24–26 May 2021
University of Pittsburgh
US/Eastern timezone

Remote Connection Instructions

Installation
Connecting to a Meeting

The links and meeting IDs for all the meeting rooms (plenary, parallel, career forum, award ceremony, and break rooms) will be available on indico under the link "Full Schedule & Zoom Links".  This schedule and the password to connect to the meeting rooms are sent out to all registrants through email. Using these links and IDs, there are two ways to connect.

  • Option 1 (suggested): Click on the meeting links that can be found in the schedule.  Enter the password that is only available in the schedule sent to registrants.  Follow any brief instructions that pop up to allow your browser to open the appropriate Zoom app.

  • Option 2 (backup): Open the Zoom app on either your desktop or mobile interface.  Click on the “Join”  button.  On the first line enter the meeting ID, which can be found in the schedule.  Enter the password that is only available in the schedule sent to registrants.  On the second line, enter your name as you would like it to appear.  Make sure that “Turn off my video” is checked. Click “Join”.

Instructions for Attending Talks

Once you are in a talk, provided that you are not a speaker, please ensure that your video is turned off and that your microphone is muted.  Video can be turned off by clicking on the video icon “Stop Video”.  Your microphone can be muted by clicking on “Mute”.

The talk should display automatically and can be followed directly.

If you have a question for the speaker, please type it into the Chat with “Everyone.”

  • Desktop: Click on “Chat”.  Ensure that next to “To:” above the chat window, it says “Everyone”.  Type your question and hit “Enter”.
  • Mobile: Tap on the screen to bring up a menu at the top or bottom.  Tap on “Participants.” In the bottom right of the screen, a “Chats” button should appear.  Tap on it. Under “Send to:”, ensure that it says “Everyone”. Tap on the chat box at the bottom, type your question and tap “Send”.

The session chair will ask the speaker a selection of questions at the end at their discretion.​​​​​

Instructions for Plenary Speakers

We strongly encourage speakers to include their contact information on their slides as well, particularly their email address in the web-safe form "address at domain dot edu" for example.  There will be a special “Test” room available for plenary speakers to ensure they have a stable connection and can share their talk slides.  We will walk the speakers through these instructions, but it may be helpful for them to follow these directions on their own to ensure a smooth process.

  •  Sharing Talk: Open your talk in an appropriate presentation app (e.g. Keynote, PowerPoint, PDF viewer, …).  Join the Zoom meeting in which you are speaking (or the test room).  
     
    • Desktop: Click on “Share”.  In the list of windows, locate your talk window.  Click on it. Enter Fullscreen or Presentation mode.
       
    • Mobile: Tap on “Share” or "Share Content".  If the app you are using for your presentation appears, you can tap on it.  Otherwise, tap on “Screen” and navigate to your presentation app. Enter Fullscreen or Presentation mode. 
  • Enabling Pointer: To ensure ease of following the talk, please enable a pointer

    • Desktop: Hover your mouse over the green bar containing “ID:”.  This should bring up a list of options icons. Click on “Annotate”.  Hover over the “Spotlight” option that appears. Click on the first option.  A red “laser pointer” should now follow your mouse pointer.

    • Mobile: Tap on the pencil icon in the lower left of the screen.  Tap on the “Spotlight” option that appears. To point at a location on the screen, simply tap on that location.

Instructions for Parallel Speakers

Different from last year, the speaker will control sharing his/her slides during the talk. As usual, the slides should be uploaded to Indico at least 1 day before the talk.  Assuming this is done, simply connect to the meeting in which you are speaking. Turn on your microphone by clicking “Unmute” (desktop) or tapping “Unmute” (mobile).  In addition, please include slide numbers on your slides to make it easier to ask questions at the end of the talk.  We strongly encourage speakers to include their contact information on their slides as well, particularly their email address in the web-safe form "address at domain dot edu" for example.  The email of the local Pitt host will be available in case there are any difficulties.

Instructions for Gather Town Break Room

As Pheno traditionally has ample opportunity for networking, we will have a coffee break room hosted through gather.town (https://gather.town/i/kIGBNfIX) as indicated on the schedule where participants can join and chat. We encourage everybody to go to the coffee break room to ask questions and connect with speakers. The password is also sent to all participants through email.

Troubleshooting

If you have any general connecting, please email pittpacc@pitt.edu.