The Live Group Chat with Video activity type provides an opportunity to schedule group video meetings, or focus groups, with all or a subset of the participants in a study. Group chats with live video are limited to 50 total attendees, split between the front room and the backroom.

Watch the interactive walkthrough below for an overview of Live Group Chat with Video setup.

As part of a Live Group Chat Activity's setup, you must set its date. You'll be required to choose a Start Date and Start Time (i.e. the day and time of the live chat) as well as Duration (in minutes). The Activity's time zone will also be displayed on the setup page directly above the date field.

Once the setup is complete, participants will see the Activity card from their Activities page and be able to click into it. They can then use the Add to Calendar option to schedule the Activity in their preferred external calendar application:

To schedule and facilitate a synchronous live group video meeting or focus group with participants, the Live Group Chat activity’s Chat Mode must be set to Video Chat.

Once the applicable Chat Mode has been selected, Analysts and Moderators will have the option to enable Waiting Room settings for both participants and Clients. When enabled, the option to define whether to Admit clients automatically into the backroom or manually admit them during the session becomes available. You can also Customize the waiting room message that will appear to attendees while they wait to be admitted into the meeting.

Like any Activity in a Recollective Study, you'll need to determine who it's visible to using the Activity Access settings. Will All participants be invited to join the live group, or just a subset of Study participants (e.g. Only select participants or Only select segments)?

By default, the Live Group Chat Activities will be visible to All clients. If you would like to limit Client access, you can use the options under the Client Access settings to make the Activity accessible to only select clients or hide the Activity from clients entirely.

When Video Chat is selected, the following sub-options will also appear beneath the Activity Behavior section:

You have the option to prepare an Activity Description (similar to the instructions in a Journal Activity's setup) that will let people know what this Activity is about. Any text entered in this Description field will appear on the Meeting page when participants join the Activity and will also be visible if they click on the card from the Activities page.

Live Group Chat activities support automated invitation emails with iCal attachments, making it easy for participants to add sessions directly to their calendars.

By default, the Automatically email meeting invitations setting is enabled. You will need to define the date that invitations are sent to participants, and will have the option to customize the Subject line and Additional Message field to include a personalized message to your attendees. Automatic email invitations can be disabled if needed, which will hide the date, subject, and message fields during activity setup.

Each Activity in a Recollective Study can have customized notifications tied to it. These notification options can be found by clicking on the Notifications tab next to Basic Settings towards the top of the Activity Setup page, or by clicking the More options... link towards the bottom.

For Live Group Chat Activities, the notification options are:

If you have chosen to enable the point tracking feature for your Study, you will see a Points tab on the Activity Setup page with the option to Customize points awarded for activity completion. This is an opportunity to depart from the default point allocation for a Live Group Chat Activity as configured in Study Settings: Points.

After saving your Live Group Chat Activity, you will have the option to create Prepared Content Items.

Clients will only be permitted to join a Live Group Chat if the Client Permission to Collaborate in backroom is enabled.

If you would like for a Client to participate in the chat directly with participants, such as by sending front room messages or joining the front room video feed, then the Interact with participants permission must also be enabled.

Usage of video in a Live Group Chat will consume Live Video Minutes (sold separately). Please contact us at saleshelp@recollective.com to learn more.

The rate at which Live Video Minutes are consumed does not relate to the number of people in the meeting. For example, a 90-minute meeting with 25 participants will consume only 90 Live Video Minutes. Consumption of minutes is tracked in the Subscriptions area with meeting-level details recorded in the Site Log.

Please also review System Requirements for Live Video Meetings to learn about browser and bandwidth requirements.