Book Image

IBM Lotus Sametime 8 Essentials: A User's Guide

Book Image

IBM Lotus Sametime 8 Essentials: A User's Guide

Overview of this book

IBM Lotus Sametime software allows you to collaborate and communicate with others in real time. By using Sametime, you can communicate with your peers and teammates with the Sametime Connect client, embedded Sametime integration with Lotus Notes or Microsoft Outlook e-mail, or on mobile devices like a Blackberry. You will be able to connect to your colleagues via text, voice, video, or by setting up an online meeting with colleagues in several sites or countries getting the information you need to do your job and make better and faster decisions.This user guide enables you, no matter what your skill level, to develop and increase your knowledge of Sametime and how to use each feature from start to finish. It shows how you can effectively collaborate with your colleagues and teammates both in your organization and outside your organization by using the features of Sametime. It's practical, and most of all, fun!This book takes you from the basics of Sametime through to the most advanced features with a focus on real work-related situations along with plenty of screen prints to guide you. You'll learn everything from how to conduct a quick chat to conducting an online meeting. Or perhaps you want to learn how to take advantage of Sametime's telephony features or set up an online poll? The book starts by teaching you how to install Sametime and set up a contact list of people with whom you interact. Next, you learn how the chat feature of Sametime works, from using basic text to sharing screen-capture images. You learn how to use Sametime both within an organization and with other external instant messaging services like AOL, Yahoo, and Google. However, Sametime isn't restricted to just the Sametime client. You learn how to use Sametime from a web browser as well as from a mobile device. Meeting rooms with screen sharing, whiteboarding, audio, and video features are covered, as well as how Sametime integrates into an organization's phone system so that you can have a single place to go for all your communication and collaboration needs. Learn how Sametime advanced features like persistent chats and broadcast communities can help your project teams stay organized. And finally learn about Sametime 8.5 and 8.5.1.
Table of Contents (21 chapters)
IBM Lotus Sametime 8 Essentials
Credits
About the Authors
Acknowledgement
About the Reviewers
Preface

Sametime and custom applications


If you use Lotus Notes for e-mail, you can launch many of the Sametime functions without even leaving the e-mail that you're currently reading. The Sametime presence awareness icon shows up next to the name of someone if they're currently active on Sametime.

If your Sametime preferences are configured to display, Show business card when you hover over a contact's name, when you move your mouse over the icon, the person's business card information will appear so that you can get their location, phone numbers, and other information they share with others.

Right-clicking the icon brings up the Sametime menu of options and from there you can start chats, invite the person to an instant meeting, or invoke any other Sametime function that will help you communicate more effectively.

This same type of Sametime integration can also be part of any custom Lotus Notes application. Forms that have name fields can be set to show online presence when the developer builds the application. In the following example, we have a Notes journal database that is used to store presentation documents. You'll notice that the Sametime awareness icon is next to the Submitter's name in both the Entry line and in the actual document itself. Because that icon is there, you can click on it to begin chatting with the individual or determine their online status. In this case, the author of the document is online.

Notes developers can "enable" Sametime features in Notes applications very easily by checking the option, Show online status on a Name field, and this option will automatically activate the Sametime integration.

If you don't see that type of Sametime integration in your Notes application, ask your development staff if it is possible for them to make this type of enhancement to the application.