Are there any plans for Cisco Spark to show the status of users?

[eldarias]

I started using Cisco Spark mainly due to the group chat support, but I do not see the status of participants.  Are there any plans to add this feature?

[skilambi]

Are you referring to presence status bubbles like you see in tools like jabber? If so no plans there since messaging tools work differently

Here is an article on this, the comments at the bottom are also worth looking at.

http://www.nojitter.com/post/240171256/the-death-of-presence

Thanks

Srini

[eldarias]

Not necessarily a full "presence" like status, but lets say you have a 5 participant group chat, you want to see who is signed in and who is not signed in.  I'm having seeing the status of the people that are part of the group chat, I'm not looking for "away", "busy", etc., I think something basic like "signed in" or "off-line" would be enough.  The issue currently is that I'm seeing all users listed as being part of the group chat, but I don't really know if they are even signed in or not.  I know they are in only if they respond to the group.

[Tommer Catlin]

If you think how Spark works, everyone is signed in all the time from any device, anywhere.  You are at your desktop, you sign in the with the client or through the web.  When you are on your mobile device, you are signed in on the Spark App.   If you are posting a message into the room, they are alerted on their device where logged in.  Its part of the process of using this type of platform.   To be honest, i dont really care if they are online or offline or away from their desk.  Its persistent chat... people will respond when they have time.  Im used to this aspect now of Spark and use Jabber less and less.    If your "eco-system" of users on Spark put it into their own work flows, the idea of presence is not required.  (opinion of course)

[skilambi]

The issue is it requires a mindset change. Hence I posted that article because it talks about the same. The idea is people will respond if they can just like texting. Now bots I am sure can pull info from exchange calendar and post to the room on your status :-) but if it;s something urgent best to call voice/video. These tools bring a different paradigm on communication and may/may not work based on the work culture

[aaron.kent]

Agreed!

<http://www.verizon.com>

Aaron Kent

UC&C Solutions Architect

***edited by moderator to remove contact information

[justyn.davidson]

Rebooting.  Sorry to be a downer, but the notion that robust presence AND status are not needed is... silly, to say the least. This limitation is really a showstopper for my team, who use status for messages like "working from home today" all the time and that particular example is one that saves countless hours for large distributed teams.  Additionally, it's comical to think that because I use Spark on my work device that I'm "always" connected via my mobile device. I don't WANT people pinging me on my cell phone when I take a coffee break and I probably don't want Spark installed on my phone at all, based on past experience with Cisco apps+battery performance. I want to post my status as "be back in 15 min".  Cisco developers are the ones needing to change the way they think.

I think this platform has potential but these common things aren't viewed as "design choices", they are missing features.

[eldarias]

Thank you all for the answers... I now have a good understanding of the reason it is the way it is.  Unfortunately, I do need to see who is Signed in/online and who is not, regardless if they will later on get the message or not, so Spark is not my option at this point , everything else I like.

[a.gooding]

Hey guys,

sorry for restart on this but just also wanted to put in my comments. We are a systems integrator company and almost ALL of the engineers are on site or at different locations. Presence is a big deal for us. I love the spark abilities, love it, but the first question i had from my team this morning (granted that we rolled out spark for testing only a few weeks ago) was where is the jabber presence....we were actually talking about it on jabber whilst looking at spark. Had a few guys traveling and we didn't know if they reached and was able to log in as yet and of course a customer needed to speak to one urgently.

So, the comments I'm seeing are that they check when they can, and the mindset has to change.. I agree but that isn't an easy task at all. I only now got these guys comfortable with our ticketing system so imagine my uphill battle )

Spark is setup to be the new way to collaborate, and I can see it, I'm excited about It and the who cisco vision (My company is built around Cisco tech) but i agree, the mindset and individual responsibilities and of course the organizational processes, must be up to mark.....

SPARK API stuff is crazy cool, easy, and integrates with anything....this is where id be looking at ideas for the future.

[skilambi]

Spark today supports presence as in active active last X minutes or hours or a date

Presence is driven by signing into the client being active in some room e.tc

There isn't a plan to show green red orange like jabber partly because of the always On nature of messaging

However presence only works inside your domain

There is plans to integrate with OOF set in calendar and also set up DND for a certain period of time

So yes as you said a different type of mindset is needed for now

Thanks

Srini