Annotation issues

[janelle.skarsten]

One of our service reps who uses Webex and annotation often, has had an issue with annotation twice in the past week. Yesterday, she had 9 people in her session, but when she went in to turn on annotation for all, only 3 learners were available to give annotating privileges to. Because the other 6 people didn't have the ability to annotate, she had to ask participants to chat in their answers instead. She's used annotation with no issues in the past. Has something changed in the last week or so that would be impacting this feature?

[tanyadillon7307]

I have faced a similar issue when hosting on a client's platform. I would set the privileges when I join the session and have reclaimed the host role. I would allow all participants to annotate and would see a tick in the box. After the session starts and the participants are ready to test out their interactive tools for Webex meetings the Annotation tools are all greyed out. When I check the privileges the tick in the box is now a horizontal line in the box. I untick the box and then reassign the annotation privileges to all participants. This works for a while and then if the group joins a breakout or a new participant joins the annotation features become "inactive" again. Very frustrating for the participants as many are new users of WebEx and it is a hurdle for them to want to adopt and use in the features in the future. 

Thanks for a good reminder of the "Join by browser" option not being an optimal experience for the participants.

@janelle.skarsten was the issue resolved? 

[Kathy N.]

This can be caused by how they join the meeting.  We have identified several issues with users on Chromebooks that use the Browser App to join meetings.  If a user doesn't have the app available and joins with the browser app, annotate is not available for those attendees.  Cisco is getting rid of the Chromebook app  and many Chromebook users don't download the app so this could be very problematic in the future.  In addition to not being able to annotate, other limitations for attendees that join using the browser app are:

1. Attendees can't annotate
2. Attendees can't share in breakout rooms
3. Control of cursor can't be passed; this has become an issue for us with the younger students who need help by the Host
4. Share is not as full featured.  Can only share apps, not the screen.

I've been posting these limitations in several forums and need others to help advocate with Cisco that they don't get rid of the Chromebook app until they have a full featured browser app.  If you've had this issue also, please click on the "I have this problem too" link or click on the Helpful icon.

@janelle.skarsten  - Let me know if you have any other questions about this as well and Good Luck.