Set Up Meetings

Sametime offers two types of online meetings:

• Instant Meetings: Start an instant meeting when you want to quickly meet with your online colleagues.



• Scheduled Meetings: Use scheduled meetings when you have time to plan your meeting or when you must save the whiteboard contents.

For more information, see "Working with Sametime Meetings" in the IBM Lotus Sametime 7.0 User's Guide.

Start an Instant Meeting

The people you invite to instant meetings are already online; you do not need to notify them about the meeting through e-mail. You cannot save files created on the whiteboard during instant meetings.

1. Select a green name in your Sametime Connect contact list. To select more than one name, hold CTRL while selecting the names.



2. Choose Meeting and select an option: Chat, Audio, Video, Share, or Collaborate. The Start Instant Meeting dialog box appears.



3. (Optional) Make any of the following changes to your invitation:



• Edit the topic or message.



• Add or remove tools for the meeting.



• Secure the meeting with encryption to protect confidential information.



• Add names to the invitation.



4. Click Send.

Schedule a Meeting

You must inform participants about the meeting and tell them how to attend it.

1. Click "Schedule a Meeting" on the Sametime Welcome page, or click New Meeting in the Meeting Center.



2. A logon dialog box might appear automatically. If it does not appear automatically, click "Log on to Sametime" in the upper right corner of the Meeting Center. When the logon dialog box appears, enter your user name and password and click OK.



3. Enter the information on the Essentials tab:



1. Choose a meeting type. The descriptions in the tooltips will guide you.



2. Enter a name for the meeting. Choose a name that other participants will recognize.



3. You are the Moderator by default. You can choose a different Moderator by clicking Change.



4. If your version of Sametime includes an "Expected participants" field, enter the number of participants for the meeting. If any of the meeting participants are in the same location, you might want to suggest that they meet in the same room and use one computer to attend the meeting. You can count this group of people as a single participant.



5. Select Start Now or Schedule, and select a date (if necessary) and a duration for the meeting.



6. If you selected the Broadcast Presentation or Demo meeting type in step 3a, choose presenters for the meeting by clicking "Add or Remove Presenters." If you selected a different meeting type, skip to step 3g.



7. (Optional) If your organization permits it, you can record the meeting by selecting "Record this meeting so that others can replay it later."



4. (Optional) Select any of the other tabs and enter information to customize your meeting. For example, you can use the Files tab to attach files to the whiteboard or the Tools tab to choose a type of audio for the meeting (computer audio or a telephone conference call).



5. Click Save.

Note If the server does not have enough space for your meeting, you must return to the Essentials tab and either reschedule the meeting at another time or include fewer meeting participants.