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I need attendees to be able to chat with each other, but I don't see how.
I just hosted a webinar where the presenter assumed attendees could see each other's posts, and it was awkward. How do I accomplish this? Do I have to paste every Question into the Chat box?
29 Comments
I like the idea of an option for attendees to chat with each other. We looked at GoToTraning and it doesn't fit our needs as well as GoToWebinar. Often we have smaller groups on a discussion-based webinar and we unmute their lines (individually, which is time-consuming, but that's another issue). It would be very helpful to have the option to allow attendees to chat with each other so they could share resources and tips while someone else is talking.
Hi itomlinson ,
We do have an existing thread on this topic, which I have merged now. Regarding the timeline for development, we don't have any updates yet and will certainly let everyone know as soon as information becomes available.
- Public chat is pretty crucial for my needs. I wish they would add it.
- Agreed. Everyone should be able to publicly chat with each other. And, it would be nice if I can ask an open question and everyone answers in the chat. Like "can everyone hear me?"
Yes, a public chat option would be crucial for my needs.
- While some might not want this feature, we would. I'm not talking about private person-to-person chat, but open chat is a great way for folks to participate in a webinar. It seems like it should be a relatively easy thing to enable.
I don't believe there is an option for attendees to chat with each other. Now the panelist can chat with the attendees, individually or to all. I haven't run into the chat buttons not working correctly.
We have a webinar taking place today at 3 so we'll see if the issue is cleared up. My issues could have been with a new software trying to install or something in the background on our side. We'll see. A GTW tech will be on our webinar today at the beginning.
what could be the/a reason this Send Privately or Send to All button is inactive (greyed out) ?
We were facing that few weeks ago at some Organisers events ...We use this for training large groups and find having someone in the background engaging the users through the chat board helps keep users engaged in the content and share ideas and comments or just affirm what's being said. This works best when everyone can see the comments
Agree, this isn't something we'd want. Because of our education it's more important the attendee focus on the content from the faculty
We just switched to GoToWebinar and didn't realize attendees couldn't chat between each other. We would definately use this feature
For 95 percent of our webinars our Attendees do not need to communicate with each other.
I could see some wanting this option but our group wouldn't so as long as it was a feature we could turn on or off, that's great. For our CE activities we don't see the need for attendees to communicate with eachother.
Thanks
- Thanks, very much.
carehart - I agree this would be a good feature for many GTW users.
I remember one time last year when we did need the audience to chat during a webinar and we used Padlet. This worked well for the live audience in the auditorium as well as the folks attending via GTW.
- Chris, thanks, but just to be clear, the goal is not so much that they can "chat with each other", if by that you may mean "to each other privately". This is about them being able to "chat publicly", among themselves and to (and in clear view of) the presenter.
As others have said, it is indeed a feature of other webinar tools, including variants of GTW, as he kindly noted. It's also typical of other social media these days. Sure, some eschew it (as too much to keep up with), while others cherish the additional engagement it affords.
And I can say that, as a presenter and organizer of hundreds of webinars, it's been valuable and workable far more often than not.
So I get that it's not a use case you see. I'm sure there may be features you/others use, or wish for, that some others would never use. And I get especially that lots of people need to request something before it may be considered.
I'm just saying this request is not so outlandish as it seems you may be positioning it. :-) - Glenn, I don't the correction of Ash's post Did you meant to but forgot?
carehart - Glenn is good about taking suggstions from these dicusssions back to the design team.
The big issue here is that GoToWebinar was never designed to be a tool where the attendees chatted, and in the 10 years I have been a GoTo user, I have never needed that feature.
- OK, thanks for the clarification. Do comments here make it back to consideration by the GTW team? or must we take some additional step to get this considered (or would you say "really, don't bother. it's pretty much never gonna change in GTW"?)
Yes, GTW folks: How do we do enable chat in smaller GTW sessions?
AshC had said above, "We do have Chat available for up to 200 attendees however, with GoToTraining, and 100 attendees with GoToWebinar if you feel that you need this function for your broadcasts to smaller audiences."
Sharon had asked here how we could do that, almost a year ago but no one has replied. I, too, would like to know. And it seems Carla, the next commenter, would as well. We hear the concerns you have for disabling it by default, but we would love to be able enable it by our choice as Ash was indicating.- That's fine if Citrix is worried that some orgs might have privacy rules, but that's very obviously not a concern for many others (based on the large number of people asking for this feature). It seems simple enough to give us a checkbox on the webinar management page so you can CHOOSE if you want to prevent attendees from chatting.
Hi Sharon,
You can send a chat message through the GoToWebinar interface addressed to the entire audience.
Chat its self was designed for staff members, while 'Questions' were designed for attendees to enter them and Organizers to manage this potentially large list in their Attendee Questions pane.
