It’s official, Katalyst will be phasing out of using Cisco Jabber and will keep persistent chat and collaboration inside of Spark. For those of you who haven’t noticed, all newly on boarded employees have only had Spark loaded on their computer. Have you tried finding them on Jabber to say ‘hi’ and came up short? That’s why! But, before you get nervous about the change in workflow, let me take the opportunity to ease your mind.
Why make the change? Over the years we will see it slowly phase out of their Collaboration product line. Katalyst is working hard to stay on top of that change by replacing the Jabber functionality with an even more robust collaboration software, Cisco Spark.
What’s so great about Spark? As a collaboration solution, Spark has more useful features than Jabber. It not only allows one-to-one communication, but also gives you the option to create a “room” for team collaboration. Each room will house all documents and chats, and you can easily spin up a WebEx meeting from the Spark application for all members in the room. This information can be accessible from your computer, as well your phone. Another useful feature is that when making a phone call, you do not have to connect to the VPN. Spark allows you to make soft calls to your contacts right from the application.
Just like Jabber, Spark also shows presence. It doesn’t use the same “green, yellow, red” indication, but instead it illuminates your profile picture with a green border if you’re Active. If the profile picture turns translucent, that means that you have not been active in the application for over 24 hours. If there is a circle with a slash through it over your profile picture, that means do not disturb. And finally, if there is an airplane over your profile picture, that means that you are out of the office. Another unique feature is Spark allows you to see when your message has been read by the other party.
How do I start using Spark? If, for some reason, you don’t already have the Cisco Spark application downloaded on your computer, you have two options. First, you can go to www.ciscospark.com/downloads and choose to download the software. Or, if you don’t feel comfortable setting it up on your own, just contact Katalyst Support. You can also download the application from your phone’s App Store. The best part about setting up Spark? You don’t have to worry about another username and password! You will use the same username and password for WebEx to get started without delay.
We don’t want you to be left in the dark when Jabber is officially no longer. The sooner you make the transition, the easier it will be. So, let’s change the conversation! Instead of always saying “I’ll shoot that over to you in Jabber,” let’s respond with, “I’ll send that to you in Spark!” I promise, once you spend five minutes in the application, you’ll be happy you made the change.