Frequently Asked
Questions

Overview

What is Microsoft Office Live Meeting?

Live Meeting is a hosted Web conferencing service that enables you to communicate and collaborate with anyone, anywhere using just a PC and an Internet connection. From small collaborative meetings to large-scale presentations, Live Meeting is the perfect solution for all of your online presentation and meeting needs.

What are the key benefits of Live Meeting?

Live Meeting provides unique interactive tools, integrates with your existing systems and productivity applications, and incorporates a familiar and easy-to-use interface that improves remote collaboration and enables effective meetings for companies of all sizes. And with the real-time collaboration capabilities available in Live Meeting—99.99 percent uptime availability and always-on Secure Sockets Layer encryption—you can conduct every meeting with confidence.;

What is the Privacy Policy?

Both Microsoft and EPI take your privacy seriously. We invite you to read the full privacy policy to find out more.

Does Live Meeting support localized versions of Windows?

Native language support is available in the Meeting Console, Invitations, Chat, the Question Manager, and customer support. Languages supported include English, French, German, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, traditional Chinese, and simplified Chinese. With Live Meeting, users can even have multiple language consoles in a meeting based on individual participants' language preferences.

How do I learn more about Live Meeting?

Live Meeting is easy to learn. Getting started in a meeting requires only a Web browser and an Internet connection. For information or to arrange for a free demonstration, contact your EPI sales representative.

Features

What recording and playback options does Live Meeting offer?

Live Meeting Replay captures everything in the meeting including the live demonstrations, annotations, notes, and visuals—even live Web Slides. Recordings are automatically hosted from the Live Meeting Web conferencing service, making them instantly available with a click of the mouse. On-demand viewing of the Live Meeting Replay is done with ndustry-standard Microsoft Windows Media Player.

What options does Live Meeting provide for the audio portion of my meeting?

Audio conference call controls in Live Meeting enable British Telecom (BT), InterCall, and MCI audio customers to simply and effectively control an audio conference call directly from the Meeting Console and provide the capability to perform a variety of integrated, in-meeting functions. Additionally, as an alternative to traditional audio conferencing, Internet Audio Broadcast enables presenters to stream audio to other participants in the meeting using Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP).

With Live Meeting, what options do I have for joining and initiating a meeting?

Users can leverage the Schedule Meeting page to easily schedule new meetings with one or more participants, set up the meeting date and time, define access options, and invite people to the meeting. The Meet Now command in Live Meeting provides the fastest and easiest way to launch an immediate, spontaneous meeting. Additionally, the Meeting Lobby helps organizers conduct meetings without having to send out invitations to attendees by providing a static and user-friendly URL for the lobby.

How does Live Meeting integrate with my existing systems and applications?

As part of the Microsoft Office System, Live Meeting enables users to initiate and join meetings from Microsoft Office programs such as Microsoft Office Word, Microsoft Office Excel, Microsoft Office PowerPoint, and Microsoft Office Visio, or from Microsoft Windows Messenger and MSN Messenger. Meeting organizers are able to schedule meetings using Microsoft Office Outlook or Lotus Notes (even when offline). Integration with Microsoft Active Directory provides automated account creation, password management, and account entry for employees on the corporate network. Additionally, Live Meeting's XML-based application programming interfaces enable developers to integrate Live Meeting with other business systems and third-party applications.

Live Meeting delivers a host of interactive tools that enable presenters to convey their message in a small collaborative environment or large event setting. These tools not only provide an interactive atmosphere for meeting presenters, but create a comfortable, engaging environment for all meeting attendees to communicate their thoughts and feedback, and include:

How many people can attend one meeting?

Standard subscriptions provide support for meeting rooms with up to 25 participants. Larger meeting rooms supporting up to 1,000 participants are available with special subscriptions. Contact your EPI sales representative for pricing and other information.

Live Meeting enables multiple presenters to work together in a meeting with one presenter assigned as the Active presenter. Any presenter can be made the Active Presenter, and presenters can choose to promote other meeting participants to have presenter privileges. Rather than having to pass the baton to another presenter, Live Meeting gives users the convenience of having multiple presenters so that non-active presenters can expbody questions and manage participants.

Technology

What are the Live Meeting system requirements?

As a hosted Web conferencing service, Live Meeting has no server software to install or deploy. Anyone can participate in a Live Meeting using just a PC, an Internet connection and a telephone. A Windows-based meeting client is available for users of the Microsoft Windows operating system, and a browser-based meeting client is available for users of the Macintosh and Solaris operating systems. For information about client system requirements, see the Live Meeting System Requirements.

Does Live Meeting work through firewalls?

Yes. Live Meeting enables you to communicate and collaborate with remote participants even if they are joining the online meeting from behind a firewall.

Can I conduct Live Meetings directly from Microsoft Office programs?

Yes. The Live meeting Add-In Pack enables you to schedule and conduct meetings directly from Microsoft Office programs (such as Outlook, PowerPoint, Excel, Word, Visio and Project) as well as Microsoft Windows Messenger.

How do I deploy Live Meeting across a very large organization?

The Live Meeting Intranet Portal enables organizations to easily deploy the Live Meeting service by integrating with Active Directory to authenticate users on the corporate network.

Does Live Meeting have an application programming interface (API)?

Yes. Live Meeting has XML-based APIs that enable developers to create programs that integrate with the Live Meeting service.

Subscription Questions and Answers

What is the subscription term for my Microsoft Live Meeting Hosted Programs?

The standard subscription term for this service is one year. EPI does allow shorter term subscriptions to this service for an additional monthly fee. Please contact your EPI Internet Direct sales representative for additional information.

Can I change Hosting Programs during the term of my agreement?

Yes. You may upgrade your subscription at any time during the term of your agreement. For example, you can start with a Bronze level subscription and upgrade to an Silver or Gold level subscription simply by contacting EPI and requesting a change to your subscription.

Can I add individual users to my subscription?

Yes. You may add users to any of the standard Hosted Program subscription programs at any time. Additional user accounts are priced at $75.00 per month each. Volume discounts are available. Please contact your EPI sales representative for details.

What happens if I need to invite more participants to a conference than my subscription permits?

Each Microsoft Live Meeting Hosting Program includes a Conference Room Meeting Allowance that specifies the maximum number of participants you are permitted to include in each of your conferences. Allowances apply to all user accounts, so if your subscription includes 5 user accounts and your allowance is 25 participants per conference, then each user is permitted to hold conferences that include up to 25 participants.

If you or any of your user accounts exceeds your allowance then you will be invoiced excess use service fees. These fees are described in your Live Meeting Terms and Conditions.

Can I increase my Conference Room Participant Allowance?

Yes, you can either permanently increase your allowance for a fixed monthly fee or you can purchase a larger conference allowance on a month-to-month basis. For pricing and other information please contact your EPI Internet Direct sales representative.