Release Notes for February 2, 2024 | Engageli 3.1.50

Last Updated: February 7, 2024

These notes provide information about the release of Engageli 3.1.50, including new and enhanced features, improvements, and resolved issues.

Instructor Updates 

• Introducing Quick Polls (Beta)
  • Instructors can now create instant, real-time interactive polls to gather feedback, conduct icebreakers, and increase engagement. Quick polls can be launched anytime during the session and responses are saved in the Admin Portal. Quick polls can be saved for reuse in later sessions and meetings. 
  • Note: Beta features may contain bugs. We offer limited support on Beta features with no warranty. Beta features may change in future releases, depending on feedback. Future releases may include more functionality to complete the feature. Beta features can also be removed in future releases. Beta features are not covered by any Service-Level Agreement (SLA).

• New class configuration setting: Disable auto unmute for raised hands
  
  • Instructors have a new setting to disable auto unmuting for participants on the podium. By default, when muted participants click the Raise Hand button, they are elevated to the podium and their microphones are unmuted. This setting minimizes potential disruptions by allowing muted participants to remain muted when they go to the podium. They can unmute themselves when it’s time to speak. Participants who are unmuted, when they click the Raise Hand button, will remain unmuted when they go to the podium. This setting persists across sessions and can be enabled or disabled in the live Class Configuration settings or the Admin Portal. With this setting enabled, muted instructors will not auto-unmute when screen sharing.
    

• New class management setting: Block individual microphones
  
  • Instructors and TAs can block microphones for individual participants in the Class Gallery and on the podium. This allows staff to minimize disruptions and block microphones for participants who may not realize they are unmuted. This setting does not persist between sessions.

• There is a new label on the instructor video when the instructor chooses to hide their instructor video from participants. This feature can be used when there are two instructors and one instructor is acting as a producer or assistant in screen sharing and starting activities, but not lecturing or instructing the class. This allows the hidden instructor to manage the class without being seen.

• The UI for the live class Class configuration settings has been streamlined for ease of use. The slider to increase or decrease the number of seats at a table has been updated to plus and minus buttons.

• Instructors can save files uploaded to the PDF Share for later reuse. These files can be later found in the Admin Portal’s Content Manager.

• Instructors can record in staff only mode.

• The Seating arrangement drop-down menu has been streamlined and simplified for ease of use. “Remove Reservations” has been moved to the Advanced Settings and "Split Learners By Poll Results" has been removed. Instructors can split learners into different tables by poll results directly from the poll, Quick Poll, or Action Tag poll.

Learner Updates

• The Class Share button to screen share with the class is disabled when the Raise Hand button is disabled.

Playback Room Updates

• The badge for the Playback Room host has been updated for improved visibility.

Admin Portal Updates

• Instructors and Admins can copy data from an existing classroom when creating a new classroom. Class content (PDFs, videos, YouTube Links), configuration settings, and class & table documents can be copied.

• New Action Tag: Quizzes
  • Instructors can create an action tag for saved Quick Polls that can be added to documents and presentations. These polls can be activated in the PDF share or while screen sharing a presentation or document.

General Classroom Updates

• Engageli has added new additional native captioning to improve the detection and display of captions in the live classroom.
• Inappropriate emojis have been removed from the list of chat emojis in the live class and Playback room to minimize distractions and disruptions.
• All participants (TAs, learners, and guests) are automatically muted when the instructor changes the audio mode from Table Mode to Room Mode. In Table Mode participants hear and are heard only by their tablemates. This prevents participants from inadvertently addressing the entire class during the switch between audio modes.
• Users on machines detected to have insufficient CPU are automatically placed in low-capacity mode. In this mode, the Class Gallery is small and the side Gallery is disabled.
• In the live classroom, the side gallery will switch to a single column when the number of participants exceeds 100. By default, the side gallery displays 2 columns of 8 participants each.
• The Gallery icon will display as disabled if a participant is in low bandwidth mode. The Gallery icon is also disabled for low-power computers automatically placed in low-capacity mode upon login.
• Users can now edit Microsoft 365 files shared with the Distribute Documents feature directly within the Engageli classroom. Files do not need to be opened in a new tab.
  
• For both Quick Polls and Action Tag Polls, responses to text input (word cloud) polls are limited to 20 characters. 
• Chat performance for large classes has been improved.
• Poll performance for large classes has been improved.

Learner Mobile App Updates

• The iOS and Android apps have been updated so users can participate in Quick Polls.
• Recent class management updates (disable hand raise button, block individual mic, staff only mode, etc.) also apply to mobile app users.

Resolved Issues

• Classroom
  • Resolved the issue with chat messages disrupting large classes.
  • Resolved the issue with the merged gallery tab disappearing in low bandwidth mode.
  • Resolved the issue with uploads not working due to the number of concurrent users.
  • Resolved the issue with staff not being able to chat with all tables.
  • Resolved the issue with the “staff only mode” setting not persisting across sessions.
  • Resolved the issue with polls in large classes taking a long time to accumulate responses.
  • Resolved the issue of not allowing the class configuration settings to be changed in certain classes.
  • Resolved the issue of unblocking participants’ microphones at the end of a video clip.
    
• Playback Room
  • Resolved the issue with missing poll engagements in Playback Rooms that caused incorrect attendance tracking.
  • Resolved the issue of editing long recordings.
• Attendance
  • Resolved the issue with incorrect (due to corrupted engagements) lecture duration calculations.
  • Resolved the issue with corrupted recorder metadata that caused incorrect attendance calculations.
  • Resolved the issue with offline attendance when the participant leaves and then rejoins while watching a class recording.
  • Resolved the issue with offline attendance when the participant watches the recording at 2x speed or closes the browser window before the end of the recording.
    

 Need more help? Contact Support.