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Lifesize announces new features on cloud-based video conferencing platform

Conferencing
Lifesize has announced several new product enhancements granting customers additional choice, configurability and control in how they communicate and work together through the Lifesize cloud-based video conferencing platform.

“We continue to improve our cloud service in direct response to customer requests and user feedback as their business needs for video conferencing evolve,” said Michael Helmbrecht, chief operating officer at Lifesize. “We’ve designed, built and updated the Lifesize platform to provide customers a consistent and convenient experience across mobile, web and desktop, and these product enhancements further empower them to collaborate through video wherever and however they prefer.”

Recent Lifesize mobile app improvements include the addition of screen sharing from mobile devices, enabling distributed teams to effectively share and collaborate on content during meetings from wherever they’re joining, as well as the option to switch the Lifesize mobile app to dark mode.

For web and desktop experiences, a Lifesize add-in to directly schedule video meetings and issue quick one-time meeting invites through Microsoft Outlook is now available on the Microsoft Store. Additionally, users can quickly connect their G Suite or Office 365 calendars to view upcoming video meetings within the Lifesize web and desktop apps, receive a notification when a meeting is about to begin and join with a simple click.

To further facilitate easy ‘one-click join’ for meetings on Mac or PC devices, desktop app launchers for Chrome, Firefox and Safari have been updated alongside existing launchers for Internet Explorer and Microsoft Edge. When a user accesses a Lifesize call link through one of those browsers, the launcher automatically detects that the Lifesize desktop app is installed and opens it to immediately start the meeting.

With new configurable controls in the recently redesigned Lifesize Admin Console, account administrators can tailor their Lifesize meeting invitations to reflect how their organisation collaborates best, simplifying the process of scheduling and joining meetings for users and guests. Lifesize admins can choose to streamline meeting invites by providing just a single link to join, or configure invites by including a path to join via Skype for Business, removing non-critical default text or links, highlighting up to four PSTN numbers (if audio conferencing has been added to their account) and much more.

Admins may also now hide meetings, room systems or users from the full internal directory or from defined groups of users, preserving privacy and keeping communication productive.