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December 21, 2017 - version 2.17.2 - - WebRTC audio calls on Safari, and upgraded service environment

Safari 11, released in September, introduced support for WebRTC, but our Turbobridge integration didn't quite work with it. Now it does, and you can use  Safari to connect to Turbobridge conferences integrated with Lucid meetings. 

This update also marks the rollout of some major upgrades to our services, none of which are expected to be visible to our users. 

December 10, 2017 - version 2.16.113 - - bug fixes, minor improvements

This is a quick update with a couple bug fixes and some improvements to the sidebar menu interaction. It looks like we're on track to upgrade all services to the upgraded services environment. Organization level (in addition to site and room level) tags are also nearly ready to go.

 * Continued work toward org-level tag management
 * Improvements to the sidebar menu user interaction
 * Room calendar view gets meeting series by room, not member
 * Lucid API argument checking enhancements

November 28, 2017 - version 2.16.112 - - bug fixes, minor improvements, and a few small things

In case you wonder where we've been -- we're grinding our way through a fairly large technical upgrade of the operating system and underlying software & services. It's unlikely anyone will notice, but we're retiring a significant amount of accumulated "technical debt."  Can't let that stuff grow legs or it'll overwhelm you someday.

We still have our audio transcription work happening in the background and we're currently doing some work to improve the usefulness of tagged items in the system. Notably, adding the ability to better manage tags at the Organization level, rather than solely at the Room level. This work should pop out in another week or so. 

That said, we also try to keep on top of little things that annoy people, so here are a few recent fixes we pushed out.

 * Make it easier to move adjourned meetings to another date
 * Fix email address validation bug
 * Improve site-level tag management
 * Improvements to the public REST API
 * Do not add default audio profiles for free subscriptions
 * Improvements to the /pub meetings page for meeting rooms
 * Improvements to the TBD meetings
 * Allow participants to remove themselves fro the speaker queue (bug fix)
 * Improvements for users creating additional accounts

September 18, 2017 - version 2.16.111 - bug fixes, minor improvements, and a few small things

We're prototyping a new feature to automatically transcribe conference calls and make that information available in the meeting record. This will take a while, as cost-effective, automated transcription for multi-party conference calls isn't as technologically advanced as one might hope. Especially for traditional POTS calling where the recorded audio quality is fairly low.  But we're pursuing it anyway!

 * Be friendlier when a guest tries to sign up for a new organization trial.
 * Fix espanol translation bug.
 * Show the length of audio recordings on the meeting home.
 * Improvements for account upgrade/downgrade
 * Fix google calendar update behavior for notifications on read-only calendars
 * WIP on audio transcription

August 14, 2017 - version 2.16.109 - bug fixes, minor improvements, and a few small things

Hello! It's been a little while (okay, quite a while for us), so we thought we'd publish a few notes about our summer updates. We have some exciting new things in the works for this Fall, but honestly -- fixing and improving things is really gratifying work!

  • Fix time zone confusion in Spartacus (case 10297)
  • Improve the meeting schedule CTA to avoid confusion
  • Move the 'Meet Now' button to the room menu (see above :)
  • Handle Turbobridge bridge with no dial-in options gracefully
  • Add Move Meeting (to another room) to the meeting menu
  • Corrections to editing a meeting series' schedule
  • Correct start/end time in Lucid->Google recurrence update
  •  Correction to the meeting_series_source lookup by google event
  • Close anchor tag in Stormz dropdown menu (case 10292)
  • Tweak the meeting invitation one-time login link behavior
  • Small date/time clarification on the meeting public room page
  • Small update to the /todos page

And a host of minor tweaks here and there -- too small to mention, but collectively a joy to get done.

Until next time!

June 12, 2017 - version 2.16.103 - Action item feeds for your calendar

ACTION ITEM FEED

Lucid Meetings has long featured a calendar feed for subscribing your calendar to meetings created in our system. This feed is built using a standard (for all intents and purposes, but that's another discussion) called iCalendar. The iCalendar approach allow us to include both meetings (VEVENTS) and action items (VTODOS), with the idea that calendaring systems will put these things into their proper places.

The support for the VTODO object has always been weak, however, and most recently has nearly vanished. The result was that goodhearted people could not see their action items (with due dates, of course!) on their calendar, making it harder for them to knowingly complete them by the appointed date.

We decided to fix that in this release by taking the simpler approach of adding action items as ALL DAY events on their due date. And we've done this as a separate feed so people can choose to have an action items on their calendar in a different color than their Lucid Meetings themselves. It's a simple, yet effective way to put these important tasks front and center.

MEETING RESCHEDULING IMPROVEMENTS

In addition to the action item feed, we also made improvements to the meeting rescheduling process. When people went to reschedule a meeting we weren't displaying enough information for them to retain context about the original meeting date/time during the process. This annoyed some people, so we thought we'd just fix it.

Detailed notes for this and other fixes:

  • Add an action items iCalendar feed option
  • Add STUN/TURN servers to webcall via TB panel
  • Correct the logging of invitation_sent stats
  • Meeting header display improvements
  • Improvements to system reports

June 3, 2017 - version 2.16.101 - Stormz Integration!

We are pleased to introduce our integration with Stormz, a workshop facilitation solution for brainstorming and making better decisions! With this integration your Lucid Meetings can launch Stormz as part of the meeting process flow. It's a great addition to our third party integration options. And, of course, every release includes a host of quality improvements to the service.

Some detailed notes:

  • Stormz integration!

  • Fixed long outstanding font-weight issue in Safari

  • Solr collection search improvements

  • Add Glance screen sharing as an explicit integration option

  • Expand the google RRULE handling

  • Auto-maximize Smartsheet interaction

  • Auto-maximize Smartsheet presentation iframe

  • Use chosen.js for Smartsheet selector

  • ... and various small technical improvements throughout

May 24, 2017 - version 2.16.96 - Enhancements for Turbobridge integrated audio

This update is primarily about expanding on the current Turbobridge audio capabilities (Phone, SIP, WebRTC, Call Me) built into the Lucid Meetings core services. Today we are adding the following options:

  1. Host control panel (premium audio only)

    Meeting facilitators can open an audio host control panel as an alternate mechanism for call management. The panel provides a few interesting features, including mute (or unmute) all, lock (or unlock) the conference, drop callers, and perhaps interesting to some people, the ability to dial-out or fetch callers not invited to the Lucid Meeting itself. This opens up a variety of meeting use-cases not easily covered before.
     

    turbobridge_host_control_panel

  2. Pop-out webcall (computer audio) panel with additional UI options

    The panel is a slightly customized version of the Turbobridge call panel. The panel includes the ability to turn off hold music, raise hand (visible in the new host panel), open a DTMF dialpad, and more. Besides turning off hold music, the panel's best feature is that it opens in a separate window (or tab for Chrome browsers), which means that browser reloads will not kick the listener off the call.
     

    turbobridge_webcall_panel

  3. Call Me! (premium audio only)

    Call Me! is a new feature that allows a meeting attendee to provide a phone number and request that the meeting call them, rather than dialing in or using computer audio. The software pre-fills the phone number from the member's profile when present, though a different number can be entered at the time of the meeting. Call Me! is mostly a convenience function, but one highly requested by people using browsers that do not support WebRTC (Safari, Internet Explorer).
     

    turbobridge_call_me

  4. Mobile auto-dialier

    This feature actually popped out in an earlier update, but bears mentioning here. For users on mobile devices, meeting invitations and the meeting itself include 1-click auto-dialing of the conference phone, with automatic entry for the conference ID and the user ID codes. This option is great for people joining the meeting from their phone, especially if they're in the car and shouldn't be punching numbers while driving. You know who you are!
     

    mobile_auto_dialer

April 26, 2017 - version 2.16.94 - bug fix for appear.in and custom audio

We goofed! A recent release broke the appear.in integration and omitted custom audio instructions from meetings that use Custom audio.

This release puts those things back the way they were. 

April 25, 2017 - version 2.16.93 - bug fixes and minor improvements

  • Fix an Action Item date display bug for the daily and weekly reminder emails.

  • Increase meeting attendance table pages

  • Fix a couple of date formatting bugs with the open action item reminders.

  • Limit the weekly reminder task to run on Sundays only.

  • Better test for RRULE in event data from Google, improving the calendar integration in the chrome extension.

Chrome extension v1.0.5

 Small updates to the Lucid Meetings for Google Chrome extension: 
  • Fixed a bug that caused the pop-up to fail to load for some users.
  • When connecting a Google calendar event to a Lucid Meeting, the link "Go to this meeting in Lucid" no longer appears on the event until after the event is saved in Google. This is to remove a source of user confusion: the Lucid meeting is a placeholder at that point, and will be deleted if you don't save the Google calendar event. 

If you have our Google Chrome extension installed, it will update automatically. 

April 21, 2017 - version 2.16.91 - Remove Google Hangouts integration, bug fixes and minor improvements.

We didn't skip 2.16.90; it and 2.16.91 became available in quick succession this week! 

With this update, we've removed the "Google Hangouts" audio option from accounts that had it. Google is disabling the Hangouts API effective April 25. If you use Hangouts with your meetings and wish to continue, simply start a hangout and share the URL in the meeting.

Also in this pair of releases: 

  • Fixed a bug that caused some meetings to be omitted from the Weekly Reminder email.
  • Chrome extension fixes:
    Always maintain the original meeting facilitator, even if the user appears to have been removed from the attendee list in Google Calendar. Fixes a class of bugs where meetings stopped updating correctly.
    Correct the detection of recurring event start dates from Google Calendar updates. 
  • Slight tweak on new room creation success message.

April 13, 2017 - version 2.16.89 - Bug fixes and minor improvements

We continue to improve the real-time, in-meeting experience with features and small improvements requested by our active user community. This week's update includes usability improvements to the Lucid integrated audio capability and a couple new features allowing meeting attendees to control their meeting experience.

  • Meeting: allow people to pin the search in the sidebar.
  • Meeting: allow people to pin the agenda in the sidebar.
  • Add a Mobile Dialer button to the in-meeting audio panel.
  • Add a mobile dialer link to the bridge instructions for LM audio.
  • Lucid audio update to show member or caller name in the anonymous caller list.
  • Various bug fixes and software quality improvements

April 6, 2017 - version 2.16.88 - Bug fixes and minor improvements

Fixed a bunch of small nuisances, added a few delighters, worked on making everything ship-shape! Probably the most notable -- big improvements to translated email.  Oh myyyyy.

  • Add a ringing tone during webcall connect attempts
  • Add RRULE to timezone definitions (replaces RDATE).
  • Set the iCalendar timezone transitions out 3 years.
  • Default logo display for meetings, rooms, and organizations defaults to site for Enterprise installs.
  • Tweak some odd pager behavior for multiple tables on a page
  • Display updates for the public room page
  • Give some breathing room to the calendar grid views.
  • Do not greet everyone on the room public page as 'Guest'
  • Remove unmaintained email tests.
  • Fix a UI scale issue where we were showing all (present) meeting attendees.
  • Slight display improvement for the monthly organizer usage.
  • Better detection of need to hang up when switching bridge in meeting 
  • Encourage people to add a meaningful meeting title by removing the default of 'Meeting'
  • Add a new meeting name token, '@room_name', to templates.
  • Fix all email template translation field values
  • Limit the number of attendees/invitees we show at various places.
  • Defensive coding (error message re: non-object \e)
  • Make the meeting attendance record columns sortable.
  • Display tweaks for a couple of member tables.
  • Add some warning bling to the in-meeting audio switcher.

March 26, 2017 - version 2.16.85 - Bug fixes and minor improvements, new dial-in numbers for Spain

This is a quick update prompted by the release of Firefox 52, which removes support for NPAPI and therefore our ability to offer Glance screen sharing to FF52 users. We expect this to be a short term inconvenience until Glance releases an updated version of their Firefox support. To read more about Glance usage in Lucid, please check out this support article:

Screen Sharing by Glance

And a few miscellaneous items here in the notes:

  • Update detection of Glance supports -- NPAPI phaseout for Firefox, Opera
  • Fix a missing underscore template error for non-facilitators; small display fixes for attendee info.
  • Fix bug where inviting observers to a running meeting demoted them to guests.
  • Remove the Invite More link for non-facilitators.
  • Add a variable to control the meeting add-people iconic contacts break-over
  • Relaxed the restriction preventing in-meeting role change for guests
  • Code review and updates for improved handling of the Observer role
  • Added new local dial-in numbers for Barcelona and Madrid

March 21, 2017 - version 2.16.84 - Bug fixes and minor improvements

Well, it's been nearly a week so we thought it would be fun to push out some requested and welcome enhancements (and a few fixes here and there - but really, one person's fix is another person's enhancement I like to say). Today's theme seems to center around some in-meeting durability and a few changes to the general user experience.

For the in-meeting improvements, look for better error handling of Glance screen sharing timeouts. We observed cases in which a meeting presenter failed to authorize the screen sharing request, leaving everyone else who wanted to share their screen high and dry. To address this, we've improved the timeout handling to automatically stop Glance. We've also added facilitator controls that allow any facilitator to manually close a Glance session that has timed out.

We've also improved detection of double-click (or triple click, quadruple click) for people starting computer audio. Once the button has been clicked, we need to negotiate the connection with the conference bridge, including some WebRTC checking for STUN and TURN server requirements. This can take a couple seconds and people were impatiently clicking and re-clicking the button, causing multiple web audio connections and wreaking havoc on the automated attendance tracking. We're now disabling multiple clicks earlier in the WebRTC startup sequence.

We also fixed a bug / added an enhancement to allow meeting Observers to participate in private chat. Okay, I think we can call this one an actual "oversight" bug. Observers tend to get short shrift in the app overall and we probably cut a little too close to the bone here.

Finally, we made a few small tweaks to the public page for meeting rooms. A fix here, a helpful message there. Little things people probably won't notice, but if they help even one person they're worth it.

And a few miscellaneous items here in the notes:

  • Enhancements for starting and stopping the Welcome Tour
  • Only show the start or stop tour link if the tour is stopped or running, respectively
  • Tweak text in IE10[-] file uploader
  • Remove some superfluous help links from the user's account page
  • Streamline the creation of room public page URLs
  • Add a Close button to facilitator's view of Glance timeout, even if they are not the presenter
  • Automatically stop Glance interaction on presenter timeout
  • Prevent multiple clicks on the webcall button starting multiple calls
  • Add the room public url to the account rooms listing
  • No dropdown on the room public page
  • Allow meeting Observers to participate in private chat
  • Improve sorting of room attendees on the in-meeting Invite More list
  • Improve the webcall no-multiple-click tweak
  • Add a help message to the public room page; ensure only one meeting option appears at a time

March 15, 2017 - version 2.16.83 - Bug fixes and minor improvements

A few small updates today:

  • Increase the Chargify transaction memo line from 50 to 64 chars.
  • Relax user profile editing permissions for org admins and room managers.
  • Change the local document uploader back to old-style for IE10.

Chrome extension v1.0.4

Bug fix: Users would sometimes see the "Make this a Lucid meeting" link when editing events as a Google account other than the one they connected to Lucid. (This would seem to work, but not completely.) This update improves detection of the connected user's calendars and offers the Lucid link only for events the connected user can manage in Google.

If you have our Google Chrome extension installed, it will update automatically. 

March 14, 2017 - version 2.16.82 - Bug fixes and minor improvements

 Another small update. 

Notes: 

  • Show tags on the member action item rollup page and allow filtering.

  • Additional server-side support for the Chrome extension.

March 12, 2017 - version 2.16.81 - Bug fixes and minor improvements

We've gathered a few fixes and minor improvements into this update. No major new features, but a few things we know people will appreciate. Here's a rundown:

Notes:

  • Add new notification preference for disabling RSVP notices
  • Google calendar integration updates
  • Make the tour available to enterprise account admins and room managers
  • Improvements to the agenda editor
  • Improvements to the meeting room configuration

Chrome extension v1.0.3

A minor update published today resolves a problem where some upcoming meetings didn't display in the extension's pop-up. The pop-up displays your upcoming meetings for the next week. 

If you have our Google Chrome extension installed, it will update automatically. 

February 27, 2017 - version 2.16.80 - Bug fixes and minor improvements

We've been burning through our backlog of wish lists, feature requests, minor annoyances, and just plain defects. There's something quite awesome about taking some time to kill all those pesky little things nipping around the edges of your brain.

Notes:

  • New account holder welcome tour
  • Tour updates to the new account holder welcome tour :)
  • Reclassify the Smartsheet integration in "Project Management" (case 10194).
  • Fixes for the Turbobridge configuration interface (case 10146).
  • Add description for TB numbers country code in the configuration interface (case 10206).
  • Require people to select a template on the find-a-time page (case 10129).
  • Do not list unscheduled, canceled meetings (case 10108).
  • Add a button link to the template gallery on the room Select Template page (case 10109).
  • Only send 10-minute meeting reminders when the meeting is PENDING (case 9476).
  • Remove an HTML element ID collision so we can access the More content again (bad, JK, bad)
  • Add upcoming_meeting_summaries to member API embeds for the Chrome extension
  • Smart list config: use start_time instead of end_time for 'on or after' a meeting.

February 23, 2017 - New Meeting Templates Added

We've added two new meeting templates to our growing set of predefined templates with baked-in best practices. Read about them in the blog and try them in the software!

A Mindfulness-Based Technique for Leading Sensitive Discussions

Set mindfulness-based guidelines for the discussion
Designed by Dr. Patricia Thompson

How To Refresh Your Strategic Plan in 4 Hours or Less
Ensure a strategic plan stays up-to-date with the current reality
Designed by Paul Axtell

February 22, 2017 - version 2.16.77 - Lucid Meetings for Google Chrome and Calendar

We're thrilled to announce the long-awaited integration with Google Chrome and the Google Calendar is now available as an extension available in the Google Chrome web store.

Highlights:

  • Schedule Lucid meetings directly from Google Calendar
  • Make changes in Google or Lucid; we keep it all in synch
  • Access scheduled meetings from the Chrome menu
  • Instantly start new meetings from the Chrome menu
  • See and complete action items from the Chrome menu

February 20, 2017 - version 2.16.75 - Agenda editing improvements

This is a quick hit release to push out a couple feature improvements. By popular request, we've exposed the ability to add new agenda items after a meeting has been held. What? Changing the record after the fact? Sometimes people lack an internet connection for part or all of the meeting, but would like to get the system record updated; sometimes meetings are running too fast for the primary recorder to keep up in real-time. In any case we don't need to be the policy setters here.

Notes:

  • Agenda editing after meeting - allow adding agenda items
  • allAgendaEdit can now add, move, or delete agenda items

February 19, 2017 - version 2.16.74 - Bug fixes and minor improvements

This is a bug fix and minor improvement update (no new functionality). In our continuing work to streamline interactions, we got just a wee bit overzealous. We've restored a couple useful things, fixed an annoying, but non-lethal defect, and added just a little bit of bling and flow improvement for the action items interaction.

Notes:

  • Action item interaction: a little cleanup, success messages, improve the complete/reopen flow
  • Add another check before sending daily email
  • Tune the open action items for daily reminders
  • Restore a couple Today() actions that went missing

February 7, 2017 - version 2.16.73 - New feature for weekly action item reminders

This update expands the Lucid Meetings notification system with a new weekly (on Sundays) reminder email for upcoming meetings and open action items. This notification builds on the daily meetings reminder, with the added benefit of coming farther ahead of the due dates on open action items. Also, the reminder is sent whether people have upcoming meetings or not, so people who've  made commitments get a little prompting between meetings. The setting is user-controllable, allowing individuals to opt-out of notifications.

Notes:

  • Spanish translation updates
  • Use moment to format dates from model, rather than toLocaleDateString
  • Provide defaults for name format (for adding a new user)
  • Persist user data changes within a session
  • Make it possible to add Smartsheets to templates
  • Don't show preview link for Smartsheet outside of a running meeting
  • Slight improvements for meet now (add room guests)
  • Weekly reminder email with upcoming meetings and/or open action items

January 28, 2017 - version 2.16.71 - Bug fixes and minor improvements

This is another quick update with some easy improvements clearly in sight. Isn't it interesting how one update just screams for another? They run in packs. Anyway, there are a few language / localization fixes in here - minor stuff you tend to run into after a massive translation update. The most interesting UI improvement is replacing the link to the user profile page (in the top nav) with a drop menu of key user profile options, including a handy logout link. It's amazing how such a small change can add to daily usability!

TTFN. Some big updates coming your way soon.

Notes:

  • Do not prompt to set English language if no other language is currently set.
  • Translation token fix (Via changed the token)
  • Replace top nav 'Account' with user profile menu.
  • Slight calendar tweak for Today view.
  • Dashboard meetings presentation tuneup (following translation work).
  • Fixed color bug on certain themes, dropdown spacing and accidentally huge doc uploader boxes
  • Fix caching bug with the formatted member name. Sheesh.
  • Show the picture instead of user name in the top nav.
  • Add visuallyhidden support for the user picture in nav.

January 26, 2017 - version 2.16.70 - Bug fixes and minor improvements

This is a minor update with fixes and improvements to our previous fixes and improvements. This should be well received by admins receiving RSVP comment notes without meaningful (or any) content. Our language translators also completed a review of the Spanish and French translations, so we've applied a bunch of suggested changes. We do have ~100 more strings to translate, but that's a mere pittance compared to the 5,000 plus strings in the overall translation set. Sorry folks, no more Spanglish for you!

Notes:

  • Save the user's language pref when logging in via a language-specific login page
  • Linguistic updates for Spanish and French languages
  • Technical fixes for non-English language support
  • Allow non-managers to download room action items
  • Don't save or forward whitespace-only RSVP comments (a surprisingly common effect for Outlook RSVPs)

January 19, 2017 - version 2.16.69 - New feature for offline editing of action items

More Boom! In this week's update we've expanded the bulk edit capabilities for action items. In particular, you can now download the AIs to a local spreadsheet, edit like crazy, then re-upload that sheet to record changes in Lucid (and any sync'd integrations, so that's cool). We've also improved the daily meeting reminder email to include a personalized list of Open Action Items for each meeting attendee. No more shirking your action item responsibility, bucko.

But really, the best part of this release are the fixes and improvements to the RSVP notification handler. When someone accepts a Lucid Meeting on their calendar (Outlook, Google, Apple iCal) those calendars send us an acceptance notification, and sometimes those notifications include comments. We decided to fix the bug that caused us to ignore all that.  It's really cool.

Notes:

  • RSVP handling improvements (the main reason for this release)
  • Assign action items to uninvited guests during a meeting
  • Action item bulk upload can handle Kavi export directly
  • Action item bulk editing via upload
  • Action items in daily reminder email (with Mark complete link)
  • Action item table display improvements (small changes, language)
  • Show meeting RSVPs on meeting home until meeting adjourned

See also:

January 13, 2017 - version 2.16.68 - New feature for quickly adding Decisions, Issues, Parking lot items

Boom! This is a big feature release, with new in-meeting and pre/post-meeting features. More work on bulk downloads and uploads.  We've always had support for Decisions, Issue, and Parking Lot notes (in addition to action items), but we've spent a bit of effort to make those easier to find. Yeah, even we missed out on using them and that's saying something. Lots to love this week.

Notes:

  • New Decision, Issue, Parking Lot pre-tagged note buttons
  • Lots of styling to make these tags look pretty
  • New room home tab, Tags, that appears when there are tagged notes
  • Tag list on the Tag tab is footable filtered, sortable, searchable
  • New feature to download all tagged notes in a room
  • New feature to download all action items in a room
  • New feature to upload a spreadsheet of action items in a room
  • Invitation tweaks to address an issue with time zones on Outlook for Mac used by people travelling
  • Make the error handling and processing for RSVPs more granular
  • Updated es and fr translations
  • Fixed CSS for dropdowns on the correct branch this time

See also:

Older release notes