically let you join via the desktop client. Additionally, you can use the client by itself to join or create meetings. 

This desktop client is available through our HCL license and delivery portal (FlexNet) for all our Sametime Premium customers. For our mobile users, you can continue to use the existing HCL Sametime app, available on Apple and Google app stores, that supports both chat and meetings features. 

For more information, please read this article to learn how to install and use the Sametime meetings desktop client. 

HCL Sametime Product Team