Jana Stockwell's avatar
Jana Stockwell
Active Contributor
5 days ago
Status:
Investigating

Interactive Drawing Feature is Lost in the New GoTo

The interactive/collaborative drawing feature from the old GoToMeeting is now completely disabled and is sorely missed by our company and our many collaborators worldwide — designers, fabricators, engineers. We cannot have functional conferences without this feature.

Before, multiple participants could draw simultaneously on an image/document shared by the presenter, each in a different pen color. Now only the presenter can draw on the presenter's own screen. It is a tremendous loss for what used to be a standout and unique application!

Please bring this back!

  • Jana Stockwell's avatar
    Jana Stockwell
    Active Contributor

    To recap, the unique feature, now lost, is summarized below:

    1. The presenter controls his/her own computer and shares images/docs on sceen (no remote control).
    2. The presenter enables all attendees to draw simultaneously on the images/docs shared, with each attendee using his/her own pen and color choice for clarity.

     

     

  • KateG's avatar
    KateG
    GoTo Moderator

    Hi Jana Stockwell Welcome to the GoTo Community.

    Currently the active presenter on the desktop app can use drawing tools, but our team is working on improvements to the feature, including allowing attendees to draw on the presenter's screen. We will update the Community as soon as they are available. In the meantime: 

    • You may want to check out Glenn's post here about how to use the Miro whiteboard, for group drawing. 
    • There is also a workaround that you may want to try until the feature is fully available: 
      • The Presenter can choose the Draw options: Size, Color, and Opacity for the attendee and then give the remote control to the attendee to draw on their screen share. 
  • Jana StockwellWe are in the same boat as you. Our simulation department absolutely relied on the drawing tools for collaboration while working offsite. They are currently (barely) working around this issue by taking screenshots and using the whiteboard feature, but this is obviously extremely cumbersome with 3D parts.

    KateGIt's asinine that GoToMeeting would lose longstanding functionality with a new version, especially since the 'team' has had well over a year to ensure that the new version would be at least functionally equivalent to the old version. Loss of the drawing tools combined with loss of remote control is forcing us to move to a different provider that is willing to actually support their users and their necessary use cases. I'm sure that losing our account will be no big loss to GoTo, but I sincerely hope that other larger account losses will require management to reconsider their commitment to those companies that keep GoTo in the black.

  • KateG's avatar
    KateG
    GoTo Moderator
    Status changed:
    New
    to
    Investigating
  • KateG's avatar
    KateG
    GoTo Moderator

    RFast thanks for sharing your experience with the drawing tools. 

    Regarding Remote Control, the GoTo App supports remote control and Attendees can request control once the admin on your account enables the feature: How do I use Remote Control? 

    • Jana Stockwell's avatar
      Jana Stockwell
      Active Contributor

      Thanks so much for your investigation and support Kate. Remote control doesn't solve this issue at all. The presenter needs control of the screen, while the presenter and all participants are enabled to draw collaboratively. Until this last update, we were still able to launch the old GoToMeeting App which enabled these features. We relied on these for hours every day. However, now the old desktop app (orange logo) will not even launch.

      As an art fabrication studio, we cannot properly QC projects via shared photos/diagrams and troubleshoot design changes without the ability to have all participants draw (and select their own pen colors for clarity). What was once a tremendously unique application is now common and indistinguishable from the others. What a huge loss.

      We hope this is reintroduced on a high priority basis before all visual professionals and others who relied on this service seek alternative applications. As our GoTo account administrator, I will be actively seeking alternatives within the week, as we cannot function without this.