Getting Started

Imagine that you are talking to a coworker who is halfway across the world. You are talking without using a telephone, and you can see each other as though you were in the same room. Now imagine that your coworker opens a document that you are both working on, and you can see it and make changes to it. Without a fax machine. Without e-mail.

You can stop imagining.

With IBM(R) Lotus(R) Sametime(R), you can meet with anyone, anywhere, anytime. You can collaborate with your coworkers in many ways, including:

Editing shared files, showing demos, and letting other people share your screen
Adding files during a meeting, so anyone can access them.
Using annotation tools to draw on the whiteboard for group brainstorming and to highlight important points while showing slides
Sending Web pages and poll questions to meeting participants
Communicating with computer audio, video, and phone calls using telephone services
Recording your meeting so that other people can view it later

Lotus Sametime feature areas

Lotus Sametime includes the following feature areas:

The Lotus Sametime Welcome Page: Includes links to all of the components of Lotus Sametime. To reach the Lotus Sametime Welcome page, enter the following address in a Web browser: http://servername, where servername is the name of the Lotus Sametime server.
Tip You must enter the fully qualified Domain Name System (DNS) name of the server. For example, if your server is http://www.sametime.com, you must enter the full name; you cannot enter "sametime" or "sametime.com." (See your administrator if you do not know the fully qualified DNS name of the server.)
The Meeting Center: Allows you to schedule, attend, and browse for online meetings.
The Meeting Room: Allows you to participate in a meeting. The Meeting Room includes a list of meeting participants, including information about participants' audio connection status and who is talking, an area for shared information (such as a presentation), and an area to send group chat messages, view poll responses, and view Web pages sent by the meeting chair.

Documentation

Lotus Sametime includes help systems for end users and administrators.

Help for end users

From the Lotus Sametime Welcome page, click Documentation to access this Help, the IBM ^(R) Lotus ^(R) Sametime ^(R) User's Guide. This help system provides comprehensive help for the end user features of Lotus Sametime online meetings. This help system is also accessible from the Help menus of the Meeting Room client.

If you download the Lotus Sametime Print Capture utility, you can access help for Print Capture from the Print dialog box of the program you are using. See the topic "Converting Files with Lotus Sametime Print Capture" in the IBM ^(R) Lotus ^(R) Sametime ^(R) User's Guide for more information.

Domino Documentation

Lotus Sametime uses a Domino infrastructure based on the Domino server. Administrators interested in more information about the functioning of the Domino infrastructure can access online versions of Domino documentation at the developerWorks Workplace documentation page at http://www.lotus.com/ldd/doc

Expanded Functionality

The IBM ^(R) Lotus ^(R) Sametime(R) User's Guide describes the meeting features, but your Lotus Sametime server might not include all of these features. Your system administrator can customize Lotus Sametime to suit your company's needs. In addition, your system administrator can incorporate Lotus Sametime features into other software programs or additional areas of Lotus Sametime.

The Enterprise Meeting Server (EMS)

Your system administrator determines whether or not your organization uses the Enterprise Meeting Server (EMS). The EMS is not a part of Lotus Sametime. If you use the EMS:

The Meeting Center includes new features, such as a search field that allows you to search for meetings by meeting name and chair name.
Self registration is not available.