Telephone callers are not shown in attendee list

[Chris Droessler]

AshC is correct, but be aware that that method does not put those people in the Attendee list.

[mschauber]

Unfortunately not everyone has internet access, or reliable internet.  

[mschauber]

And that's the rub.  The moderator/organizer needs to be able to control all mics.

I know gotomeeting is more of a 'meeting' application, but it's missing some functions.. primarily the hand raise, but also the ability to include documents for people to download.

These are municiple and school board meetings, which have to be open to the public.  I'm doing everything I can to keep people from using Zoom, but zoom has the handraise function where gotomeeting does not.  And if gotowebinar can't accomodate call-ins whose mics can be controlled, then we're looking at a mess of noise, interuptions, etc.

[Chris Droessler]

Let's say that GoTo implemented this feature and you had 10 phone callers in addition to the regular webinar Attendees, would they all be labeled as "phone caller" in the Attendee list, or would you want it to list the phone number, like "800-555-1234"?

How would you know who to unmute?  How will you know a phone caller needs to speak?  Do you just go down the line and say, "I've just unmuted the first caller to talk. Are you there?"  Or do you unmute all of them at once?

[mschauber]

There are a few different ways it could be handled.  To answer your 2nd question first, the best case scenario is what Zoom has done... they have their hand raise function and for callers, there's a star key sequence for them to press.

Without the hand raise function, the way we will have to do it, is at the end of an agenda item, we'll open it up for public comment/questions.  If the user is on a computer, they will have put a '?' in the chat box.  For callers, we'll have to unmute them and ask people to say their first name if they want to speak.

That leads me to your first question...  gotomeeting just lists caller 1, caller 2, etc.  When a member of the public first speaks, they have to give their full name...  we will also be asking for spelling and will then manually change the name from Caller x to the person's name.  This, for us, is important for multiple reasons.  Our meetings are recorded, a permanent legal record.  Some are also broadcasted on local community tv and even if not live, they are recorded and broadcasted at different times during the week and are made available on their website for watching.  So we need to have an accurate recording of everyone who speaks.  Actually, now that I think about it, we need a listing of all members of the public in attendance for our minutes.  The 2nd item on our agenda is alway 'members of the public.' So at that time we will ask for all callers names and update it in the list of attendees/participants.  If people call in after the meeting is called to order, we will have to pause at some point to get their name.

Since these meetings are public, I wouldn't want phone numbers to be displayed... although the last 4 digits of their number would be helpful in identifying which caller we'd like to speak.

What it comes down to is that there is more of a cross section for these products than GoTo currently provides for.  I'd much rather see the hand raise functionality added to gotomeeting.  We can live without the file sharing that is in webinar.  When you're running a meeting with 10 to 30 or more people, being able to know who wants to speak and queuing them, preferably in order, seems like it should be a standard feature.  Clearly zoom felt it should be.  Jitsi has it.  I'm sure others do as well.

Thanks,

Marc

[pcollins]

What would be exceedingly useful to any small local government agency hosting remote board meetings is:

1. Change GoToMeeting to allow two classes of participants (or two links with different rights):
   One with a password that had full webcam/audio rights for up to 25 users (i.e. Council members & Mayor).  Another that could only watch/listen perhaps with chat comments (i.e. emailed to the Public).
   
   OR
   
   
2. Change GoToWebinar Lite to allow up to 25 webcams as concurrent Presenters (instead of 6) on the screen, and keep existing Participant functions as they are.
   
   

Regards,

PETER I. COLLINS

Information Technologies Manager

City of Geneva, Illinois
22 South First Street
Geneva, Illinois 60134

pcollins@geneva.il.us

[AshC]

@pcollins Thanks for your feedback.  We have plans to expand the webcam options in GoToWebinar down the line.  I'm sorry I don't have an ETA yet. 

[pcollins]

Ash:

The sooner, the better.

We'd certainly welcome that change, along with mschauber's comments above, as it would make the "Open Meetings Act" requirements the Public Sector lives under much easier to achieve via GoToMeeting or GoToWebinar.

Thanks again. 

Pete Collins

[Jayne L]

Issue

• Unable to see if anyone has called in to a GoToWebinar session, during or in analysis.

Scenario:

• Supply the callin to users who do not have access to internet so they can attend a webinar.
• User calls in with attendee code.  
• No notification that someone has joined.
• No visibility in the attendee list
• No ability to mute or unmute.  They are muted.
• No record that someone has called in to the webinar, so gap in analytics

Security concern

• Do not know who is on the call, or how many are on the call

Compare:

• GoToMeeting has much more security in this area.  
• Users call in and are identified as caller01, caller02... caller##
• Organizer can rename, assigning a name to the person
• Organizer can mute/unmute them

UseCase

1. Corporate use case is for someone on the road, who calls in to a webinar.  They may want people to knwo that they are present, listening.  They may wish to ask a question.
2. Not-for-profit use case is my current challenge.   We are using GoToWebinar for church services.   We switched to GoToWebinar for the ability to show videos (and hear them).  It works great.   We have attendees on limited income who do not have any internet, smart phone or tablet.  They truly are phone only.  These individuals are severely isolated in this COVID-19 time, as most are over 80.   In GoToMeeting, we have found that by hearing them, and saying hello to them, showing that they are a part, it greatly increases their feeling of inclusion.   Without knowing that they are on the call in GoToWebinar, their isolation is heightened, as we can't even welcome them.

[Jayne L]

Ditto

I logged a quesiton on this one, with detailed use cases and scenarios.

To me, this is a security concer