Wednesday, February 11, 2015

GoTo Headache

Just when I thought everything was under control... There are 3 licenses for GoToTraining but 4 people involved, so last week the account I was using was switched to someone else. This means I lost access to my future trainings and everything associated with them (registration lists, polls I'd created). There is an available GoToWebinar license so I've recreated the two remaining sessions there and updated the link where people can register. When trying to recreate the polls I discovered the browser "remembered" much of what I'd entered, all I had to do was guess the first letter of each question. So that was helpful. Because I'd received confirmation emails when anyone registered (and hadn't emptied my deleted mail box!) I could find those, so sent an email to everyone who had been signed up with the new link so they could re-register. Whew! But strange things are still happening - I got several confirmations of new people registering for the no-longer available sessions. Today I checked the new link, which shows next week's session "Full" even though only one person is registered and I set the limit to 15. And today I got the reminder email for the cancelled meeting! Trying to go to it brings up the message that the meeting room is no longer available (no surprise to me but others will be disappointed!). So a support request has been sent to Citrix and we'll see what can be done.

Monday, February 2, 2015

Way to Go(To)

My re-scheduled GoToTraining event went very well this time around - participants contributed and everything worked as it should. I think I'll record the February session so it can be posted on the State Library's Vimeo channel. Even though we've got 3 different sessions planned, there will still be those who can't attend any. In preparation for recording (and because I'm also slated to "host" this week's State Librarian's webside chat, which involves recording it as well) I created my own practice session. I started a meeting, then joined as a second participant (using my cell phone and the GoTo app). I was able to record a brief demonstration of a new database just acquired by the State Library (Hobbies and Crafts!). Pretty fun! After the demo was done, the video had to be converted to a usable format (.wmv - luckily Citrix has included the codec to do that in their software so it's very easy) and uploaded to Vimeo. I tried this in my own Vimeo account, and shared it with a relative just to find out how it worked on their computer. It was great! I'd like to get libraries to use this idea for creating short videos for their websites - things like how to place a hold, or find specific databases. Unfortunately I can't record that - the control panel (necessary to show How to do it) doesn't appear in the meeting session! So I'll talk it up, and probably will include that in the session we plan for MLA in April.