Participants will now be served with the correct events in the app!
We have listened to you and are happy to announce that our app now provides users with a much more fluid way to access their events.
We have made changes to the login process that will allow participants to easily access both events they have registered for, as well as any events that an organizer has pre-registered them for. This improvement will eliminate the previous hassle of finding the right event in the app.
For anonymous events, we will still offer an event code option, and we plan to add a QR scan option in the future.
Subprojects have been a part of Twebcast for a long time, primarily used for breakout sessions or when participants need to be on different timelines simultaneously. We have launched a new way of working with subprojects that allows you to create a new subproject from your project settings. You can choose which parts should be shared between projects, such as networking and menus, and create a subproject from an existing template or start from scratch. However, note that the new project type does not support any events or registration possibilities on the subprojects directly. We now only support redirect modules to enter a subproject for participants, the old subproject module is not supported anymore. Additionally, we have improved the process of switching between your main project and subprojects with easily accessible shortcuts for producers.
As a first step, we have completely rebuilt the participant-view tab in live mode, providing a faster and more user-friendly experience. This is just the beginning; in the future, we plan to continue making improvements and adding features that are related to managing participants. Additionally, we have made numerous behind-the-scenes changes to ensure that the tab is as stable and reliable as possible. This is just the first of many steps that we are taking to make the participant handling experience better and more efficient. We are confident that these changes will be of great benefit to all users.
The Producer / backend has received a major facelift.
We have also released a number of project templates.
In addition, we have introduced "walkthroughs", the first one you will find inside the timeline.
We have added screen to theme settings.
- Background image or background color.
- Font, standard or custom.
- Fontcolor.
The registration builder have been moved! From project settings into the registration module within the timeline on the intro slot (before called auth). To convert an already existing project into the new registration functionality you just have to open the auth/registrationmodule.
In project settings you will now find “participant fields”. Participant fields are fields connected to the user but not a part of the registration. For example groupings and other info that you as an organizer have but that you don’t need from the participant.
From now you enable or disable (E-meet On/Off) from event actions within live mode instead of the E-meet control panel within the E-meet menu in the participant client.
You are also able to turn on E-meet regardless of current position on the timeline.
Furthermore you can see in the header in live mode if E-meet is on or off all the time
You can now add your own custom css in themes. This is perfect for extended use of often used CSS.
We have added an advanced search generator in live mode. Create advanced searches very easily with help from the query builder. You can build your searches with lines based on fields from your registration form. Select a field, then choose "equals" or "not equals" and your value. If your field is an option it will be pre-populated. Add another search criteria / line and choose “AND” or “OR”. In this way you can build very advanced searches. As an extra bonus you can now also save your searches (which can be very handy for end customers or people not super into the system).
Tips:
1 If you write “search help” in the search box you will get some extra tips and info
2 If you write your own search string and then push the “query builder” button it will create the search for you, ready to save or change3 We have also added a field type called “any field” which works like a wildcard
Finally we can offer file download directly within our file browser. Just select the files you want and hit download. You will then be served a zip-file.
Tips:
1.Search for what you want or filter out e.g. images or videos
2.If you use image upload all files now ends up in their own folder, named after module-id
Upload video in an image upload module, decide if participants should be able to upload images videos or both. The result type “Fullscreen image” now supports playing videos uploaded from participants. The result automatically plays the videos one after the other. Arrow up/down steps to next previous video as usual and “goto” works as on other results from livemode / screen.
Finally! We can now confirm that we are soc2 typeII certified. Below you can read the press release. You can read more about what this is all about here.
Daly City, CA – Wednesday, July 6, 2022 – Twebcast AB announced today that it has achieved SOC 2 Type II compliance in accordance with American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) standards for SOC for Service Organizations also known as SSAE 18. Achieving this standard with an unqualified opinion serves as third-party industry validation that Twebcast AB provides enterprise-level security for customer’s data secured in the Twebcast AB System.
Twebcast AB provides a cloud-based community management and virtual event platform.
Twebcast AB was audited by Prescient Assurance , a leader in security and compliance attestation for B2B, SAAS companies worldwide. Prescient Assurance is a registered public accounting in the US and Canada and provides risk management and assurance services which includes but is not limited to SOC 2, PCI, ISO, NIST, GDPR, CCPA, HIPAA, and CSA STAR. For more information about Prescient Assurance, you may reach out them at info@prescientassurance.com.
An unqualified opinion on a SOC 2 Type II audit report demonstrates to Twebcast AB’s current and future customers that they manage their data with the highest standard of security and compliance.
We have made some minor changes in our streaming server structure. This means that the ingest URL will always be the same rtmp://stream.twebcast.com/live
Same URL goes for both streams with transcode and without. So if you have a Twebcast preset in your favourite software please update it ;)
In addition to “activate event” we have made som major changes to the appearance of our backend, or "producer" as we call it.The first thing you see is our new home page. We have added a lot of content and shortcuts here. Everything that previously was found here as the newsfeed and latest projects remains, but we have added a help section and a section for partners. We have added ability to send in feed back in various ways. Please do! We are eager to getting better and your input means everything for us!
Menu:
Another big change is the top menu, it’s not a top menu anymore… Now you find everything in the left menu bar. This will make more room for the essentials, to build great events.
Timeline:
The timeline has also got a face lift. More space where it should be. And notice that the run event / live mode has moved up into the top bar.Now you can switch event from within live mode too! So switching between your test and your main event is now super easy.
Maybe you are already there but haven't had time to clean up ... Well, it's for you guys that we have added the blurred background! Anyway, now you can choose from a variety of nice spots or blurred backgrounds to represent your mood in an E-meeting. Or to just hide your messy room...
We have built a brand new file handling. You can from now on access your files on project level rather than group level. From the resources tab in the main menu you will find all folders in your group, with all uploads. We have also added a shortcut to your project files directly in the timeline menu. You can sort files on type or date or both and we have also added a search filter so that you quickly can find your files. Smooth but there is more: A gallery view and possibility to add personal folders in addition to the auto generated project folders. Now when finding files are made easy for you hopefully you will reuse your files multiple times instead of drag and drop the same file on multiple modules😉
Last but not least, a possibility to multi select files and folders and delete them. Some people need order some people want to save everything for ever, the choice is yours.
The oldest way of voting, now digitalized by Twebcast. Just raise your hand (holding your phone) and your screen will turn green and you have voted YES. Flip it, your screen turns red and you vote NO. This has worked for thousands of years and still works like a charm. Extra cool in a live audience where everyone physically can view the result in the room. Even more efficiant in a dark room and also works perfect filmed in a stream. If you aren't one of the lucky ones in the room you can of course participate and vote from your computer at home. Luckily you don’t need to flip your computer since it will be a normal poll with options.
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Hybrid events, the thing on everyone's lips.
We have build a fast way to manage a hybrid event. This is a new project setting. If you turn “hybrid event” on, a checkbox in the registration form will automatically be created allowing participants to select if they will attend physically. You can choose to disable E-meet and/or Stream blocks for those participants. You also have the possibility to disable any individual module in your project via the setting “displayed for local participants”. This is a simple way to create a hybrid event really fast. Please read more in the information section under the Hybrid event-setting.
Note: This has nothing to do with mobile or not mobile.
We have changed the looks and functionality of the module layout settings. You now have access to modules directly in the layout view which makes it much easier and faster to build the layout you're looking for.
In addition to the new layout system we have also developed a new mobile layout option. The mobile layout is by default a single column layout. The Mobile layout makes it possible to make a special layout provided to mobile users only. The big benefit is that you don’t need to use tracks to solve a special layout customized for mobiles.
Select any number of options in a field in our registration form. Perfect for many occasions like "Which nights do you need to stay at a hotel?” or “Select which areas you are interested in”. To activate this chose Select box and activate the multiselect setting.
You can now choose to send messages as a pop up. The participant needs to press “ok” to verify that the message has been read. The normal notification with a small notification in the upper right corner is default just like before, but for important things the pop up is really useful.
Tic tac tic tac, and now it’s here…. Countdown
We have really put som thinking into this. First of all it works world wide, timezones no probs. On top of that it’s synced to our server clock which means that even if your participant has a clock showing wrong time locally we compensate for the time difference. It’s super easy to use by a new block type. But we have also built in some really cool ways to use it in more advanced ways. Another way to use it is together with project code and toggle, perfect for shorter breakouts that needs a timer. Read more here
We have now taken the first steps towards updating the default design for participants, among many other fixes and features.
The updates apply to these areas:
- E-meet, new design
- Left menu / user menu, new design
- Header, new design
- Audio reactions
- Reactions, easier customization and better handling of volumes
- Audience wall, improvements, and automatic on / off on main
- Video upload and preview in live mode
- E-meet channels, improvements
- Registration, new design
Feel free to contact us with feedback when you have tested!
We have added IP-number to the whitelisting options under project settings. This is a very high security level.
Participants who try to access an event without a valid IP will receive a 404. A 404-message means that a potential attacker don’t know if they even have the correct event link.
As this is a high security option make sure to whitelist all IP´s that need access to the event. Such as studio technicians working remotely or speakers attending via E-meet etc.
This is a long awaited feature. Putting a background image on a slot will create one unified background to all your modules on the specific slot.
This feature will automatically set all module backgrounds to transparent. So easy and so useful.
-Ability to enter subprojects via main project. Any changes made in subprojects will take effect directly without resetting main project.
-Live mode always shows right event name. Without reloading, live mode will now always show the correct event name.
-Shift drag modal improved and permanented also without shift drag.
-Whitelist emails without domain whitelisting.
-E-meet push to talk is now upgraded.
Did you know that if you hold down shift and drag a slot to a new position in the timeline you will not only copy all modules in the stack but also all settings as layout E-meet channel and every other settings there is.
Also if you shift drag a module from the library you can switch out any module in the stack.
This is a movie explaining how this can be used to speed up your process significantly!
We have added stacked modules and layout to menu items. So create your own ingredients in your burger mix and match your favourite modules…
Use any module as en email template! This is a perfect way of creating emails with your own design.
When emailing from live mode, you just choose the module you have set as template (at the bottom of the module editor). The module doesn’t need to be on the timeline.
We will also build our very own markup language! This is partly already implemented so if you really need this feature ask us and we will explain how to use it already now.
In the DOM (Document Object Model) we now print out the track-name in the body tag. This is useful if you want to change look or design for a specific track, for example all participants that enter the event from a mobile.
Special instructions for x264 based live encoding Wirecast has a known issue with x264 and rtmp live streams and internal timing, which may lead to issues for low latency live streaming. For x264 based profiles, please select encoding profile “Baseline” or keep “Main” and add the option “–bframes 0”
We have added an option to geofence E-meet. Default is global access but in some cases companies want to restrict E-meet traffic to a certain area. This will affect which CDN the E-meet will use and could be a legal and/or security matter.
But keep in mind that this is a fairly simple restriction that easily can be bypassed with VPN (For example if you watch American Netflix via VPN).
But what to do if the sound is bad? From now you can increase the audio quality on a specific participant (from live mode). Very handy if you do have a studio broadcasted via E-meet. Maybe you have an artist in the studio? Also handy if you have a keynote speaker and want the audio quality to stand out. When you activate the enhanced audio the time to broadcast that specific participant will take longer the very first time broadcasted. You can prepare for broadcast on beforehand to avoid this.
This is an upcoming bigger upgrade. During the summer we will redesign the whole participant interface and experience. This involves UX, design and some new development. We have got feedback from our partners requesting a more out of the box ready basic design, in addition to the possibility to redesign for each event. So - watch out, new design coming up - but as always - completely flexible and customizable!
We are happy to now be able offer global project code. This have been rather complex to achieve in the past requiring special code.
Now you can write code initiated globally for your whole event. For all producers out there writing your own code, this is a big improvement.
With our new feature “Action buttons” and “Toggle” you can create and control actions from live mode whenever you want.
You find ”Project code” under project settings. What ever code you drop within a button or toggle can be executed from live mode. This is a global project feature. The buttons only show up in live mode if there is any code. The possibilities are endless, go creative and build some actions. The Toggles are persisted values so if a participant enters the project at a later state they will also get the code while the Action buttons are one time fired code.
Some examples can be counters, bumpers, different css modes - like day conference and evening party mode.
We have also created one first code snippet - Confetti. There will be more to come… hit us with ideas and we can create more cool snippets.
As an extra thing we have also build this into the module block type Action buttons, so the participant can fire the code by themselves from a button added in a module (if they would like to have a private confetti rain for example - Bingo!).
Forget participants that can’t connect! With our brand new automagical cloud proxy we handle the connection to the video servers behind your proxy. This means that participants that have had issues to connect due to firewall and VPN-tunnels now will be able to connect to E-meet. About 3-6% of all participants have since we launched this connected via cloud proxy those participants would not have been able to participate in the past. This is of course an great improvement of E-meet.
A cloud proxy is proxy that is based in the cloud instead of in a hardware appliance residing in a corporate data center. A proxy server acts as a gateway between you and the internet, and verifies and forwards incoming client requests to other servers for further communication.
We have changed the controls for E-meet. We have grouped the controls and made the UX more understandable.
You can now “Prepare for stream” which open up the connection to the participant. When this is done you can preview and talk (one to one) this is very nice if you want to prepare for example a speaker. You can still directly broadcast a participant without the need to first prepare for stream. The limit in one channel is still 18 simultaneous streams. But no limit in watching participants. So nothing really changed in functionality just much better controls and easier way to previewing speakers.
Twebcast now offers ultra low latency streaming. This means that you don’t need any external streaming provider for your events any more.
Since latency is a big problem in an interactive world we wanted to be able to offer the best there is. With ultra low latency (about 2sec) you can interact with the audience directly from the studio without delay problems. The stream is so fast that you can even talk with people via E-meet. This opens up a number of possibilities like talking video walls and inviting anyone from the audience to talk to the studio. Maybe you have an even more amazing idea? What can you get out of the combination of low latency stream, E-meet, audience wall and E-meeting blocks both on participant and screen side?
How to: Add a video streaming block to one of your modules. Set it to Ingest and you will get an end point to stream directly to into that block!
We now handle alternating sessions from the same participant. When logging in a new session (device/browser/tab) with an already online participant, a popup will be displayed on the old session to inform the user that this session is no longer active. This was technically the case before too, but now clarified visually.
We now also handle inactive participants. If you are inactive for 2 hours you will get be a popup with a countdown. If you don’t interact, the participant will be disconnected. The popup will stay and you can reconnect anytime by clicking “connect”.
From now on, you can let your audience be a part of the studio scene! We are so happy to be able to now launch the first version of our much requested audience wall! Add an "Emeeting view" block to a module on the screen track and set it to "Audience". Choose what track/channel to get your audience from and set Emeeting channel to "Audience" on the slot.
Connect a screen to your event and participants will be automatically broadcasted in a video collage! The grid is fixed to 50 participants (for now).
And yes, we have lots of improvements/add-ons waiting around the corner...
We have now translated system generated messages into Danish. Set choice of language under Settings/Translation. The other nordic languages will be added shortly. And don't forget that you always can create your own language, based on one of the existing ones.
Let your audience react to what’s happening during the event in real time.
The participants can send emojis and write text. You can also select to only allow only emojis or only text.
This feature is build as a layer on top of your layout. Therefore you can choose to have reactions on top of the whole screen or over a specific module or modules within your layout.
Contact us at info@twebcast.com if you need help with production…
You can now save your own templates. Save project templates, slot templates and module templates. This is really handy if you often build the same setup of modules, a specific layout or have made a nice design that you want to reuse.
Note: When you create slots from a slot template the system will create new modules. Therefore consider if you should use multiple select and edit instead.
e.g. if you use a videoblock in a layout and create it from a slot template the video will reload for each slot since it is different modules. If you instead use multi select and edit you can copy all modules and settings from one specific slot to all the ones selected. So consider which method to use.
Build custom layouts, this is second edition of “Multi-module screen handling” located under slot settings. You can design really powerful layouts with numerous modules in a grid system. Move them, drag and drop them and resize them in your very own grid system. The layout system supports PX, %, FR, EM, CH, VW and VH. So you are totally free to build your own or your customers requested layouts.
Under project settings there is a new field called “customer note”. Here you can mark your invoice with a reference number if you want.
You can also write if there is something else that we need to know regarding the invoice.
From edit slot you can choose "Select" and then click on any number of slots that you want to change simultaneously. When you have marked all slots you can choose which slot to apply settings from. You can apply layouts, modules, E-meet settings and more. A real time saver!
Add the new slot template "Camera test" to your event to let participants test their camera before entering an E-meet. It's now set to a required question to force the participants to take action. The same solution could be used as a separate test event.
CSS on slot level is a very powerful way to make special designs for a certain slot. This class is added very high up in the DOM which makes it possible to target from the main CSS on project level.
This allows filtering from any question or participant data from the registration form which is set to segmentable. One effective way to use this feature is to show the results in participant clients filtered on a segment, and the screen on a stage or in a studio showing the total result without filtering.
E-meet is still appreciated and one of our top priorities. We have now added a browser validator that tells you if you have a browser that does not support E-meet.
The free text input field is improved in many aspects. The more special designs that were created with different widths on modules, grid divisions etc, the free text field no longer worked well. It is now rebuilt and follows the design of the modules much better.
We have now added a markup for modules that are not correctly set up. This was previously difficult to find when e.g. copying a project (all connections to modules are in this case broken/sanitized), and led to projects not starting or sub courses not being loaded. In connection with this, we have also improved our sanitize routine when copying and creating new projects from templates.
Now you can click a bundle of stacked modules and then directly click on any module in the stack to access it.
It's now possible to name slots via slot settings (three dots when hoovering over a slot in the timeline). So from now you don’t have to see the name of the first module in the stack when working with multiple modules in a slot.
We have now created the possibility to add streams directly from a module. It has been possible before via an iframe in a normal code block but this has been very limiting because the module reloaded when changing slots in Live mode. With that said, you have probably already figured out that the beauty of this new solution lies in being able to reuse the same video stream block in several places on a timeline without the video reloading.
This provides completely new opportunities to have several simultaneous streams and not least the opportunity to inject a stream in an ongoing E-meet.
In order to be able to build video stream blocks in a good way, we basically had to rebuild Twebcast. Previously, each slot change initiated (reloaded) the modules on the specific slot. This meant that e.g. videos were reloaded even when the same module was used several times in a timeline. We have now changed the handling so that a module only initializes once. This also provides advantages for other types of modules used in several places. Chat e.g. previously reloaded on each slot even though it was the same chat throughout the project.
This is an update that at first glance may not seem so big but this improves Twebcast as a platform a lot.