Question

Is there a chat functionality in Slido?

  • 19 November 2020
  • 13 replies
  • 1066 views
N

Hi there, Slido is great but we’re missing one feature - live chat. We would like to use it alongside polling and Q&A. 

13 replies

Slido Team
Userlevel 2
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Hi, Niles, 

Thanks for your question! 

 

In the last few months, we’ve been testing the chat functionality and enabled it for our customers’ events on demand. However, we’ve decided to discountinue the experiment and disable the Slido chat feature by 31 December 2020. 

We might re-visit this idea it in the future, but there’s no plan for it at the moment. 

M

Hi That is a shame as one of the most requests we get from clients is moderated chat. Can I ask why have you abandoned this development feature? 

Also are there any new feature that you are looking to bring in? 

We love working with Slido and recommend it to all our clients. 

A

 

Agree with Monica Lista - a great shame this functionality has gone - Teams is fakakta for chat (not least you can barely export/copy and paste, and *constant* notifications that are *very* hard to switch off), and Zoom doesn’t properly persist across breakout groups. Slido has the opportunity to provide functionality both of these don’t - and I think with embedded video and audio through slido, to be a true collaboration host.

Martin
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Hi @antlerboy @Monica Lista , thanks for sharing your feedback.

We decided to end Chat as an experiment considering the tools we’re integrating with have Chat function built-in. We keep hearing these feedbacks and even though I can’t tell you if or when we bring Chat back, we will definitely revisit it in the future.

 

Sorry I can’t provide more help at this moment.

Martin

H

Is there Chat functionality in Slido? We attended an event in Feb of 2021 and saw that they used Slido for Chat, Q&A and Polling. Please let me know. Thanks!

Martin
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Hi @Hiwot! We decided to end Chat as an experiment considering the tools we’re integrating with have Chat function built-in. We keep hearing these feedbacks and even though I can’t tell you if or when we bring Chat back, we will definitely revisit it in the future.

S

Hello,

this is very unfortunate. We just renewed our sli.do license, partly based on our great experiences with using the chat module during our livestreams. We weren’t even informed that the chat feature would be discontinued - I just learned it from this thread. I hope you reconsider your decision.

Thanks.

Alex
Userlevel 4
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Hi @Sabine,

Thank you for your feedback!

The main reason we decided to discontinue the Chat feature is that our focus are integrations and in context of both Webex and Teams, chat feature is redundant.

You could try using our Ideas feature instead - you can open a new topic and ask your audience to chat or brainstorm it during the session/meeting. 

 

Let me know if that would work for you! :)

 

 

 

- Alex
T

@Martin @Slido Team @Alex Hi! While I understand your reasoning behind, “Most of the apps we integrate with already have a chat function”, using Slido within a hybrid course (synchronous, some f2f, some online students) would be MUCH more useful if there were chat functionality built it, particularly with the mobile app.  Students who are engaged online will, of course, be viewing the class presentation via Webex, where they will have the chat functionality and can discuss things in a “backchannel”, however, it is not only unwieldy, but also a class management nightmare, to expect the f2f students to be have their Webex open, logged in, and muted in order to participate in the polling, all at the same time that the professor is facilitating the class.  Having chat integrated into Slido and available in the mobile app would allow all students to use the functionality, and benefit from backchannel discussions, regardless of whether they are online or in the f2f classroom.  F2f students could simply have the app open on their mobile devices while following the professor in the classroom, and not be “hidden” behind laptop screens.

Alex
Userlevel 4
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Hi @Trish Nolde,

Thank you so much for your feedback!

Having more insights into these specific use cases is very important for us to fully realize the value of our features. 

I’ll make sure to pass your message on to our Product Team. 

Let us know if there’s anything else that we can help you with or if you have any other ideas for improvements!

- Alex
T

Thank you @Alex !  I’ve been experimenting with the Ideas feature as a way to facilitate group chat.  One thing I noticed about the  Instructor’s download option on the Ideas tab is that the responses are not included in the spreadsheet download.  Ideally, it would be helpful for the instructor to be able to download a pdf of the threaded conversation with the replies as well as the initial topics.  

[To reiterate and clarify my earlier post, I’m looking for a way for synchronous online and F2F students participate with each other in a hybrid class discussion through the Slido mobile app so that the F2F students don’t have to have their computers open on their desks with the Webex streaming meeting running in order to participate in chat via Webex.  These are LARGE classes in large lecture halls, and if even one F2F student has their Webex audio turned on it creates horrendous feedback issues with the room speakers and microphones. ]

Best regards,

Trish

J

I agree with all of the above. Love Slido, it’s a near perfect tool for embedding into web pages. Chat functionality would make it perfect. We generally build our online / hybrid events into a web page, so a player is embedded and then Slido below. Users have the option to scan the QR code and watch full screen while using slido on their device, or simply stay on the webpage and interact with the embedded slido platform while watching.

A simple chat solution to me is to simply have the option to remove ‘upvoting’ (as you can with downvoting) so that posts are displayed in order, and change the ‘Ask’ text to ‘Submit’. Q&A then becomes chat without the ability to upvote. It doesn’t give you both, but at least you have an option.

Alex
Userlevel 4
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Hi @JoshK,

Thanks a lot for sharing your use case and feedback. 😊I’ll make sure to share this with our Product Team! 

Unfortunately, I don’t have a good solution for you to try at this point other than considering to try our Webex integration - where you have Slido and Webex chat in the same spot in the sidebar. However, this cannot be embedded into a website.

 

Let me know if you’d be up for trying the integration or if I can help with anything else!

 

- Alex

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