Manage Shared Desktops or Applications in Cisco Webex Support

The control panel on the customer’s computer can enable you to manipulate the screen image, specify the mode of color, and print documents from the computer of the customer during a support session.

• Print Documents from a Customer’s Computer

• Control Your View of a Customer’s Desktop or Application

• Specify the Color Mode for a Shared Desktop or Application

• Tips for Sharing Desktops or Applications

• Annotate a Shared Desktop or Application

Print Documents from a Customer’s Computer

If you are doing a remote support session for a customer, and you are controlling their application or desktop, you can:

• You will need to open a document that is located on the computer of the customer.

• It is recommended that you print to the default printer on your local computer.

1. The document you wish to print should be opened on the remote computer.
2. To specify your printing options, you will need to open the print options dialog box and select the printer you wish to use.
3. The document can be printed out.

Control Your View of a Customer’s Desktop or Application

As a customer, you have the option to specify the following options if you are viewing or controlling the customer’s desktop or application. A shared application or desktop will appear on the screen in one of the following ways depending on the options you choose:

• This can either be a full-screen view or a standard window that displays the shared desktop or application you are sharing. When you view a shared application or desktop in full-screen mode, it fills the entire screen and there is no title bar or scroll bar to draw your attention.

• You can resize, or scale, a shared desktop, or application so that it fits the full-screen view or the standard window that it appears in, whether it is full-screen or normal.

  You can change your user account’s default view by contacting your site administrator.

  If a customer wishes to view or control your desktop or application from another location, they can also specify these options.

• There are two things you can do:

• During the session, you can select either the Session icon or the multisession icon in the icon tray.

• Select Sharing from the title bar at the top of the sharing window.

• You will be able to view the shared desktop or application on the menu that appears when you select View from the menu that appears.
• You can also specify the number of colors with which to display the desktop or application if you are using the screen sampling option when you are displaying shared desktops and applications.

Please refer to the Shared Desktop or Application Color Mode section for more information.

Specify the Color Mode for a Shared Desktop or Application

It is possible to choose one of the following color modes when you view or control a customer’s desktop or application:

• 256 colors: In your screen viewer, you can specify that a shared desktop or application will appear in 256 colors when you view it on your computer. If you want to share desktops or applications with other users, this option requires less bandwidth than the High color option, but the image quality is lower. As a consequence, this option will be helpful to customers if they decide to attend a support session over a dial-up connection.

• High color (16 bit): You can specify that the viewer on your screen should display shared desktops and applications in 16-bit color when they are opened. There is a difference in bandwidth requirements for this option, compared to the 256 color option, but the quality of the image is better.

  It is up to your site administrator to set your user account’s default color mode.

  Whenever a client views or controls your desktop or application, he or she can also choose a color mode.

• There are two options you can choose from:

• During the session, you can select either the Session icon or the multisession icon in the icon tray.

• On the ‘Share’ menu in the sharing window, click on the ‘Share’ button.

• The second step is to select the Color Mode option on the menu that appears and then to select the color you want.

Tips for Sharing Desktops or Applications

There are many ways that you can make sharing software more effective during a support session, and these tips can help you do that:

• Please instruct the customer to close all applications you are not going to be viewing or controlling in order to improve the performance of desktop and application sharing. Having these applications closed on the client’s computer will help to conserve the computer’s processor usage and memory. In this way, the client software of the customer is able to quickly send images during a session, allowing them to stay focused and productive. Please also ask the customer to close any applications that are using bandwidth in order to ensure that the maximum amount of bandwidth is available for sharing. Programs that receive streaming audio or video from the web, such as instant messaging or chat programs, will fall into this category.

• A crosshatched pattern on the screen under the shared application indicates that the customer is covering the shared application with another window on their desktop when the application is being shared with you. You should instruct the customer that the other window needs to be moved or closed.

• If you choose to reduce the number of colors in which the software in the shared application appears, you will be able to improve the performance of desktop or application sharing.

  See, How to Determine the Color Mode of a Shared Desktop or Application, if you would like more information.

• In order to share an application or a desktop with a customer, we recommend both of you use a dedicated, high-speed Internet connection. The performance of a shared application may be affected if you are using a dial-up Internet connection or if a customer is using a dial-up Internet connection. The display quality can be adjusted in this case to improve the performance of the computer in this case.

Annotate a Shared Desktop or Application

Annotation tools can be used to draw and illustrate information on a shared screen, especially if you are sharing your desktop or application, or viewing or controlling a customer’s desktop or application.

The annotations that are made during a support session can be viewed by all participants in that session.

It is necessary to regain control of the application or desktop if the customer is currently controlling the application or desktop remotely, in order to be able to annotate it. A panel for annotations cannot be accessed if this is the case.

First, you have to stop annotation mode in order to be able to use or remotely control a shared desktop or application again.

• When you are sharing a desktop or application, the icon tray will appear with the option of sharing annotations.

Alternatively, you can select Session > Annotation Panel if the Annotation button does not appear in the icon tray.

Once annotation mode has been enabled, you will be able to begin making annotations using your mouse pointer now that it has become a highlighter tool.

Annotations can also be made by your customers.

• There are two options that you can choose from the Annotations panel if you wish to make annotations about the following:

• Whenever you wish to remove all annotations, you should select the arrow beneath the Eraser button and then select the option to Remove All Annotations.

• Using the Eraser tool, you can select the annotation you wish to clear, and then select it from the list that appears.

• The Eraser tool can be turned off by selecting Eraser from the Tools menu.

• The easiest way to take a screenshot of your desktop is to select Screen Capture from the Annotations panel and enter the details for saving the image.

• Using the right-click menu on the panel’s title bar, you can close the panel to end annotation mode.