What's New in Adobe Connect

Adobe Connect 12.10 brings a host of new features and enhancements that make it easier to create, manage, and deliver engaging virtual experiences. With AI-powered content repurposing, a refreshed interface, and greater customization options, this release empowers hosts to get more from every session.

Key updates included in this release:

• Turn Webinars into Blogs with AI-Powered Repurposing
• New Simulated Live Webinar Format
• Redesigned Room Top Bar
• Screen Share from Top Bar
• Level Up Your Hosting Skills with the Learn Hub
• Adobe Connect Help Assistant
• Enhanced Room Search
• New Guided Interface Tour for Hosts
• New in the Chat Pod: Attendee Tagging
• Themes: Multi-Branding & Customization Profiles
• Miscellaneous changes and fixes

Turn Webinars into Blogs with AI-Powered Repurposing

Adobe Connect 12.10 introduces a powerful new AI-driven feature that enables hosts and marketers to repurpose webinars into professional blog articles automatically and at scale. By analyzing the transcript and shared presentation materials from your webinar, Adobe Connect can generate ready-to-publish blog content in just a few clicks.

This is a game-changer for marketing teams looking to maximize the value of their webinars. Repurposing webinars into blog posts:

• Extends the reach and lifespan of your content
• Engages audiences who prefer reading over watching
• Supports SEO and lead generation efforts
• Reduces content creation overhead while improving brand consistency

No more starting from scratch—let Adobe Connect do the heavy lifting so your team can focus on strategy and distribution.

Tailored to Your Brand and Intent

Admins can define rich brand personas to ensure that all generated content reflects your organization’s voice and values. This includes:

• Brand tone and voice
• Core values and messaging frameworks
• Product zen statements and value propositions
• Target customer personas

When generating a blog, hosts can configure:

• The context and purpose (e.g., product showcase, case study)
• The intent (e.g., lead generation, knowledge sharing)
• Tone, length, and SEO keywords to match marketing goals
• The brand persona to apply—ensuring a consistent, recognizable voice

Flexible Output for Easy Publishing:

• Export the generated blog content in PDF or RTF format
• Easily publish across your CMS, blog platform, or marketing automation tools

New Simulated Live Webinar Format

Adobe Connect 12.10 introduces Simulated Live webinars — a powerful new format that blends the polish of pre-recorded video with the interactivity of a live event.

What is Simulated Live webinar?

Simulated Live webinars let you deliver polished, pre-recorded content to a live audience at a scheduled time — replicating the feel of a real-time session. While the content is pre-recorded, your team can still engage the audience through live chat, polls, and Q&A.

This format is perfect for scaling your webinar strategy without needing presenters to be live. Marketers gain greater control over production quality, can repurpose top-performing content, and reach global audiences with high-impact sessions.

Deliver your best content again and again — consistently, professionally, and interactively — while your team focuses on what truly matters: real-time engagement and driving conversions.

SIMULATED LIVE ROOM Design Highlights:

• Enable Simulated Live when creating a seminar room
• Layouts:
  • Lobby: Custom pre-event space (countdown, welcome)
  • Playback: Fixed Playback Pod for video; supports interactive transitions
  • Outro: Post-event layout with follow-ups or auto-end
• Playback Controls: Pause playback; mic/cam disabled during playback to preserve “live” feel
• Lock-In: Room edits allowed until 2 hrs before start
• Automated Flow: Room auto-transitions Lobby → Playback → Outro

Redesigned Room Top Bar

The top bar of the Adobe Connect room has been redesigned to improve usability, especially during time-critical live sessions, and to reduce the learning curve for new hosts. Key improvements include:

• Optimized Placement of Controls: Speaker, Microphone, and Camera controls have been moved to the left side of the top bar for quicker access during live delivery. Options more relevant during the session setup or preparation phase—such as Pods and the Room menu (now renamed to More)—have been moved to the right of these core controls.
• Improved Labelling for Clarity: Labels have been added to several controls, including both Adobe Connect-specific features and common actions, making them easier to understand and use
• Expanded Use of Icons: Following the positive response to icon enhancements introduced in version 12.7, additional icons have been added to support visual recognition and faster navigation:
  • Device-specific icons in Speaker, Mic, and Camera menus
  • Refined icons in reactions menu
  • New icons for Pods and More menus
• Refined Visibility of Secondary Elements:
  • The Closed Captions toggle has been relocated under the More menu, as it is typically used once per session.
  • The Connection Health icon has been removed.
  • The Notifications icon will only be displayed when there are active alerts.
  • The Fullscreen option is now shown only in browsers; it has been hidden in the desktop app, which already offers a near full-screen experience.

This redesign makes the top bar more intuitive and efficient, aligning control placement with how and when features are typically used during a session.

Screen Share from Top Bar

A new Share option has been added to the top bar, making screen sharing faster and more accessible. This option is available to Hosts, Presenters, and Participants with enhanced Share Pod rights. Selecting it will launch the standard screen sharing dialog, allowing users to choose what they wish to share. The content will be shared through an available Share Pod within the current layout. This enhancement brings Adobe Connect’s screen sharing experience closer to that of other video conferencing platforms.

Share Pod Selection Logic:

When the Share option is triggered, Adobe Connect automatically selects or adds a Share Pod based on the following rules:

• Auto-selects the largest empty Share Pod in the layout
• Adds a new pod if none are available and space exists on layout
• Prompts user if no space exists
• NOTE: Participants with enhanced sharing rights and Presenters cannot add new pods. In such cases, the popup will prompt them to request the Host to add a Share Pod.

This feature improves the speed and intuitiveness of initiating screen sharing, especially during live sessions, by reducing dependency on navigating to a share pod.

Level Up Your Hosting Skills with the Learn Hub

The Adobe Connect Learn Hub is your new in-room learning companion—designed exclusively for hosts—to help you unlock the full potential of Adobe Connect and create high-impact virtual experiences.

Whether you're new to Connect or just want to sharpen your skills, the Learn Hub offers on-demand video tutorials directly inside your room. These bite-sized videos guide you through everything from layout design to using advanced interaction tools so you can build sessions that are polished, engaging, and interactive.

Why it matters:

• Helps hosts level up quickly, without leaving the room.
• Enables confident design of engaging, interactive, and professional sessions.
• Supports self-paced learning—watch what you need, when you need it.

Key Features:

• Videos are visible only to hosts and play privately within the room, invisible to attendees.
• Hosts can interact with the room—switch layouts, open pods—while the video plays.
• The tutorial window is movable, so you can position it anywhere on screen.
• The Learn Hub Search searches through video transcripts helping you find the right video for quick access to relevant topic.
• Videos are version-specific—so you always get content that’s relevant to the Adobe Connect version your room is running.

Whether you're running a training, a marketing webinar, or a high-stakes meeting, the Learn Hub is here to help you build immersive, interactive, and high-impact virtual experiences—faster and smarter.

Adobe Connect Help Assistant

The Adobe Connect Help Assistant is an AI-driven conversational tool designed to help hosts quickly find answers to their Adobe Connect questions.

Powered by Adobe Connect's publicly available Help Guide and Knowledge Base articles, the Help Assistant delivers helpful, real-time responses on Connect features, tools, and workflows, enabling hosts to get instant guidance while managing their sessions.

What You Can Expect:

• Conversational help on Adobe Connect features, workflows, and best practices.
• Instant access to accurate information—no need to search external documentation.
• The Help Assistant is available only for hosted accounts

Privacy:

• The assistant does not access any user content, uploaded materials, in-room interactions, or Personally Identifiable Information (PII).
• Prompts and conversations are private and not shared across users or customers.
• Each host must accept the Adobe Generative AI User Guidelines upon first usage of the feature.

Access Controls:

• Account administrators can disable the Help Assistant via Connect Central compliance settings. The feature will be enabled by default.
• Only users joining with Host role (registered hosts of the room) can access the assistant. If a host is demoted, they retain access; however, presenters or participants do not gain access during the session (even when promoted).

Enhanced Room Search

Originally introduced in the Connect 12.9 release, the Room Search feature was designed to help hosts quickly find and access in-room settings, including actions, permissions, and preferences. By selecting a search result, the corresponding menu or dialog would instantly open—streamlining session setup and room management.

The Room Search has been updated in Connect 12.10 to include the Learn Hub videos in results. Accounts which have enabled the Help Assistant will also be able to query it from the Room Search.

With the 12.10 update, Room Search becomes even more powerful and helpful:

• Learn Hub Integration
  • Search results now include Learn Hub tutorial videos, making it easier for hosts to discover in-context learning materials without leaving the room.
• Help Assistant Access (If enabled)
  • For accounts with the Adobe Connect Help Assistant enabled, Room Search can now be used to query the assistant directly, providing a conversational way to get answers to product-related questions.
• Updated Interface
  • The search UI has been refreshed with a cleaner design for improved readability and navigation.

The updated Room Search continues to support rapid access to controls while now also serving as a discovery tool for learning and support resources—all within the room.

New Guided Interface Tour for Hosts

Adobe Connect now includes a coachmark -based Guided Tour to help new hosts quickly get familiar with the core concepts and interface elements inside a room.

This step-by-step tour highlights essential components like:

• Rooms
• Pods and the Pods menu
• Layouts and the Layouts panel
• Room Search for quick access to settings and features
• The Learn Hub for in-room learning resources

Who Will See It and When?

• The tour is automatically shown to new hosts when they first enter a room they’ve created.
• It appears only once per host, providing helpful onboarding without unnecessary repetition.
• Hosts can revisit the tour anytime via the Learn Hub.

This feature is designed to accelerate onboarding, reduce guesswork, and help new hosts start creating engaging, well-structured sessions with confidence.

New in the Chat Pod: Attendee Tagging

The Chat Pod in Adobe Connect has been enhanced to support attendee tagging, making it easier to direct messages and capture attention during sessions.

What’s New:

• Tag Attendees in Chat
  Attendees can now tag others by name in a message, helping direct conversations more efficiently in large or busy sessions.
• Real-Time Notifications
  The tagged attendee will receive a notification, alerting them that they’ve been mentioned in the chat.
• Visual Highlighting
  Messages that include your tag will appear highlighted, allowing you to easily spot when someone is trying to get your attention.
• Host Control
  Hosts can enable or disable attendee tagging from the Chat tab in the Preferences dialog within the room.
• Backstage behaviour
  When the Chat Pod is placed in the backstage, tagging notifications are only visible to users with backstage access—Hosts and Presenters.

Themes: Multi-Branding & Customization Profiles

In many organizations, different departments or business units (BUs) may need to reflect their own branding when delivering sessions. Until now, Adobe Connect supported only a single branding profile per account, applied across all rooms.

With Adobe Connect 12.10, account administrators can now create and manage multiple "Branding & Customization Profiles" (themes), enabling greater flexibility and brand consistency across departments or session types.

Each theme can include:

• Logo and background images for Entry and Exit screens
• Room interface color palette
• Room top bar logo and click-through link
• Custom virtual video backgrounds

Admin Controls:

• Admins can create multiple themes and set one as the account default—this will be pre-selected when new rooms are created.
• Admins can also restrict hosts from changing themes, enforcing consistent branding across all rooms if desired.

Host Options:

• Hosts can select a theme while creating a new room.
• The theme can be changed at any time by editing the room in Connect Central, or by selecting “View room information” from the More menu inside the room.

Backward Compatibility:

• Adobe Connect will continue to include a default system theme, which cannot be modified.
• A custom theme will be auto created based on the branding and customizations that existed in the account prior to the 12.10 upgrade.
• All existing rooms will be assigned this custom theme on upgrading to Adobe Connect 12.10, ensuring that hosts see the same branding elements before and after the update.

This update makes Adobe Connect more flexible and scalable for large organizations, education and training organizations, and multi-brand environments—empowering teams to deliver branded, personalized virtual experiences with ease.

Miscellaneous changes and fixes

Share Pod Enhancements

• Looping support added for MP4 and MP3 files in Share Pod. Enabled by selecting ‘Loop playback’ option from the share pod’s options menu.
• Animated GIFs in PowerPoint files are now supported.
• Font Size and color of PPTX Notes has been updated to better accessibility.
• Users will see a toast alert if a PPTX file upload fails because the file name contains special characters.

Video Pod Enhancements

• The pop-out video window will remember its last position across sessions.
• Virtual backgrounds remain static and no longer flip when camera mirroring is enabled.
• The mobile app will include a video mirror toggle for front-facing cameras.

Event and Seminar Enhancements

• The broadcast start countdown timer will be visible to all Hosts and Presenters.
• Seminar sessions can be scheduled with just 15 minutes of lead time.
• The Events module will support up to 8 custom email triggers (applicable to newly created events).

User Interface & Accessibility

• The “[Name] is speaking” activity ticker in the room top bar will remain visible as long as the person is actively speaking.
• To boost keyboard accessibility, we’ve removed all positive tabindex values. The browser will now determines focus order directly from the DOM, proceeding left-to-right and top-to-bottom.
  • The only exception is how focus moves between pods in a layout or in Backstage. Because hosts can freely reposition pods, reshuffling the entire DOM each time would hurt performance. Inside each pod, focus will follow its natural left-to-right, top-to-bottom sequence.
• Multiple updates to improve accessibility. Refer 12.10 Release Notes for the complete list of changes.
• Continued improvements to the mobile browser experience, ensuring smoother access and interaction on mobile web.

Connect Central Enhancements

• Recording view counts will be displayed directly within the recordings widget within the Connect Central homepage.

Others

• Breakouts with mixed audio conferences (VOIP + Telephony users) are now supported with the Conference America adaptor. 
• Third party library updates:
  • Tomcat will be updated to ver 9.0.105

Discovery of featured custom pods in room

Adobe Connect has been known for the extensibility and customizability of the in-room experience, by enabling customers and partners to develop and use Custom Pods of their choice. So far, customers have had to visit this Adobe Connect - Apps and Integrations page to find the pods listed there, download them and then share it within a Share Pod inside the room. And whenever a developer ships a new version of the pod, they have to do repeat this process.

With the 12.9 release, hosts will be able to discover custom pods that are free to use, right within the room and instantiate them just as they would add a new instance of other native pods. Moreover, when a new version of a custom pod becomes available, the hosts will see an indicator that an update is available, and they can update it right within the room. Account administrators will have the ability to enable this discovery of custom pods within a room and also control which custom pods can be installed by hosts in a room. 

View Custom pods for more information.

Room Search

The Connect 12.9 release introduces the Room Search tool, designed to help hosts quickly locate actions, permissions, and preferences within Adobe Connect rooms. By selecting a search result, the corresponding menu or dialog will open. You can access the search using the keyboard shortcut Alt + Q (Opt + Q on macOS).

View Search Adobe Connect features more information.

Content Alerts for PowerPoint and MP4 files uploaded to Share Pod

The Share Pod has been enhanced to proactively alert users to the discrepancies in their content post conversion/upload into the Share pod, with workaround suggestions where possible. This will help address any issues and their workarounds upfront.

In this release, we have focused on building an extensible framework to alert hosts to the issues in the content they upload. We have also implemented alerts for some of the key issues where PowerPoint content is not converted accurately and a common issue observed with MP4 videos (high bit rate). The precise set of content alerts we have implemented will evolve over time, depending on issues that we are able to address by accurate conversion or new issues that we may be able to detect.

Here is a list of issues that we will be able to detect and warn customers about in the 12.9 release:

• Custom font detected in the PPTX AND the font is not embedded in the PPTX
• Auto-start animation for the first slide
• Slide contains unsupported animation
• PPTX contains slide transitions
• Uploaded video has a bit rate of more than 2 Mbps.

View the following for more information:

• Guidelines for sharing PPTX files
• Guidelines for sharing MP4 files

Participant Profile Report

The Connect 12.9 Release introduces a new drill-down report called Participant Profile, which Is a dynamic report that is displayed in a separate page detailing all the activities of a specific participant who attended a webinar.

This drill down report for a specific participant, is launched when a user clicks on a specific participant in the Activity tab of the Engagement Dashboard illustrated below.

View Participant activities in a webinar for more information.

Upon clicking a specific participant in the activity tab of the Engagement Dashboard, the Participant Profile opens in a separate browser tab, as illustrated in the following two screenshots.

The first screenshot presents a view of the engagement across all webinars attended by the selected participant. The first widget displays a summary of metrics including the total number of webinars registered for, the total number that were attended live and viewed on demand, the average duration of attendance and average engagement score. Following this widget, a list of events attended by the participant is displayed. By clicking on a specific event, the user will be able to drill down and view the activity details specific to that webinar in the Individual Event tab. Below the list of the events attended, the Q&A activity and Poll activity of the participant across all events are displayed.

The second screenshot presents a snapshot of the participant’s activities within a webinar. The topmost widget displays key metadata of the specific event like name of the event and date, along with participant-specific details including date of registration, duration of attendance for the live event and the engagement score for the participant. The next widget provides a quick glimpse of the engagement metrics for the participant. This is followed by the Activity Monitor widget which displays details like questions asked by the participant (along with answers if provided by the webinar team), how the participant responded to various polls, any resource that the participant downloaded, web links clicked, the chat messages posted by the participant and the various reactions expressed during the webinar.

The user can also download the Participant Profile report in PDF format.

Adobe Connect for Microsoft Outlook add-in

A new add-in for Microsoft Outlook will allow hosts to easily schedule meetings using their Adobe Connect rooms from Microsoft Outlook. The add-in will have the following functionalities: 

• Once logged in, users will be able to select from their existing rooms (Meeting and Virtual Classrooms) to add to your Outlook event.
• Invitees will receive a well-formatted invitation with room details including room link, audio conference details, pre-meeting diagnostics, and help.
• Users can easily designate an Adobe Connect room as their Default Room to add it in a single-click to an Outlook event.
• Add-in will also allow users to create new Adobe Connect rooms.
  
  

The add-in can be accessed at this link: https://appsource.microsoft.com/en-us/product/office/WA200008090?tab=Overview

Improved login and homepage experience on Mobile Apps

The Adobe Connect mobile app version 3.9 includes several improvements:

New welcome page

Users will see a revamped welcome page with two options – Sign in or Join session with link. 

Sign in page

Users will be able to sign in to their Adobe Connect accounts by providing their Organization Adobe Connect account URL and email/ password. SSO is also supported. 

View Adobe Connect Mobile app for more information on downloading and using the app.

Updated homepage for Signed in user

A signed in user will be able to view their recently attended rooms across any surface (desktop app, browser, mobile app) on the homepage. They will be able to connect their MS 365 calendar, and also save their preferences. 

Miscellaneous changes and fixes

• Due to numerous customer requests, the Step Away status, which was deprecated in the 12.7 release, is being reintroduced.
• The Backstage divider color and the mouse cursor color when hovering over the divider have been updated to improve accessibility.
• The default volume level for MP4 and MP3 files uploaded to the Share Pod has been lowered from 100 to 50 to address the issue of excessively loud playback.
• The video options menu button within individual video cells in the Video Pod has been relocated to the bottom right corner of the cell to ensure it remains visible when the "hide title bar" option is used.
• Multiple updates to improve accessibility. Refer 12.9 Release Notes for the complete list of changes.
• Third-party library updates:
  • JDK will be updated to ver 1.8.0_431
  • Tomcat will be updated to ver 9.0.98

The Adobe Connect 12.8 release expands access to the analytics dashboard to every license type (hosted only), adds improvements to the event analytics dashboard, introduces more expressive and animated reactions, adds support for popping out video cells from the video pod, improves the discovery of breakout rooms, enhances pod switcher experience, includes user experience and accessibility improvements, and fixes for various issues

SESSION Analytics DASHBOARD (Hosted Only)

Building on the base of the event analytics dashboard introduced in 12.7, the Session Analytics Dashboard will be available to users of all license types with meeting rooms, training rooms, and seminar rooms. The dashboard will provide a consolidated view of participant activities, interactions, and engagement during the session. The dashboard will also allow hosts to download various reports without having to enter the room after the session. The dashboard can be accessed by navigating to the By Sessions sub-section of the Reports section for rooms.   

Event Analytics Dashboard Improvements

The existing Event Analytics Dashboard that was launched with Adobe Connect 12.7, will have multiple improvements including:

• A collapsible side navigation menu.
• An updated event summary tab with more information like event name, event date, list of hosts, company widget with top company names, and a recording widget with recording viewership metrics.
• A detailed quiz report in the Interactions tab including 4 different views for each quiz: Question List, By Question, Leaderboard, and Individual Response.  
• An expanded list of reactions in the reactions report in line with 12.8 changes to the list of reactions (See below section More expressive reactions and de-linking raise hands and reactions for details)
• Enhanced UI for Participant Activity report.

Detailed quiz report in the event analytics dashboard 

More expressive reactions and de-linking raise hands and reactions

Raise hand has been delinked from the actions and requests have been removed. Existing graphics have been replaced with more expressive emojis. The new set of reactions available are: Like, Laugh, Love, Applause, Surprise, Agree, and Disagree.  

Behavior of Raise Hand:

• Attendees can raise hands by clicking on the hand icon in the menu bar. Clicking on the raise hand again will lower it. It will stay raised unless the host lowers it or the attendee lowers it.
• Hosts will see an indicator with the number of attendees who have raised their hands.
• On clicking on the dropdown with raised hands, hosts will be able to see all the attendees who have raised their hand in the order in which they have raised their hand.
• Existing notification of raised hands will be removed for hosts.
• Hosts can lower the hands of all the attendees by clicking on “Lower hands for all”.

Behavior of Reactions (other than Agree and Disagree):

• Selecting a reaction (Like, laugh, love, applause, surprise) will show the reaction animation to all the attendees in the room.
• The reactions will continue to show in the attendee pod with the same logic being used today.

Behavior of Agree and Disagree:

• When an attendee agrees or disagrees, the emoji will be shown and persist on the reaction icon.  
• Agree or disagree will not be shown as an animation to all attendees.  
• Hosts can clear the agree/ disagree status of the attendees by clicking the reaction icon and within the dropdown clicking on “Clear for all”.
• Hosts can individually clear the agree/ disagree from the attendee pod.

Behavior while Screen Sharing

• A hand icon will be displayed in the mini-controller when screen sharing.
• If there are raised hands, the number of raised hands will appear in an indicator.
• Clicking on the hand icon will show a popup with list of raised hands.

Menu Preferences

• Removed the menu bar preference “Disable step away notification”
• Added a preference for allowing attendees to use reactions.
• Retained the preference for allowing attendees to raise hands. 

Hosts view of Raise Hand dropdown

Hosts view of updated list of reactions

Popping out video cells

A host will be able to pop out individual video cells from the video pod, up to a maximum of two video cells. 

Behavior of popped-out video cell:

• The popped-out video cell will not have title bar.
• The popped-out video cell will always be initiated in the right-hand bottom corner of the screen.
• The popped-out video cell can be moved and resized by the host, while retaining the aspect ratio.  
• The popped-out video can be of a host, presenter, or a participant.
• A video cell that has been popped out, will be visible in a layout which does not have a video pod.
• In the absence of a video pod, any attendee whose video cell has been popped out will be able to switch off their camera from the menu bar, as well as the video cell menu.
• Breakout rooms will not support popped out video cells.
• When an attendee whose video has been popped out enters a Breakout Room their camera will be popped back into the video cell.    
• In session with Broadcast control enabled, video cells can be popped out even before broadcast has started.
• Video cells of mobile users will also be allowed to be popped out. Mobile users will continue seeing the popped-out video cells in the video pod, even in the absence of a video pod on the layout.
• The popped-out video cell will always open in the main room and cannot be moved into the backstage area.
• The host can restore the popped-out video back to the video pop by clicking on “Restore” within the video cell menu. 

Popping out a video cell

Popped-out video cell

Breakout room discovery and transition experience

Hosts will be able to switch between different attendee pod views without going into the attendee pod menu. This will improve the discoverability of the breakout room feature. Attendees (including presenters and participants) can also switch between the list view and status view from the attendee pod without navigating to the pod menu.

Breakout room transition

When the host starts the breakout, attendees will see a 6 second timer along with a message indicating that breakouts are about to be started. Attendees will be assigned respective breakout at the end of the 6 second timer.

When the host ends a breakout, attendees will see a 6 second timer in the breakouts bar on top. Attendees will be moved to the main room once the 6 second timer ends. 

Breakout room transition while starting breakouts

Breakout room transition while ending breakouts

Improved pod switcher experience

Main Room

To improve the experience of switching pods, the pod switcher will now have a heading “Switch Pod Instance”.

The copy of the “Add new PodName” has been replaced with “+ New PodName pod”, where PodName stands for the type of pod. For example, in a Notes pod, the host will see + New Notes Pod. Pods that cannot be added to the layout (if they are already in the layout or in the backstage), will appear in gray at the bottom of the switcher. 

Pod switcher in main room 

Breakout Room

In the breakout room, the pod switcher will now have the heading “Switch Pod Instance”, like the main room pod switcher.

The copy of the “Add new PodName” has been replaced with “+ New PodName pod”, where PodName stands for the type of pod.

Additionally, Main Room pods and Breakout Room pods will be separated by sections. 

Pod switcher in breakout room

Replace externally edited recording

If a host would like to edit an Adobe Connect recording in an external application and replace the recording link, they can now navigate to the list of rooms and access the Replace Recording action.  The host can select an MP4 file from their computer to upload, and the same file will act as an edited recording post upload. 

Behavior of uploaded recording:

• The transcript and closed captions will be removed.
• The file size of uploaded MP4 can be a maximum of 1.5 times the size of the original recording.
• The uploaded recording won’t be editable by the Edit Recording workflows. 

Updated dropdown with Replace Recording action with each recording.

Replace recording modal

Miscellaneous changes and fixes

• Poll pod will now show a message to the users when their response has been recorded or updated.
• The room exit button UI has been updated to make it more discoverable.
• Fixed an issue where the participants could not reply to private chats initiated by hosts when private chat was disabled for participants.
• The shimmer shown when landing on recording playback pages has been updated. Transparency has been introduced to display the recording thumbnail in background.
• The Fit Page display for PDFs has been updated to display only one page at a time. PDFs can now be used as presentations.
• The "Turn on camera" button will become active and can be selected as soon as the camera menu opens. Currently users have to wait for the camera preview to load before the button can be selected.
• Strings for various notifications have been updated for simplicity.
• Participants will now be able to reply to private messages from hosts and preseters even when the "Allow Participants to Chat Privately" setting is disabled.
• Universal Voice/Mixed Audio in breakout rooms will now be supported for Conference America adaptor. When launched with 12.6 release, this was supported only for Meeting One adaptor.
• Improvements to SSO
  • Signed SAML request.
  • Skip Adobe Connect’s login page if the account is SSO enabled (browser only).
  • Auto provision groups for SSO accounts. 
• Third-party library updates:
  • JDK will be updated to ver 1.8.0_421
  • Tomcat will be updated to ver 9.0.93
  • Spring.jar will be updated to ver 5.3.39

The Adobe Connect 12.7 release introduces a new events analytics dashboard, custom virtual video backgrounds, multiple updates to simplify the in-room controls, revamped room customization UI for admins, accessibility improvements and fixes for various issues.

Event Analytics (Hosted Only)

A new dashboard with a consolidated view of participant activities, interactions, and engagement during the event, will now be available. The dashboard will also allow hosts to download various reports without having to enter the room after the session. The dashboard can be accessed from the Reports tab of any event.

Custom Virtual Video Backgrounds

Account admins can upload up to 9 custom virtual backgrounds which will then be available inside the room for selection. Admins can also control the availability of the default Adobe Connect virtual background images. The option will be available under the Customization settings within the Admin tab in Connect Central.

Revamped Customization UI for Admins

• The UI for Customization settings under the Admin tab in Connect Central has been redesigned for an updated and fresher look.
• The logos and background images will support SVG vector images.
• A new alternate text field has also been added for the logo shown inside the room.
  

Simplification of in-room controls

Adobe Connect rooms provide hosts with multiple settings to customize the experience for participants. Over time some of these settings have become redundant, use non-standard terms, or have been duplicated across multiple places. With the 12.7 release we have removed redundant and duplicate settings, renamed them using industry-standard terms, and have reorganized them along with UI touchups to improve navigation across the room. 

• Room name
  The room name has been removed from the desktop client menu bar and has been replaced with a hamburger menu icon. The room name can be viewed in the browser tab title and the desktop application title bar.

• Room Menu
  • Host and Presenter area has been renamed to Backstage.
  • The Layouts Panel option to toggle the availability of the Layouts Panel has been moved to a new checkbox setting under General Preferences.
  • Switch to prepare mode option has been removed. The prepare made will continue to be accessible from the Prepare mode icon in the Layouts Panel.
  • Speaker & Microphone setup option has been removed. Speakers and microphones can be setup and tested from the respective options menu in the menu bar.
  • Manage meeting information option has been renamed to View room information.
  • Manage access & entry
    • The Invite participants option has been removed. This option will be replaced with Copy room URL option (as mentioned in #7 below).
    • The Block guest access option has been removed. Guest access can be disabled by unchecking the option Accepted guests may enter the room from the Edit Information page for the room on Connect Central.
    • Block incoming attendees option has been renamed to Block incoming participants.
    • Tooltips have been added for the three remaining options.
  • A new option Copy room URL has been added under the room menu which can be used to copy the room URL to share it with participants.
  • A new icon has been added to View room information option. This icon indicates that the option will launch a link in a new browser window.

• PODs menu
  • The PODs Menu has been updated to add icons for the different pods and group pods into cohorts for easier identification. Tooltips have also been added for the various pods.
  • The Move and Resize pods option has been removed. This option will continue to be accessible through its duplicate Lock layouts option under the Layouts Panel menu.
  • The Custom pods option under the Help menu has been moved to the PODs menu as Explore custom pods.

• Speaker options menu
  • The Adjust volume option has been removed. The speaker volume can be controlled from the Windows/Mac OS volume controls.
  • The Hear attendee audio option will be visible only in rooms using telephony for audio.

• Microphone options menu
  • The Adjust volume option has been removed. The microphone volume can be controlled from the Windows/Mac OS microphone device control settings.
  • A tooltip has been added for Single speaker mode.
  • The state of the Allow participants to use microphone option will now persist across sessions in the room.

• Camera options menu
  • Enable webcam for participants has been renamed to Allow participants to use camera.

• Pod three dot menus
  • The pod menus have been re-organized, and options have been grouped under headings.
  • Maximize option has been renamed to Maximize for all. A tooltip has also been added for this.

• Share Pod
  • The Sync navigation icon has been removed from Share pod title bar. It will continue to be accessible from the Share pod options menu.
  • The Limit video scaling option available when sharing MP4 videos has been removed. The MP4 videos will always be scaled to fit the share pod.

• Notes Pod
  • The icons for Bold, Italics and Underline have been replaced with the industry standard icons.

• Attendees Pod
  • The Edit information option in Attendee menu has been renamed to Edit display name.
    

• The settings within the Preferences modal have been reorganized. 
  • General Preferences
    • A new setting Show layouts panel to hosts (relocated from the room menu) to control the availability of the Layouts Panel has been added.
  • Menu bar Preferences
    • Show activity ticker setting has been renamed to Show activity monitor.
    • The notification settings for the Raise hands feature (shown when screen sharing) have been reorganized.
      

• Audio Conference Preferences
  • The Audio Conference tab in Preferences will now only be shown for accounts which have at least one active audio profiles available in Connect Central. This will ensure accounts which only use VoIP for audio will not see the telephony audio related settings inside the room.
  • The Allow participants to use microphone setting has been removed. The state of Allow participants to use microphone option present under the microphone options menu will now persist across sessions in the room.
• Attendees pod Preferences
  • The attendee pod sorting options have been moved to the Display name tab.
  •  The Mask telephone numbers option has been moved to the Audio Conference tab as this option is only relevant when using telephony audio.
  •  The Attendees pod Preferences tab has been removed as it did not have any setting left under it.

• Video Preferences
  
  • The default aspect ratio for camera videos has been changed to Wide screen (16:9) from Standard (4:3).
  • The Disable webcam preview option has been removed. The webcam preview will always be shown when trying to turn on the camera for the first time during a session. From the next instance during the session, the camera will turn on with a single click without a preview. The preview if needed will be accessible from the camera options menu.
  • The Highlight active speaker option has been removed. The active speaker will always be highlighted in the video pod if more than one active video is being shared.

• Share pod Preferences
  • The low and medium screen share quality options have been removed.
  • The standard quality setting will be the default share quality.
  • The high screen share quality setting was used to increase the frame rate of the share. This led to higher network bandwidth requirements but is particularly useful when screen sharing videos or any other such fast-moving content. This option has been removed from Share pod preferences and moved to the screen share modal of the Share pod.
  • The Show application cursor has been removed from the UI and has been enabled by default.
  • The Start buffering videos automatically for participants has been removed from the UI and has been enabled by default.

Improved discovery of share system audio feature

The option to include system audio has been moved to the Start sharing popup shown on selecting the Screen sharing option in share pod. This was earlier available as a menu option in the drop-down menu next to the Screen button.

Optimize screen sharing for video clips

A new option checkbox Optimize for video clips will be available when sharing screen via the desktop applications (Refer image for desktop app sharing above). This option increases the frame rate of the screen share. Use this option when screen sharing video clips (like a video clip on YouTube). A higher frame rate will ensure the screen share appears smooth and less jerky to participants.

Request to unmute

To improve the privacy for attendees, the Unmute option shown against attendee names in the Attendees pod has been removed and has been replaced with Request to unmute option. When a host selects this option, the participant will receive a notification informing about the request. The microphone will be unmuted only if the participant accepts to do so. The host will be informed if the participant declines the request.

Miscellaneous changes and fixes

• The camera video will be mirrored by default. The mirroring state can be toggled using the mirror option located in the Video pod title bar.
• The toast message informing participants that the session is being recorded and transcribed, will be shown now to participants who join after the recording had started.
• The new Mac OS uses a nonbreaking space character in the filename when saving screenshots. An issue, where uploading such files in Share pod failed, has been fixed.
• A confirmation popup will now be shown when attempting to revert edits made to transcripts.
• Recordings can be made to start playback from a specific timestamp by affixing the url parameter "archiveOffset=timeInMilliSeconds" to the recording URL.
  Example: To start the playback of the recording "https://my.adobeconnect.com/ph4e68pd7kvz/" from the 2nd minute onwards, share the url as "https://my.adobeconnect.com/ph4e68pd7kvz/?archiveOffset=12000"
• Multiple fixes to aria-labels, and roles to improve accessibility of in-room options.
• Third-party library updates:
  • JDK will be updated to ver 1.8.0_411
  • Tomcat will be updated to ver 9.0.87

The Adobe Connect 12.6 release introduces a new broadcast control for sessions, short answer type questions in quiz pod and diarized transcripts (beta). The release adds support for import/export of quiz questions, closed captions in breakout rooms, mixed audio in breakout rooms. The release also brings in improvements to simplify closed caption workflow, PDF document sharing, and room accessibility.

BROADCAST CONTROL for Adobe Connect sessions 

The Broadcast control provides an explicit button for the host to start broadcasting to the entire audience. Until then the presentation team can confer amongst themselves without being heard by the audience and test their audio/video feeds. Even when the session is not live, participants will be able to enter the room and see the active layout, but they will not be able to see or hear the hosts and presenters till the broadcast is started. In effect, the broadcast control results in creating a “virtual green room” for the presentation team.

• To activate the feature, turn ON the toggle for Enable broadcast control under the Broadcast control tab of the room Preferences dialog. 

• The virtual green room will come into effect and a Broadcast Control pod will be available in the Host & Presenter area
  

• The broadcast can be started for participants by clicking the Start broadcast button in Broadcast Control pod and selecting Confirm in the subsequent popup.
  

• The session can be paused to briefly enter the virtual green room again by selecting Pause from the Broadcast Control pod. Session can be resumed from a paused state by selecting Resume from the Broadcast Control pod. 
• To end the broadcast at the conclusion of the session, select End from the Broadcast Control pod. Participants will not be able to hear or see the presentation team and can start exiting the room. The presentation team can use this time to review the session, thank any co-hosts, guest speakers etc.
• To exit the room and close the meeting room, select End session for all from the Exit menu on top right.

Short answer question type in Quiz pod

A new question type, Short answer will be added to the Quiz pod. A short answer type question only has question text and there are no answer options. The response to short answer questions will not be evaluated when computing scores. The responses to the short answer type questions will be included in the current quiz pod reports available in Connect Central.

Evaluation example: If a quiz has 10 questions and 2 of them are short answer type questions, then only the 8 non-short answer type questions will be counted towards scores (and score percentages). The score for someone who gets all 8 questions correct will be 8 out of 8 (100%).

Quiz pod import/ export questions

Controls to import / export quiz questions have been introduced to make is easier it to setup up the quiz pod. The feature supports GIFT and CSV file formats for both import and export.

Diarized Transcripts for recordings (beta)

Transcripts will be generated for all meeting recordings if transcription is enabled from the room preferences. The transcripts will be diarized i.e., it will show the speaker’s name.

• To enable transcription, enable the toggle against Enable automated closed captioning and transcription.

• Transcription will start automatically whenever the session recording is initiated.
• To make the transcripts available during recording playback
  1. Open the Recording Information page for the recording in Connect Central. This can be done by clicking the name of the recording in the Recordings widget on Connect Central Home Page. Alternatively, visit the Recordings tab for the room and click on the recording name.
  2.  Click on Actions and select Edit Information from the dropdown menu.
• Check the Show transcript viewer (Beta) option and select Save.

• The transcripts can now be displayed and hidden by selecting the Show Transcript icon from the bottom right corner during the recording playback.

• Clicking on any line in the transcript will navigate the video to that timestamp. The search bar can be used to search the transcript for keywords and then jump to the relevant point in the recording.

Editing automatically generated transcripts

The hosts will be able to edit the automatically generated transcripts.

• To enable editing of the transcripts, check the Show transcript viewer (Beta) option for the recording.
• Launch the Recording Editor for the recording. This can be done by clicking Edit Recording (pencil) icon for the recording from the Recordings widget on Connect Central Home Page. 
• The Transcript Editor can be displayed by selecting the Show Transcript icon from the bottom right corner of the window.
• Double click on any line of text to start editing it. Click the blue tick to submit changes. 
• Click on Save edits button in the top right corner to save all the edits and generate the updated transcript.
• The Revert to original icon, can be selected to revert to the originally generated transcript file.

NOTE: Any edits made to the transcript will automatically reflect in the closed captions also.

Closed captions inside Breakout Rooms

Closed captions will be available inside breakout rooms. Since breakout rooms are not recorded, these captions will also not be available with recordings.

Privacy improvements and Simplification OF Automated Closed Caption workflow

• To improve the privacy, Closed Caption workflow has been improved to make closed captions available only for the live audio - last couple of sentences. Participants will not be able to scroll and view past captions.  Presently, participants were able to scroll and view past captions.
• Since captions will only be for live audio and to ensure privacy, Closed caption will not be available for download. Transcript (Beta) downloads will be available with an upcoming release.
• The Stop automated captions option has been removed, from the Closed Caption dropdown menu, to reduce the ambiguity with Hide captions.  The host can disable the toggle for Enable automated closed captioning and transcription in room preference to make the captions unavailable to participants
• Attendees on browser or the desktop app, who join the session after the closed captions are enabled in the room, will now be notified about the captions being available. This notification was already available for participants joining sessions on mobile apps.

Mixed Audio in Breakout Rooms

Universal Voice/Mixed Audio will be available within Breakout Rooms. Universal Voice/Mixed Audio is a way to build a bridge between telephony communication and VoIP communication so that users connected from VoIP can communicate with users connected from telephony and vice versa. Presently, the UV functionality is limited to the Main room only.

Engagement Dashboard to report data for participants by default

The Engagement Dashboard will only report the participant engagement by default. The roles to be used for engagement calculation can be customized by visiting the Tracking option from the Engagement Dashboard pod menu.

Recording playback speed control

A setting to control the playback speed of recordings will be available. The setting will offer different speed options to slow down or fasten the playback speed.

PDF document sharing zoom enhancement

PDF documents sharing in share pods has been improved to optimize the use of the space available. Earlier the documents did not scale up to occupy the maximum possible space available and this hindered the sharing of documents especially presentations in PDF format.

Classic Mobile Applications Decommissioned

Adobe Connect classic mobile applications (‘Adobe Connect Classic’ on Android and ‘Adobe Connect’ on iOS) are being retired, and going forward only the new and enhanced versions of the mobile applications (‘Adobe Connect’ on Android and ‘Adobe Connect New’ on iOS) will be supported.  Users can no longer enter sessions held on Adobe Connect 12.6 version, from the classic mobile applications. Any user accessing Adobe Connect 12.6 rooms from classic mobile applications will be prompted to install the new application. 

For more information, see Upgrade from classic to new Adobe Connect mobile application

Miscellaneous changes and fixes

• Adobe Connect will remember the speaker & mic device preferences and will intelligently switch to the right device.
• The icon for unread private chat messages has been updated to improve the discoverability of unread messages.
• Multiple fixes to aria-labels, and roles to improve accessibility of in-room options.
• Storage quota alert notifications will be available for admins to setup in Connect Central.
  
• A meeting room will be created automatically for new users provisioned with named host license. This will ease their onboarding to Connect.
• Third-party library updates:
  • JDK will be updated to ver 1.8.0_391
  • Tomcat will be updated to ver 9.0.84

SIMPLIfication of microphone and camera controls

• Microphone controls have been simplified to only show muted or unmuted states, in place of the current disconnected, connected, muted, or unmuted states.
• Camera controls in main room menu have been simplified to show ‘Turn camera on' or ‘Turn camera off’.

• Pause camera option is now available only on individual video cells.
  

Clear content from all pods

• A new action has been added in Pods menu to allow hosts to clear all in-room session specific data in a single click (chat history, poll results, etc.)
• This will clear content history from all pods present in various layouts (does not close pods or affects pods which are not present in any layout).

POD switcher

• A new easier way to switch pods has been introduced which allow hosts to change/switch pods easily.
• This option will be available on all pods which support multiple instances - Chat, Notes, Poll, Share, File share, Weblinks, Quiz.

CHAT PANEL

This release introduces Chat Panel — an in-room chat for more collaborative experience within room.

• Chat Panel will be present in a fixed location in a room and will not be tied to different layouts.
• Hosts will have option to enable/disable Chat Panel from room preferences. This will be turned off by default for all rooms.
• When enabled, each individual attendee will be able to open/close it as per their convenience without affecting the view of other attendees.

• Chat Panel will not be recorded and will not be present for playback in recordings.
• It will have same capabilities as a chat pod (including accessibility features like increasing font size)
• It will be supported in breakouts. However, the Chat Panel content will not be available outside breakouts.
• In case a host wants they can ‘Force presenter view’ in Chat Panel for making sure that each attendee has the same view.

• Chat Panel can also be turned off for the entire account by account administrators from Adobe Connect Central.

recording view stats

• Recording view stats will be available for Enhanced Audio/Video recordings.
• This will available only for recordings moved to content folder.
• The ‘Time viewed’ is actual time the recording was played/viewed (not skipped or fast forwarded).
• The ‘Time viewed’ It could be more than the recording duration if viewed multiple times in single session.

accessibility fixes

Multiple accessibility issues mostly related to keyboard access and a few related to contrast ratio have been fixed.

MISCALLANEOUS IMPROVEMENTS AND FIXES

• Various Adobe Connect Central home page fixes
• New Training and Webinar room templates added.
• Upload for .flv and .f4v files is now blocked in Adobe Connect Central pages.
• Fixes for latency/lag issues introduced in edited recordings
• In-Room menu labels have been updated to have capitalization consistency.
• Library upgrades:
  • Tomcat has been updated to ver 9.0.76.

UPDATED INSTALLER FOR ON-PREMISE CUSTOMERS

An installer will be available for on-premise customers to upgrade to 12.5.

NATIVE QUIZZING

Live quizzes are an important element of a virtual instructor led training.  In this release, a new Quiz pod is being introduced which will allow trainers (hosts) to conduct and monitor quizzes natively in Adobe Connect virtual classrooms, seminar rooms and meeting rooms. 

• The quiz pod supports up to 10 questions in a single pod. Multiple quiz pods can be opened in a single room.
• Four types of questions are supported by the Quiz Pod - multiple choice, multiple answer, fill in the blank and yes/no questions.

• Hosts and Presenters will be able to monitor the live progress for each participant when a quiz is in progress.
• Various configurations options are supported like quiz time, allowing participants to review their quiz submissions and more.
• Gamification option is also present by showing a live leaderboard to attendees.
• Multiple quiz reports like quiz summary, question level summary, learner transcript are available after the session in Adobe Connect Central pages. These reports are available also via webservice apis or exportable in csv format.

ENHANCED EVENT TEMPLATES AND CATALOG 

With the increasing usage of Internet browsing on mobile devices, there are more chances that a visitor discovers an event while using a phone. Therefore, it becomes important to allow users to register for events easily, even if they are on a smaller screen.

To address this need, the Events Module of Connect has now been enhanced to enable creation of responsive event registration pages and event catalog.

The event templates and event catalog have now been enhanced to take advantage of the responsive design features supported by Adobe Experience Manager 6.5. In addition, we are making additional fonts available for users to design their event microsites.

• When editing a template in the authoring view, the user can customize the design for mobile devices as well as desktop.

• A new default event template and event catalog are now available, which are responsive by design.

• User can clone these new responsive templates to customize it for their organizations, as before.

Note that the old components and the old templates in an account will still be available. The event administrator has been provided two options to plan on when they want to introduce the new responsive templates.

• A new option has been provided to Event Administrators to choose whether they want new events to be created only based on the new default event template. 

• Similarly, another option has been added to allow Event Administrator to use the new catalog, when they are ready

Note: On Premise customers will have to upgrade to AEM 6.5 to use this feature

RECORDING EDITOR

Hosts will be able to edit recordings for Enhanced Audio Video enabled rooms. The new recording capability works from browsers and allows hosts to edit out sections of recording without needing to download the desktop application. 

• The new recording editor will have various usability enhancements to allow the host to easily navigate to a specific point in time on the seek bar for granular editing. 

• The recording editor playbar will also show thumbnail preview allowing the host to edit at the right frames.

• The recording url will not change after edits have been done. The recording URL will always point to the most updated edited version of the recording. 

• The host can revert to the original recording at any point in time.

SUPPORT FOR 1080P SCREEN RESOLUTION IN RECORDINGS

• Hosts will now have the option in Adobe Connect room preferences to increase the resolution of recordings to 1080p from 720p. 

AUTOMATIC CLOSED CAPTIONS (BETA)

Automated closed captions are now available withing all Adobe Connect rooms. The host will have an option to enable it for the room. Once enabled by the host, participants will be able to turn on closed captions display. Hosts will also be able to email the generated closed captions to themselves or download it as a text file. The automated closed captions will also be visible in the recordings (if the closed captions was turned on for the room when recording was started).

MODERNIZED ADOBE CONNECT CENTRAL HOME PAGE AND NAVIGATION

• The Adobe Connect Central home page has been modernized and simplified.  The modernized home page will have the dashboard view for hosts which provide them a quick glance of their sessions – upcoming webinars or trainings, recently completed webinars or trainings, recently used rooms and recent recordings. In addition, the host can also see a calendar view. 

• For first time users a ‘Quick Overview Widget’ has also been introduced to provide contextual help guides for Adobe Connect Webinar and Training workflows.

• The host and learner views have been segregated to give de-cluttered experience for the host.

NEW LICENSING STRUCTURE FOR HOSTED DEPLOYMENTS 

• With this release, we are introducing more flexible and competitive licensing for hosted deployments.

• The existing customers can move to the new structure at the time of their license renewal.

• For more details, please reach out to your respective partner or sales contact.

VIRTUAL VIDEO BACKGROUND

This 12.2 beta feature is now fully supported. Please check the system requirements for the publisher sharing video with virtual backgrounds at Adobe Connect technical specifications and system requirements.

ACCESSIBILITY FIXES

Multiple accessibility issues mostly related to keyboard access and a few related to contrast ratio have been fixed.

UPDATED INSTALLER FOR ON-PREMISE CUSTOMERS

An installer will be available for on-premise customers to upgrade to 12.4.

SELF SELECTION in BREAKOUT ROOMS

With this new feature, we are extending the capability of Breakout Rooms, by allowing hosts to specify if participants would be able to self-select the rooms that they wish to participate in.

Until now, the Breakout Room functionality was available by clicking on the Breakouts icon in the application bar. In this release we have replaced this icon with a Breakout Bar just below the application bar.

A new option has been added in the Preferences that allows host to indicate whether participants should have this flexibility of choosing the breakout room they want to join.

When a host enables this option and starts the breakout rooms, participants are notified that breakouts have started, and they will also see the new Breakout Bar below the application bar. 

At the centre of this bar, the current room of the participant is displayed; and the participant can also select another breakout room they want to enter from the dropdown list. A participant can switch rooms at any time, and as often as needed.

Once the host ends the breakout session, the participants are notified and brought back to the main room.

NEW OPTION TO DISABLE HYPERLINKS IN CHAT, Q&A, POLLS AND NOTES PODS

Some hosts consider live URL’s in some pods like the Chat Pod as a security risk and would like to mitigate the same by disabling participants from clicking on them.

A new option has been introduced in Compliance and Control under Pods Management that provides hosts the option to disable participants from clicking on hyperlinks shared in Chat, Q&A, Notes and Poll pods.  If disabled, URL’s will be displayed just like any other string.

redesigned entry screen

The Room Entry Screen where Attendees select the audio and video devices they want to use before joining the session has been redesigned and following improvements have been made:

• The microphone, camera, and speaker buttons have been replaced with switches for better visible indication of On or Off state improving accessibility.
• The Test Speaker and Test Microphone buttons have been replaced with icon buttons for preventing mis-interpration of Entry screen as a test screen.
• The button to join the room has been moved into the dialog to make it more obvious and easier to click.
  
• The Top bar has been added to indicate the profile the user has used to join the Adobe Connect room.
• After clicking the ‘Join Room’ button, a new loading screen is shown indicating the status of user's selected audio and video devices.
  
• A new administrator and room level option has been added to disable the Entry Screen for the entire account or for individual rooms.  

PAUSE CHAT

• A new option is available to the hosts for pausing the chat in a chat pod. While a chat is paused all attendees will continue to see the chat but they will not be able to add a new message.

VIRTUAL VIDEO BACKGROUND (BETA)

• Users will be able to select a virtual video background from the Entry screen or from within the room (if they have camera rights). 
  
• Users will be able to blur their background or use one of the 9 preset images as their background.
• This feature is available for the users joining from either the desktop applications or from one of the supported desktop browsers.

MISCELLANEOUS IMPROVEMENTS AND CHANGES

• Support for a new .pod extension for Custom Pods.
  
• Additional columns in Meeting Reports to summarize time spent in a room – even if users come and go.
  
• Improved instructions in empty Share pods.
  
• Changes to the 'Rate your experience' dialog shown after exiting a room.
  
• The in-room menus and labels have been standardized to sentence case capitalization.
• The account update in-room notifications will now be shown only to hosts and not to all attendees.
• Registered users will re-join in the assigned Breakout room after re-connection (if they are disconnected while the session is live).
• The browser re-direct message shown after the room opens in the desktop app has been improved.
• Host created chat pod in the breakout room will now be editable from the main room as well.
  
• Sharing system audio from a browser tab while screen sharing will now be available when sharing Google Chrome/Chromium or Microsoft Edge browser tabs (Mac,  Windows, ChromeOS, and Linux).
  
• A new account and room level option has been added to open the Adobe Connect room in browsers by default (even if the user has the desktop applications installed).
• For Enhanced Audio/Video enabled rooms the telephone conference audio will now be present in the recordings even if the broadcast has been turned off.
• The following 12.1.5 beta features are now fully supported:
  • Enhanced Noise Suppression
  • Share system audio while screen sharing from Windows desktop application
  • Prompt shown while speaking with muted microphone
• LoopUp conferencing has been added as a supported audio conferencing provider.
• Mac OS 13 (Ventura) has now been added as a supported operating system for Adobe Connect.
• A new XML-api has been added to programatically shutdown a room.
  
• Upgraded the JDK security baseline to 1.8.0_351.
  
• Tomcat version has been upgraded to 9.0.68.
  

POOR NETWORK QUALITY DETECTION

• A new prompt to pause incoming cameras will be shown to the users when poor network quality is detected on their end. The prompt will be shown in Enhanced Audio/Video Experience enabled rooms only.

CHROME OS SUPPORT

• Chromebook users will be able to join Adobe Connect sessions through supported browsers and share their screen if allowed.

BETA FEATURES

• Enhanced Noise Suppression: Hosts will be able to enable 'Noise Suppression' for their rooms from Adobe Connect Central room information screens.
  • Noise Suppression is only available for Enhanced Audio/Video Experience enabled rooms and is disabled by default.
    
  • Individual attendees will be able to turn it on/off for themselves from the microphone menu if the host has enabled beta features for the room.
  • Noise Suppression will work for users joining from browsers or desktop applications only. Currently not available for mobile application users.
• Share system audio while screen sharing: Users will be able to screen share with system audio. 
  • This beta feature will be available only for Enhanced Audio/Video Experience enabled rooms.
  • This will be available only for Windows desktop application users and visible
    when beta features are enabled for the room.
• Speaking while muted prompt: Users will see a new prompt when they are trying to speak but their microphone is muted.
  • This beta feature will be available only for Enhanced Audio/Video Experience enabled rooms and visible
    when beta features are enabled for the room.

MISCELLANEOUS IMPROVEMENTS AND CHANGES

• Added support for conversion of ink shapes in uploaded PowerPoint files.
• 'HTML Client Settings' section in Adobe Connect Central administration section has been changed to 'Client Settings'.
• Added 'Accessbility' menu item to room Help menu and Adobe Connect Central Help menu linking to accessibility help documentation.
• Mini-control panel will not appear as a black box to attendees viewing the shared screen.

Enhanced Audio/Video Recordings

• Enhanced Audio/Video recordings now support Closed Captions including:
  • Moving and resizing the caption display while viewing the recording
  • Choosing font size and text/background color combination
• A new account-wide option has been added to anonymize all recordings by default. This option will not impact existing rooms but only newly created rooms. Also, hosts will still be able to override this option for their rooms. 
• A new setting is now available to hosts to prevent recording downloads by viewers. This setting can be set for each recording separately.

DIAGNOSTIC TEST PAGE

• The Adobe Connect diagnostic test page has been updated to allow users to test connectivity to Standard and Enhanced Audio/Video enabled rooms.
  • The diagnostic test page will check user's browser, operating system, reachability to Adobe Connect servers and data connectivity with Adobe Connect servers.
  • A successful test will indicate that the user will be able to join rooms with either Enhanced Audio/Video enabled or disabled.

MISCELLANEOUS IMPROVEMENTS AND CHANGES

• Search in Attendee Pod: Ability to search and filter names has been added in Attendee Pod.
  
• A new room URL parameter ?html-view=true allows users to force open a room in a browser instead of the desktop application.
• The selection icon in the Whiteboard menu has been changed to differentiate it from the pointer icon in the Share pod.
• Enhanced Audio/Video Experience option has been reworded as Enhanced Audio/Video in room setup screens and administration settings screens.
• Email address is now pre-populated when exporting Q&A via email.
• 'Disable SWF uploads' has been removed from account settings in Adobe Connect Central administration section.
• Accessibility: 
  • Screen readers will now read only the last chat message instead of the last 10 messages.
  • Table headers in Adobe Connect Central pages updated to be more screen reader friendly.
  • While scheduling a meeting, users can now enter time as HH:MM instead of selecting from a dropdown list to prevent excessing tabbing.

• Library upgrades:
  • Tomcat has been updated to ver 9.0.65.
  • JRE has been updated to ver 1.8.0_341.

Adobe Connect 12.0 introduces an entirely new Enhanced Audio/Video Experience. Adobe Connect’s backend media server infrastructure has been upgraded to a modern cloud-native technology stack which is optimized for delivering a highly scalable and reliable high-quality audio & video experience for users joining from any device

The Enhanced Audio/Video experience is now the default experience for all existing and newly created rooms. Here are the various new capabilities and improvements available in Enhanced Audio/Video Experience.

Enhanced audio/video experience new capabilities

• Richer Audio: Enhanced Audio/Video Experience brings significant improvements in audio clarity, speed, and reliability with reduced latency.
  
• 1080p webcam resolution support: For a single video turned on in the Video pod the maximum supported resolution with Enhanced Audio/Video experience is 1080p. Hosts will be able to select a new ‘Full HD (1080p)’ option from the Video preferences in their Adobe Connect rooms.  

• Support for up to three high-resolution (720p) webcams in the Video pod: If more than three videos are turned on, then the display will auto-adjust to a lower resolution.
• Single Speaker View: A new video layout option has been added to the Video pod to display a single video at a time. When selected, a host has the option to choose the video to be displayed in Single Speaker view from the Attendees who have turned on their webcams.
• Spotlight Speaker: A new Spotlight Speaker mode is now available when using ‘Filmstrip view’ and ‘Single Speaker view’ in the Video pod. When enabled, the main video will automatically switch to show the video of the person currently speaking.
• Video limit and Pagination Support: The Video pod can now show upto a maximum 50 videos in a room. If the number of active videos in the Video pod goes beyond 25 then additional pages of 25 videos each will be created (upto a total of 50 videos).
• Screen share support from browsers: Hosts and Presenters joining from browsers in Enhanced Audio/Video Experience enabled rooms will be able to share their screen without requiring the Adobe Connect desktop application. The mini-control panel will not be available when screen sharing from a browser. Account Administrators can disable screen sharing from a browser from the Compliance and Control settings in Adobe Connect Central.
• Server-based MP4 recordings: When a session is recorded in Enhanced Audio/Video Experience enabled room, an MP4 version of the recording is automatically created and is available shortly after the meeting recording is stopped. The recordings created are not available in interactive format. For more information on see Mp4 recordings vs Interactive recordings.
• Anonymization in Recordings: Hosts can choose to anonymize attendee names in the Attendee, Chat, and Q&A pods and have them replaced with anonymous labels in a recording. Hosts can select the anonymization option for all recordings of a room or for can select this option for each time a recording is started in a room. For more information, see Anonymize recordings.
• New exit survey: When the host ends a meeting, all participants can rate their audio/video experience in the session via a feedback survey. This survey can be turned off by administrators, if required. For more information, see Starting and attending meetings.

For more information on Enhanced Audio/Video Experience vs Standard View capabilities, see Capabilities and Limitations.

ENFORCE ENHANCED AUDIO/VIDEO EXPERIENCE OR STANDARD VIEW

Account administrators have the option to either force Enhanced Audio/Video Experience for all rooms or force Standard View for all rooms or let hosts decide for each room (default option).

Switch existing rooms

Account administrators can also choose to Switch all existing rooms to the Enhanced Audio/Video Experience or the Standard View. This option is only visible when the 'Application and browser interface settings' is set to Let the hosts decide for their room.

Choose view

When the Account administrator has set the Application and browser interface settings to Let the hosts decide for their room, then the hosts can choose between the Enhanced Audio/Video Experience or the Standard view for each room.

Adobe Connect 12.0 introduces improvements to many commonly used workflows to enhance ease of use for all users. Here are the workflows which have been improved in this release:

Login and Joining

• The login page has been redesigned to improve joining as a registered user or as a guest user.
• The preferred mode of joining an Adobe Connect room is via the Adobe Connect desktop application. If the Adobe Connect desktop application is installed on user’s device, then the login screen will open in desktop application (if the user is not already logged in). If the user is already logged in the desktop application, then user is directly taken to the Adobe Connect room (without having to login again). If the desktop application is not installed on user’s device, then the login screen and the meeting room launches in the browser.
• The new login and joining experience is available for both Enhanced Audio/Video Experience enabled rooms as well as Standard View enabled rooms. For more information, see Login and joining experience.

New SETUP screen on entry for Speaker, Microphone, and Camera selection

• After a user has successfully logged in they are taken to a new setup screen before joining the Adobe Connect room. From the setup screen the user can see the current selected speaker, microphone, and camera. Users can change the selection, mute/unmute, and test their speaker, microphone, and camera choice before joining the Adobe Connect room.
• New setup screen for speaker, microphone and camera selection is available only for Enhanced Audio/Video Experience enabled rooms. For more information, see Mic, speaker and Camera selection experience.

In-meeting Speaker, Microphone, and Camera selection

• The in-meeting speaker, microphone, and camera menus are more powerful and easier to use.
• New in-meeting speaker, microphone, and camera selection is available only for Enhanced Audio/Video Experience enabled rooms. For more information, see Mic, speaker and Camera selection experience.

Video Pod Improvements

• The design and layout of the Video pod has been optimized to support up to 50 cameras (25-per-page).
• The 'start camera' and 'camera preview' options have been moved from Video pod to the webcam menu in the room menu bar.
• The design of the Video pod has been overhauled to give more space to video. Camera actions (pause camera, stop sharing, etc.) have been moved to the video menu.
• In full screen mode a black background color is used instead of gray.
• The new Video pod improvements are available only in Enhanced Audio/Video Experience enabled rooms.

Exit room

• Hosts now have two options in the room menu bar for exiting an Adobe Connect room – ‘Exit Room’ and ‘End session for all’.
• Participants and Presenters now see an icon to ‘Exit Room’ in the menu bar.
• The new room exiting options are available only for Enhanced Audio/Video Experience enabled rooms.

Raise Hand Improvements

• Raised hand notifications shown to hosts have been improved to let them grant or deny microphone rights to participants who have raised their hands.
• New raise hand notification improvements are available for both Enhanced Audio/Video Experience enabled rooms as well as Standard View enabled rooms.

Mobile access

• Hosts can now restrict mobile users from joining Adobe Connect meeting rooms. This option is available in both Enhanced Audio/Video Experience enabled rooms as well as Standard View enabled rooms. For more information, see Enable mobile access.

The option to access an Adobe Connect room with Classic View has been removed from all room launch workflows. With the release of Adobe Connect 12.0, users will not be able to join any Adobe Connect rooms with the Classic View.

For more information, see Adobe Connect Classic View End of Life (EOL).

• To improve audio and video performance for large sessions (with more than 200 attendees), a new High-performance option is present in the Room setup screen for Concurrent User license customers who have purchased more than 200 concurrent seats.
• To improve the overall experience these limits have been introduced in Enhanced A/V rooms (these could be relaxed in upcoming releases). The limit is based on the number of attendees present in the room and the number of attendees with a connected mic or camera. Hosts will see notifications when 80% or 100% of the limit is reached. Once the limit is reached any new attendees will not be able to enter the room and existing attendees (who have not connected their mic or camera) will not be able to connect their mic or camera unless hosts disconnect mic/camera of one or more attendees who have already presented from the Attendee pod.
  • For rooms with 100 attendees present, up to 100 simultaneous mic/camera connections are allowed.
  • For rooms with 200 attendees present, up to 110 simultaneous mic/camera connections are allowed.
  • For rooms with 500 attendees present, up to 44 simultaneous mic/camera connections are allowed.
  • For rooms with 1000 attendees present, up to 22 simultaneous mic/camera connections are allowed.
  • For rooms with 1500 attendees present, up to 15 simultaneous mic/camera connections are allowed.
• A new room preference option is available to disable the 'User has stepped away' notification.
• VoIP is now the default audio conferencing option for any newly created room.
• Improved highlighting of private replies sent in Q&A pod.    
• Accessibility: When a user navigates to a chat pod, screen readers will now read only the last chat message in the chat pod.
• Library upgrades:
  • Tomcat has been updated to ver 9.0.62.
  • JRE has been updated to ver 1.8.0_331.