Going Virtual: Virtual Meetings and Training

Yugma web conferencing allows anyone, anywhere to instantly share their desktop and ideas online with others. Yugma is a great service when you would like to do a group training or meeting. It is easier to set up than GoToWebinar, but slightly more complicated than Zoho. Consistent with the complexity, Yugma is in the middle range for cost as well.

With Yugma, you can connect a meeting to your Outlook calendar. Once you setup a meeting, it can be synchronized to your Outlook calendar and inviting attendees can be done directly from Outlook.

Yugma also has a free teleconference service that is accessed by making a standard toll call. Standard toll call charges apply, which will be billed directly by your long distance telephone company. There are no additional fees charged to you by Yugma for using the teleconferencing service.

Yugma has a free web conferencing service, which allows you to invite up to 20 attendees. The free version provides the ability to share your desktop with attendees and to use the built-in instant message feature.

Yugma prides itself on a being a little different than traditional web conferencing companies that are primarily focused on pre-determined meetings. Yugma is not only great for web meetings, but also allows spontaneous collaboration.

The feature that lends itself to collaboration is an online whiteboard. This tool allows participants to use their mouse to write freestyle on the screen. This feature is particularly useful if you are a trainer and would like to point out a specific point of a diagram or chart. Not only can you draw a circle, but you can also write something or highlight a particular area. All participants can utilize this feature as long as the host grants permission. This can be used as a fun and engaging tool to get your attendees invested in the learning.

With Yugma, you can record your sessions. This is a great feature if you would like to reuse your session with new people joining the organization. Sessions can easily be posted online and viewed.

Yugma also has a webinar feature that lets people register for a web meeting and allows the host to collect information about registrants. The host can decide what information to ask people for when they register. Once people register, the host can then access reports on who registered and, after the webinar, on who attended. The webinar feature is available as an add-on to a regular, paid Yugma account.

Yugma does have a free option, but it is limited to 20 users. When you begin to get more sophisticated with the features or want to add additional attendees, the cost increases. This ranges from around $15 for 20 attendees all the way to $180 for 500 attendees.

As for the security of Yugma, it is rated as low, meaning no highly confidential information should be shared while using the tool. The administrative and user skill required is rated as three diamonds. It does require a little more comfort utilizing online tools. An administrator or user would need to be comfortable posting content online in order to be comfortable using Yugma.

In terms of key benefits, the whiteboard feature is unique and can provide engaging interactivity during longer presentations or online trainings. The second key benefit is the ability to record and post sessions online for future training needs. This serves as a wonderful capability for organizations that have volunteers coming in and out of the organization on a consistent basis. Another benefit of Yugma is that you can connect audio using a free service called Skype. This service provides the ability to place telephone calls through your computer. This requires a user who is a little more technology-savvy, but is worth the additional time invested because the service is free.

A key drawback of Yugma includes the need to download the application to your computer. This can be time consuming for the host and the users. Additionally, this could be a concern for new users who may have forgotten to download the program prior to a meeting or training.

Access the Yugma website here to further explore this tool on your own.