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

What's all the fuss about instant messaging?


You may be saying to yourself, "I already have an instant messaging client". If you are familiar with instant messaging or IM for short, it's likely that you use one or more IM clients for personal purposes. Skype has IM and voice communications. Google has Google Chat and Google Voice. AOL has AIM, Microsoft has MSN Messenger, and Yahoo! has Yahoo! Instant Messenger. And let's not forget tools like Pidgin and Trillian that allow you to connect to multiple instant messaging systems all from one chat window.

But remember—you're at the office and many workplaces block personal chat services at the corporate firewall for security reasons. Exactly how might instant messaging work in an office environment? To give you a glimpse of instant messaging in action in the workplace, let's look at the following scenarios:

  • You have a deadline for a report and you need one final detail from your teammate, Joan. You try to call Joan, but your call is transferred to voicemail. Minutes are ticking by. Wait—you notice that Joan is online in Sametime, so you "ping" her and she responds with the detail you need to complete the report!

  • You're working on a helpdesk support line and you receive an incoming call. You don't have the necessary information to provide an answer to the user, but while the user is on the phone, you can IM your team through Sametime to see if any of the team members know the answer. And guess what—Bashir responds back in the chat window with the correct response!

  • As a team manager you're responsible for making sure that progress is being made on an important project while you're away from the office at a conference. From your Blackberry, you can chat using Sametime Mobile to get a quick status report from Scott and Connie while you're waiting for your first session to begin!

  • You need to set up a meeting, only to find out that two of the key meeting attendees, Chadna and Huan, will be at a remote office. You can still schedule the meeting using the Sametime Meeting Center; you can have an online meeting with slides, voice, and audio no matter where the attendees are located!