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IBM SmartCloud Meetings app on iOS frustrates me!


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I have been trying to use IBM SmartCloud Meetings app on my iPad and I am frustrated by the experience. With the variance in behind the scenes meeting services that are supported SmartCloud you cannot often join meetings. This leads to confusion for the users and frustration in the product reliability.

Scenario 1: A user with an actual LotusLive (now SmartCloud) sends you an invite with a meeting id that contains a DASH as in apps.lotuslive.com/meetings/join?id=xxx-xxx.  Yes it needs to have a DASH.  If the moderator has not started the meeting you get an error

Notice
Unable to join meeting session

Not that it hasn't started yet.  Unable to join.  Why am I not able to? There is no more help screens or info.  The user has no way to know they should wait or if the product is working.

Scenario 2: A user gets an invite to a meeting that looks like one of the following: www.ibm.com/collaboration/meeting/join?schedid=xxxxxxx
www.webdialogs.com/join/?schedid=xxxxxxx
www.lotuslive.com/join?schedid=xxxxxxx
Those seven digits are an entirely different meeting service that was previously WebDialogs in the IBM cloud family and will have NO DASH.  However if they attempt to use IBM SmartCloud Meetings app on iOS they get
Notice
Unable to join meeting session

One again the user has no idea what is wrong or why they are being denied. This is incredibly frustrating there is no direction or error controls.

With the constant flux of meeting invites you never quite know which service you are getting.  I hope this helps.

Testing was done on IBM SmartCloud Meetings for iPad build 8.5..201202230736 and should not be confused with the IBM Sametime Meetings Viewer for iPad