An administrator may give you a link to join a session or to sign into the Collaborate Scheduler. This link gives you moderator privileges.

More on session roles

Open the link in your browser.

For the best Class Collaborate experience with your screen reader use ChromeTM and JAWS on a Windows® system. On a Mac® use Safari® and VoiceOver.

After the page loads, join the session or log into the Scheduler.

When you first access Class Collaborate you’ll encounter an intuitive design for scheduling sessions in the Ultra experience and viewing recordings. We call this the Collaborate Scheduler.

Note: The Collaborate scheduler is available in Blackboard Learn and LTI compliant LMS courses or directly from a web link. The Collaborate scheduler is not available in the Open LMS Collaborate activity module.

Set the date for your session, the designated start and stop times, and then tell your student how to find it.

In the Scheduler, or sessions list, you’ll find these things.

• Course room: At the start of the page is a course room. The course room is an open session dedicated to your course.
  Note: This is only available when you go to Collaborate from inside a course.
• Create Session: Create new sessions. Sessions you create appear after the course room and Create Session button. 
• Session options: Open the Session options menu to join, edit or delete the session. You can also copy a guest link and view reports for this session.
• Menu: Open the menu to switch between a list of sessions and a list of session recordings.
  

Filter and search for sessions

You can filter the list of sessions that appear by all upcoming sessions, all previous sessions, and sessions in a date range. Use the filter to help you find the session you are looking for.

If you know the name of the session you are looking for, select Search Sessions and type the session name.

Join sessions

In Class Collaborate a unique session link is generated to help each session identify you. Each link is associated with an individual session and a specific user in that session. This means that the link only works for you in that moment. You are not able to use the link to join session again or share your link with another user. Session links expire after 5 minutes.

If offered by your institution, you can use the telephony feature to communicate with other users. To learn more, see Join by Collaborate Teleconference.

1. From the Scheduler, select the session you want to join.
2. Select Join session.

Create sessions

From the Scheduler sessions list, select Create Session. The Create session panel is organized by tabs.

The tabs you see depend on if you create sessions from inside your course or not. Only event details are required to create the session. The other tabs are optional.

•  Event details: Basic information required for a session. More on Event Details.
•  Invitations: Optionally, send email invitations to specific attendees. More on Invitations.
   Note: This feature is only available from the Scheduler web page. You can’t send invitations from inside LMS courses.
•  Session Settings: Optionally, decide if users can download recordings, share audio or video, post chat messages, and more. More on Session Settings.
•  Attendance Reporting: Optionally, share session attendance data to your Learn course. More on Attendance Reporting.

Event Details

Event details include the name, date, and time of a session. Decide if the session is open ended or recurring.

Tip: Sessions that last longer than 12 hours are disconnected. Recordings also limited to 8 hours.

Make the name something meaningful for your attendees so they know what the session is for.

Note: Collaborate uses your computer’s local time zone for session start and end times.

You can also allow guest access from the Event Details tab.

Edit recurring sessions

Recurring sessions are based on the first session in the series. To change the time of the whole series, make the update in the first occurrence. You can also update individual occurrences.

1. From the Scheduler find the recurring session.
2. Expand the session to see all occurrences.
3. Select the Session options menu and select Edit occurrence.
4. Edit the occurrence and save.

Sessions that run for very long are automatically disconnected

By default, sessions that last longer than 12 hours are disconnected. While sessions can be scheduled for any length of time including no end date, it’s unusual that anyone stays in the session for more than 12 hours at a time. We assume it is unintended and disconnect the room. Attendees can rejoin the session, if they need.

Guest access

Guests are attendees who don’t need to sign into the session or be enrolled in your course to join the session. Guests don’t require authentication.

When you allow guest access, a guest link is available for the session. This link is a public link that can be used and shared by anyone who has it. Anyone with the guest link can join the session.

Guest access is off by default to limit access to authenticated attendees. If you want to keep your session secure, don’t use guest links.

More on session security

After you allow guest access, choose a role for your guests based on the permissions you want to give them. Make sure you understand the different roles and their permissions before assigning them to guests.

More on roles and permissions

If you allow attendees to teleconference into your session, anonymous dial-in information is also available. As with guest links, anybody who has the dial-in information can use it. You also won’t know who the attendee is as they’ll be anonymous. If you want to keep your session secure, don’t share the anonymous dial-in information. Attendees can still teleconference but with dial-in information that authenticates them.

More on Collaborate teleconference

Remove guest access

If you allow guest access and change your mind later, clear the Guest access check box in the session’s Event Details tab. Any guest links that were previously shared will no longer work. The session is still active but the guest link is broken. Attendees will need to join from your course or email invitation.

Group sessions

Improve critical thinking, problem solving, adaptability, and communication with group sessions. There are different ways you can set up group sessions.

• Breakout groups: Use breakout groups during a session for in the moment group collaboration.
• Multiple sessions: Create multiple sessions. If you want to run multiple sessions at the same time for students to use as virtual study room, for example, you can create multiple sessions for the different groups to join.
• Course group tool: If it’s for long term group work, create groups in your course and give access to a Collaborate session.

Invite attendees

Select a session to open the session details. The information you need to join or share the session is immediately after the session name. 

You can invite users two ways:

• Send a public guest link
• Send a personal invitation

You can’t send invitations to sessions in a Learning Management System (LMS) course. Everyone enrolled the course has access to the session. If you want to invite someone not in your course, send them a guest link.

Guest link

The guest link is a public link that can be used and shared by anyone who has it.
Attention! If you want to keep your session secure, don’t use guest links. To learn more, see session security.
Guest access is off by default. Clear the Guest access check box to turn it on.
Copy and send the copy of the guest link to your students, or other guests.
Tip: Session links can be long and break when sent. Use a URL shortening service, such as TinyURL or Bitly, to create a short alias for your session.
Everyone who joins from this link joins with the same guest role. Decide if guests join as a participant, presenter, or moderator.
Not sure of which permissions to grant someone? Don’t worry. Permissions can also be set during your meeting.
Make sure you understand the different roles before making guests moderators. All moderators have complete control over the session.

Invitation

If you’re not using Collaborate integrated with a Learning Management System (LMS), send personal invitations. 

Note: This feature is only available from the Scheduler web page. You can’t send invitations from inside LMS courses. Send them a guest link instead.

If you invite someone as a moderator, they have complete control over the session. They also get the recording link emailed to them.

1. From Invitations select the Invitation Options menu.
2. Select Invite Attendee.
3. Type the name and email of the attendee.
4. Select the role you want to give them.
5. Select Add To Session.
   

Bulk invite attendees

You can create a comma-separated(CSV) file and invite up to 500 attendees all at once.

Attention! Collaborate sessions support 250 attendees at a time. Administrators can turn on webinar mode to support large scale sessions of up to 500 attendees. If you invite more attendees than the session supports, not everybody invited will be able to join.

Start with the CSV. Limit the CSV file to 500 attendees. The CSV file must use these fields in this order and column headers written this way:

• displayName (required)
• email (required)
• role (optional)
  • moderator
  • presenter
  • participant
• If role is blank, participant is assigned by default.

Attention! CSV column headers must be written exactly as shown here. For example, use “displayName” not “Display Name”. The headers must also be in English. Translated headers don’t work.

Upload the file

1. From Session Settings, select Invitations.
2. Select Import Attendees.
3. Select Import new attendees, browse for your CSV file and select Upload.
4. If everything is ok, select Confirm to finish uploading the attendees. If there are errors, resolve them in the CSV file and upload the file again.
   
5. Select Add To Session.
6. Select Save to send the invitations.

Invitation email

Collaborate emails the personal invitation with everything the attendee needs to join the session, including a unique session link only they can use.

• Session information
• Unique session link to join
  Note: No two people can use the same invitation link. The link is unique for each attendee invited.
• Dial-in information, if available
  

• Make sure your session name clearly informs attendees what the session is for.
• You can resend invitations, if an attendee didn’t get or lost the invitation. You can also delete invited attendees. This stops them from joining from their unique link. They can still join using a guest link.
• You can’t edit an invitation. If you need to change something like an email address in the invitation, delete the invitation and create a new one. 
• If you want to send an invitation to a registered user, someone who has a user account on Collaborate, select Search registered users.

Remove invitations

You can remove invitations for an individual or everyone in the session from the Invitations panel.

• • Individual: Find the attendee you want to un-invite and select Remove Invitation.

• • Everyone: Open the Invitation Options menu and select Remove All Invitations.