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Conference Software Buyer's Guide
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Running Online Conference for various business needs has gone primary these days. It helps to create an active online communication channel through audio/video meetings and seminars to make long-distance or international communication secure between you and your clients. Not just clients, employees at different countries of an organization use video conferencing to host virtual meetings with each other thereby eliminating the need of any in-person attendants. However, not every time it turns out to be a cakewalk. In a case where the need for running audience polls becomes necessary or circulating abstracts to all attendees for review comes as necessary, the task becomes complex. Under such scenarios, taking the help of an ideal web conference software becomes an easy way out. Let's see how exactly a conference management software application can help you to host a web conference with ease.
What is Conference Software?
It is nothing but a simple software application that unifies cloud video conferencing, online meetings and group messaging through an easy to use platform. It offers audio, video and screen sharing options that let you arrange a useful web conference without anyone's help. Through instant messaging, you can send a one-one message or to a group to post brief status updates. The online customer management software lets you filter and customizes a live feed on the actual network. Also, you get real-time notification about any content or groups through email, almost instantly. You can raise audience poll or even ask for voting on blogs, microblogs, documents or on other topics. Through the discussion board, you can share your ideas, ask for advice or even gather feedback from the participants. Through user directory, you can browse through a directory of users on the network. Apart from the above-said, the software offers basic audio/video tools, presenter tools, content management tools, conferencing options, and other productive tools to help you organize an excellent web conference for your business need.
How does Conference Software work?
With the features mentioned above, you can import new contacts or even create a directory of clients. You can also edit or remove contacts as per your needs and keep your address book updated. Along with maintaining your connections, the feature of webinar timeline helps you to keep track of statistics and all the information which seem essential.
In video conferencing software, your audience could be kept targeted way before the commencement of the webinar. They would be learning what the webinar would cover — interest is increased by the introduction of the presenter and letting the audience knows what to expect. You can also provide extra information and files before the events.
All accounts and sub-accounts get encrypted. The credentials of each user are kept safe while logging in and no one can get access to the other accounts too.
A comprehensive and extensive support structure is maintained in conference management software. It supports a good network connection while holding a conference. Through conference management software significant events could be organized and handled as well. The software can work in multiple languages. A translation module permits the utilization of other languages as well.
You can set and reset permissions on various functions based on deadlines or user’s tasks. Through the benefit of a powerful e-mail module, any number of participants could be targeted, and emails could be personalized and customized. Users and administrators are always in need of an efficient web-based browser along with an internet connection and a hosted solution to use the system. You can collect data, and files from the participants using participant management tools efficiently.
Also, you get information related to the platform performance and reliability in terms of its uptime to downtime ratio, quality of audio and video, number of call drops, etc. If you go for the best conference solutions they can perform well without taking up an exorbitant amount of bandwidth. Now let's have a look at some of the important features of an ideal conference management system.
Is it worth investing in any conferencing software?
We generally spend a good deal of time in arranging conferences which are likely to lose managements because it becomes a bit hectic to handle arrangements and scheduling and rescheduling them manually. It is time-consuming, and that is the reason why we want to employ conference management software to save valuable time. Not only holding of meetings should be done virtually but the arrangements and scheduling should also be left upon technology.
Now you may question the actual need of software as per your company size and niche of business. If your conference hosts not more than 50 delegates on one round and you don't need to host more than one or two conferences in a month, then it's better to handle the things manually. On the other hand, if you host scientific, medical or academic conferences catering more than 200 to 300 delegates at a time, you would definitely find the web conference software to be of your use. It will handle almost all sensitive work rituals such as delegate registration and payments, circulating abstracts, full papers, and presentations, and running review process which if done manually will make room for possible human errors.
What are the features of the software?
When choosing software, may it be, free conference software, or a basic web conferencing software, or an enterprise-level video conferencing software, we tend to pick up the best one. The features held by the software determine its quality. Characteristics of good software include:
› Multi-User Functionality: This particular feature allows co-workers to log into the browser directly with the ownership of multi-user accounts. This functionality avoids confusion over credentials and helps the user to save money on multiple accounts. It also means, the software can take care of multiple videos conferencing under a single time frame.
› Address Book Management: A proper target to the particular audience is the primary key to webinar success. Webinar address book could be used to manage your contacts and keep them organized. The moment someone visits your website or leaves details at your contact pages, the software organizes them into the address book which you can retrieve at any moment you want.
› Real-Time Chat: The limitation with most video conferencing software is that they lack in terms of off-video communication, in terms of chat or file sharing. However, you get those added features with conference software. You can chat with your clients to keep the flow of communication in case of the video breaks due to poor internet connectivity.
› Screen Sharing: This feature includes sharing access to the given computer screen. The graphical terminal emulator operates it. It delivers its implementations in online training in which the trainer can share screens with various participants to train them at a time. With multiple screen sharing options, you save time and effort at the same time.
› Delegate Payments: The software has the facility to collect payments directly into your bank account. So, you can set it up either as a checking account or as a merchant account. This feature of conference software comes handy when you need to raise donations or fund for any purpose through the conference.
› Facilitate Review Process: Soon after the conference, you can electronically distribute review forms to the participants. You can customize the review form, anonymize the submissions and track the progress quickly through the online conference software. There is absolutely no requirement of waiting for a long period of time to analyze the feedback as the software does that for you almost instantly.
Now that you have understood the features, you may find the software to be interesting for your business but do you really need it? Let's have a discussion.
Before selecting any online conference software
Though there is a wide range of conference solutions, though people are mostly inclined towards secure video conferencing software, there are certain things to consider before purchasing online conference management software. The setting of the budget is essential. It would enable you to run a trouble-free assessment of the stability and potential longevity of each supplier with ease. If you run a small company, then you can consider buying conference management software at a cheaper rate. Set your priorities right. You might not be needing too many features as they would be wasted being unused. Having established your preferences, you can now filter amongst the online conference management software as you would already be having your conference solutions at hand.
How to choose the best conference software?
When you start to look for video conference software in the market, you may probably get confused with so many options available to choose from. Unless you know how to separate the wheat from the chaff, you may find yourself with a not-so-good type of software with two months down the line. That's why it is imperative to make a smart purchase. To make a smart purchase, all you have to do is to keep in mind certain judging criteria while selecting an online conference management software for your business.
› ABSTRACT SELECTION: It is one of the most important features that enable you to select abstracts in multiple ways such as individual selection, bulk selection, and automatic selection. You can also assign a status to them such as "Accepted", "Declined" or "Request Corrections" etc. You can quickly input results into the system with no difficulty.
› ACCESS CONTROL: Go for a secure video conferencing software in which every page and function gets governed under a system of permission. It certainly keeps unprivileged users out of the picture and offers different kinds of users a different set of features to access as set by the administrator.
› LANGUAGE AND TRANSLATION MODULES: Ideal conference solutions offer multiple language compatibility, mostly English, French, German. You can also replace the default languages with new ones as per your need. If you are catering global audience then ask your vendor about the availability of this feature in their software. Also, the best conference management system allows you to translate any page without the need of uploading or downloading the texts which make your task even easier.
› EASY EXPORT OF DATA: The online conference software should be able to easily export collected data (profiles, abstracts, surveys, payments, etc.) to Excel or CSV within minutes. It should also provide easy options to download user uploaded files either from an FTP server or as a zip.
Pricing of Online Conference Software
The price of conference management software depends upon the number of host and the features added to the software. In the market, you will get some free software as well those are good for one to one meetings and sets you under limited time restriction for group meetings. To avoid that, you have to enter the basic subscription model that usually starts with a nominal monthly price of $15 per host per month. If the number of hosts is exceeding more than 10, it is better to go for the enterprise model that costs around $40 per month with unlimited hosting capacity. On the top that you will get some additional features such as a putting the brand logo on the screen, creating a single sign-on system, dashboard & User management privileges, extended support, and customization options, etc.
Conclusion
Once you set your budget and priorities, the last but not the least task is to choose the best online conference software. It is in our instincts to pick up what is best. Some conferencing software is easy to use whereas others are not. However, when choosing the best software for yourself, you should make sure that you understand its functions and the technologies correctly. You also need to make sure that your hardware runs incompatible with the software. Ask for post-implementation assistance. Make sure, the training cost of it should be free, but not all vendors would provide you the same for free, still give it a shot. Lastly, when it comes to choosing the best conferencing software, it is strongly recommended to seek advice from your closed peers or anyone who has already purchased it.